Belated weekend recap

Not quite a full week later I finally have time to write-up a run-down on my trip to Fredericksburg.  I chronicled my prep work already, but I left out my route planning.  I had a vague idea of where Fredericksburg is (South), but my grasp of its position was weak enough that I consulted the maps of Google for advice.  It gave me two routes, the one that I had thought to use myself (123 to 95 South), and another that I thought existed but wasn't sure of (out to Manassass, then 234 to 95 South).  The two routes looked similar enough that I went with the one that I was more familiar with, taking 123, though the alternate Manassass route would have dropped me onto 95 a couple miles further south.  This decision would come back to haunt me.

Things started well enough.  I packed up the car and hit the road a bit before the 930 start time that I was aiming for.  I had a inner debate in the days leading up to Saturday about breakfast.  Half the attraction of Fredericksburg was Sonic, a place that I see ads for on TV all the time, a place that looks like it's tailor-made for me with the all day breakfast and extensive drink selection, a place that is 45 minutes away from me at its closest location.  I'd never been to Sonic before so I wanted to make the most of it, which would mean having breakfast there.  However, I was anticipating roughly 1.5 hours of travel time, which is quite a while to drive before having breakfast.  I decided to bite the bullet though, so when I went to the McDonald's drivethru it was just for coffee.  I turned on to 123 a few minutes before 930, so I was ahead of schedule, and had an easy cruise up to 95.  Which is where things went wrong.

95 is bad at the best of times, and when I entered traffic it was far from the best of times.  The time was not quite 10.  Traffic was moving, so parking lot is not entirely accurate, but traffic was moving slow enough that I would have gotten out and walked if I could.  Traffic moved so slow that I took a picture of how fast I was going.

Blazing speed.

Yep, 0 miles per hour.  This wasn't a consistent speed obviously, if it was I never would have arrived, but it was painfully slow.  I had brought reading in case I got to Fredericksburg earlier than expected, and I continued to think that I might use it, but as the minutes and hours rolled by that became less and less realistic.
I plodded slowly along, growing tired of traffic but amazingly I didn't get frustrated.  The trip is a longer drive than I'd usually make, and when you combine hellacious traffic with the long drive I would have expected to be very irritated, but it never happened.  Instead I started keeping track of how much further I had to go and trying to guess when I'd hit mile markers or actually arrive at my destination.  Things were so slow I had time to take another picture while driving.

At 0 mph I'll arrive at Fredericksburg at nevero'clock.

It was about 35 miles to Fredericksburg from where I came on at.  If you can squint you can see that the clock reads about 1030, which means I went about 8 miles in 30 minutes, far less than the 60 mph speed limit.  I'm still optimistic though.  Even at this slow, slow rate of travel I should make it in time.  I had time enough to take yet another picture while driving.

More traffic.

I was trying to get a shot of the HOV lanes that were also at a standstill.  Traffic moved a bit on me while I was taking the picture, as you can see, but it also serves to show how things went.  I'd be stopped, then 5-6 car lengths would open in front of me, then I'd stop again.  Fun stuff.  At least I had plenty of podcasts to keep myself occupied.

I did eventually make it to Fredericksburg.  I got off 95 at about 1145, which left me with a hard choice.  Should I go and get breakfast at Sonic, or head straight to the store?  You'll recall I had skipped breakfast before leaving, figuring I'd have plenty of time to find the store, find Sonic, and have breakfast before sign-in started at 1130.  Ultimately I decided to have breakfast first as I wouldn't be any good to anyone if I skipped breakfast and lunch.  Since Sonic and Game Vault are on the same road, I noted my turn and proceeded on towards breakfast.

At long, long last.

I wanted to take my time studying the menu, so I went counter to my usual fast food instincts and parked the car so I could go inside.  This worked great, except you can't go inside at Sonic.  Fortunately they have menus at the little seating pavilion, which I later found out you can order from, so I took a gander and decided on "breakfast": bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich with tatertots and a cherry limeade.  The sandwich was on a kind of texas toast, which was a new thing to me.  The eggs seemed to be grilled, instead of microwaved like at McDonald's, which was an unexpected bonus.  The tatertots were tatery, and the drink was tasty as well.  A good first experience, about what I had expected.

