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Battle Fleet Gothic: Or How I Learned to Stop Hating and Love the Space Squig!
Wulf
Disciple of TzeentchThe Void... (New Jersey)Registered User regular
Disciple of TzeentchThe Void... (New Jersey)Registered User regular
Well well well, so Battle Fleet Gothic (Henceforth referred to as BFG) is a specialty game from the people at Games-Workshop It involves ships in space ranging from small scale scout skirmishes to large scale all out fleet wars.
But What does that mean?
The official website has this to say about BFG.
In other words, BFG is a ship to ship combat tabletop game based around the races of the Warhammer 40k universe.Battlefleet Gothic is the game of spaceship combat set during the Gothic War in the 41st millennium - a grim time when the Imperium of Mankind battles for survival in a hostile galaxy. Battlefleet Gothic allows you to command fleets of warships in deadly conflict among the stars, through whether as Mankind's saviour or its destroyer remains to be seen.
Races, you mean there are more than Space Marines!?
Certainly!
However, its more accurate to say Fleets, as humanity has several different fleets
The Imperial Fleet
The Space Marine FleetThe Imperium of Mankind is the binding force which keeps the mass of humanity tied together across the vast space of the galaxy in the 41st millenniium. The Imperial Navy consists of mighty Battleships, powerful Capital Ships and sleek Escorts which can be rushed to any areas of conflict should the threat of alien incursion or insurrection arise.
The Chaos FleetThe fleets of the Adeptus Astartes excel at rapid assault and planetary invasion. Space Marines are among the most feared fighting forces in the galaxy. Their fleets are designed to transport these deadly warriors into the depths of battle. The massive Battle Barges can deploy up to three companies of Space Marines at once while decimating the opposition with their terrifying bombardment cannons.
The Ork Fleet"Like the great storm of the Heresy, the forces of the True Gods will descend upon the False Emperor's minions. The stars will tremble at their passage, the mighty armadas of the Warmasters will bring annihilation to a hundred worlds. Great shall be the slaughter, most pleasing shall be the flow of blood. The fools who follow the Usurper Emperor will be brought low, forced to their knees amidst the corpses of their families and friends. The thrice-cursed one shall become as a living god, the power to destroy the Weakling Emperor shall be within his grasp. Know this, for these things will come to pass and the galaxy itself will be the spoils of victory." - Constanze the Prophetess, burned as a Heretic 6875356.M38.
The Eldar FleetOrks are not the greatest space-faring race in the galaxy. Their ships are often ill-kempt, unreliable rust buckets kept in operation only by the constant efforts of Ork Mekboyz and their Gretchin slaves. They make great use of salvaged hulks and their largest vessels are often refitted space hulks that providentially drift out of the warp near one of their worlds. Ork pirate attacks are brutally direct, with their ships rushing headlong towards their target, guns firing wildly as they come. Unfortunately Ork ships are exceedingly heavily armed for their size, so this tactic is harder to defeat than might be imagined.
The Eldar race is an ancient one and their ships are amongst the most sophisticated in the galaxy. In addition, the captains and crews of the ships are arguably the best trained and most naturally able spacefarers of any race. Eldar ships move by capturing stellar energy through their sails and using this to power their movement... their ships are graceful and extremely maneuverable, allowing them to dart in an launch an attack and then pull back before their slower moving enemies have a chance to react. Eldar ships are protected by holofields which distort targeting sensors and make them very hard to hit, rather than offering any physical protection. However, attacks that do strike home tend to cause considerable damage to their sophisticated but fragile vessels.
The Craftworld Eldar Fleet
...They are not even akin to vast cities, as some of the large star forts of the Imperium are considered, but rather are immense spacefaring worlds accompanied by vast armadas, the likes of which might otherwise be set aside to defend an entire system. Whole battlefleets cluster around key points on the thousands of miles of the craftworld's exterior as smaller, nimbler craft rush across its surface in a constant shimmering patrol.
The Dark Eldar Fleet
...Of particular concern were the so-called Dark Eldar Raiders lead by the murderous fiend, Dread Archon Karkass Raquib. The speed and firepower of the raiders was incredible but even more so, their ability to sneak up on even the most heavily escorted convoys and cut out a prize or destroy an escort before any surveyor had detected a threat.
The Tau Fleet
The Tau Empire has only expanded into space during the last thousand years. Despite this they have made remarkable progress in developing both civilian and military starships, and have now reached a level where their ships can be compared to Imperial design.
The Tyranid Fleet
The Tyranids are a race of super-predators. These intergalactic organisms are united by a controlling hive mind that directs the actions of every Tyranid creature. The Tyranids do not build starships like other races. Instead, they travel between stars in massive living vessels that are easily a match for any artificial fleet.
