I've always loved ships. Mind you, this is a purely abstract affection. My father and grandfather were true mariners, but I've hardly ever ventured out on the water. I have however read innumerable ship books - I grew up with mostly books for company, and Ships and the Sea was one of my favorites, along with all the Hornblower books, and any part of Encyclopedia Britannica that included pictures of battleships.

I'm also pretty keen on space, space wargames and Warhammer 40K. So it is high time I got serious about Battle Fleet Gothic, of which I've played a grand total of two games.

I picked up a handful of figures when they were about to discontinue them and wish I'd bought more - they really exceeded my expectations. On the other hand, I do love scratch building and scrounging, so an out of print (for now) line is right in my wheelhouse.

I should also give credit to this blog for inspiration: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/638981.page
Along with some the really brilliant ships turning up in the Dakka Gallery recently.

So what am I going to do?

The Red Fleet, a Mechanicus/Imperial/Chaos fleet, depending on the add ons, because all of them can be red!





The Orks! Because, err, why not?



The Eldar - Because Sails in Space are AWESOME! Actually, I've decided that other factions will use some sails too, especially on commercial vessels.



The Tyrannids - because they are very easy to scratch build and sculpt! And Deep Space Life forms are AWESOME!



And lots of Scratch Built space stations, freighters, terrain etc, because I've always enjoyed the non military side of the setting.

First up, some Asteroids. Battle Fleet Gothic terrain offers some great possibilities and some serious challenges. I'm planning to do some seriously huge planets, a light up nebula, and some other things, but I started with something easy.

Some roofing nails, poker chips, and "lava rocks" aka "grill stones". Costs $5 a bag, which is pretty much a lifetime supply. Pick the ones with more "craters".



The pumice (?) is soft enough that you can simply grind into them with the nails then glue them. You don't need much of a base because, well, space is flat and has no hills or metal sidewalks, unlike the rest of 40K.



Paint black, drybrush grey, drybrush white to taste and voila!



I'm also a big fan of asteroid fortresses and ork Roks, so I'll be doing some of those in due course.

I really like BFG too, I was excited when I saw your thread title! If you get bored I have a bunch of BFG in my old threads, and I do hope to get back to them this year (the hope of all hobbyists...).

Red fleet looks good, and I really like your scratchbuilds! I picked up the Dropfleet Spacestation box set for further building myself - look forward to seeing more stuff from you

Your blog was one of my early inspirations for BFG years ago - especially the scratch builds! Although I'm less against the Ork Fish ships now that I have gotten stuck with some from the Forbidden stars game - they've grown on me a bit. I'm going to get some Sorllyian (sp?) frigates like yours - they will be prefect for the more Admech part of the Red Fleet. I plan to get Drop Fleet Commander too, certainly the box set, maybe the space stations as well. Love their stuff.

That's these guys:



They would also make great tau, so I'm a bit torn. They also seem to be out of stock almost everywhere - hopefully the new owners of Spartan Games will sort that out.

Here are some Eldar. Maybe Dark Eldar, maybe corsairs, maybe not, who knows with space elves?







Gotta work on my portholes - I'm using a pin rather than a brush now, that seems to help. I've filed off the point. I'm going to get some space prints to use as backdrops so I can get nicer pictures.




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I want to see about photoshopping out the bases too.

Whats the basis of the Eldar models?

Some generic space ships from EM4 Miniatures (the catamarans), and a splinter rifles. The sails are made from plasticard.

Thought so nifty idea

Love me some space Catamarans....

Here's a Chaos/Imperial Cruiser (in my thinking old chaos ships should still be around in imperial fleets, though not mutated).


I need to do more painting on it I can see.... ...needs more Portholes! Love me some little hopeful lights gleaming out into the void. They really convey scale and darkness to me.

Idea for later:

Dune Spaceships like this:




With Sails!

This makes me wanna unpack mine...

Dooo iiitttt! I bet a battle fleet gothic re-release is right around the corner. Think about it - successful computer game, models that your typical 3D designer could whip out in their sleep - no way we don't see it in a year or two at most. That way you'll have everything painted and ready to go. Of course, the new ships will be about a foot long, but you can use yours as escorts or say they are just really far away. : )

For continuity, some ships I've done in the past:

A hearty huzzah for Space Fleet models.

Both Ground Zero Games and Brigade Models have excellent ranges as well.

I used to have a massive collection, but I sold it when the game died. *sniff*

I do have leftovers, however...

That thing is a amazing! It will be a bit small when the foot long ships come out, but still cool!


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I am planning on getting these ships from Brigade for my ON(SF) ships:



I feel like they will need some detailing though. Still, I love the lunacy of flat top carriers....***IN SPACE****!!!!


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Although I suppose you can excuse it with a ship with its own artificial gravity.

And my current conversion efforts...

ON ships? I want some of the new merchant ships from Brigade myself, they would add some nice character to the fleet.
Feels good knowing my random junk helped inspire someone! I need to fire up the old blog again, but I need better photos before I can motivate myself to do that.

I too await a BFG re-release... Really should paint the pile I have before that...

Great idea re. your Eldar conversions by the way! I might have some actual escorts spare if you wanted some...

I think the Brigade merchants are pretty cool as well. I think what your blog showed me was that you could be creative, even at that small scale. Miniatures without scratch building and conversion doesn't do that much for me - one of the reasons I've never quite been able to really warm up to Warmachine.

Hell yeah BFG

Can't remember which one I was reading, but there was an excellent little narrative campaign that began with a BFG battle, moved on to a 40k boarding action and then battles on the planet's surface...

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Hell yeah BFG

Can't remember which one I was reading, but there was an excellent little narrative campaign that began with a BFG battle, moved on to a 40k boarding action and then battles on the planet's surface...

That was the subject of an entire free handout, back in the day, on how to combine the two.

Taros, my favorite GW written material of all time, had a pretty good integration with BFG, killteam, regular 40K, and epic.

The battleship Revenge (actually an imperial cruiser):



Underside:



I gave it wing and chin turrets because I thought it was undergunned.

Here is an earlier WIP showing how it can be possessed for chaos with a giant two headed daemon spewing out of the side:



Some more WIPs:



A scratch build - the Yatch Callipso - built by a planetary governor, she is reputed to be the fastest Imperial ship in the Argo Cluster. As large a light cruiser but consisting mostly of engines, sails, and luxury galleries, she has been a scout, inquisitional courier, and blockade runner in her long and checkered career.

Loving the Yacht

Thanks! I wish I'd made it a bit shorter.

I placed my first Brigade spaceships order - including this one:




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I'm thinking add a crescent to the front, some tiny pyramids, and viola, Necron ship!

Two notes to self:

Circuit boards might be great source of "tiny texture details".

I was looking at the UCM as tau. One thing I didn't like much was the "tail" pieces on them. I wonder if they could be rotated 90 degrees to go from something like this:



To more like this:

Man that yacht looks cool lovely idea. I really like the idea of a little more variety in Imperial vessels beyond the whole 'lets make a bigger one with more baroque arches).

Not that honking great ships with baroque arches are bad of course, but there's some kickass ideas I've seen for more variety. One that stands out is a pirate vessel equipped with archaeotech 'ethereal tethers' that latch on to another vessel and the pirate ship jumps to warp, tearing the hapless victim in half as the tethers drag sections of the ship into the warp with it.

The idea of a Chaos vessel with a colossal daemon spawn hanging off the side is brilliant too

Thanks! I like some variety in space ships too - if you look at the old days fluff, there were all sorts of ships. I have a planetary invasion ship in the works I think is a nice mix of ideas.

The tail wing sections are separate on the UCM ships, but they are fitted with tabs and slots to connect to the hull, so you would need to trim a bit. The good news is that the tail section has a choice of three upper halves (that attach to the lower half with the tabs), a hanger, a turret socket, and a smaller lighter wing. The extra parts would make the conversion easier, I think.

