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Hey I've been thinking about building an imperial navy yard with a docked imperial cruiser, has anyone else done anything similar to this? I've been googling but I guess my google-fu isn't strong enough. I'm looking for 40k scale BFG ships.

I think your out off luck on that one, every a small (cobra destroyer) 40k scale ship wouldn't fit inside a house, but there are things like landing bays and suck that people have built as terrain, at a show I even saw a cool table that was a starships bridge for running kill team missions on, I'll see if I can find the pictures

One thing you could do is model a imperial guard drop ship in the bay (it would still be huge, strictly an apocalypse table) but you get the 'starship' feel in a manageable space. Another thing you could do is have the bay with a section of damaged battleship in it, that has been brought into a smaller specialist bay for specialist repairs. Enjoy the project whatever you choose to do

Step one - remember that anyone arguing to you about *scale* is obviously on drugs. Or not on drugs, but should be. Since when has 40k / Warhammer had anything to do with accuracy? I reckon a passable looking (ie suitably large looking) cobra could be built at around 12-16 feet long. That would equate to around a 288-350 meter length. The worlds largest (seagoing) ship works out at 458 meters, and would need a table around 20 feet in length.

Step two - decide on an aesthetic. 40k has room for pretty much anything you can imagine, just put lots of skulls / icon machina's all over it.

Have fun.

I don't know whether its a tenable goal OP but best of luck mate.

Epic scale, it'd fit on a (6x4) table, occupying most of it. 40k scale, you're probably best of doing a 'table edge' piece.

Yeah I think Table edge is how I'll go about it. If anyone has any resource for upscaling model ships or just examples of others work that would be a tremendous help.

I'm with winterdyne on this one, just pick a size for your table/ship and have at it.

Depending on how much work you want (huge project either way), you could make the ship movable, in sections, and use the spacedock itself as a separate gaming table. If you make the ship in modules and layers you could have onboard battles as well. Imagination's the limit really.

Also there's nothing stopping you from going a larger scale than the "standard" 40k table size. Depending on how you're going to store the table/ship, and how much space you have for that, not to mention if you're going to leave it out how much space you're willing to part with on permanent basis, just pick a size and build it after that.

For upscaling the ship from an existing model, pick the model you want to use, without worrying about size/scale, then just scale it up to the size you want the table/ship in. Easiest would be if you just multiply measurements with a set number, like one inch = one foot, just multiply by 12.

Basically, just take the table/ship length you want, divide by the model's size and take the closest whole number to multiply with (or whatever number you're comfy with).

Example: Say I want a 6 foot ship (long side of a regular 40k table), I'm using a BFG frigate of some sort, 3 inches long. So any measurement I make on my model, I multiply by 24 for large scale.

Bow section is 3/4th of an inch, 18 inches on large. Engines just about the same, main hull is 1.5 inches so 36 inches on large. Height is about 30 inches on the large one, from radar domes to vertical fin below, can cut size there obviously depending on how the model will stand. Then width etc.

Huge project either way, but supercool.

I'd suggest multiple sections, say 4 sections at 18 inches long each. Have them in 4 inch tall layers, or whatever size you want, would be neat to have dreads in there.. Layers piling onto eachother and possiblity to lock them in place, then have each module rest on 4 (or more) legs for stability.

It's not like you have to have accuracy between inside and outside. Could model it to look like a full ship from the outside, then inside it's just all corridors and rooms (like spacehulk). Again, imagination's the limit.

Hope that helps, sounds like a great project. Feel free to message me for any help with measurement or design ideas.

How about making a table representing the top hull of a spaceship? Essentially a metal floor with various sensors, turrets and airlocks, maybe docked shuttles. Don't ask me how a hostile army was able to disembark there, though!