Haha, keep the French jokes comin'...
I didn't get in a full game--it was me and a couple of the robotics team kids, so we played a three way game. I got trounced, but had to leave early anyway due to a plumbing issue at home.
Now, I must also say that my dice rolling was particularly horrendous, which wasn't helping. The highlight of the game for me was when my squadron of torpedo bombers scored a triple crit on one of the FSA player's gunships (but in fairness, it was already carrying 4HP of damage). But I felt good about it anyway.
I carried the heat lance on the battleship, but through a combination of errors, bad luck, and poor judgement, my battleship ran afoul of a Prussian dreadnought, and by the time I was in range to use the heat lance, I might as well have had a sling shot.
The French do seem to be a close-range fleet. This is going to be an issue for me as I've been playing the FSA for over a year, and as we all know FSA is synonymous with long-range gunnery. So playing the French is going to take some getting used to.
