Specialist Arms Forum
Battlefleet Gothic => [BFG] Discussion => Topic started by: starfox1701 on April 17, 2013, 07:01:59 AM
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By now it should be pretty clear the all the Legions had access to some warships that where orders of magnitudes more powerful then anything in BFG. Are there any plans for doing any of them? And for the record I'm not referring to the handful of lame ones that GW tried to trot out that where merely conversion of BFG hulls, but ships like Macragge's Honour which was 26km long or the Glorianas like the Conqueror, Fedelitas Lex, Invincible Reason, and Night Fall.
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It's incredibly hard to do the Fist of Macragge because it's a "Lunar class battleship" that's way too big. Everything's jumbled up.
Otherwise, a good starting point for the aesthetic design is to use the cards from the Horus Heresy card game. It has the majority of the ships you mention (and they're mostly the same size as modern ships).
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Where does the tying of the Luna class Battleship to Fist of Macragge come from because it is not in Know no Fear. ??? Second you cant judge scale in any of the pics of ships from HH collected visions so saying the rest are within scale of M41 is a statement without any basis in fact. :o Try again. 8)
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No, there are no plans of "doing them" unless you want to take a crack at it. And Seahawk has a point. If you want more responses, try being polite.
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Give it a shot I say. ;)
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No, there are no plans of "doing them" unless you want to take a crack at it. And Seahawk has a point. If you want more responses, try being polite.
I was not being impolite afterimagedan. I might have been a bit blunt as the tongue in cheek nature of my response was obviously lost. So with that explanation out of the way please explain the Seahawk's point as I appear to have missed it.
Also I see I made an error and got the wrong 13th Legion ship, It is Macragge's Honour, Not the Fist of Macragge. I fixed the opening post.
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If seahawk feels like it, he can.
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Where does the tying of the Luna class Battleship to Fist of Macragge come from because it is not in Know no Fear. ??? Second you cant judge scale in any of the pics of ships from HH collected visions so saying the rest are within scale of M41 is a statement without any basis in fact. :o Try again. 8)
Lunar-class. The information is in The Battle for the Abyss. It was also destroyed in that book.
No, you can't judge scale, but that's not the point I made at all. I was saying that you can at least make a good design based off of what's already been produced. For instance, the Conqueror looks to have engines, lower aft hull, and prow similar to modern Imperial ships, but a unique central hull and a Chaos upper after hull area. Macragge's Honor looks to be something like a modified and Ultramarines-stylized Emperor-class battleship, with the launch bays replaced by gun batteries.
The point is, you have a picture to go on. They have some sense of scale to work with, but most importantly they already have a ready-to-go design.
As to being polite, no, you weren't. You rejected the first most helpful suggestion available in a snarky manner. Remember, the internet is the worst possible medium to try and use your version of tongue-in-cheek comments, as it will never come off the way you envision it.
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If you want to come up with some stats for a ship like that ok, but the problem with something thats so much larger than standard is that its hard to fit them into basic scenarios. They ususally work best with a scenario tailored to them.
That said Ive not seen anything to indicate that the Gloriana class is any bigger than a standard battleship and I think the "Chaos Battlebarge" entry is more than adaquate to cover most of the sips you've listed. Im not too familiar with the Macragge's Honour but I would be wary of any sizes from the novels as they vary quite a bit and are far off from the standard. The Furious Abyss or the Eternal Crusader would be good examples of the Idea your going for imo. The FA was noted for being much larger than an Emperor class "The vessel was a unique configuration within the Imperium at the time and were quite large with even Emperor Class Battleships being dwarfed by these massive vessels." and the EC is the chapter home of the Black Templars and is noted as being about twice the size of most battlebarges, has docking facilities for escorts, and its been theorized that is can even dock a strike cruiser for refits and repairs (cant find the freaking documents on that now tho of course ::)). Even these tho I wouldnt push past 20 hits and I would keep the weapons down to a reasonable level, maybe 1.5 times that of a standard battleships.
