Full Thrust - NSL vs ESU

Tamsin and I got Full Thrust back on the table for our yearly dose of space goodness.

Tamsin brought her ESU fleet and I had my trusty NSL.

I finally pulled my finger out and named all of my ships.  Makes life much easier.

Tamsin suggested we use the Gruntz activation cards to spice up the shooting.  Rather than being able to choose who fired first, using the Gruntz cards, you assigned each a card.  The card value would then determine who shot first.

This made life rather interesting in a few duels.

We each had 2500 points, no more than 50% of which could be in capitals.

I was soon to learn the power of the ESU class four laser.....

We each set up, I split up into two squadrons, Tamsin just a line of ESU brawlers.

The ESU advance. Some how, the Russians were faster than the NSL.

The NSL squadron based on Ferdinand  III super dreadnought moves to engage

Tamsin's brawlers move in.  Shortly afterwards I discoved that Russians do make big guns.

My Maria class battleship lost all of it's armour and two rows of damage, not to mention multiple systems just from one shot.

I hate the exploding dice mechanic when it's happening to me....

:-)

The fleets moving into knife fighting range.

My pulse torpedoes fail to hit anything!

This is going to hurt!

The end result was a narrow win to the NSL.

I managed to destroy most of the ESU capital ships but most of my fleet was only suitable for scrap metal.