Good to know! I do love Drop zone stuff - they always seem to have the modeler in mind.

Here's the possession marker - sadly just a bad ink tie dye...



And here's how I'm make some bases - just trim the plasticard and fill with greenstuff.





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Ork Cruiser - Found the perfect bit to complete it - a random epic eldar weapon platform. Really wish I hadn't sold off my epic bits now! Or for that matter, wish I'd bought plastic epic stuff when I could.

I'm loving this blog so far! It's great seeing your conversions, kit bashes and scratch builds. Very impressive what you were able to turn a cocktail umbrella into.

The Yacht Callipso is just awesome, looks like a Jumpship right out of BattleTech

Nice stuff! Always good to see more spaceships.
Where is that base you used on the Ork cruiser from? I could do with a few of them myself.

Thanks folks!

I'd forgotten about the battle tech dropships - I always liked them.

The ork ship is a conversion from the Forbidden stars game, and the base is a forbidden stars base spray painted black (they come frosty white).

 kestral wrote:
Thanks folks!

I'd forgotten about the battle tech dropships - I always liked them....

What bits did you use for that Ork Cruiser, looks amazing!

It is mostly an ork killcruiser from the Forbidden stars game, but there is an epic scale eldar weapons platform glued under the prow, some greenstuff and bits of wire. Glad you like it! It is kind of small for regular gothic scale - would be an escort I think.

I've been thinking about my Tyranid fleet - one thing I want to do is have recognizable "Geniuses" , the way there are "Gaunts" of several types in a Tyranid ground army. I'd also like having some of my ships being "full grown" versions of smaller ones. The biology of the swarm is one of the neatest things about them to me. I have some new tyranid kits with left over bits, so at least a few new ships should be spawned soon. In the meantime, here's some of my old ones. Went with a dull, weathered green look - like they are pitted scared by dust and vacuum.






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I've included a little black and yellow detailing though, to tie them in with my ground 'nids.

Fantastic! It's really great to see some BFG love in here. Have you played any games with them recently? Or are you just amassing fleets at the moment?

Not recently, but I do hope to play soon -

The fleet has been reinforced with ships from Russia and India... : )



The first of the mighty wraith ships that will anchor my Eldar battle line:





Many thanks to Kid K for the models - the wraith ship is in my top ten most iconic GW models but I've never been able to get my hands on one before. I have a second that will probably be more heavily converted with some kind of prow weapon at least.

Torpedo squadron #1



I modeled them heeling over to make the squadron more dynamic.



Freighter. Can always use more of those. The cargo pods can be replaced with standard BFG modules, so it can serve as a light carrier or merchant auxiliary.



First Tau. Meh. I like the Brigade Indonesian fleet for my tau, but painting it is really hard. I don't just want to paint it like "Firewarrior in space", but making it look like a giant spacecraft in the cold dark is hard. My skills aren't well suited to improvsing detail at that scale. I went for tan base and blue windows, but I think that is too cheerful and may do light grey and black next time. Really the look I'm going for is the rebel alliance fleet feel.









Maybe I should try drawing on paneling.

Wraith Ship!

Nice! Loving the contrast between sail and hull colours.

For your Tau colour (if going SW:RA) have you tried using a Sepia wash over a light grey and then highlighting up with grey? With a more muted accent colour it could look good. Still I like the look of the ship, got a few British ships from brigade and was pretty pleased with them, do you have any more?

Like that wraith, contrasting sails is a good look.

Micron pen for some panelling may work on the Tau, if it looks fine enough. Then maybe some washes on select panels. Or scribing some panel lines with a pin or knife to accept a wash?

I never thought of scribing in panel lines - I'll give that a shot - thanks! I do have some brigade fighters - they are nice - and an American light cruiser I plan to convert into a Necron.

The paint job on that Wraithship came out real nice, the sails are a very nice touch too.

