BR: 1000pts EotBS vs. RoF

Om nom nom..

I'm not really sure how to do DW battle reports just yet, but I figure I'll do it in my classic bullet point format.  However, I'm changing one little thing.  Since I want to add my fleet/ship analysis to the game as well, I'm going to use my navy list and comment on the particular ships and how they contributed to the battle.  Alright, let's go!

My list:
Hachiman DN

Kiyohime BCV

3x Tanuki CA

2x 4x Uwatsu FF

2x Ika Squidies

2x 5x Torpedoes

His list:

Magenta MKII BB

2x Magenta Prototype BB

Couronne BCV

3x Marseille CA

2x 4x Chevalier DD

2x 5x Torpedoes

I'll start by going over my units:

• The Hachiman is an interesting ship.  It wants to stay far away and shoot with its boss 9 rockets at RB4, but at the same time it wants to get close because the guns on it is pitiful from far away.  I used it in a manner which was most aggressive; shooting out rockets from RB4 all the way to RB2 where I could use my guns.  He drew an asston of fire from the opposing fleet, and eventually limped around with 6 damage on it and having its primary/secondary weapons rolling half dice from a crit (I failed to repair twice).  His main contribution to the battle was launching a few dudes over after the Ikas ate all the marines on his Magenta MKII BB.
• The Kiyohime BCV was not very impressive.  I kept him moving fast in hopes of bringing some powerful weapons into the fray, but I couldn't damage anything with this ship.  His stats are overall pretty low, with the main saving grace being his main turret and his P/S guns.  Unfortunately, he took a lot of damage over the course of the game, with him limping towards the front lines with 6/7 points worth of damage.  His main contribution was sending over his marines and capturing the Couronne BCV after bloody melee.  My Kiyohime made it out of the game though, just barely limping forward with its guns neutered and hull teared to shreds.
• My Tanuki Gunships were amazing in this game.  They poured out constant and immediate damage with their rockets, hitting all targets at RB4 on all sides with their 6 rockets a piece.  Over the course of the game, they downed several enemy destroyers, damaged several enemy BBs, put damage on his Cruisers, as well as prizing 2/3 Marseille CAs.  I believe I used this unit the best, as I kept them limping towards the enemy fleet in RB2 so I can get their Main Turrets, Fore Torpedoes and Rocket Batteries (shooting at RB3/4 targets) in constant action.  When the fight called for it, I was able to Sharp Turn towards promising targets and apply Secondary Main Turrets in RB1 while simultaneously launching 6 AP each for boarding actions.  The 4/8 statline with 6 HP also helped the ships far longer than they should.
• I was relatively impressed with my Uwatsu FFs even though they took a severe beating from the enemy fleet.  Most the Chevaliers were tasked to destroying my Frigates, and once the CAs and BBs joined in, all my ships were either broken limping forward towards the enemy at half strength.  My opponent suggested that the damage (or dice rather) he was putting out from his dual flying Magentas were poor, but I looked at the damage inflicted on my FFs from everything else and I consider it a fair trade!  A single Uwatsu in close proximity to an enemy ship can pour out 7 dice linking fire with himself.  If I had more of these suckers in combat, I would be rolling a ton more dice.  Unfortunately, it seems like the Uwatsus are the Chevalier's favorite snack.
• Last, I'll talk about my Ika Squids.  I think it goes without saying that EotBS players everywhere recommend taking 2x of these even more so than the DN.  Despite my rather shoddy deployment with these guys (deployed a bit too far), they were able to reach combat by Turn 4 and just take things over.  Two of them were able to derelict his slightly damaged Magneta MKII with losing only one tentacle, one of them single-handily stripped his Magenta Prototype, and both were able to sustain an enormous amount of firepower with their 5/10 Rugged Construction and 6 HP each.  I think from now on, I'm just going to put these guys in the middle and make a B-line for the closest fatty ship.  They're also horrifying to face once they emerge from the water because everything from his fleet went into them.