With nutrition secured, I headed back to Game Vault.  I had a moment of concern as I seemed to be heading off into a residential area, or just a section of woods, but I found my second turn and the store shortly thereafter. 

The field of battle.

I arrived at noon, which is when the tournament was supposed to start.  I had been worried that if I went to Sonic I would miss the start, but since most of the players were coming from the same area I was I figured they'd be stuck in traffic too, which is what happened.  I was the first one there by a wide margin, so I had time to get settled in and recover from my journey.  Game Vault was different than I had expected.  My experience with game stores is limited to the two Game Parlors and the Compleat Strategist in Falls Church.  The latter is a small store with no real gaming area, just a single table that goes to roleplaying in my limited experience with the store.  The two Game Parlors are subtly different, but both are basically a 60/40 split in favor of retail space.  They have plenty of tables, but there's no doubt that they are stores first and places to game second.  Game Vault was at the opposite extreme, with maybe 20% of the store being actual store, while 2 entire rooms were dedicated to gaming space.  There were 4 tables in the back room where we were, and another 8-12 in another room where a Hordes release event was going on.  Nice store, well lit, friendly staff, good place all around.

I chatted with MadDrB, who organized the tournament, while waiting for other players to show.  About a half hour after I arrived Gorgor showed up and we got down to business.  Vatank showed up somewhat after then, and someone I remember only as "Shades" came in between the other two.  As I may have gone into before, the idea of the tournament was three rounds: 2 rounds at 500 points, then the final round with 1 player at 600 against 2 players at 300.  With 4 players that structure went out the window, but we got in some games all the same.  I played Gorgor first.  I posted my list a few posts back, but I'll reproduce it because I'm wonderful and it's late enough that I probably won't finish this post tonight anyway.
Battleship - 120
Airship - 85
2 Cruisers - 100
3 Frigates - 105
2 Destroyers - 90
500 total

Gorgor ran something like:
Battleship - 110
War Dragon - 65
2 Cruisers - 110
4 Frigates - 120
2 Destroyers - 90
495 total

Looking at it written down now, our lists were very similar.  We played on a table with a single island for cover, plus some reefs that didn't block LoS, but would cause collision damage to any ship that ran into them.  They're the white bits in the picture. 

Game 1 setup.

The wind started blowing right to left, so I deployed on the far right side to make Gorgor run into the wind as much as possible.  I planned to use my standard "take cover and run around the island" tactics.  I ended up splitting my fleet, sending the frigates and destroyers north of the island, while the cruisers and battleship stayed to the south.  The airship floated around and caused havoc.  Things went well for me in this game.  I managed to turn the wind in his face, even more so than it started, which helped to limit the TE's mobility.  I sunk all his frigates, all his cruisers (I think), one of the destroyers, and had decent damage on the dragon and remaining destroyer.  The battleship was scuffed a bit, but still a threat.  My shining moment came not when I dropped the bomb, but instead with my battleship.  Gorgor used the frigate block on me, I guess to try and put some space between my battleship and cruisers.  What he didn't know is that I was holding Dwarven Gunnery, which let me fire before moving.  I played the card and gunned down the frigate directly in front of my battleship with the fore guns and one off to the side with a broadside.  Then I rammed, and sunk, the last member of the frigate squadron.  When time was called I was in a dominant position, but time is time.  We added up the VPs and it was 299-200, which means I think I lost all my frigates, a destroyer, and a cruiser.  Not too bad.

