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I know it sounds like a BFG question but that's not what I'm going for. I am, however, building a fleet but Im simply asking what would be lore acceptable to use? I'm obviously not getting 12 flagships but maybe 3-5 and I'm really just wondering what sorts of ships the flew? I'm pretty sure it's said in a book in the space wolf series but I can't seem to put my finger on it.

Isn't it mentioned somewhere that SW fleet can beat Segmentum Battlefleet?

Brother Coa wrote:Isn't it mentioned somewhere that SW fleet can beat Segmentum Battlefleet?

No, there is no such mention to my knowledge. A sector battlefleet's numbers are already given in BFG and that number of ships already exceeds the strength of most Chapter fleets. That is just one sector, and a segmentum is made of many sectors. If you have proof otherwise, quote it, but don't spread hyperbole.

Battle of the Fang has some fluff on their fleet, not a huge amount but its ok.

Brother Coa wrote:Isn't it mentioned somewhere that SW fleet can beat Segmentum Battlefleet?

Oy, that might be mentioned, but there's no possible way that that would be allowed in the 40k setting. The whole point of chopping the legions into chapters was to prevent them from bringing insane levels of power to bear. The Wolves might have more than most chapters, but there's no way they'd have enough to take even a sector battlefleet.

daveNYC wrote:The Wolves might have more than most chapters, but there's no way they'd have enough to take even a sector battlefleet.

That's what would make sense, especially given that the BFG books (available as free download on GW's Specialist Games website, by the way @ OP - includes stuff on Space Marine starships!) make a point about Marine vessels being inherently designed to loose out on a one-versus-one against a Navy ship of equal classification. Marine ships are designed for high-speed troop transportation, punching through blockades and delivering their Companies to the planet they have to take, as well as supporting the ground forces from orbit. They are not designed to duke it out in space battles, that's what the Imperial Navy is for, though the Space Marines would have an advantage when attempting boarding actions.

Alas, as every so often, the Space Wolves seem to be a special case, as there actually is a piece of Codex fluff where their ships are not only far stronger than their Navy equivalents but they essentially manage to beat an entire Segmentum worth of IG and Navy into leaving them alone.

Lo and behold the power of plot armour: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Plague_of_Unbelief#First_Mistake

A capital ship ( strikecruiser or battlebarge ) for every grand company + some escorts is probably sufficient. As a deathworld Fenris is most certainly not capable of supplying sufficient, well trained crewmen to service a much larger fleet.

The BFG rules note that it's unusual for a Chapter to have as many as three Battle Barges, going by the proportions suggested by the fleet lists I'd estimate a Chapter fleet has one to three Battle Barges, eight to ten Strike Cruisers, and perhaps as many as twenty escorts. About equivalent to an Imperial Navy task force, not nearly big enough to be called a proper fleet.

Also, the background in the BFG rulebooks says Space Marine ships are usually crewed by servitors, so they don't really need skilled crewmen.

In the Space Wolf series, if you take BL seriously, it says the ships are crewed by failed aspirants and normal Fenrisians who excelled in Naval battles on the sea. It ALSO says that at least one of the ships is actually a Mars Class Imperial destroyer, which would point towards me doing a little mix perhaps?

BLOODCLAWallday wrote:In the Space Wolf series, if you take BL seriously, it says the ships are crewed by failed aspirants and normal Fenrisians who excelled in Naval battles on the sea. It ALSO says that at least one of the ships is actually a Mars Class Imperial destroyer, which would point towards me doing a little mix perhaps?

That is what is also implied in Prospero Burns and what is stated in Battle for the Fang. SW prefer to use human Thralls as their heavy lifters as opposed to servitors, or so the fluff would lead us to believe.

Right, but the mix I was referring to was to imperial and space marine flagships, rather than using strictly Space Marine technology.