Now if you want something stupidly sized take a look at the IF Phalanx o_O now thats a real monster :D.
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Where does the tying of the Luna class Battleship to Fist of Macragge come from because it is not in Know no Fear. ??? Second you cant judge scale in any of the pics of ships from HH collected visions so saying the rest are within scale of M41 is a statement without any basis in fact. :o Try again. 8)
Lunar-class. The information is in The Battle for the Abyss. It was also destroyed in that book.
No, you can't judge scale, but that's not the point I made at all. I was saying that you can at least make a good design based off of what's already been produced. For instance, the Conqueror looks to have engines, lower aft hull, and prow similar to modern Imperial ships, but a unique central hull and a Chaos upper after hull area. Macragge's Honor looks to be something like a modified and Ultramarines-stylized Emperor-class battleship, with the launch bays replaced by gun batteries.
The point is, you have a picture to go on. They have some sense of scale to work with, but most importantly they already have a ready-to-go design.
While I see the you point I must point out that you logic is flawed by a foundational assumption. You are assuming that just because a structure in a pic appears to be proportional to components you recognize on known models that it is proportional but the pics in question don't actually prove that.
First lets look at Macragge's Honour
http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/BL/blog/2012/11/ship-small.jpg
In the pic I linked in you can see 2 FW type Weapons Battery platforms to the right in close to the ship. This shows the scope and scale of the ship to be in keeping with the 26km length given in Know no Fear.
For the Glorianas the situation is not quite as clear cut despite the fact we actually know more about them then we do Macragge's Honour. There is only 1 definite Gloriana pic in collected visions. It shows the Conqueror, Flagship of the XII Legion. However there are no other objects of known dimension in the pic. I want to go on but first I want to make sure its ok to list spoilers from Betrayer first.
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With that picture I can't see it being that big given the size of the Marines. Or the perspective is just badly drawn....
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ignore the Marines, they are in the foreground. The background contains 2 objects of known size; the weapons platforms. You use them to scale the ship image.
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Second you cant judge scale in any of the pics of ships from HH collected visions so saying the rest are within scale of M41 is a statement without any basis in fact. :o Try again. 8)
The background contains 2 objects of known size; the weapons platforms. You use them to scale the ship image.
??? I'm confused.
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I tried to recreate some ships from BL novels once, and I warn you, that way lies madness ;)
BL author tend to completely disregard any estabilished material when it comes to their spaceships. It's sometimes so full of contradictions you might as well just write your own rules without any reference and it would be just as accurate as any else.
Lunar class battleship mentioned before is a good example. So... is it a battleship, or Lunar class cruiser? We'll never know.
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Second you cant judge scale in any of the pics of ships from HH collected visions so saying the rest are within scale of M41 is a statement without any basis in fact. :o Try again. 8)
The background contains 2 objects of known size; the weapons platforms. You use them to scale the ship image.
??? I'm confused.
By what exactly?
I tried to recreate some ships from BL novels once, and I warn you, that way lies madness ;)
BL author tend to completely disregard any established material when it comes to their spaceships. It's sometimes so full of contradictions you might as well just write your own rules without any reference and it would be just as accurate as any else.
Lunar class battleship mentioned before is a good example. So... is it a battleship, or Lunar class cruiser? We'll never know.
The BFG rule book notes that the Luna Class Cruiser is a product of the M36 therefore it is so unlikely that the Luna Class Battleship is the same class as the cruiser to be a near certainty that they are different classes. On the note of gleaning details from books it should be noted that the HH books contain new ship classes so there is no fluff to ignore. Also Aaron Dembski-Bowden, the author that has best described the Gloriana is a member of the community and works very hard to be consistent in his information.