Vatank (Dragon Lords) and Shades (Orcs) had started their first, and only as it turned out, game while my first rounder was going, so we skipped ahead a bit and went to the 2v1 game.  I fielded the 600 point list I've discussed previously, but will again list for your convenience, and faced 300 points of Gorgor's Elves and MadDrB's Shroud Mages.  Lists:

Iron Dwarves
Battleship - 120
Airship - 85
2 Cruisers/Heavy Cruiser - 185
3 Frigates - 105
3 Frigates - 105
600 total

Shroud Mages
Battleship - 110
2 Heavy Cruisers - 150
260 total

Thaniras Elves
Flagship - 145
2 Heavy Cruisers - 150

295 total

It wasn't the double battleship, double flagship setup that I was expecting, but it was close.  The only restrictions on the 300 point lists were minimum squad sizes, so you couldn't field just one frigate or cruiser, but beyond that it was anything goes.  The table was completely open except for two big strips of land on either side of the board that created a bottleneck in the middle.  I took cover behind my side of the bottleneck.  I figured I'd steam to the middle and start shooting, which is where I made my mistake, but that will develop shortly.

Game 2 setup.

This was a brutal game with everyone being funneled into the middle.  This meant it took longer than usual to drop the bomb while trying to avoid DF from every ship on the table.  Things were going well enough at the start.  I focused on the Elves and had piled a decent bit of damage on the flagship, which is much more resilient than their battleship.  I sent my battleship and cruisers parallel to the line that would connect the two towers, broadsides blazing the whole way.  My frigates snaked around to envelope the enemy fleets and start raking their little hearts out.  Things were going fine.  I had dropped the bomb on the Shrouds, sunk both their heavies, and had damage on everything else except a single TE heavy.  Then a Magazine Explosion on the SM battleship hit absolutely every ship in my fleet, which was a crippling blow.  It didn't sink all, or even most, of my ships, but it did push them to the brink of effectiveness and buoyancy.  I got the TE flagship down to a single hull point, and one of the heavies, but that was as good as it got.  In retrospect, I should have stayed further back on my half of the table and used the bottleneck to cause confusion and traffic jams amongst my opponents, or I could have steamed straight up the middle, firing double broadsides the whole way.  In reality, I was down to a half-strength airship when we called the game.

Wait, called the game?  At a tournament?  Yep.  Things had started to break up by then.  Vatank had left, Shades was MIA, Gorgor was up against his time limit, and MadDrB was in the same boat.  With 4 people we could have done any number of setups that would have produced a viable tournament, but the traffic-induced staggered arrival times meant things were a bit chaotic from the start.  Combine that with this being the first time MadDrB had run an event like this, and his being fairly new to the game I believe, and these snafus are understandable.  At the end of the day there wasn't a full tournament, but I had a good time, and I think everyone else did too, so it was a success.  I got a certificate declaring me a Vice Admiral, as much because I was the last guy there as anything I think, which was neat if a bit unsatisfying. 

3 rounds, 1.5 rounds, close enough.

What was satisfying was that I got a discount at the store, so I picked up Strakhov (finally), a Winter Guard Rocketeer, and another ID battleship for my 1200 point list.  Shades reappeared somewhere during my shopping, so we went to Sonic with MadDrB for lunch.  This time I had a monstrous chili cheese dog that they called a footlong but was probably more like 14", fries and a grape slush, which was very much like a Misty from Dairy Queen.  The hot dog was very good, especially considering it came from a drivethru, and it puts the A&W drivethru dogs that I can get here to shame.  We ate a talked for a bit before people had to go.  I hit 95 North just before 6 and was in Falls Church at 645, which was just amazing considering how bad traffic had been heading down.  I guess I fixed my traffic karma in the morning.  Even the Mixing Bowl was moving at speed.  It was the kind of traffic you never see in the area.

All in all, an enjoyable day.  Traffic was bad at first, but better late.  I managed a decent sampling of Sonic's menu, though not as extensive as I'd hoped, and the food was tasty.  The "tournament" didn't go quite as planned, but I "won" which was my goal for the day, so I guess that worked out too.  This event was as much about trying to establish and grow a US community in the DMV as it was about cut-throat competition, and in that first goal I think it succeeded.  It was kinda funny that all the players came from NoVa, but I guess they have to come from somewhere.   There were two guys that came up from Richmond to check things out, and a couple other passers-through.  Every time I'm at a gathering of US players there are randoms who walk up and look interested, or that have ships but didn't know anyone who played, so hopefully things will snowball a bit and a robust community will gel.

