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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!

Lots of lovely ships and conversions....

Really enjoyed - the Kif are very cool

This blog is awesome! BFG plus all the great supplements they made for it is definitely the best thing GW ever made. The game is super fun, the narrative stuff they made for it was awesome, and the miniatures are gorgeous.

I loved the game but never got any of the ships - we made ours from cardboard. I didn't know about that Fantasy Flight board game, that is super exciting!

Thanks folks!

The might tau space station "Dawnwater's edge" takes shape....
Only partly painted at this point.

Hmmmm - stupid mold lines.

I may have 'accidentally' acquired the entire run of BFG magazines.

--Brian

Accident? When Ramses the 2nd destroyed Syria, that was an accident. What you've done is a master stroke!

Well, I'm missing issue #17, which has a bunch of Tau fleet stuff in it. But I'll get it eventually.

Loved the Brendan Fraser version of The Mummy- nice reference!

Top 10 movies for me.

The Tau defenders of Taros take shape. Still struggling with the tau color scheme, but they look OK at a distance.









Still to do: Missile Silos, Landing fields, more lights and water slide transfers on the 'Edge, and possibly two space marine ships.