James's Relthoza fleet consisted of a battleship with 2 frigate accompaniment, 4 Nidus frigates, 4 Widow frigates, 3 cruisers, 3 heavy cruisers, and a battle station. His admiral was on the battleship. He decided to hold the station and a squadron of frigates in reserve, so they're not pictured above.
My Aquan fleet was an Oannes heavy carrier with Sulis accompaniment, 4 Isonade frigates, 2 Shiva gunships (also with a Sulis), 6 Snapper corvettes, 4 Chimera frigates, and a Nectridea carrier (held in reserve). My admiral was stationed on the battle carrier.
Turn 1 started off with me playing Drives to Maximum on my corvettes and heavy carrier. The corvettes immediately jumped out to put pressure on the left flank.
The Relthoza deployed within the safety of some asteroid fields and were content to bide their time. Aquan torpedoes sailed wide as the clutch of stealthy spiders grinned in the darkness.
On the right flank some Aquan Chimeras ranging out on picket duty suddenly picked up hard returns as Relthoza frigates suddenly shunted in.
The Oannes heavy carrier and her Sulis moved up on the left, not quite making it into the relative cover of a gas cloud. Interceptors spilled out of her launch bays to protect the fleet.
Turn 1 ended with very few shots landed as the Relthoza menace remained cloaked and out of reach.
Turn 2 began and I decided to give the Isonade cruisers Power to Shields and push them up the center. Sure enough, this drew the spiders out.
More Aquan torpedoes sailed towards the Rethoza battleship, but few survived the gauntlet of point defense and interceptors to cause significant damage."
The Isonade cruiser squadron ate a lot of shots on Turn 2, and even with +1 to their shields took losses. My corvettes jumped out of the gas cloud and laid in with their torpedoes. And there were some Sulis trick-shots that continued chip away at the Relthoza battleship. That thing is a beast.
My frigates on the right flank managed to get in, broadside some stuff, and then die.
My Nectridea carrier came in on the right board edge and scattered horribly into the Relthoza corner. I made a mistake and should probably have shunted it in. Even with Quick Launch, its bomber wings were too far away to have a meaningful impact on the game.
Down one Isonade cruiser, with another taking damage.
His Relthoza battleship laughed off torpedoes, beams, and stinging Sebrutan insults...
Down to one cruiser. I started picking on his carrier frigates to remove the Relthoza interceptors.
The board as of turn 3. I tried in vain to get that Nectridea carrier across the board.
Oh.... oh... the Relthoza battle station just shunted in at this point. This could not be good.
And then the battle station proceeded to blast everything.
On turn 4 my Oannes heavy carrier succumbed to its wounds.
The battle station punched my Nectridea carrier in the face and all but crippled it.
As my line collapsed I finally destroyed the dreaded Relthoza battleship. Too little, too late!
At this point I decided to call it. My surviving ships were in much worse shape than his. Victory to James and his Relthoza fleet!
Aftermath: This was my second 1200 point game and I learned a lot. Battleships are tough! His absorbed 4 turns of concentrated fire from most of my fleet before going down. That seems crazy when compared to my squishy carrier tier 1's. That said, I purchased the Aquan patrol fleet box so I'll be looking forward to deploying my own battleship next time.
I need more practice when it comes to bouncing shots off of the Sulis arrays, combining AD, and using energy transfer on my beams.
James is a great opponent and I had a blast. Gotta also give a shout-out to all the other guys in my club who are enthusiastic and great at teaching this game.
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