US Battle Report - A Night of Two Games, Part Two

The second half of the night's double-header saw a return to form for me.  I was eager to avenge my loss, but I was a little worried at the same time.  Would my dice come back to me?  Or had I undergone a fundamental paradigm shift?  Could I no longer reasonably expect to beat expected value on nearly every roll?  Would Gorgor's dice continue to make swiss cheese of my ships?  The only way to find out was to get back to it.  I ran the same list, while Gorgor made some changes, which you can find after the break.

We chatted about our fleets as we reset the board.  Gorgor talked about why he went for the Elves instead of Shroud Mages: sails.  He wanted a wind-powered fleet, a sentiment that I can sympathize with.  I picked up an Imperial Human starter fleet tonight, but that's for another post.  He swapped the heavy cruisers for regular cruisers and added more destroyers.  Given how well the destroyers had done for him in the first game, this was very understandable.  His list was as such:

Battleship - 110
War Dragon - 65
3 Cruisers - 165
3 Crow Destroyers - 135
3 Crow Destroyers - 135
610 total

Wow, that is a big points difference.  I pointed out that he needed a squad of frigates to meet the full requirements of the fleet composition document, but as usual I didn't really care what he took.  Had I realized the points difference at the time, I would have said something about that, but I didn't notice it until writing the list just now.  Chalk up another learning experience, knowing how much other fleets' ships are.

The terrain was the same as the first game.  Figuring that the south was choked with dwarven bodies and wreckage, I decided to head for the northern part of the center instead.  I deployed in such a way that I could go above of below the northern center island as the situation demanded.  I planned to cross my battleship and cruisers immediately so I could use the cruisers to screen my battleship, which took a lot of fire in the first game.  The wind was blowing towards the southwest, which meant it would actually affect things if I could keep the Elves on my left and force them to turn into the wind to come after me.  The few times the Elves had run against the wind in the first game, the difference in speed was very noticeable, so I wanted to make it an issue as much as possible.  Gorgor deployed on a slant that would allow him to cut through the middle and hit me with his broadsides as he passed, but would then require him to run into the wind to come around for another pass.

Setup.  The Dragon had already moved before I took the picture.

My first activation was already better than the first game.  My frigates moved up for a long-range potshot at the northern destroyers and managed to ding it.

Take that destroyer!

My third activation of the first turn decided the game.  I moved my battleship up and played Experimental Ammunition, a card which usually does nothing good for me.  I managed a respectable roll of 11 to determine AD, then rolled 12 successes with those 11 dice, resulting in a crit on the Elven battleship.  That was more like normal.  Then I rolled snake eyes for the crit and sent the Elf battleship down.  At a stroke, I gelded the Elf fleet.  I tried not to celebrate too much.

Take that battleship!

After the battleship went down, I peeled my destroyers off to the south to start taking shots at the dragon, which was the biggest remaining threat.  Outside of the battleship sinking, turn 1 was pretty typical.  A ding here and there, but mostly just movement.

End of turn 1.

Article two of the return of my luck: the bomb.  The Elves weren't as clumped this time around, so I only managed to hit a single squadron of destroyers, but oh how I hit them.  I sank one and critted the other two, including holing one below.  I also put another point on the destroyer I damaged in the first turn.  The airship took some fire going in, but not enough to stop it.

Kabooooooooooooom.

Gorgor made what I can only call a mental error.  He moved his dragon to the dead center of the board, leaving it out in the open.  My cruisers moved up and fired on it, dealing some damage.  Then my battleship followed suit and took the dragon out.  Two turns, two threats neutralized.  Things were going much better.

Take that dragon!