The Mars Class are Battlecruisers. Though the SWs getting away with everything thing riles me a bit, I think that they're likely to have a very strong navy (see Ultramarines precedent), with all kinds of varied ships - especially if you're happy using some of the great 2010 Compendium lists and (excellent) fan made stuff.

You could take it that the restriction of having ships that are inferior to IN ones (in fleet engagements) applies only to new builds, so the SWs have: some HH-era ships which would be more superb than most stuff built since; good links with the AdMech so some upgraded ships (see upgrade tables found in various lists); the Venerable Battlebarge rules allow you swipe a Capital Ship from IN or Chaos lists and SM it up (could be your Mars); plus plenty of 'not our fleet honest!' IN style ships from their protected worlds.

There're also rules that you can use to tweak your Strike Cruisers and Battlebarges, since the usual 'yebbut SMs can't be inferior to anyone else!' erosion is happening where SM Capital Ships can get Lances after all (despite official fluff to the contrary*), though this isn't official yet.

Lynata's link mentions 'a giant force of Battlebarges' (presumably more than three), so yeah go mad! Depends on what your aims are but I'd say that you can reasonably justify practically anything where the SWs' navy is concerned, unlike most other Chapters.

*It's an ongoing debate sparked up every time a Codex or novel mentions SM ships using Lances for ground bombardment: 'See! They do have Lances!' I'd take it that these are orbital bombardment Lances (relatively close ranged, and far-IR wavelength penetrates atmosphere better plus squares with the numbers given for spot size on the ground from orbit - I ran the numbers). But they'd be useless as anti-ship Lances at 100,000+ km range, which is what the IN has. Essentially the SMs are forbidden Lances of shorter wavelengths than far infra red. That's my interpretation anyway....

* * *

Lynata: Though I squirm (again) to be sticking up for SMs, in fairness I don't think that the Bucharis vs SW thing is that cheesy, as described in your link. You could easily model that in BFG using a vast table, lots of time, and tweaking with some additional morale rules. They used surprise, hit and run and defeat in detail (with an eventual rout that took everything away with it) over a period of years, despite overall IN superiority in the system. SM ships are good at that kind of thing - it's not like they directly opposed the IN and prevented it from doing anything that it wanted to do... just raided and harried in an attritional guerrilla war.

Especially when factoring in some of the above in terms of likely disparity in quality of ships in the SWs' favour.

But yeah, the SM power creep in BFG is annoying, though they weren't properly balanced when first released, so did need a bit of a shot in the arm (some scenarios were auto-lose for SM fleets). The literal incredulity that SMs might be deliberately inferior to regular humie forces in any way can be pretty funny though... 'Yebbut they're Space Marines! They have to be better than the IN! They're Space Marines! What do you mean that they're forbidden a weapon that somebody else gets?! They're Space Marines!... etc'. Does not compute.

Lynata wrote:

Alas, as every so often, the Space Wolves seem to be a special case, as there actually is a piece of Codex fluff where their ships are not only far stronger than their Navy equivalents but they essentially manage to beat an entire Segmentum worth of IG and Navy into leaving them alone.

Exactly. In theory, SM chapters are not supposed to own any ship exclusively designed for space combat. As a result, battleships, battlecruisers, and all the other shiny toys the Navy gets its hands on are forbidden to SM. Their ships are solely designed to "facilitate planetary invasions". However, the degree of interpretation left by the phrase "facilitate planetary invasions" means that some SM ships are still pretty lethal ships in space-borne combat. For instance, a full-fledged battle-barge would still beat the crap out of anything short of a heavy cruiser or a battleship.

The SW go even further than that. In accordance with their feral and independent nature, they regularly keep for themselves the ships they capture (whereas an average SM chapter would simply turn it to a naval dockyard for scrap), or use non-conventional ships in their fleet. So they use some Navy-class ships in their fleet, like old models of cruisers and the like.

So a little mix between IN and SM, sounds good, any advice on lists?