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Second you cant judge scale in any of the pics of ships from HH collected visions so saying the rest are within scale of M41 is a statement without any basis in fact. :o Try again. 8)
The background contains 2 objects of known size; the weapons platforms. You use them to scale the ship image.
??? I'm confused.
By what exactly?
You said you can't use an image to scale the size, then you say you can. That's why I'm confused.
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No I said you could not use the HH Collected Visions pic to determine scale. The pic is used is from the as yet unreleased Graphic Novel "Macragge's Honour". The image clearly shows 2 of these
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Battlefleet-Gothic/ORBITAL-DEFENSE-WEAPONS-PLATFORMS-GOTHIC-PATTERN.html
A station of a known size. Using these objects you can make a determination of the warships scale. The Collected Vision pics don't provide you the opportunity.
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OK gotcha. So, what size do you think it is, and what sort of stats?
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Just a note that not every model is necessarily to scale with each other. Also, not all artwork is correct :) They're a nice to look at representation of something that's blown up from the size of a molecule.
So the take away is to not get too caught up with pulling out the rulers and calipers and doing math and instead have fun with designing something to play with.
Hell, if we should be building stats for anything it should be based on this=> http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=4039.msg30902#msg30902
:)
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OK gotcha. So, what size do you think it is, and what sort of stats?
Well these flagships are truly massive; almost fleets unto themselves. Know no Fear says Macrage's Honour is 26kms long and I see no reason to not take Dan Abnet at his word here. ADB's accounts of the Lex and the Conqueror show ships easily of similar power and scale. The Red Tear also demonstrates the durability of these types of ships by crashing on Signus Prime and lifting off again under her own power. While these represent 3 different classes they share enough common abilities to make for a good foundation I think for doing individual vessel designs.
It might be both more realistic and simpler to treat them like mobile starforts rather then overgrown battleships from a rules perspective. It allows for the tremendous firepower, the exceptional durability and can give ships of appropriately high cost. It also makes them killable without making them quite as fragile as regular Battleships. of course there will have to be provision for damaging the core deck conventionally and destroyed sections wouldn't become asteroids. I would also consider stronger void shields too. All of them seam to carry huge numbers of troops and fighters so powerful landing bays are a must. Most of them seam also to have powerful broadside of weapons batterys and spinal laces.
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I'm not going to lie, starfox; your coming off pretty strong. With a couple notable exceptions people that play traditional game are a pretty conservative lot, and pretty elitist one at that. So most people are a bit leery of change here.
So this is what they see: an interestingly titled post by some unheard of board member. Out of curiosity/interest, they check it out. Right out the gates your responses start sounding fairly conceited, with sarcastic undertones and a dash of condescension in the mix. It might have been a joke, but opening up posts with comments like that sets a tone and precedent, particularly when you are not well known to the community. Continuing our story, they swallow their pride and continue to read and answer you before arriving at what Sigoroth would probably quote and insert with the line: this. The ships you are creating are not necessary.
The ships you are proposing are obviously massively powerful and huge in scope. Since there is no model for them they would require scratch building, and I can say from personal experience not everyone has the skill to scratch build a model twice or more the size of an imperial battleship. This automatically makes people less than interested about the ship. Second problem is, as AndrewChristlieb so kindly mentioned, ships of that scale and power are difficult to integrate into almost any game and thus require specific scenarios, further limiting their use. Lastly the rules representation of what you are describing does not require new rules, just some reintegration.
TL;DR You are just making a ramillies class starfort with a different look. Just take that thing and work from there, finish it off by pricing appropriately.
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Is there any one else who wants chew my butt for my poor word choice in the beginning of the thread or can we get back to the exchange of ideas?