 With the Elven cruisers in range of coming around the northern central island, I moved my frigates up to take cover behind said island.  That position also allowed the frigates to fire on the bombed destroyers and take them out.

Take some more of that destroyers!

As I was taking this picture, it occurred to me that I hadn't lost a ship yet.  At the same time, the Elves were down to two squadrons.  The pendulum had swung back the other way and now I was on top.  I started to feel bad about stomping around so much, but to be fair I had just received a similar stomping.

End of turn 2.

The hit parade continued as my cruisers landed a crit on the lead TE cruiser, setting it on fire.  The fire went out when they activated, but they burned for a little bit all the same.

Take the cruiser!

The Elves finally managed to sink one of my ships by pouring fire into my damaged cruiser.  They started to run afoul of the wind here, which was satisfying as I was trying to make that happen from the outset.

First blood for the Elves.

One of the Elf destroyers rammed a frigate, but the result was inconclusive.  I lost a crew member and did no damage in return.  I had drawn Iron Shod Pointy End at the beginning of the game and wanted to send my battleship into the offending destroyer, but I was well short on range.  I brought the airship around instead, firing ineffectively at the destroyer but critting a cruiser.

Take that cruiser!

Since I couldn't make the ram work, I started to bring the battleship around towards the middle.  I had a half dice shot at the rear cruiser, which did nothing.  More importantly I had a full broadside on the destroyer that had rammed my frigate.  Having taken a RB1 pounding, the destroyer sank, freeing my frigates from future boarding actions.

Take that destroyer!

My frigates rounded the northern central island and fired on the rear cruiser, one of them in raking position.  The cruiser went down under the hail of fire.  This was the end of the turn, and Gorgor threw in the towel here.

Take that cruiser!  Endgame.

This game was as unbalanced as the first one.  My dice had returned to form, while Gorgor's were more like what he described as his usual dice luck.  Things started bad for him when I sank his battleship with a lucky shot on one of the first activations of the first turn, and things went downhill from there.  Outside of the questionable dragon move, I think he played a solid game, but again the weight of dice was crushing.  I felt kinda bad after this trouncing, but seeing the relative points of the fleets in writing this up makes me feel a little better. 

I'm on the fence about the destroyers.  Their longish-ranged firepower leaves much to be desired.  They have 3 AD each on their fore guns and rockets in RB2 which sounds formidable at first blush.  But when you consider linking, it gets a little grimmer.  The leading ship gets 4AD, while each linking ship adds only 2AD.  This means that for my 2 ship squadron, 12 potential AD yield only 6 actual dice.  That seems wrong somehow.  In considering how to make this work better, I think that I might be better off firing two separate shots, leading with the rockets on one ship and linking in the guns on another.  This yields two 4AD shots instead of the single 6AD shot from linking everything together.  Granted 4AD won't do much to anything larger than a frigate, but it's an option.  I'll probably end up leaving the destroyers in my tournament list for the extra card the squadron brings, but I'm seriously considering dropping them for a heavy cruiser now.  I'll ponder it as the week goes by.  I doubt I'll be able to get another game in before Saturday, much as I'd like to see how the list does with the heavy instead of the destroyers.

US Battle Report - A Night of Two Games, Part One

played two games tonight against Gorgor and his Elves.  They were both 500 points and test run games for the tournament this weekend.  I think VAtank and Kairaven were doing the same, so it was a night to work out some kinks.  I had never played against Elves before, and Gorgor had never played against Dwarves, so it was a learning experience on both sides.  My main aim here was to see how the destroyers worked, as I've been considering swapping them for a heavy cruiser.  EV called off tonight, and I forgot to borrow his smoke and fire markers, so the pictures are not as pretty as usual since I was using scraps of paper as wreck markers.  Lists, pictures, the whole nine, after the break.
My list was the 500 point tournament list from a post or three ago, but I'll reproduce it because I'm so considerate.

