Hey everyone! It has been far to long since we’ve had a full battle report posted here on the blog, and this time around it is on a large 1,225 point game that I and MajorMcNicol (aka Ian) played yesterday at Atlantis Games and Comics in Norfolk, VA. I was running my French, while Ian had is Russians out in full force. There were no special circumstances for this fight; it was a knock-down, drag ’em out slug fest!

Read on to see how it turned out!

Forces

Ian (RC)

• Battleship w/ 2 Escorts
• Gunship Squadron
• Cruiser squadron
• 2 Destroyer Squadrons with 3 destroyers
• 2 Frigate Squadrons with 4 frigates
• Bomber Squadron

Me (RoF)

• Dreadnought w/Cloud Generator
• Carrier w/ Cloud Generator
• Battleship w/ Cloud Generator
• Cruiser squadron w/ Retardant Armor
• Support Cruiser Squadron
• 2x Frigate Squadrons with 4 frigates
• Submarine Squadron with 3 subs

Mission & Deployment

As I mentioned in the leading paragraph, there was a no holds barred fight to the finish! Our board was a fairly open 4’x4′ affair, with a large island in the middle. Our deplyment zones were the standard 8″ region along the edge of the board, with alternating placement. Here is how things stood just before Turn 1:

Turn 1

Both of us were on the general advance at this point. Not a lot of shooting occured, though the French did manage to draw first blood by downing a Russian destroyer!

The other destroyer squadron was much luckier; despite a rain of high-caliber shells, all three came through unscathed:

This is how we sat at the end of Turn 1:

Turn 2

Ian won initiative this turn, and quickly focused on my left flank. His forces quickly extracted revenge for the lost destroyer by sinking two of my cruisers and heavily damaging the third!

However, I was able to respond by damaging one of the Russian cruisers and downing one of the bombers (with the help of some long-range AA fire from my support cruisers).

On the right flank, fire from the Russian battleship and gunships ripped through my frigates, sinking 3 of them in short order. However, my battleship and dreadnought managed to sink one gun ship and put two points of damage on Ian’s battleship in return!

Here was the situation at the end of Turn 2:

Turn 3

Ian won initiative again this turn, and quickly opened the action on the right side of the board by sinking the last surviving frigate on that side.

The Russians also succeeded in roughing up my dreadnought and carrier a bit, putting a hit on the former and a Crit on the later!

On the left, my support cruisers managed to finish off the other Russian bomber, whole my last cruiser went out in a blaze of glory as it charged the Russian fleet! I also lost a Support Cruiser to the Russian cruisers.

Here was how things looked at the end of Turn 3:

Turn 4

I finally won initiative this turn! The situation was fairly grim for the French on the left side, so I decided to lead off on the right. I activated my dreadnought first, which surged ahead and managed to damage one gun ship, finish off the Russian battleship, and sink the battleship’s escorts.

The carrier also advanced, puting some damage on one of the gunships. However, when Ian’s gunships activated, they wound up colliding with the carrier! This caused a critical hit on my carrier, disabling its AA guns and leaving it defenseless to a boarding assault. Ian wasted no time, sending swarms of conscripts across from his gunships. In a short, brutal battle the conscripts overwhelemed the carrier’s crew and captured it for the Motherland! My battleship succeded in sinking the last enemy destroyer, though. On the left, Ian managed to clean out my remaining frigates and support cruisers, while losing just one heavily damaged cruiser in return.

Turn 5

Ian won initiative, and immediately set about trying to remove the last French resistance on the left side, which at this point consisted only of my subs. For my part, I submerged the subs and attempted to run them away as fast as possible, dropping mines as I went.

Even with these defensive maneuvers, I still lost two submarines to the concentrated fire of Ian’s frigates! On the right, my dreadnought and battleshp made short work of the remaining two Russian gunships. At this point, Ian and I decided to call the game and tally up the victory points. Here is how the board looked at the end:

After-Action

After tallying up the points, the French managed to squeak out a narrow victory, 955 VP to 930! Ian really managed to close the gap in turns 4 and 5 by capturing my carrier and sinking two of my submarines. Here were some of the things I took away:

• With their mortars and 360 degree movement, Russian Frigates are difficult to deal with. They can easily get into a good firing position where they can pump out a ton of AD, all the while avoiding return fire.
• In general, Russian ships put out an extremely high amount of AD, especially those gunships.
• In games like this, where the board is effective divided in two by a large terrain feature, it is important to balance efforts between the two parts of the battle. Otherwise, you risk having one flank overwhelmed, as what happened with my left side.

Well, that about wraps it up! Once again, I had a great game with Ian. I’m really looking forward to a re-match! Bellow is a gallery of all the shots I took during the game yesterday: