ORP Piorun

Notes: As a development team pick for this deck, Piorun joins the existing 3 Polish WotC cards and follows Team Kraken's ORP Burza. Piorun's most famous exploit came during the hunt for the Bismarck. Together with the other Destroyers under Vian's command, she doggedly harried the Battleship the night before she was finally sunk - a risky proposition even in darkness, with one 15-inch shell coming within 20 yards of hitting Piorun.

We initially paired Shadow Battleship with Torpedo Charge, however our Playtest Team found that these didn't work particularly well together, so we opted to replace the former with Lay Smoke Screen (which she did do after that close-call with a 15-in shell!).

Note that a unit doesn't have to actually make a torpedo attack in order to make use of the Torpedo Charge movement (only have a valid target in range), making this a very useful combination of SAs when you consider the difficulties usually encountered in laying a smoke screen in the right place despite losing the initiative. Don't forget, the Torpedo Charge movement will happen *after* your opponent moves.

ORP Piorun has a class limit of 1.

Prototype: ORP Piorun was an N-class destroyer operated by the Polish Navy in World War II. The word piorun is Polish for "Thunderbolt". Ordered by the Royal Navy in 1939, the ship was laid down as HMS Nerissa before being acquired by Poland, before completion, in October 1940.

In May 1941 ORP Piorun (Ship of the Polish Republic Thunderbolt) was the first Allied naval vessel to locate the German battleship Bismarck, and drew its deadly fire—nearly being destroyed—while other units of the Royal Navy task force caught up to sink the Bismarck. After World War II, Piorun was returned to the Royal Navy and recommissioned as HMS Noble before being scrapped in 1955.

Class History: The J, K and N class was a class of 24 destroyers of the Royal Navy launched in 1938. They were a return to a smaller vessel, with a heavier torpedo armament, after the Tribal class that emphasised guns over torpedoes. The ships were built in three flotillas or groups, each consisting of eight ships with names beginning with "J", "K" and "N". The flag superior of the pennant numbers changed from "F" to "G" in 1940. The ships were modified throughout their war-time service, particularly their anti-aircraft (AA) guns; they were also fitted with radar.

Country: Poland is an eastern European country on the Baltic Sea known for its medieval architecture and Jewish heritage. Warsaw, the capital, has shopping and nightlife, plus the Warsaw Uprising Museum, honoring the city’s WWII-era resistance to German occupation. In the city of Kraków, 14th-century Wawel Castle rises above the medieval old town, home to Cloth Hall, a Renaissance trading post in Rynek Glówny (market square).