The Necron Fleet
...reports were made of strange space craft encountered on the edge of newly discovered systems, which appeared derelict at first but when approached became active. More often than not all that remained of the Imperial craft which encountered these strange ships was the scattered wreckage of the destroyed ships, and the only clues to the nature of the enemy were garbled distress messages speaking of alien ships using weapons of quite terrifying effectiveness. Whenever such incidents were investigated, nothing could be found of the perpetuators...
and the newest addition to the fight,
The Adeptus Mechanicus Fleet
...the Adeptus Mechanicus have at their disposal a large fleet of starships. Because the Quest for Knowledge can involve long, ardurous forays into unexplored space, it is important that they be heavily armed and armored. This is not only for their own protection from thise who covet their technology but to engage in combat when necessary to secure vital data or artefacts that may prove cruical to the Quest.
Great! But what types of ships can you get?
Lets start off from the bottom and work our way up!
Escorts
Escorts are the most common warships in any fleet. They are fast, lightly armed and capable of running rings around heavier ships, which they accompany to protect them against torpedo attacks and to fight off enemy escorts. They are also used for independent actions such as scouting, raiding, low-level patrols, protecting convoys and chasing pirates.
Cruisers
Cruisers are the workhorses of any fleet. They are manoeuvrable, well-armed ships, capable of operating away from a base for extended periods. This means that cruisers are used to extended patrols, blockades and raiding deep into enemy held space. In a major battle, cruisers screen the approach of the fleet in support of the escorts and form the gun line once battle begins.
and finally the 5 ton gorillas of the battle fleet
Battleships
Battleships arethe largest fighting ships in space. They can absorb a tremendous amount of damage and mount weapons batteries capable of laying waste to entire continents. These vessels are so huge that they are comparatively slow and ponderous to manoeuvre, so they need support from other vessels to bring the enemy to battle.
What about the Rules Wulf? Do I have to buy a whole bunch of books for this?
Hell no you don't! Games-Workshop put all the rules and errata and fiddly-bits online in PDF form just for people like you and I. You can get them all from here!
All of these ships are available from the links that are sported in their names should you want to join in on the fleet action! While it is true that I just recently got into the game myself, I have seen several other folks talking about their fleets and figured, hey why not!
Everyone needs a little Chaos!
Wulf on
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Also, the general consensus at my club is that Eldar are made of Cheese.
I've only played two or three times, and I got kinda spanked due to my lack of list options and I was playing against someone who was fairly experienced. As well, unfortunately, there are a few rules that were added in fanatic magazines that were never put in the BFG annual or the FAQ/Errata. If anyone can get ahold of a digital copy of those and put 'em up that'd be sweet (I will if I can, and I think some of them might be available if you sniff around in the specialist-games forums).
The ships sizes generally depends. A big 12 hit cruiser like the Space Marine battle barge above can be from 6-8" long or so. You can even get ships like CraftWorlds and Space Hulks, though, and those are pretty huge, of course.
Depends. Different scenarios use different sized lists than others. To get about 2000 points though I'd say it costs about ... hell I dunno, half as much as 40K or so? Though it depends on the specifics of how you want to build your fleet, of course, like any other miniatures game.
Anyone know a good site our resource for a description of all the different factions in terms of table top abilities instead of fluff? Like, I'm assuming Eldar have the fastest ships, but who has the ones with the biggest guns? That kinda thing.
The minis cost about the same as any other GW game, but you will be buying a lot less to construct a fleet. Really, you can do a 1000-pt fleet with four boxes: a battleship, two cruisers, and some escorts. That's about $100. And the models look FANTASTIC. You look at pics Chaos ships, for instance, and go, wow those look cool! But when you actually have one in hand and can turn it around physically in your hand, you will be amazed. Plus, the ships are IMMENSELY easy to paint for noobs while still having plenty of detail with which an experienced modeler can take advantage and make some real works of art.
It's also got squats!
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Hopefully Wulf will put this in his reserved post, but I'll try and break it down as best I can:
Imperial Navy: Very well armoured ships, average to above average leadership. Their ships are mediocre as far as speed is concerned, but they have a ton of mid-ranged firepower, and a few guns here and there that can lob doom across the table, as well. And if you really want, they can definately flood the board with torpedos.
Space Marines: Their ships are faster than average, and have ridiculously high armor on every facing. Generally mid-ranged weapons, though the guns they do have are hella powerful. They have Thunderhawk squadrons instead of fighters/bombers, who have the ability to stay in a fight much longer than regular ordnance (ordnance being fighters/bombers/torpedos). Also: Space marines are amazing at boarding actions, and they have a special table that they roll on for leadership values, which means they're pretty much ALWAYS going to be making their leadership checks for special orders.
Chaos: Their ships are less armored than their Imperial counterparts (having, generally, a 5 armor all around for their capital ships), but are much faster, and have extremely long-range weapons. Chaos also gets a bonus to their boarding values, though not quite as much as the Space Marines. They can also get cool shit like Daemonships. Also: you can upgrade your ships to be crewed by Chaos Space Marines, making them fuckawesome.
