But you played a game of DW with Craig of the D6G! I want to hear more about that. To be honest, I would rather play any Spartan game with Craig than I would, for example, with Neil or one of the other writers at Spartan Games.
Sorry it took me a few days to circle back around to you; been on the road a lot!
So, for our game, Craig and I decided to play a smaller one at 500 points, as we didn't have a lot of time to play. He was running his FSA, while I was using my Prussians. Craig and I each used our own deck of STAR cards. We also agreed to take only 5 free tiny flyers instead of the usual 10, again for time reasons. Here is how our fleets looked:
Craig (FSA) - 490 Points
Battleship w/ Shield Generator
2x Gunship
4x Destroyer
1 wing of 5 Torpedo Bombers
Me (PE) - 500 points
Battleship w/ Shield Generator
2x Gunship
4x Frigate
3x Corvette
1 wing of 5 Dive Bombers
So, off the bat I had one extra squadron, which gave me the edge in the activation game as well as an extra card. As for the battlefield, we were playing on the Dreadfleet mat, with two pieces of felt representing roughly circular islands about 8-10" in diameter in the middle of the of the play area. We rolled for Mission Orders per Pg. 43 of the DW rule book; I had to sink 70% of Craig's core force, while he had to capture my Commodore's model.
Turn 1, I won initiative. This turn saw our small ships engaging, with Craig's DDs taking out two of my Corvettes. My gunships responded, using their Tesla generators for extra movement to get within range 1 of the FSA destroyers. I put one turret on each destroyer, sinking 2 and damaging a third. Craig's gunships then came in and managed to put a double crit on one of my gunships. Our battleships traded ineffectual long-range firepower, while both of our tiny flyer wings suffered from offensive AA attacks.
Turn 2, I won initiative again, and used my gunships to finish off the remaining FSA DDs and put a crit on one of Craig's gunships. His gunships, along with his battleship, then proceeded to sink one of my gunships and heavily damage the other. I managed to get my frigates into a firing position on Craig's battleship, and they succeeded in doing a point of damage. My battleship had to go All Stop to avoid running aground on one of the islands (oops!), and had to content itself with pot-shots at the FSA gunships.
Turn 3, Craig goes first. His battleship manages to damage a frigate, sink my remaining gunship, and then put a crit on my battleship, which turns out to be hard pounding. Yikes! My frigates sank one of Craig's gunships, and then tried to board the FSA battleship. Through good AA rolls and even better melee rolls, my Prussian rocket marines were wiped out, but they did manage to kill 4 of the AP on Craig's battleship. Craig's remaining gunship, which was limited to straight ahead movement by a Navigational Lock crit, took a shot at my Frigates and managed to sink one. We both tried to get off attacks with our tiny flyers, but due to attrition from AA none of our attacks amounted to much.
Turn 4, Craig goes first again. He manages to get within boarding range of my battleship, but I managed to fend off his boarders; in the process, the FSA battleship is left with 0 AP. My frigates manage to put another point of damaged on Craig's battleship, before my battleship counter-boards the FSA BB. My attack manages to succeed, effectively ending the game. PE Victory!
Unfortunately, I forgot to take some pics during the game. Russ was watching and did manage to get one with his phone, though. It popped up in his Twitter feed:
