Covenant of Antartica

Pericles Carrier
Prometheus Class Dreadnought (Commodore)
Aristotle Class Battleship w/ Target Painter
2 x Icarus Class Medium Flyer
2 x Galen Class Escort
2 x Galen Class Escort
2 x Diogenes Class Frigate
2 x Diogenes Class Frigate
2 x Diogenes Class Frigate

Prussian Empire

Imperium Class Sky Fortress (Commodore)
Blucher Class Dreadnought w/ 2 Shield Generators
2 x Metzger Class Robot
2 x Pflicht Class Scoutship
4 x Arminius Class Frigate
4 x Arminius Class Frigate
3 x Arminius Class Frigate

Deployment

Luke deployed his dreadnought behind an island just to the right of my centre line. He had a squadron of frigates on each of the far flanks and the final squadron on the left of the centre line. His carrier deployed horizontally as far back as possible (so far back that he almost couldn't turn it onto the board) with the wave lurked battleship infront of it. His Icaruses were on my right flank.

I deployed 4 frigates on my far left flank, the Pflichts on my right flank and everything else in the middle of the board; I had a Metzger, Sky Fortress, dreadnought and the other Metzger in a line. The remaining 7 frigates were on my inner right flank.

Turn 1 & 2

Not much happened in turn 1. We did the usual trade tiny flyer activations before the ships started moving. I pretty much moved straight up while Luke moved diagonally forward flinging balls of plasma at my ships. On the might flank I managed to take out a single frigate and that was pretty much it.

In Turn 2 Luke continued to move forward slowly. My Pflicts took a little damage, and I lost a frigate on the left flank and 1 in the middle. I believe that one of my Metzgers took a point of damage. On right right I advanced 4 of my frigates headed towards his Icaruses.

Turn 3

I lost initiative again (rolled a 10 and Luke rolled 12) and his dreadnought moved out and started to hammer away at things. I lost a whole bunch of frigates to the particle accelerator (with Luke's dice everything pretty much came up 6s so it was exploding frigates everywhere!) and one of my Metzgers got put on fire (which everyone found hilarious as the freaking thing is swimming!). My dreadnought took a point of damage again to the crazy rolling.

Thankfully on my right flank things went well with 4 frigates managing to board and capture both of the Icaruses. I kept trying to get the escorts off both the battleship and dreadnought but my rolling was not nearly as good as Lukes . Over on my left flank, I attacked the 2 frigates with dive bombers managing to sink one of them.

Turn 4

Turn 4 was both a good and bad turn for me. My dreadnought managed to double crit the battleship and I subsequently captured it with an assault from the Sky Fortress.

My frigates however got wiped out and my Pflichts each took some more damage. The Metzgers were also suffering with the fire still raging and a half move crit on the other one. The dreadnought also got crit (Lukes rolls again....) and suffered a damaged engine. The damned particle accelerators really hurt and prevented me screening anything as it just meant more stuff got hit.

Turn 5

In Turn 5 I managed to get initiative (at last) and decided that I really needed to try and put some damage on the opposition dreadnought. My dreadnought moved up, and gave it a full broadside with all the turrets. My 20 dice however betrayed me and after some as usual awesome rolls from Luke for his shield, I didn't even manage to scratch it. That really set the scene for turn 5.

Luke activated his dreadnought next and destroyed my final few frigates before turning 2 turrets on my dreadnought. He rolled 13 dice and got 6 6s and 5s. Only 2 of the dice failed to hit. After the rerolls for the 6s my dreadnought was facing 17 hits. My shields stopped a whopping 1 hit so I was facing a crit. Lukes magical dice came through again and after rolling all those 6s he rolls snake eyes! The magazines on my dreadnought exploded and it sunk to the bottom of the ocean with all hands I didn't even get to use the 10 elite crew marines on there! Argh!!

To rub salt into the wound, his last remaining frigate killed the burning Metzger with torpedos and his carrier dispatched the other one. Thankfully though I had managed to pick off both remaining escorts and my Pflichts had taken out the remaining CAP on his dreadnought. I also took out that frustrating frigate.

Luke was at this stage down to his Carrier, Dreadnought and a few drones and I had my Sky Fortress the Pflichts and various tiny flyers.

Turn 6

I again got initiative in turn 6 and my Pflichts flew over his dreadnought. I thought about bombing it, but figured that the AA might kill them off. Instead I figured, go for glory and the 12 marines on the Pflichts dropped down out of the sky headed towards the dreadnought. It was a fairly risky move as it had 6 AA and then 10 Elite Crew marines, but thankfully Luke's dice didn't roll super hot. He managed to kill 3 through AA and then his marines got another 7. The 9 of my marines that made it down killed off 9 of his marines meaning I had won the combat. I then went for the sabotage and rolled up a Hard Pounding which killed off the last of his marines. The dreadnought was mine!

That was quite a bit of luck and I decided to leave the marines on the dreadnought as I figured the pflichts were going down. As predicted Lukes carrier took them both out and then sent some dive bombers at the Sky Fortress who fought them off.

Wrapping Up

At this point we decided to call it. Luke wasn't having much luck against the Sky Fortress and I would have struggled to take it out. Neither of us could board as it would leave our remaining ship open to counter boarding. Luke also couldn't get his dreadnought or battleship back as that would have left his carrier open. So it was likely a stalemate.

It was a bit of a crazy game with some lucky rolls on both sides (though far more on Luke's, which he has had in the 3 games he has played with these dice) and I as usual had a lot of fun despite losing my dreadnought again. Thankfully I had put my Commodore on the Sky Fortress or the Pflichts wouldn't have been able to board his dreadnought.

Lessons Learnt

After the game Luke and I discussed it a bit and we came to the conclusion that you probably need 3 Icaruses. Likewise I feel that 3 Pflichts is also the way to go.

The CoA Carrier really didn't do a whole lot and the drones really suffer from having no MARs. Luke is considering dropping it and I am also reconsidering its place in my CoA fleets.

The particle accelerator is a fantastic weapon and really messes with your opponent. It makes it hard to form a battle line and you always have to be conscious of how it can be used. It makes pushing frigates forward really difficult as they can be used to line up shots on the ships behind, something that Luke did fantastically well.

The Metzgers went fairly well and their ability to pick off the smaller ships with Water Hunter was great. I feel my Prussian fleet is working fairly well as almost everything is a threat meaning it is difficult to ignore any one part of it. If I am going to pick up a Pflicht, it will mean that I need to drop the squadron of 3 frigates which will hurt a little, but not too much as the Pflicht is rocking the same number of marines and is far more assured of being able to deliver them.

Overall it was a good game and I am keen to play Luke and his pesky penguins again!