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Usually, when you apologize forbeing received as impolite, it is usually over with very quickly. It would probably be a good idea to work that out with Seahawk so that the forum can see that you probably are actually a nice guy, and then they will feel more open to dialogue with you. I am interested to see where this discussion on these ships is going, but when people feel deterred, it's hard to get back to the exchange of ideas. :D
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Usually, when you apologize forbeing received as impolite, it is usually over with very quickly. It would probably be a good idea to work that out with Seahawk so that the forum can see that you probably are actually a nice guy, and then they will feel more open to dialogue with you. I am interested to see where this discussion on these ships is going, but when people feel deterred, it's hard to get back to the exchange of ideas. :D
I thought I had but if a more formal apology is required I offer it sincerely.
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Happy people :). I thknk everyone needs to chill, it seems like everyone but Seahawk is upset over a silly gaff.
I think your better off going for something along the lines of a very large battleship (single hull lots of hits) instead of trying to mod the Ramiles stats to fit. Something like:
Battleship/20 Speed/15cm Turns/45* Shields/6 Armor/5+ Turrets/6
Weapons should be suitably over the top. Think like 4 launch/ side 20 weapons @60cm/ side 6 dorsal lances @60cm 12 prow torpedoes and maybe another 10 weapons @60cm. While your at it tack on another 10 fixed rear weapons @30cm.
Whatever you go with I would shoot for 1000points on it.
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As to being polite, no, you weren't. You rejected the first most helpful suggestion available in a snarky manner. Remember, the internet is the worst possible medium to try and use your version of tongue-in-cheek comments, as it will never come off the way you envision it.
I do believe that Seahawk said this, Andrew... I was simply trying to let Starfox know why people may not want to be discussing with him. The one thing that's worse than conflict is trying to polish it over and pretend it never happened. Regardless, it's over. On to ship design. :P
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I think your better off going for something along the lines of a very large battleship (single hull lots of hits) instead of trying to mod the Ramiles stats to fit. Something like:
Battleship/20 Speed/15cm Turns/45* Shields/6 Armor/5+ Turrets/6
Weapons should be suitably over the top. Think like 4 launch/ side 20 weapons @60cm/ side 6 dorsal lances @60cm 12 prow torpedoes and maybe another 10 weapons @60cm. While your at it tack on another 10 fixed rear weapons @30cm.
Whatever you go with I would shoot for 1000points on it.
So you think The Star Fort is OTT or just too complicated? If we go down this path some stuff needs uped and a few things will vary from ship to ship. In general I think more like
Battleship/24 Speed/10cm Turns/45* Shields/10 Armor/6+ front/5+ Turrets/10
Weapons
Port/Starboard Batteries 20@ 60cm Bays 8 fighters/bombers/dropships/boats
Prow torpedoes 12 batteries or lances 10 or 5@ 60cm
Dorsal lances 10@ 60cm
Vental Bay 4 fighters/bombers/dropships/boats
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I'm not sure of the stats yet, but I think that there will have to be a special rule for turning because battleship class ships have to move 15cm before turning and this can't move 15cm. I think it would be appropriate to make it use CTNH to turn. I actually think Andrew's stats are looking really good, though I like yours too. I think I would just make it 15cm movement, 6 shields, 6 turrets.
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I'd be more comfortable with lower shield and turret values if each arch had it's own shields and turrets. I could see going as low as 5 or 4 on the values it that's the case. Does forward movement carry over from one turn to the next?
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I agree with Andrew, the amount of shields & turrets is to much. Not for the ship but for the game.
The Ramilies approach is indeed best:
eg: port has 5 shields / 4 turrets, starboard has that, etc
(Like Andrew also said ;) )
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Well the stats I proposed earlier were more inline with a Blackstone or Hulk idea then a Ramilies. Something the size of the Ramilies is already well represented by the Ramilies or the monastery.
If this was to be represented with the Ramiles quadrant setup how would you do the fore and aft criticals as theyre so different from the port and starboard? What would the Basilica weapons look like? Would that be what you have listed as dorsal/ ventral?
I think it would end up looking something like:
Hulk/ 6 per quadrant. Speed/ 10. Turns/ Special (Hulk). Shields/ 4 per quadrant. Armor/ 5+. Turrets/ 4 per quadrant.
