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That said, this is something that washed up when the Rift opened, there's no guarantee all these ships are from the past or from this material plane.

Plus we're not talking navigational hazards as things you need to steer past - sublight speed is still very fast and ships turn poorly. Anything that makes you slow down from a full fusion burn from the edge of the system is a serious hazard and if most wrecks are dark, and there are that many of them, it'll take time to find a safe path through using minimal burns.

If you're talking about a distance of light minutes, you're not going to want to add many acceleration or deceleration steps. You probably won't crash and explode due to pilot error, but you might add weeks or months spent at low speeds, lit up like a Christmas tree in a place infested with pirates and rivals.

Not to mention the fact that then everyone knows exactly where you are when you stop at the properly dense bit to send shuttles in.

Imperial cruisers were originally 3km, but were retconned to 5km when the Rogue Trader RPG from FFG came out.

T

angryboy2k wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Enough random mooks heard about it that their wrecked ships form a solar system sized debris field, but not a single governing body of any faction knows about it. Amazing.

This "solar-system sized" debris field really showcases how hard it is for us puny humans to grasp just how big space is. To fill just 1% of the dsc-shaped, planar (flat) region between Earth and the moon, you'd need 226,822,798 Battlefleet Gothic battlecruisers (assuming 10km long by 2km wide by 2km tall).

If you wanted to fill 1% of 1% (one 10,000th) of the Earth-Sun planar area, you'd need 35,342,887,500 battlecruisers.

If you're looking at the VOLUME of space, the numbers are truly astronomical. To fill one 10,000th of the Earth-Moon system's volume, you'd be looking at over one trillion battlecruisers.

timd wrote:
Imperial cruisers were originally 3km, but were retconned to 5km when the Rogue Trader RPG from FFG came out.

Then you'd need even more of them...

Carlovonsexron wrote:
It's debris, not whole ships- I'd suppose that there is far more danger from relatively tiny pieces of debris that are still able to dage a ship if they strike it, like what happens in the sample chapter of the novel.

Could something like that may reduce the over all density of proper ships in the cloud while making it more dangerous?

I guess that discussing the danger of the size of the debris is difficult to do without understanding the role of spacecraft shields. Similarly for the navigation hazard such debris poses. All I'm suggesting is that for the debris cloud to actually present as a "cloud", we're talking about a phenomenally large number of spaceships - or pieces of spaceships, and in that respect the number of intact ships in the cloud isn't important if we're talking about average density. One ship of 10km x 2km x 2km occupies the same total volume of space if it's in 10,000 pieces or one piece.

Really, I'm just pointing out that space is really big and I feel the debris field is an example of how hard that is to understand. When we think about the asteroid belt, for example, we might be tempted to think of the scene in Empire Strikes Back with rocks flying about everywhere, but the actual asteroid belt is mostly empty. In fact, Our moon has 25 times more mass than all of the objects in the belt, and the average distance between asteroids is 100,000 miles. They don't really present a navigation hazard to space probes. Another good example is the Earth-Moon distance. Being geeks, we're probably all aware that the distance is about a quarter of a million miles. I don't know if we really conceive of that as being a distance in which you could drop THIRTY Earths.

Those are great points!

As far as void shields go tje article on lexicanum states they can't defemd against ships moving through them for boarding actions, so perhaps thats why a debris field is so dangerous.

In that case, a ship broken up into a million pieces zipping around in chunks large enough to cause damage as the the void shieds wont work is a pretty iffy prospect to fly into.

The debris might not all be ship parts either, right? The bulk of it can be the remains of a planet or moon destroyed by the fortress aeons ago.

Or even physical - old starship reactors with leaky shielding, ancient distress beacons or old automated defensive systems could all interfere with sensors or communication.

Come on, guys, just admit (to yourselves) that GW cannot do math and literal millions of vagabonds knowing about this priceless treasure for thousands of years while no major galactic power does is a silly plot hole and move on. There's no need to justify every single nonsense.