I have 2 of the old metal Shadowships myself, hopefully eventually get some of these Wraiths to join them.

Paintwise on your counts as Tau... Hm. I’ve seen ships with panel lines painted onto them before, depends how steady your hand is I’m inclined to agree with a grey base and sienna wash as an experiment say grey base, lighter dry brush AND panel lines then the wash. Try it on a random ship first so if you dislike it you don’t have to redo - it can be a junker instead!

I’ve PMed you back btw.

Your Star Wars rebel fleet looks great all in formation...did you see they are releasing a super star destroyer?!

Colors look great on that Wraith ship, especially like the effect on the sails.

Not my star wars fleet - should have clarified that!


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Thanks for the props folks! I do like the sail effect, though I don't feel I've gotten it to its highest possible level yet.

Picked up two chaos cruisers on Ebay. I actually find them among the least appealing BFG ships. I appreciate what they were trying to do with the idea of chaos ships being an older style of imperial, but they are too different and much of the model seems to be "filler", rather than functional looking bits or design elements like the superb imperial cruisers.

I'm going to take one of them and rework the bow to be more like the Idolator, and add drives to the stern - I think that will work. The other I'm going to build up the superstructure with lots of towers and such, making it more like a city in space with a tzneetch silver tower vibe. I think that will work as a one off.

I ordered what looked like a pile of EM4 ships on ebay - many of the designs are identical to theirs... But sadly they are three times the size. I forget that toy manufacturers often use the same models in different size due to the magic of the pantograph. Not much use in BFG, though they will provide some bits for a space hulk. I'll use them in 40k for junk and terrain, though one of them makes an OK personal speeder. So avoid these:

Is there any chance that you could measure the saucers please? May not be any use for BFG but they look like they could make passable Vree in ACTA.

43 mm across, or 1 5/8 inches if you prefer

Hmmm - I like chaos ships better when they are upside down. Is that wrong?

Well i mean breaking all the rules is what chaos is about, right?

Fair point.

Idea to save: There was a series of books that featured a giant space going tree with the leaves as sails. I think that would be a really cool project.


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Currently awaiting painting/assembly

2 Imperial Cruisers, one converted to a super freighter/carrier.
3 Imperial Destroyers
Brigade American light cruiser for conversion to Necron.
1 Gazzelle cargo ship.
1 Troopship.
2 Eldar Cruisers, 4 Escorts (from the Forbidden stars game)
1 Wraithship.
Some fighters.
1 Eldar Space station (needs more bits).
1 3-D print super freighter.
2 Chaos Cruisers.

The saucers and the semi-saucers might make bases for Tzeentch disks if you're so inclined....and the addition of a tail to the one in opposite corners could become a screamer of sorts......

You know, that is true! I love tzeentch discs, and I was collecting small saucers at point of various sorts to make them. That is perfect!

I'm going to try marking lines using a very small, flexible strait edge tacked in place. I just can't freehand strait enough.

How did I miss this blog for so long? (Especially since I got two shout outs!)

kestral wrote:Some generic space ships from EM4 Miniatures (the catamarans), and a splinter rifles. The sails are made from plasticard.

Great stuff, the ships are from Silent Death and are available in the US from

http://silent-death.mx/

http://silent-death.mx/store/plastic-ships-frame-s-12-plus-12-flight-stands/

Though I seem to recall EM4 was cheaper even with shipping.

youwashock wrote:A hearty huzzah for Space Fleet models.

The Space Fleet renaissance is upon us!

 kestral wrote:
43 mm across, or 1 5/8 inches if you prefer

Cheers for that mate.

For what it's worth I used a lot of the RINCO ships as well, you can see them starting here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/638981.page

Ah, so silent Death is EM4. Cool.

Table is done, playing tomorrow. In honesty though, I'm just making sure I fully gasp the good and bad about BFG before I write my own rules based on Starfire.