Fore quadrant:
Weapons batteries. Range/ 60cm. Firepower/ 10. Arc/ Front.
Lances. Range/ 60cm. Firepower/ 2. Arc/ Front
Torpedoes. Speed/ 30cm. Strength/ 12. Arc/ Front
Port/Starboard quadrant:
Weapons batteries. Range/ 60cm. Firepower/ 20. Arc/ Port/Starboard
Lances. Range/ 60cm. Firepower/ 4. Arc/ Port/Starboard
Launch Bays. Speed/ per craft. Strength/ 6. Arc/ -
Aft quadrant:
Weapons batteries. Range/ 60cm. Firepower/ 10. Arc/ Rear
Spine:
Lances. Range/ 60cm. Firepower/ 4. Arc/ All around
Launch Bays. Speed/ per craft. Strength/ 4. Arc/ -
Critical hits:
Fore/Port/Starboard
Just like the Ramilies
Aft
2-4 batteries at half strength
5 ship may not make any turns until damage is repaired
6 +1 damage
7 fire
8 +d3 damage hull breach
9 command tower struck -2 leadership
10 shields collapse
11 +d3 basilica (spine) penetrated
12 +d6 reactor struck + additional crit
Something like that anyway.
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Couldn't we do something with two quadrants? Guess that's a half technically :D
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I like it for the most part want to make a couple of changes
Hulk/ 8 per quadrant. Speed/ 10. Turns/ Special (Hulk). Shields/ 5 per quadrant. Armor/ 5+. Turrets/ 5 per quadrant.
I uped the HP, shields and turrets because we don't want it to be too easy to overwhelm 1 section and then gut the core. If its to easy then they wont be any more durable then a regular Battleship as a couple of cruiser squadrons could slag her in a single pass. One thing is for certain, this version is lot more fragile then the other version.
Also lets make the front Lances Front/Left/Right as they are really just the forward spinal laces
Couldn't we do something with two quadrants?
I think that might end up complicating things more then it might simplify.
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"Somewhere in the endless space between the stars a small crack deforms the walls of reality. There a raspy voice starts singing in a unnatural tone, wispering tzeentch-like suggestions."
Hi, ladies ... and boys. ;)
Every time I think of a "big ship" and try to make up rules for it, I start on something that has not been mentioned here.
The FAQ2010 Powers of Chaos document holds the Chaos Space Hulk... which is basically the Orc Space Hulk with "human weaponry".
It offers:
- a spacefaring unit at 650 points
- movement rules for a colossal thingy
- a hell of a punch
- ability to soak up fire from an entire enemy fleet
Possible stat changes:
- "Defender/40, Shields 3, Armor 4+" might feel wrong. Maybe "Battleship/20, Shields 5, Armor 6+/5+" seems more like it.
- If you don't want 8 launch bays, feel free to replace them accordingly.
- If you don't want port/starboard torpedo tubes, proceed as mentioned above.
But that's about all the changes I can think of, that seem necessary.
Generally on big ships:
"Turrets/6" is completely OK. Bombers will have a hard time to score any hits against that turret rating. And with lots of hits a ship can easily shake off sabotage criticals from Assault Boats.
Regarding the turret rating of the Ramilies: Remember that the 4 sections can "mass turrets". So if you hit one section it will have its turret rating +3. (According to original BFG rules) ;)
Have fun. 8)
"The rift in space closes as swift as it occured, silencing the odd voice. The only thing that remains to those who listened is a mental imprint, a feeling like a cold shiver running down a spine.
An imprint of... something... laughing."
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Remember the core or "spine" section cannot actually take damage so inorder to "gut the core" as you put it all four quadrants would need to be destroyed. The 4 shields/ turrets follow along with the base Ramilies and the hits are simply halved (or double standard battleship and quartered if you prefer) . This should prove plenty powerful given that it can move about and such as opposed to the Ramilies. The weapons load out is pretty strong already so I would be wary of allowing it to fire in more than on arc on anything except the dorsal.
