The Allies then moved the Ark Royal toward the center (it had been south claiming an Objective), retreated with the crippled Fletcher (which gave me the central Objective), fired on the Z20 (crippling her), and sank the Maru with airpower.
My ships fired on the Fletcher (sinking her) and the Ark Royal (scoring a 2nd Damage on her).
However, it was now the turn of the Z20 to be sunk by strafing Wildcats. The Allies are now trying a new strategy: hide the carrier, hit with the fighters.
It was now the Jintsu alone against the Ark Royal and its Wildcats.
The dice gods now smiled on the Allies, as the previously undamaged Jintsu took damage from strafing and gunfire, reducing it to Crippled status. It failed to score any hits with guns, and now readied a final torpedo shot. (No torpedoes have scored yet in the entire game.)
I made a dramatic speech about this dieroll being "for the game" and rolled one die... a 6! The torpedo hit home, and did more than enough damage to sink the Ark Royal!
Alas, a quick check of the rulebook showed that I hadn't won. Our fleets were too small for either of us (since we had split the Objectives between us) to score 150 points, so the only road to victory was to destroy all of the enemy's units - and the Wildcats still counted! They would be considered land-based from now on, but they would inevitably sink the Jintsu eventually - and in its Crippled state, it had no chance of shooting them down.
And so, an Allied victory!
Was it an accurate portrayal of WWII naval combat? Not exactly - torpedoes are unpredictable and relatively short-ranged, carriers act like really big destroyers, and it doesn't matter what direction ships face or where their guns can bear. The ships are sturdy and ready-to-play, but a bit bendy and not terribly attractive; the mapsheets slide around, the grid is hard to see, it's annoying that the big ship didn't fit in one space, and the game box isn't reuseable. But did we have fun? Yes - and we'll pick up a booster pack and play again.