It always seemed to me that Space Marine vessels were designed for orbital operations/bombardment over ship-to-ship engagements, the latter of which the Imperial Navy seems to specialize in.

The Space Wolves are rowing through space in longships

FuryTheBerserker wrote:The Space Wolves are rowing through space in longships

With Poweroars and Powersails!

FuryTheBerserker wrote:The Space Wolves are rowing through space in longships

I wish, but none of those fakeass dragons on the front

You can take Imperial Navy classes of ships as a veteran battle barge, by the 2010 rule expansions. I think it's mentioned that at least one Space Wolf Grand Company uses a captured Emperor-class ship as their battle barge.

tsz52 wrote:Lynata: Though I squirm (again) to be sticking up for SMs, in fairness I don't think that the Bucharis vs SW thing is that cheesy, as described in your link. You could easily model that in BFG using a vast table, lots of time, and tweaking with some additional morale rules. They used surprise, hit and run and defeat in detail (with an eventual rout that took everything away with it) over a period of years, despite overall IN superiority in the system. SM ships are good at that kind of thing - it's not like they directly opposed the IN and prevented it from doing anything that it wanted to do... just raided and harried in an attritional guerrilla war.

But they did directly oppose the Imperial Navy. Just read how it starts. Imagine Bucharis' gigantic fleet closing in on Fenris and they encounter a lone SW cruiser. Said cruiser does not only manage to escape, but it kills off two Navy cruisers before doing so. When reading this and keeping in mind that Marine ships aren't even supposed to win out on a one-on-one, my mind just goes "How ... why ...?!" before I'm resorting to put it off as yet another piece of "Them Wulfs are speshul". The "fleet of battle barges" bit had me grimace as well, as did the millions upon millions of Guardsmen that were beaten. Makes you think about how much ammunition they must have stored in their fortress when they can hold out for three years without reinforcements, especially considering that a big part of the Chapter wasn't even there but out away on some crusade, likely taking a bit of the armoury with them.

Coincidentally, it seems Bucharis wasted his Exterminatus devices on other worlds prior before encountering the Wolves, and the Navy staff was too stupid to consider the option of prolonged bombardment of the surface. Even with lance batteries, you'd figure it'd wreak havoc on the environment.

Arturius wrote:You can take Imperial Navy classes of ships as a veteran battle barge, by the 2010 rule expansions. I think it's mentioned that at least one Space Wolf Grand Company uses a captured Emperor-class ship as their battle barge.

I was tempted to point out that this would be a violation of Imperial law, but then I remembered that SW don't conform to any rules, anyways. So ... yeah, go mad on those lists!

Lynata wrote:

Arturius wrote:You can take Imperial Navy classes of ships as a veteran battle barge, by the 2010 rule expansions. I think it's mentioned that at least one Space Wolf Grand Company uses a captured Emperor-class ship as their battle barge.

I was tempted to point out that this would be a violation of Imperial law, but then I remembered that SW don't conform to any rules, anyways. So ... yeah, go mad on those lists!

The story, as I remember it, is that the Navy lost the ship to Chaos renegades. The Space Wolves successfully boarded and captured the ship. The Navy asked the Wolves if they could have the ship back, which the Wolves thought was hi-freakin'-larious.

Lynata wrote:

tsz52 wrote:Lynata: Though I squirm (again) to be sticking up for SMs, in fairness I don't think that the Bucharis vs SW thing is that cheesy, as described in your link. You could easily model that in BFG using a vast table, lots of time, and tweaking with some additional morale rules. They used surprise, hit and run and defeat in detail (with an eventual rout that took everything away with it) over a period of years, despite overall IN superiority in the system. SM ships are good at that kind of thing - it's not like they directly opposed the IN and prevented it from doing anything that it wanted to do... just raided and harried in an attritional guerrilla war.