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So what happens when the core takes hits before all the outer sections are destroyed?
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On turrets,
yes the ramilies may mass but vs the bomber run it is still D6-4.
So vs 6 turrets it is D6-6, so never an attack run!
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The core cannot take damage, it has no hits.
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So vs 6 turrets it is D6-6, so never an attack run!
not to sound stupid or so, maybe i missed something somewhere (update or whatever), but doesn't it say in the rules "the bombers roll a d6 minus the turret value (up to a minimum of one) to determine their number of rolls to hit"
so, IIRC "up to a minimum of one", or so... is that right?
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You made me d/l the rule pdf to look it up but I can't find a reference to a 'minimum of one'. Do you have a page number?
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yup, i'm wrong, just looked it up...
i am german, and as such have the german version of the rulebook, and there its written so complicated that if you don't look closely, you can easily overread a little part of it, changing the meaning from "it CAN drop to zero" to "it CAN'T drop to zero"....
wow, now i feel stupid. ::)
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You might also have been thinking of Ork fighter-bombers in the 2010 FAQ, although that's a D3 not a D6.
Ork fighta-Bommas and other attack craft that behave as both bombers and fighters apply this bonus by adding +1 attack for each marker in the wave after attacks are modified by turrets, meaning each ordnance marker that survives against turrets will be able to conduct at least one attack and will not have a minimum of zero attacks.
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You might also have been thinking of Ork fighter-bombers in the 2010 FAQ, although that's a D3 not a D6.Ork fighta-Bommas and other attack craft that behave as both bombers and fighters apply this bonus by adding +1 attack for each marker in the wave after attacks are modified by turrets, meaning each ordnance marker that survives against turrets will be able to conduct at least one attack and will not have a minimum of zero attacks.
might also be possible...
you know, it's not easy having one half of the rules in german and the other half in english and constantly having to swap between the languages, you can get confused pretty quickly that way ;D
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The core cannot take damage, it has no hits.
So the Core doesn't generate any kind of critical hit or catastrophic damage when shot at?
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You cant shoot at the core. The only way the core takes "damage" is if a crit is scored against one of the quadrants and rolls an 11 or 12
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yup, i'm wrong, just looked it up...
i am german, and as such have the german version of the rulebook, and there its written so complicated that if you don't look closely, you can easily overread a little part of it, changing the meaning from "it CAN drop to zero" to "it CAN'T drop to zero"....
wow, now i feel stupid. ::)
(I feel worse for replying in the wrong thread...)
No problem.
/
Kein problem
;)
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You cant shoot at the core. The only way the core takes "damage" is if a crit is scored against one of the quadrants and rolls an 11 or 12
What about boarding through a destroyed side? does that still work or no?
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Just a note that not every model is necessarily to scale with each other. Also, not all artwork is correct :) They're a nice to look at representation of something that's blown up from the size of a molecule.
So the take away is to not get too caught up with pulling out the rulers and calipers and doing math and instead have fun with designing something to play with.
Hell, if we should be building stats for anything it should be based on this=> http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=4039.msg30902#msg30902
:)
yeah the Virtus Imperator will perfectly fit in this category :P
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You cant shoot at the core. The only way the core takes "damage" is if a crit is scored against one of the quadrants and rolls an 11 or 12
What about boarding through a destroyed side? does that still work or no?
I would say no then, the rules for the Ramilies state that any destroyed quadrants are treeted as an asteroid field. Of course the Ramilies can only be boarded by a space hulk too.
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Ok so are there any other restriction, abilities or special rules you think we need?
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I think as these ship represent the top tear of warships in the Imperium they should be able to use all the special orders.
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If its battleship sized or larger i would remove ctnh but everything else should be fine.