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I need to figure out the best lighting to take these shots:









Space marines. I'm going to do a bombard for them, and maybe another Gladius and Battle Barge from the Forbidden stars set.



Orks lurk in the Asteroid Field...











Fleet Action against the Tyranids:









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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
How did I miss this blog for so long? (Especially since I got two shout outs!)
leet renaissance is upon us!

Well deserved, love your stuff. I feel like a bit of a Fan Boy, now that I've copied your threads twice, but hey, I know what I like when I see it. I'm going to the get that spacefleet ship you commissioned from Vanguard shortly, along with their Dreadnaught and fleet train.

Beautiful fleets kestral! Even though, I've been following along, I didn't realize you had made so many ships. Let us know what you think of the BFG rules unless you think it will lead to arguments.

Thanks! I hadn't realized I'd accumulated so many ships either. Modelling is funny that way - kind of like life, keep it at it and good things will happen.

So as far as the relative merits of Battle Fleet Gothic Rules, here are my thoughts on why I feel the need to either tinker with it or do something new entirely...

The first issue is the scale Since I'm using Cruisers as Battleships, my escorts are kind of big relatively. It doesn't make sense to go from 1 hit escorts to 8 hit cruisers, when the cruisers are at most twice the volume. Last game we played escorts had more hits, (1-3) which worked OK, especially given the small number of ships.

The interaction of Armor/Shields/Torps are a little weird. Good armor makes torpedoes miss and keep going into the next ship? Armor protects your shields? It is a small matter really though.

The big thing is that given all the scratch builds, I need a system where you can build your own ships. Sure, I can make up stats and points. The problem with that is that you can never competively game in a system where you not only made the rules, you made the factions. It isn't really fair to other players. With build your own, people can make their own stuff, or at least ships are all playing by the same rules essentially.

Starfire is more granular, designed for build your own, and good for roleplaying and campaigns.

Still, last game was pretty fun, and it is hard to argue with battlefleet gothic as a neat experience.

Pics from the last game:











This was part of the Argo Cluster Campaign: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/524342.page

We're going to use Kill team to play out the final boarding action(s) this Sunday, so that is pretty cool.

Just had a flick through this plog, some really good ideas, nice to see other people still play.
Have you seen a copy of the smotherman formula? That was a sort of fan made build your own ships pdf. I forget how extensive it was

Fleets look great on the board with planets, asteroids etc.

Radu Lykan wrote:
Just had a flick through this plog, some really good ideas, nice to see other people still play.
Have you seen a copy of the smotherman formula? That was a sort of fan made build your own ships pdf. I forget how extensive it was

No I hadn't - I'll search that up at some point. I've been wondering about the board - maybe flat black might be better. But in some ways space isn't really dark, so maybe the gloss black I chose is better.

I painted up Iron Squadron, here escorting some Firestorm Cruisers....



https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/974161-Battlefleet%20Gothic%2C%20Firestorm%2C%20Space%20Fleet.html





And here are some scratch build small craft. This was an incredible pain in the ass I don't intend to repeat...

Very motivating. I need to break mine all out, and see what's left.

You absolutely should. The nice thing about BFG is that the painting is very satisfying and the number of figures not at all overwhelming.

Here's a couple of Russian ships:









I think at this point I have one more imperial cruiser, a couple of chaos crusiers, and a super freighter conversion to go. Hmm, and some eldar. Then I can start on the Tau Fleet!

I like the Russian ships, I have that transport. Adding the windows is a nice touch and makes it feel more alive.

kestrel,

If I still had mine I would send them to you. But they are all gone now...traded or given away.

You definitely have the board to play larger games.

Cheers,

CB

Lovely stuff. It's great to see some appreciation for BFG, and amongst the re-releases of old games that GW are churning through it's the one that I really hope they get to.

And now I want to get my plague fleet out of the box and put it on display somewhere...

I love plague fleet - you should totally do it.