Battleship - 120
Airship - 85
2 Cruisers - 100
3 Frigates - 105
2 Destroyers - 90
500 total


Gorgor's list:
Battleship - 110

War Dragon  - 65

2 Heavy Cruisers - 150
2 Frigates - 60
3 Crow Destroyers - 135
520 total.  I hope I'm doing some wrong math here.  I'm not sure that TW destroyers are 45 points, though I assume every race has them at 45.  A quick look at the Spartan site tells me they are 45 each.  Being down points makes me feel a little better about the result, but more on that later.  I also think you need to take regular cruisers before you can take heavies, but not 100% sure that's how the Elves work.  In any case, I knew that going in and wasn't concerned. 


I had set the table up before hand.  I went for as balanced and symmetrical a layout as possible.  Gorgor was going to bring something other than the Dragon at first, but when I mentioned that I had never played against one he swapped it in.  I knew the Elves were fast and wanted to get in close, which suited me well enough.  I wanted to use the destroyers as a rearguard, twirling around behind the rest of the fleet to take advantage of their rockets and be ready to deal with any rakers or ships looking to ram me from behind.  The wind was behind the Elves and didn't affect the game too much.


As usual, I planned to head to the center and use islands as possible.  I had a vague idea of getting to the middle, then turning and trying to use the wind island to cover my rear.  Gorgor looked set to head straight to the middle, but I assumed there would be some TE maneuvering shenanigans and they would come at me from an angle that wasn't immediately apparent.

The lines are drawn.

The first turn went as first turns go.  I lost a frigate to fire from the destroyers, but other than that it was all movement.

End of turn 1.

I didn't want to extend my frigates too much, so I spun them around to bring them back behind my battleship.  I did a point on a destroyer as I retreated.  In return, the destroyers came after my frigates, sinking one and putting a point of hull damage on another one.

Deadly pursuit.

Sinking stuff seemed like fun, so I thought I'd get in on the action with my own destroyers.

Destroyers destroying destroyers.

Seeing what you could call a "target rich enviornment," I send in the airship to drop the bomb.  Between the bomb and the gunnery attacks that followed, I put some damage on the battleship and heavy cruisers, but didn't sink anything.  This is as good a place as any to talk about dice for a minute.  My dice are generally pretty hot, but this game I had mortal luck, possibly less than mortal.  The bomb here is a witness to that.  Granted I crit the heavies and the battleship, but I did nothing to the frigate.  Most of my rolls came back below expected value, and I think I rolled more 1s in this game than I have in all my other US games combined.  I ran a friend through a demo on Friday and was concerned that he may have mojoed my dice, or myself.  Naturally enough, my streak of bad luck was matched by a streak of good luck from my opponent.  It was like I was playing against myself.  Half his dice came up 6s, every shot seemed to crit, things went poorly.  Turns out Gorgor didn't have a firm grasp on the DF rules, so only the frigates got to shoot, which is perhaps the reason why my blimp survived to drop the bomb in the first place.

The bomb, it is dropped.

My battleship is accumulating damage and my frigates are almost finished, but I'm not feeling too bad at this point.  Luck issues aside, my ships are about to have targets on both sides, allowing for multiple shots per activation.  I'm putting damage on the TE battleship as well, though it doesn't show in the picture.

End of turn 2.

The TE destroyers set to work again, finishing off my frigates.  These ships were pains the whole game.  I never really concentrated fire on them, but I did get plenty of 'bonus' shots against them while I fired on the rest of the Elven fleet.  Despite pouring buckets of dice at them, I didn't manage to do too much to them.

Frigate destroyed.

Remember when I called the destroyers pains?  They became sharp pains a moment after sinking my last frigate when they crit one of my destroyers, causing a magazine explosion.  While my battleship managed to escape damage, my other destroyer and cruisers weren't so lucky.  With results like this mounting against me, my morale is flagging a bit.

Destroyers destroy a destroyer in spectacular fashion.

My battleship gets involved.  It doesn't do much against the TE battleship, but I do manage to finish off the already damaged destroyer.  Small victory, but you take them where you find them.

Destroyer destroyed.