In this case its more fun to figure out how it might be right indeat of how woefully wrong (typically by being too small) GWs numbers are.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Come on, guys, just admit (to yourselves) that GW cannot do math and literal millions of vagabonds knowing about this priceless treasure for thousands of years while no major galactic power does is a silly plot hole and move on. There's no need to justify every single nonsense.

I don't care about the numbers; a million miles, a whole star system, irrelevant. I was just talking about how the debris field could affect shipping without necessarily being literally too dense for them to fit. Makes for a more interesting conversation, IMO, than "hur hur, these numbers don;'t make sense, aren't GW stupid!"

angryboy2k wrote:
However, I don't see how a flat disc of debris would represent a substantial navigational hazard unless it were impossible to somehow go around it. If it were a CLOUD of debris of roughly spherical shape, 1 million miles across, an average debris density of just 0.001% (one part in 100,000) would be the equivalent of 4,289,317,546,667 Battlefleet Gothic-type of battlecruisers. If the Blackstone Fortress has been attracting spacecraft since the end of the age of the dinosaurs (65 million years ago), it would have been bringing them in at the rate of 65,990 spaceships per year. That's 181 battlecruiser-equivalents every single day, for the last 65 million years.

Eh, one part in 100.000 would be ridiculously, pointlessly dense. Look up Kessler syndrome (which would apply here too), we're close to creating a deadly debris field several thousand kilometers across that will get progressively worse with collision cascades, and last time I checked we didn't built any battlecruisers yet. In fact, collision of just two battlecruisers might fill a vast area of space with bits of superdense armor, radioactive reactor fragments, live munitions, etc etc, all stuff you'd want to avoid if you were in a pretty, still functioning ship...

And I don't get they people say it would be hard to get close to BSF. This is actually one mission SM would be perfect for - park battle barge on the outskirts of the system, send in thunderhawks and smaller gunships in, there, done, no need to maneuver big ship in, you can do so stealthily, etc, and the game seems suited to SM kill team level better than what we got, anyway. Four humans gunning down endless waves of xenos and traitor guard? Not to mention CSM? That sounds more like a job for Astartes, not two ratlings, to me anyway.

I especially like how whole packs of ur-ghuls are just speedbumps for protagonists, when ADB had a single ghul decimate a whole DW kill team in his comical comic, in one of the greatest shows of jobbing this side of The Beast Arises

There's no Space Marines there because they've all got better things to do fighting Chaos in the rest of the galaxy. Look at the map in the rulebook; this place is way off the western edge of explored space - past Ultima Macharia which itself was off the edge of the star charts before Lord Solar Macharius undertook his crusade, and the Imperium didn't hold onto that anyway. This place is the far edge of nowhere, and the Imperium (in the person of Janus Draik) has only just heard of it. In fact, since Draik wants to loot it for his own benefit, he's almost certainly holding off on filing a full report with the Administratum - which will then take decades or more to filter through to someone who'll make a decision about it.

With how they made the fortress they could easily made up some Marine from Gummy Bear chapter that got his ship and chapter suck into the fortress, now he lost and wander until the other explorer found him, and he vow to find his lost comrade.

Chopstick wrote:
With how they made the fortress they could easily made up some Marine from Gummy Bear chapter that got his ship and chapter suck into the fortress, now he lost and wander until the other explorer found him, and he vow to find his lost comrade.

could still happen in an expansion

hey Dakka, i'm in desperate need of help;
google search is fething useless, i just scrolled through 35 pages of BOLS and 69 pages of this thread;
I am searching for plastic / 3d print hex tiles which looked PERFECT for blackstone fortress, I am absolutely sure having seen them pictured with the blackstone adventurers for scale;
its essentially 6 flat hexes and a center hex with a dark crystal kinda thingamabob about infantry height,

can you help me finding it?