But they did directly oppose the Imperial Navy. Just read how it starts. Imagine Bucharis' gigantic fleet closing in on Fenris and they encounter a lone SW cruiser. Said cruiser does not only manage to escape, but it kills off two Navy cruisers before doing so. When reading this and keeping in mind that Marine ships aren't even supposed to win out on a one-on-one, my mind just goes "How ... why ...?!" before I'm resorting to put it off as yet another piece of "Them Wulfs are speshul". The "fleet of battle barges" bit had me grimace as well, as did the millions upon millions of Guardsmen that were beaten. Makes you think about how much ammunition they must have stored in their fortress when they can hold out for three years without reinforcements, especially considering that a big part of the Chapter wasn't even there but out away on some crusade, likely taking a bit of the armoury with them.

Coincidentally, it seems Bucharis wasted his Exterminatus devices on other worlds prior before encountering the Wolves, and the Navy staff was too stupid to consider the option of prolonged bombardment of the surface. Even with lance batteries, you'd figure it'd wreak havoc on the environment.

Not wanting to derail nor stick up for them Wulfs too vigorously but this tale is a cake walk to rationalise (say compared to D***** vs M********, or some of the other absurd tomfoolery these days), when you factor a few things in:-

Didn't directly oppose the IN - as in drawing a thin grey line in space and growling (like wet leopards) "None shall pass!". They opportunistically struck here and there but the IN did exactly what it wanted to do (get masses of troops onto Fenris) without too much trouble (ie not really opposed);

Bucharis' fleet wouldn't have dropped out of Warp like a fleet of Star Destroyers would, but it'll have been a disordered hotch potch (given the vagaries of the Warp). That first SW Cruiser (which might have been a very good one from the HH era) struck at this point, taking out a Cruiser (a Light one?) and transport (they blow up if you look at them funny) before escaping (could easily be modelled using BFG rules);

Similar for the next engagement (fast and extremely well armoured SM ships ram and punch through a localised group of IN ships - bearing in mind that the latter will have been the same ships as the Chaos ships of 'now' back then, with only 5+ armour all round);

Fang is the second most well protected fortress in the IoM after only Terra (so I'm told...);

The account describes how SWs used sneaky attacks from tunnels killing folks with their fists to conserve ammo (nice attention to detail);

40k almost never has space power doing what it really would (or the 40k/Epic TT would be mostly redundant) so whatever handwavium afflicts and nerfs space power applies no more here than anywhere else (it's not Wulf speshulness though the formidableness of the Fang might legitimately add something further here);

AdMech likes SWs (did they back then?) but probably really really didn't like Bucharis, and were dreading him running tings. How well equipped and maintained were Bucharis' ships compared to Wolfey ones? How did that impact upon crew morale?;

The giant force of Battlebarges... sorry... what? Yeah... well this is a case of the SWs actually being special, being a large Chapter with good connections and a large protectorate (probably the UMs have an even larger, not strictly legal, navy?). This isn't such a problem within bounds and with in-setting justifications. GW would be wise to wind this particular dial back a bit (they've gone too far but this bit of fluff isn't, as far as I'm concerned).

* * *

BLOODCLAWallday: Hopefully there's something in the above that might be of use to yourself. I'm not too familiar with the different possibilities (including Allies in some but not others) with the BFG SM lists [I'm more an IN and Eldar man], but they're there for you to check out. It'd help if we had an idea of what you're after (looks, conversion opportunities, fluff, what sized games, how lenient is your group in terms of less than 100% official rules and 'counts as' etc).

tsz52 wrote:

Lynata wrote:

tsz52 wrote:Lynata: Though I squirm (again) to be sticking up for SMs, in fairness I don't think that the Bucharis vs SW thing is that cheesy, as described in your link. You could easily model that in BFG using a vast table, lots of time, and tweaking with some additional morale rules. They used surprise, hit and run and defeat in detail (with an eventual rout that took everything away with it) over a period of years, despite overall IN superiority in the system. SM ships are good at that kind of thing - it's not like they directly opposed the IN and prevented it from doing anything that it wanted to do... just raided and harried in an attritional guerrilla war.