Orks: We have shitty leadership, slow ships, and no long range firepower what to speak of. But we automatically pass leadership tests to shoot our ships straight towards you (All Ahead Full! Waaagh!), and we can take so many friggin' cruisers with good armor values that you won't know what the hell hit you. Also, we have escorts that are specially designed to do nothing but ram stuff. And we can take Space Hulks, and a variety of looted Imperial vessels (properly orkified, of course). Orks are beyond a doubt the coolest fleet in Gothic, and I am totally not biased.
Eldar/Craftworld Eldar: They play in BFG a lot more like their fluff would indicate they would fight. They can move in the movement and in the ordnance phase, they have gay shields that gives them, essentially, an invulnerable save against any kind of shooting except gun batteries, and they have awesome fighters. They also have a shitload of lances that have the ability to hit multiple times per shot. Downside? They're flimsy as hell, poor armor, and each time they're hit, they take a critical on a 4+ instead of a 6+. If they get hit, that is.
Dark Eldar: Slightly less fast than the Eldar (they only move in the movement phase, oh noes!), but with better shields, armour, and you probably won't be able to shoot them in the first turn because of their mimic engines. Also: They are fuckawesome at boarding actions, and their guns are fucking brutal. Oh and you're literally a Space Pirate when you play Dark Eldar.
Tau: They have lots of guns. Durr. They have a bunch of stuff to help them re-roll shots and inrease their armor values, as well as having a shitton of turrets. They can't use teleport hit and run attacks, and they suck ass in boarding actions. Plus they have bad-ass guided torpedos that can move faster or slower than other torpedos, and turn and shit.
Tyranids: Dear God they will eat your ships alive I'm not even kidding oh my god shoot them what the hell they're eating through the hull jesus christ fucking run arehagndal;dikngaoisgnao;sdhflsdifjsadljf. Okay seriously. They're like regular 40K: they will run across the table, suffering horrible casualties, and when they get to you, they will literally attach to your ships and eat their way through them. They have absolutely horrendous boarding actions. Cool thing is though, that each time one of your capital ships is boarded by the tyranids, you can self-destruct the ship to try and kill s'more gribblies. It's pretty awesome.
Necrons: Ridiculously hard to kill, awesome firepower, expensive ships. They get some cool rules for their gauss weapons, and a 4+ save on their capital ships against any kind of hit infilicted on them, instead of regular shields. They're also pretty damn maneuverable, but are vulnerable to boarding actions.
Mechanicus: They basically have Mechanicus-specific versions of other Imperial vessels, with cool re-fits that they roll for before the battle that can give them certain advantages. They also get lots and lots of turrets and lances. Not sure what else to say about 'em, except that they suck when they get boarded. Really really suck.
Now, that's what I call cold fusion.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
From reading that, Dark Eldar actually sound really awesome, which is crazy, cause I really don't like them in 40k all that much.
Of course, my other impression is that the Craftworld list is actually supposed to represent Iyanden post-attack, hence the ghost ships?
Thoughts of a Part-Time Hobbyist - A Wargaming and RPG Blog
I think if I wanted to get into Warhammer, this is probably where I'd try to do it. >>
Barracudas and Manta's are far more interesting looking then those cruisers.
As for the Tau, try Forgeworld. They produced a much better fleet. One that looks like the Manta in style.
I knew people who would do something similar. The outcome of one game would affect another. So, if the invading ork army did well in the BFG game, they'd have some bonus squads during the 40k battle. Though, your way sounds cool too.
They actually did this. They published rules for BFG, Epic and 40k campaigns connecting in White Dwarf soon after Battlefleet's release.
I just have no idea what scale the things I need to build are. =\
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Shit, that's awesome.
A typical cruiser, 4" long, is 6-8 hits. A typical 6" cruiser is 10-12 hits. Planet Killer has 14 hits.
A Space Hulk has 40 hits.
Laaaame. It should be at least twice that, dammit.
Well, in BFG, models do not represent ships. Ships are said only to occupy the area occupied by the stem on the flying base that holds the model up. Measurements for firing are made from 'stem to stem', and the bases are simply a way to determine how close something like nova cannons, torpedoes, or bombers need to get to affect a ship with their weapons (or the resulting thermonuclear explosions, from the weapons).
Damn you Babylon 5....STRACZYNSKI!
And, of all things, cheaper, apparently.
Because I like showing it off, here's my finished Necron BFG fleet. Unfortunately, the flash wiped out most of the details, because I painted the whole thing in shades of gun metal, gloss aluminum, and metallic black. (They are Necrons after all)
Going off of memory, the smallest ships are one inch across. The elongated cruisers are about five inches long,
But... it's awesome...
Dammit.
Thoughts of a Part-Time Hobbyist - A Wargaming and RPG Blog