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What is the size of Emperor class Battleship?
In addition to that what is the size of Tyranid Hive Fleet main hive ship?

The BFG mailing list consensus was approximately 6km length for Imperial battleships. Andy Chambers (designer of BFG) used to be on this mailing list.

The size is also consistent with that of a Retribution class battleship, as given in the BL book Dark Disciple.

Admiral Rutger Augustine look out over the vast length of his flagship vessel, the mighty Retribution-class battleship, Hammer of Righteousness...Six kilometres from stern to prow...

p. 31, Dark Disciple

Crew complement given by:

http://www.wolfedengames.com/battlefleetgothic/crew.htm

From Andy Chambers' post to the mailing list, this scale of 1500-2000 crew per damage point yields a crew size of 18,000-24,000.

6km only? 0_0
By the way everything is big in 40k I imagined that they are at least 20km long.

Brother Coa wrote:6km only? 0_0
By the way everything is big in 40k I imagined that they are at least 20km long.

What do you mean by "only"?

A 6km long mobile warship is anything but small. A warship is different from a mass conveyer. Transports can be basically empty boxes with engines attached. Warships have to be armored, with redundant systems.

There is a fine line between big and getting ludicrous, like people claiming Warlords are the size of mountains based on some inaccurate artwork.

Also larger sizes start becoming inconsistent in interactions with that of the other races. Eldar ships, damage point for damage point, can fight as well as Imperial boarding parties, yet we never hear of Eldar ships being a huge flying ghetto crawling with Eldar in every space. Yet we know also from 40K that Eldar are not THAT much better than humans so it creates disbelief that an Eldar corsair could fight off many times his own numbers (especially now that we have Eldar corsair stats from Forgeworld's IA11).

Keep in mind a Star Destroyer from Star Wars is 1/6 that length. It's pretty damn big.

Iracundus wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:6km only? 0_0
By the way everything is big in 40k I imagined that they are at least 20km long.

What do you mean by "only"?

A 6km long mobile warship is anything but small. A warship is different from a mass conveyer. Transports can be basically empty boxes with engines attached. Warships have to be armored, with redundant systems.

There is a fine line between big and getting ludicrous, like people claiming Warlords are the size of mountains based on some inaccurate artwork.

Also larger sizes start becoming inconsistent in interactions with that of the other races. Eldar ships, damage point for damage point, can fight as well as Imperial boarding parties, yet we never hear of Eldar ships being a huge flying ghetto crawling with Eldar in every space. Yet we know also from 40K that Eldar are not THAT much better than humans so it creates disbelief that an Eldar corsair could fight off many times his own numbers (especially now that we have Eldar corsair stats from Forgeworld's IA11).

The Eldar do have superior reflexes compared to humans and I imagine that Shurikan fire in close confines would not be a pleasent experience.

And the boarding parties probably consist of strike teams of Striking Scorpians and Fire Dragons. At close quarters those guys will probably be ablee to make up for their lack of numbers compared to a human crew.

Considering that only Space Marines and Dark Eldar get any bonuses when boarding I think the difference between Eldar and Humans is definitly too minute to show up in the game.

Grey Templar wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:6km only? 0_0
By the way everything is big in 40k I imagined that they are at least 20km long.

What do you mean by "only"?

A 6km long mobile warship is anything but small. A warship is different from a mass conveyer. Transports can be basically empty boxes with engines attached. Warships have to be armored, with redundant systems.

There is a fine line between big and getting ludicrous, like people claiming Warlords are the size of mountains based on some inaccurate artwork.

Also larger sizes start becoming inconsistent in interactions with that of the other races. Eldar ships, damage point for damage point, can fight as well as Imperial boarding parties, yet we never hear of Eldar ships being a huge flying ghetto crawling with Eldar in every space. Yet we know also from 40K that Eldar are not THAT much better than humans so it creates disbelief that an Eldar corsair could fight off many times his own numbers (especially now that we have Eldar corsair stats from Forgeworld's IA11).

The Eldar do have superior reflexes compared to humans and I imagine that Shurikan fire in close confines would not be a pleasent experience.

And the boarding parties probably consist of strike teams of Striking Scorpians and Fire Dragons. At close quarters those guys will probably be ablee to make up for their lack of numbers compared to a human crew.

Considering that only Space Marines and Dark Eldar get any bonuses when boarding I think the difference between Eldar and Humans is definitly too minute to show up in the game.

Actually you are incorrect on the bonuses. Eldar Aspect Warriors get bonuses.

I was talking about Eldar Corsairs, which fight equally damage point for damage point. As seen from FW IA11, they are basically Eldar Guardians, armed with lasblasters and with some shuriken weaponry mixed in. They may be better than your average Guardsman in terms of equipment and reflexes, but they are not THAT superior that Corsairs defeating that many times their own number is believable.

Are these accounts against Merchent vessels or proper Imperial Navy ships?

All in your source. Ship size like everything in 40k has never been consistent that I can find. I use the FFG sizes myself as I am an RPG player first. If that is the case I think somewhere between 8-9km have been mentioned.

Know No Fear described several warships, which were depicted as some of the mightiest in the entire system, as being over 20km long, so for the largest class of warship in the current era to be only 6km does seem a bit...odd.

Valkyrie wrote:Know No Fear described several warships, which were depicted as some of the mightiest in the entire system, as being over 20km long, so for the largest class of warship in the current era to be only 6km does seem a bit...odd.

I do not know the book, but GW being inconsistent. Imagine that . Both RT and DH RPG's do have ships approaching that size, the Universe mass convoy is like 12 km long and a cargo ship. There is another in the radical handbook I believe that is 16km long. So older ships being larger then the emperor is not imposable.

I can't remember where i got this. probly found it on Google images.
Hope it helps.


according to this. a Imperial Navy Frigate (40k) is 1300 meters (give or take) with a Imperial Star Destroyer (Star Wars) is 1600m. only 300 meter differnt for vastly different ship class (Frigate vs Capital ship)

the largest ship is the Super Star Destroyer, but i know for a fact that the Battleships of 40k are by far more numerous.

The BFG color images in that size chart were made by a member of the BFG list per the BFG list consensus:. Some of those numbers also seem slightly off, such as the Dictator class which should be 3km, and the picture for the "Inquisition blackship" is actually that of a Repulsive class grand cruiser which is larger than a cruiser.

The original scale is on his DeviantArt page:

http://the-first-magelord.deviantart.com/gallery/8686311#/d1cy8r5

This scale is actually remarkably consistent in GW and BL publications by multiple authors over multiple years. In Shadow Point, an average Dictator class cruiser is given a crew size, though it is unclear if attack craft crew are included:

Now, six years later, he was one of the most senior non-commissioned officers amongst a crew of almost thirteen thousand...
p. 62, Shadow Point , by Gordon Rennie

The size of a Retribution as already mentioned is in Dark Disciple:

Admiral Rutger Augustine look out over the vast length of his flagship vessel, the mighty Retribution-class battleship, Hammer of Righteousness...Six kilometres from stern to prow...
p. 31, Dark Disciple

The relatively recent Soul Hunter describes a crew for a grand cruiser, which is larger than a cruiser, more in keeping with Andy Chambers' scale:

Over 25,000 crew called the warship home, even though a sizable chunk of those were slave labourers and servitor wretches...
p. 95-96, Soul Hunter

As shown by these quotes, the scale has been remarkably consistent over many years of BL publications. It wasn't until FFG came along that then people started trying to inflate the size for no apparent reason. It smacks of "It's 40K so things have to be stupidly big...just because". No different really from those that insist Warlord Titans are as tall as mountain ranges based on exaggerated artwork.