But they did directly oppose the Imperial Navy. Just read how it starts. Imagine Bucharis' gigantic fleet closing in on Fenris and they encounter a lone SW cruiser. Said cruiser does not only manage to escape, but it kills off two Navy cruisers before doing so. When reading this and keeping in mind that Marine ships aren't even supposed to win out on a one-on-one, my mind just goes "How ... why ...?!" before I'm resorting to put it off as yet another piece of "Them Wulfs are speshul". The "fleet of battle barges" bit had me grimace as well, as did the millions upon millions of Guardsmen that were beaten. Makes you think about how much ammunition they must have stored in their fortress when they can hold out for three years without reinforcements, especially considering that a big part of the Chapter wasn't even there but out away on some crusade, likely taking a bit of the armoury with them.

Coincidentally, it seems Bucharis wasted his Exterminatus devices on other worlds prior before encountering the Wolves, and the Navy staff was too stupid to consider the option of prolonged bombardment of the surface. Even with lance batteries, you'd figure it'd wreak havoc on the environment.

Not wanting to derail nor stick up for them Wulfs too vigorously but this tale is a cake walk to rationalise (say compared to D***** vs M********, or some of the other absurd tomfoolery these days), when you factor a few things in:-

Didn't directly oppose the IN - as in drawing a thin grey line in space and growling (like wet leopards) "None shall pass!". They opportunistically struck here and there but the IN did exactly what it wanted to do (get masses of troops onto Fenris) without too much trouble (ie not really opposed);

Bucharis' fleet wouldn't have dropped out of Warp like a fleet of Star Destroyers would, but it'll have been a disordered hotch potch (given the vagaries of the Warp). That first SW Cruiser (which might have been a very good one from the HH era) struck at this point, taking out a Cruiser (a Light one?) and transport (they blow up if you look at them funny) before escaping (could easily be modelled using BFG rules);

Similar for the next engagement (fast and extremely well armoured SM ships ram and punch through a localised group of IN ships - bearing in mind that the latter will have been the same ships as the Chaos ships of 'now' back then, with only 5+ armour all round);

Fang is the second most well protected fortress in the IoM after only Terra (so I'm told...);

The account describes how SWs used sneaky attacks from tunnels killing folks with their fists to conserve ammo (nice attention to detail);

40k almost never has space power doing what it really would (or the 40k/Epic TT would be mostly redundant) so whatever handwavium afflicts and nerfs space power applies no more here than anywhere else (it's not Wulf speshulness though the formidableness of the Fang might legitimately add something further here);

AdMech likes SWs (did they back then?) but probably really really didn't like Bucharis, and were dreading him running tings. How well equipped and maintained were Bucharis' ships compared to Wolfey ones? How did that impact upon crew morale?;

The giant force of Battlebarges... sorry... what? Yeah... well this is a case of the SWs actually being special, being a large Chapter with good connections and a large protectorate (probably the UMs have an even larger, not strictly legal, navy?). This isn't such a problem within bounds and with in-setting justifications. GW would be wise to wind this particular dial back a bit (they've gone too far but this bit of fluff isn't, as far as I'm concerned).

* * *

BLOODCLAWallday: Hopefully there's something in the above that might be of use to yourself. I'm not too familiar with the different possibilities (including Allies in some but not others) with the BFG SM lists [I'm more an IN and Eldar man], but they're there for you to check out. It'd help if we had an idea of what you're after (looks, conversion opportunities, fluff, what sized games, how lenient is your group in terms of less than 100% official rules and 'counts as' etc).

Coincidentally, my two friends that play BFG play Eldar and IN. Mainly I'm going for fluff, and of course flexibility. I play Ragnar Blackmanes GC and just want an accurate depiction of the fleet that would make sense, and at that point I can begin strategizing with my options.