Had to do a bunch of walking today, which led to thinking. I think I'll do a Tyranid fleet train consisting of photosynethic tyranid voidsailors who harvest solar energy for the swarm and process biomass, then vomit it out for other ships like a mommy bird. I'd use the leaves from classic jungle trees, of which I have a pile kicking around, painted fleshy.

I'm going to be updating this thread with my Tau Fleet, now that materials are in hand and the Return to Taros campaign is heating up.

I pledged for this - at my scale, it is basically a mobile shipyard, which is great.




Here is the Zero Hour website, with some possibilities, especially in the space station range.

http://0-hr.com/Shop/index.htm

Nice, looking forward to seeing where you go with these. Have seen them for sale on minimarket (I think) and have considered them so this should be good!

I am so jonesing for some BFG right now, literally spent the drive into work blasting music and reminiscing about locking onto Imperial lapdogs So it's been good going back through this thread and appreciate your own tiny grimdark ships

Smart use of the trees as (I'm guessing) void sails or ship fronts or what not. I once used them for Jakara power fields in Necromunda, weirdly versatile bits

Wow! Really made those EM4 ships look great, nice work.

 kestral wrote:
I'm going to be updating this thread with my Tau Fleet, now that materials are in hand and the Return to Taros campaign is heating up.

I pledged for this - at my scale, it is basically a mobile shipyard, which is great.




Here is the Zero Hour website, with some possibilities, especially in the space station range.

http://0-hr.com/Shop/index.htm

Why must you tempt me so?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Why must you tempt me so?

...and right before he has to move...

The ship is only $11 shipped to the USA in 3 months... just saying. Only 3" long.

It does fit my love of buildings in space type ships but I'll wait for retail.

THere should be a Resistance DFC Fleet waiting for me when I arrive.

I'll be interested in how the resistance fleet builds. I have some thoughts on DFC used in BFG, which I'll share at some point. In the meantime, here is a Tau scout/survey/surveillance escort. Made from a stealth drone, she looks atmosphere capable and would be great for peacetime exploration... ...or eavesdropping. I'm working on a sort of Tau Scratch fleet - ships that would serve as targets/emergency combatants during the imperial surprise attack on Taros. Some agricultural ships too, I think.

I tried drawing on some panels with mixed results. I actually worked on a bit more after this and toned down the lines.

Kif Hakkit 1 class cruiser. The Tau were forced to rely on Kif mercenaries far more than they would have preferred during the second Taros War, particularly after reverses in space.

Although lower in tech than Imperial or Tau, Kif ships possessed a number of unusual features.

A massive, featureless upper armor expanse gave it a significant blind spot, however this armor protected its critical sections extremely well, as well as the Kif Hakkit (Warlord)'s personal safety, his primary concern. Additionally, Hakkit type ships typically mounted a massive spinal weapon well suited to long range sniping - the Kif's preferred mode of combat. Hakkits were, overall, lightly armed, however they had good speed and maneuverability, as well as considerable cargo and troop transport capability, as befits their role as a warlord's personal transport and raider. Kiff did not operate escorts in the usual sense in most cases, since such ships would enable a Kiff captain to flee their Hakkit the moment things got rough. Instead they carried Riderships - escort firepower, but lacking the ability survive away from their parent for more than short time, thus ensuring their loyalty. They were also fitted with suicide bombs under the Hakkit's control which gave them a useful secondary role as fireships.





Riderships Deployed.



In other news, it appears that Contrast works very well directly over the offwhite plastic used by Hawk Wargames. So you can even skip the priming step!

Hakkit is painted. The Kiff put camo on everything, lacking any kind of aesthetic sense, on the off chance it might help. I'm not sure I shouldn't have done jagged dazzle, but I'll probably save that for an imperial spacecraft.



Looking at the picture, the camo might benefit from black lining drawn on with a marker. Here are some.... ....cargo drones? Left over bits from some piece of mounting hardware iirc.

And the start of the mighty Tau Station "Dawnwater's Edge". Needs Bits and Paint!