we played about 4 turns- I hadn't set up the table before hand and Matt needed to go at 5. We went slower than I expected, but I really should have pre-set the table!
turn 1- we both moved on, My scourge on silent running.
pic of my fleet- not quite finished but probably can't tell the difference from here.
I dropped a couple of my frigates into low atmosphere then used them to active scan his ships, and did a bit of damage to both the opposition cruisers, including a double 6 from my shenlong, doing 2 criticals, and as a 2damage weapon 4 damage without saves!
Matt's light cruiser then shot at my frigate in low atmosphere, using the "calibre" special rule to boost his effectiveness.
2 damage cripples my frigates, and most crippled results do 2 more damage, so my frigate died.
He also shot my heavy cruiser with his gun frigates, rolling 5 4+ on 6 dice, resulting in 3 damage.
I "weapons free" my Shenlong and battered his carrier, leaving it with 2 hull points and unable to shoot or launch any ships next turn.
in retaliation Matt managed a mazimum of 6 damage with his burnthrough laser against the Shenlong.
this is when I forgot to carry on taking photos!
My Wyvern (close action cruiser) then annihilated a frigate and MAtt tried to ram his damaged and no weapons cruiser into it, but failed the roll and so it died.
At some point matt killed one of my strike carriers and right before he had to go I blew up his heavy cruiser, whixh exploded and killed my cruiser and crippled my other cruiser.
At the end of turn 4 there wasn't too much left on the board- a crippled cruiser and 2 frigates for me, and a crippled cruiser and 3 frigates for Matt.
Matt had both strike carriers alive though, so likely would have won if we'd carried on.
It was fun, but 4x3 definitely felt too small.
I really liked the alternate activation and strategy element with battlegroup ordering.
Need to figure out how to do damage and not get blatted in return! Scourge want to get close, I think I did a bit too much shooting early on, instead of going silent running as long as possible then trying to go for a big blast at the start of turn 3 or something.