The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune...

A narrow stretch of sea, dotted with islands, separated the Tsarist fleet from that of the Covenant of Antarctica.

The Russians were spread out...

With the advantage of initiative the Covenant fleet was huddled in one corner of the board.  

The Russians are famously like walnuts - hard to crack, their ablative armour serving to shield them long enough for their big guns to get in dangerously close.  With my Covenant managing to concentrate away from the spread out Russians, and with the advantage of having some much faster ships, I hoped to be able to fire off a few early salvos before they engaged, blasting away their ablative protection before my big guns engaged.

The Russian line spread out across from the concentrated Covenant force.

The forbidding Polish Zamiec airship lurking in the distance...

Without much hesitation, as the Russian fleet slowly ground forward, I sent my small fast Frigates ahead at full steam to tackle the giant Borodino.  It was a gamble, I hoped that between the three squadrons of Diogenes Frigates I'd fire off one lucky torpedo salvo that would break the ablative armour of the Russian's most fearsome battleship.  With the aid of a fistful of Bullseye cards, and some darn lucky rolling, the first strike was a success, and the linked torpedo fire of the Covenants tiny frigates managed to find a weak point in the Russian behemoth.

Their quick movement allowed them to get close enough for a damaging salvo of torpedo fire...

And some damn lucky rolling, in addition to the Borodino having a crippled generator, helped!

Part way through the first turn and I could taste the victory.  The Russian fleet's most prized fighting ship was crippled after several lucky torpedo barrages.  It could only limp forward...

And then it opened fire...

It also ran straight over the top of one of my Diogenes - shredding the poor little frigate and sending it straight to the sea floor.

The opening firestorm of death from the Borodino turned the sweet taste of victory into the ash and dusty taste of so much ruin.  My frigates perished under a withering storm of fire.  Everything within range of the Borodino was left nought but twisted, blackened, burning ruin, fire and destruction.  It was a bitter lesson, never close on a wounded bear...

Wave after wave of attacks, from my cruisers to my bombers to my dive bombers worked to bring the Borodino down, I poured everything into its ruin.  Still it came on, threatening fire and death to anything that came too close.

Finally, as my Epicurus sky fortress closed, and wave on wave of dive bombers wore it down, it succumbed.

A vanishing fire was all that remained of the Borodino... and a legacy of mass destruction...

I had brought low the giant, but in so doing had crippled my fleet.  The wounded bear, which looked so vulnerable after a lucky shot, had worked my fleet with rending claws and violence and death.  

I limped on, what remained of my cruisers swung about to face the oncoming Russian cruisers, luckily my big ships were relatively unharmed amidst all the destruction.  It was a close run thing, but eventually I managed to bring low enough of the Russian fleet to force a victory.  What remained of the Russian war machine was beat.  My gloriously victorious Covenant couldn't taste the full sweetness of victory however, we limped away, victorious, but not unwounded.

A particle accelerator to the midships and this Suvorov cruiser went down.  Just enough to break the Russians...

It was a tremendously fun game.  Already I am formulating plans for my next entanglement with the might of the Russian war machine... and I'm sure they'll be ready.

Cheers,

Giles.