You want to have a look at Dragon's Rest: https://dragons.rest/collections/all/products/trihex-citadel-core-set?fbclid=IwAR0qdDrQ48kJKs9A2ApJBhd35xmESNJAdcLOMZNiqFzVGVOYbtreXi1MEU8

The Blackstone fortress Facebook page has a guy that 3d prints stuff

 Motograter wrote:
The Blackstone fortress Facebook page has a guy that 3d prints stuff

Link?

Finally got my copy. Is it normal to only have 3 zip lock bags for storing characters?

The big black ones? I've got nine, plus the smaller one for storing Legacy cards. There were also three ordinary clear baggies in the bottom of the box for you to do with as you wish; I keep the tokens in mine.

I got 9 stasis chambers and several other clear bags

GW seems to have had a few issues with this one.

Is there a parts breakdown somewhere of everything we're supposed to get?

I need to check out my copy...

I know there’s a breakdown of the card decks and counts in the rules booklet. I don’t recall if that page has the rest of the components listed or not but it should.

The back of one of the books shows most, if not all, the counters. no quantities, but that doesn't matter - you'll either get a whole missing sheet or not (and they're usually labelled "Blackstone Fortress 1 of x"). I'm pretty sure it says you should get 8 "stasis chamber" bags and one Legacy bag; looks like they upped the Stasis Chambers to 9 since the Exploration cards don't fit in the Legacy bag like the rules tell you to do.

I was missing two of the 32mm bases with slot and hole for the Beastmen; I emailed about that and they sent out ... 2 40mm bases with two holes instead. I need to get back to them about that.

 endtransmission wrote:
You want to have a look at Dragon's Rest: https://dragons.rest/collections/all/products/trihex-citadel-core-set?fbclid=IwAR0qdDrQ48kJKs9A2ApJBhd35xmESNJAdcLOMZNiqFzVGVOYbtreXi1MEU8

That's amazing. I really, really love that.

My Initiative cards are in German!

Excellent. So educational as well as fun

Today's advent story is about the Ratling twins.

After a successful adventure in the Blackstone Fortress – and a desperate escape from a fearsome enemy – the ratling twins Raus and Rein return to Precipice to sell their hard-won spoils, leaving their drukhari foe for dead. But it's not that easy to kill a denizen of the Dark City… As they try to offload their haul in the markets of Precipice, the day quickly spirals out of control as their past catches up with them in more ways than one – can the twins possibly escape the enemies coming their way?

Written by Nick Kyme

Link: https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/advent-2018-13-mother-lode-eshort.html

 endtransmission wrote:
You want to have a look at Dragon's Rest: https://dragons.rest/collections/all/products/trihex-citadel-core-set?fbclid=IwAR0qdDrQ48kJKs9A2ApJBhd35xmESNJAdcLOMZNiqFzVGVOYbtreXi1MEU8

Oh my god, that's incredible. I so want to have it.

...and now I do . The files, anyways. It will take awhile to print that much ^^.

"But it's not that easy to kill a denizen of the Dark City…" So there are Delaques on Blackstone Fortress?

T

 BrookM wrote:
Today's advent story is about the Ratling twins.

After a successful adventure in the Blackstone Fortress – and a desperate escape from a fearsome enemy – the ratling twins Raus and Rein return to Precipice to sell their hard-won spoils, leaving their drukhari foe for dead. But it's not that easy to kill a denizen of the Dark City… As they try to offload their haul in the markets of Precipice, the day quickly spirals out of control as their past catches up with them in more ways than one – can the twins possibly escape the enemies coming their way?

Written by Nick Kyme

Link: https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/advent-2018-13-mother-lode-eshort.html

If you’ve been playing Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress and you’re already hungry for more, you won’t have to wait long – 2019 will see new models for this game of dark quests, and new expansions to boot. If you thought a Man of Iron was cool, you haven’t seen anything yet

Some new things coming.

Models, cooler than the Man of Iron? Sounds good!
Some expansions, plural, coming. Which is great to hear.