The Russian Empire
The Russian Empire does not ask for your admiration. It does not need your admiration. What it needs are commanders who understand that the most important thing happening in any engagement is not the dramatic opening exchange or the clever repositioning in the middle turns. It is who is still operational in the final round, still holding position, still putting fire on target while the opposing fleet is running out of ship. Russia wins the battles that other factions thought they had already decided.
Russian airship doctrine is built on a truth that smaller, faster, more elegant powers keep learning the hard way. Endurance is a weapon. A fleet that absorbs punishment and keeps advancing forces the opponent to keep shooting, keep spending, keep committing resources to a problem that refuses to go away. Every broadside that lands on a Russian hull and fails to stop the advance is a broadside that cost the enemy something and cost Russia nothing it could not manage. The math compounds quietly across the turns until it becomes impossible to ignore.
Russian vessels are built accordingly. Hulls are reinforced. Crews are trained to maintain function under damage and to keep their formation intact when other fleets would be scattering to protect individual ships. There is a discipline to Russian play that looks like stubbornness from the outside and feels like inevitability from the inside. The fleet goes where it is supposed to go. It holds what it is supposed to hold. And it is still there at the end doing both of those things.
When the moment demands it, the Russian fleet can absorb a blow that would end the engagement for anyone else and simply continue. Fortified Hulls represents the built-in resilience of Russian construction and Russian crews, the ability to take a confirmed hit and strip the damage before it reaches critical systems.
Faction Trait: Fortified Hulls
Once per round, after a hit is confirmed on a Russian airship but before damage is rolled, the Russian player may declare Fortified Hulls. Roll 1d6 and negate that many damage points from the incoming attack. If the negated damage reduces the attack to zero, the attack causes no damage and no secondary effects such as fire are triggered. This ability applies to weapon attacks only and may not be used during a Reaction. The Russian player may designate a different airship to benefit from this ability each Round.
And when the battle reaches its most critical point, when the opponent has committed everything they have to breaking the Russian line, Jaw of Iron answers. One ship becomes something close to unstoppable, a 20 point armor pool absorbing everything thrown at it from every direction, buying time and space for the rest of the fleet to finish the job.
Strategic Command: Jaw of Iron
Once per game, at the start of the Russian player's Turn, declare Jaw of Iron on one Russian airship. That airship immediately gains a pool of 20 universal Armor points. This pool is not assigned to any specific facing and absorbs incoming damage from all sources including weapon attacks, fire, collisions, and ramming. Damage is subtracted from this pool before being applied to the airship's normal systems. Once the pool is exhausted, any remaining damage is applied normally. The pool persists across Turns and Rounds until fully exhausted.