With the Elven heavy cruisers still clustered, I send the airship in to try and sink them, or at least do some damage.  What I didn't account for was that neither the heavies nor the frigates had activated yet, and my airship went down under their combined Defensive Fire, yet another marker of the way the current of luck was flowing this game.

Airship down?  What's going on here?

Things turned viciously on me this turn.  I ended up down two squadrons and all my remaining ships had damage on them, with my battleship leading the way with 5 hull damage (and 5 crew as well).  Things look bad here, but I'm hoping they'll turn around.

End of turn 3.

Remember that bit about things turning around?  That didn't happen so much.  After my cruisers fail to damage the TE battleship again, the Dragon swoops in to board my battleship.  I do get a bit of luck here.  I'm down to 2 crew, while the dragon is undamaged and thus rolling 4 dice in the boarding action.  I manage to kill 2 "crew," while the dragon only takes out one dwarf, so my battleship lives to fight another day.  That other day comes quickly though, as my battleship still has to activate this turn.  In that activation, I lose another crew and do no damage in return, leaving my battleship decrewed and drifting.  It's a small consolation that flying models can't prize ships.

What What (In the Butt)

Things are pretty much over after turn 4, but I soldier on.  My cruisers may be able to get a rake in on the TE battleship, so all isn't entirely lost, just most of it.  My lead cruiser took some flavor of steering crit and has been drifting forward for a couple turns, so that was probably a bit of a pipe dream, beyond my inability to do any real damage with them.  My destroyer is in an odd place because I had futilely used it to DF the dragon as it came in to take my battleship in the rear, and therefore couldn't fire this turn.  I wanted to ram the TE destroyer, but didn't have the movement to get it done.  Things could get hairy with it if my battleship drifted in front of it, but after a rules consultation we determined that you still "activate" derelict ships and they drift then, so I didn't have to worry about it after all.  Most of the Elf fleet is coming around behind me to rake, but that doesn't disturb me as much as it would have if I had more ships left.

End of turn 4.

Another marker of my weird dice in this game was initiative.  I kept winning it.  Generally I lose every initiative roll, but do well on my other rolls, which is a trade I'm glad to make.  I may or may not have won initiative this turn, but what I did do was try to ram the TE destroyer.  I say try because I didn't manage to do it, the pointy-eared buggers teleported out of the way.  I didn't get to ram, but I did get 2 whole dice of RB1 broadside on it, which was as ineffective as my shooting had been until then.  The interesting thing was that Gorgor had left the destroyer in the path of my drifting battleship.  I thought it would be fun to have them collide, which they did.  What I didn't consider was the boarding action that would follow if I didn't sink the destroyer, and of course I didn't sink the destroyer.  As a result, I effectively gave away my battleship as a prize.  Yet another shining moment from this game.

Injury, meet insult.

To add some salt to the wound, the TE destroyer rammed my destroyer.  Finally I find some luck and win the boarding action, decrewing the Elf ship for the loss of a single sailor and reclaiming my battleship at the same time.

Another very small victory.

Under normal circumstances I play games until the bitter end.  Looking at the clock, I figured we would have enough time for a second game, but only if we started quickly.  As such, I made it official and surrendered.

Endgame.

I got hammered in this game, that's really the only way to describe it.  For the most part, I think my tactics and positioning were sound.  I made a few activation order errors and similar gaffs, but those came after the bottom fell out in turn 2.  I had lots of double shots lined up, but couldn't make any of them count.  Meanwhile, my opponent seemed to crit with every shot he took.  I don't like to blame dice or luck for results, but I'll do it in this case.  My dice deserted me, and I ran full speed into a brick wall of 6s.  I didn't even learn much from this game.  Normally when I lose, I can tell why and derive some benefit from the experience.  I guess at least I learned a bit about how the Elven dragon works and built some knowledge about the TE deck as well.  A thoroughly disheartening result. and one that I think EV would have enjoyed watching had he been there.  Fortunately for me, things went back to normal for our second game, but that's another report.