EotBS Summary:

• I feel that both the Hachiman and the Kiyohime were not worth the points I spent on them.  This, however, does not mean I don't know what they should be used for.  The Hachiman absorbed an enormous amount of damage being thrown at him, and the threat he generated on the table was immense.  If you think about all the damage that he had, it was due to the fact that he was closing in quick with 12 AP with Dash and Elan, a Ram Rating of 9 and 3 AD13 guns that can be brought into bear in a very graceful manner.  The mines that the DN has is just utterly worthless, so I'm basically treating the DN as a hulking threat with a lot of potential dice at close range.  I guess my problem with the ship is:  It's not a Dreadnought for its points.  It's more like an upgunned BB, but if that's the case, why not just take another BB?
• As for the Kiyohime, I'm just a little disappointed with its performance.  The best thing about the BCV is that you get the Torpedo Bombers (which can seriously mess things up) and the Recon plane for the extra activation.  Its main turret is also really powerful, and the B/S Guns are not bad at all.  Maybe the carrier just had a bad game, I'll try him again in the next one I play.  Or maybe I should drop the DN and the BCV for 2x BBs.  That does sound very appealing.
• Sharp Turn and Fast Torpedoes are amazing MARs.  For everyone who discounts the potential of Sharp Turn, they seriously need to rethink how they're using their ships.  I was able to turn my DN nearly on a dime compared to other ships of its class, my Tanukis literally U-turned into targets on my far flank, and I was able to pull off maneuvers that other ships can only dream of.  It's just a fantastic MAR.  Fast Torpedoes are just insane man.  Torps hitting on 3s and forcing your opponent to re-roll success CC saves is just brutal.  The damage potential from Torpedo Bombers with the Fast Torpedo MAR is one of the only saving graces to the otherwise lackluster BCV.

RoF Summary:

• I have the French as my second fleet, so I'm quite familiar with all the awesome things that they can do.  Retardent Armor and Cloud Generators can be incredibly frustrating to play against at times.  There's been so many times where I thought I did damage, but the loss of the Double Hits + roll again due to Retardant Armor really nullifies that.  Cloud Generators are just really funny:  Being hit on 5s all the time makes them incredibly good vs. all types of attacks.  Due to the fact that my friend was rolling with CAP'd Torpedo Bombers and not Fighters, I knew that boarding him was an option to get into the Retarded Cloudy French ships.  At the end of the game, I managed to win by prizing the Magenta MKII, his Carrier, one of his Magenta Prototypes, and 2/3 of his Marseilles.
• The Heat Lance is just death incarnate to enemy DNs.  His Carrier has one, his Magenta MKII has one, and if he brought his Charlemagne, I don't even know what I should do.  What basically happened is that:  He got into RB2 with his Cloud Generator and began throwing dice.  Everytime that he threw dice, my DN took a load of damage.  That's to be expected, so my battleplan had to be disabling his Heat Lance ships ASAP.  Since his BCV and BB were the biggest targets, it wasn't too hard to focus all my attention onto them while his Magneta Prototypes pounded me from the air.
• Speaking of which, the flying BBs were really interesting.  They flew around most of the game and shot me at RB2 with a bunch of dice.  I wounded one of them early with rockets from my Tanuki, and the other one that shot me just didn't do damage over the course of the game so he turned into a paper weight.  The fact that I had torpedo bombers and my targets were either Clouded ships in front, flying ships in the back (can't even hit them), or flying far far away to get to his DDs, my options were severely limited.  Therefore, my target priority changed to the things in front of me and to ignore his flying battleships that was raining on top of me.
• I like the Chevalier DD, but I'm not convinced about the Marseille CA in his fleet.  The DDs are just able to put down an enormous amount of damage from RB3 onwards and they linked for huge dice against everything.  Many of my FFs were sunk by them although he didn't do as much damage as he wanted on my capital ships.  At the end of the day though, they're only 120 points for 4 of them and the damage they put out is well worth it. As for the Marseilles, I think I would spend the +10 points each on them for Retardant Armor.  They have good shooting from RB3 on with their 270 degree Primaries, but I think they need a little boost in the defensive side to make them truly different than the Escuyer.  The Marseille is also incredibly fast and being surface skimming makes them really interesting in how they're used.  I think they're good and have their uses, but once they get damaged a fair amount (I put 2 damage on each throughout the game), they become significantly less effective.