Agreed on the EIMC. That blimp is awesome. And I like the role they play in the game, although I've not yet checked out who they're allied with.
I've played a couple games with Ruckdog using landing ships. They're a bit cumbersome, and it seems to take forever to get land forces into place using them. Plus, you need several of them to get a decent-sized force on land. I guess there are some scenarios where they might work.
I hear you about the fleets. My first was the FSA, then I picked up the French. And I've only used the Chinese fleet a couple of times--admittedly, I picked them up mainly because I like the way the ships look. My feeling on the "follow-on fleets" (i.e. the fleets after the first five releases--FSA, PE, KoB, EotBS, and CoA) is that they seem to have alot of ship choices, but they are fairly straightforward. With the follow-on fleets, them seem to have more exotic weapons systems and more intricate special rules. For example--in order to play the Chinese effectively, you REALLY have to stay on top of their various MARs and fleet rules, especially governing their sonic and flamethrower weapons. The FSA, by contrast, are a mostly "point and shoot" fleet.
But, that's what makes the game so interesting!
