One Good Shot

[Landlubber]

I was on the receiving end of some devastating FSA gunnery tonight, and one shot in particular really swung the engagement in my opponent's favor--both the shot itself, and the resulting damage and opportunities it created for him.

Which got me to thinking about starting this thread. My objective is for us to use this thread to discuss that one shot--if one occurs--that really turned the tide of the battle, or that proved an opponent who you thought was on the ropes still had some fight in him. I don't mean for this thread to be a place to boast about wasting your fellow gamer, or moaning about bad luck with the dice; I would like it to be a discussion of tactics and consequences, and lessons learned. If possible, it would be great to hear about the "one good shot" from both the shooter and the target.

Tonight, I was the target.

A little over halfway through our game, BrdingPrty engaged my Toulon armored cruiser squadron (RoF) with his Liberty heavy battleship (FSA). He was at RB3 for both his primary guns, with 2 HP damage on his ship. After some discussion with him (it was a teaching game), he opted to put both primary guns on my one damaged cruiser. This cruiser was in the center of the formation and already had 4 HP of damage (1 HP remaining). BrdingPrty said his goal was to score a critical hit on the cruiser and hope for a magazine explosion, as my ships were the only ones that would have been in range.

The Liberty fired, scored a critical hit, and guess what: his gamble paid off! The magazine explosion scrapped the ship, which meant he rolled 10AD against my two remaining--HEALTHY--cruisers. He scored critical hits on both, with one receiving Hard Pounding and the other receiving Fusion Leak.

In the next turn, before I could activate the squadron, the Liberty struck again, scoring 19 hits from its primary guns on one of the damaged cruisers, which was a double critical, sinking it. His airships were able to score a second critical on the remaining cruiser before the game ended, so he received half points for that.

So, that initial shot that caused the magazine explosion not only crippled that squadron, but led to him scoring 212.5 points off that squadron alone against me in the final tally.

One Good Shot, indeed!

[Quickdraw]

I have a feeling a lot of the "one good shots" are going to center around magazine explosions...those dirty snake eyes.

I'll recount a game I had last night. It was an introduction game with a buddy, unfortunately he was on the receiving end.
His Borodino Battleship was closing on my Couronne Carrier, he just got into range 1 and pummeled me with a double critical.
In my activation the Couronne's heat lance was able to score a double critical on the battleship. Resulting in a navigational lock, and he teleported to the otherside of my carrier. For the rest of the battle his Borodino was unable to turn around, and not having any aft facing guns was effectively a sitting duck for my Couronne which was now behind him.
Luckily he took this with a smile and actually really liked the fact that the game could have funky fluctuations like that one.

Edit: I realized that I had a picture of the event I wanted to add. And I also misspoke, he didn't get a double critical, he got a magazine explosion resulting in 3 HP.

[Landlubber]

Once again, earlier this week, I found myself on the receiving end of One Good Shot.

I was playing my FSA against my opponent's League of Italian States. As he is still learning the game, and doesn't have too many ships yet, we are playing small games--700-800 points.

I was running the Liberty-class heavy battleship, with a shield generator. The shield generator on the Liberty gives you three shield dice. In turn two, I maneuvered my battleship to unload on his cruisers, which had already knocked one HP off my ship. In grand Landlubber dice-rolling fashion, I completely whiffed the attack rolls, even being at RB1.

Then, he moved his Mars-class battleship into RB2 with all guns able to see my Liberty...and he let loose one of the most horrific dice rolls I've seen in recent memory. 24 hits against the Liberty; my shield only canceled one, giving me a double critical. To add insult to injury, one of the critical effects was Weapons Damage. My battleship was now down by 5 HP, with damaged weapons, and we were barely halfway through turn two! My battleship was completely combat ineffective for the rest of the game, being sunk two turns.

One Good Shot, indeed!

[markymark1970]

Greg, all I can say is "ouch". 

The luck of the Italians...  or is it the Irish... 

[Landlubber]

I learned the hard way tonight that PLC dive bombers have 2 AD of anti-aircraft fire apiece, double what dive bombers should have.

Captain Rockman and I were playing a 1250-point game, his Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against my Republique of France. His dive bombers scored a magazine explosion critical hit with their AA on my remaining, already-damaged Furieux-class scout airship.

Before the explosion:



After the explosion:



Luckily for me, it was mostly his ships/aircraft in range of the explosion, although I did lose a squadron of fighters. His dive bombers, which caused the magazine explosion in the first place, were all vaporized, so I took some comfort in that.

One good shot, indeed!

[captainrockman]

I don't know how much this swayed the battle, but it was definitely thematic. It was very fitting that the Flyer with 5 raging fire tokens on it exploded and took out a bunch of other ships. The one ship that was mostly un-phased had the flame retardant armor as well. That didn't affect the dice rolls in this case, but it still made sense.

And even though they used AA, the dive bombers ended up getting wiped out the in explosion.

This is fun stuff.