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I'm looking for the actual dimensions (feet, meters, etc.) of Tyranid ships from BFG. Specifically I'm looking for the size of a Vanguard Drone Ship.

Looking though some of the reference material didn't give me any useful size reference, so I thought I'd ask BFG players and Tyranid-lore enthusiasts if they could point me in the right direction or at least give me a good 'educated guess' on the actual sizes of these ships.

Thanks ahead of time!

BFG is not to any set scale. There have been attmepts to set a scale to BFG ships but that only concerns Imperial ships and is not confirmed canon anywhere.

The artwork gives us nothing to go by, especially when we compare the comic in the BFG set to the box lid artwork.

Damn elusive size references! Thanks for the reply, Orlanth.

Well, if you take a look here you can see some interesting ship comparisons. For BFG, they have the Cobra destroyer and the Retribution battleship: http://www.merzo.net/

Now, the size figures there are somewhat in dispute, as they assume two things that are controversial (in that they have never been officialy confirmed or denied by GW to the best of my knowledge):

1. The IN models for BFG are in scale with each other (there is some that make the argument that the escorts should actually be smaller with respect to the cruisers and battleships).

2. The scale of the minis is 1:40,000, or roughly one inch = 1,000 meters. Thus, a 1.5 inch Cobra becomes 1,500 meters.

Now, I must admit I've never seen a Vanguard Drone Ship model in person, but given that they are an escort it is probably safe to assume that they are in the same league size-wise as the other escorts in the game. So, if we make assumptions 1 & 2 above, that would place the Drone Ship at around 1,500 - 2,000 meters, or about the size of the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars. Go Go Huge Grimdark Space Bugs!

Thanks for the info, Ruckdog! Could you let me know where the 1:40000 scale is noted. Thanks!

Honestly, I can't remember where I first heard about that. It might have been on the Specialist Games forum back when GW was still hosting it, or on Port Maw. Like I said, AFAIK this scale has never been confirmed or denied. So, it is kind of in the status of urban legend, hence the controversy. Still, that scale seems to be used somewhat consistently (at least where the Imperial Navy is concerned) when the IN comes up in novels, codicies, and the like. There are a few examples where this isn't true; the Rogue Trader RPG book, for example, has dimensions for the Lunar class cruiser 5 km. The mini is 3.5", which would otherwise yield a size of 3.5 km instead. So, that is about a 35-40% difference, but still in the ballpark IMO.

Long story short, there is no definitive source I can point you to, other than to say that 1"=1 km is a good rule of thumb that seems to get a figure that is a decent approximation as any for the overall scale of the ships in the game. YMMV, though!

Here is the only identifiable scale reference for any BFG vessel, and this is one piece of artwork without and further corroborating reference. Thus BFG artistic scaling should be taken with as much of a grain of salt as a Titan art.



The Imperial transports used are broadly idenitfiable with the figure scale. in a way so could the Iconoclast but dstance is hard to judge. Now all you need to do is judge the formation size marching down rthe4 ramp to determine the ramp width and from there the size of the panel.


@Ruckdog A Cobra is not one and a half inches long.

Besides 1500 metres is Star Destroyer size, I would count an Imperial cruiser as roughly equivalent in size to a Star Destroyer but not an escort.

You're right, I checked and a cobra is actually 1.25" long. Sorry, I was going from memory on that one. Been a while since I've had my BFG stuff on the table

And, there are other references than that novel cover, depending on what you are willing to accept. For example, the aforementioned RPG source books, also there was the comic that came in the box set that showed some of the characters from the Execution Hour novel on the bridge of the Macharius. Those should also be taken into consideration. One problem with space ships in 40k is that often the artwork depicts ships that look nothing like or only vaugely similar to the BFG minis (such as the Gaunts Ghosts cover). This makes scale determinations more difficult, but I still think the 1"=1000m thumbrule is a good one for approximating the rough size of ships in the BFG range.

I'd say that you'd have trouble finding specific details because Tyranids evolve quickly as a part of their nature... different instances of similar ships probably differ greatly, and the size would probably have a lot to do with how successful the hive has been and how much organic material it has to spare.