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So, Panic and I played our first game of BFG last night, and of course all ended up in a congested pile in the center of the table, as is normal for 40k players who haven't quite got the hang of giant spaceship combat yet. Anyway, we think we slowly worked it out, but have load of queries/requests for advice. Any help would be appreciated. Ahem...

MOVEMENT

- Do you issue all the orders at the start of the turn/movement phase (apart from Brace for Impact)? Or can you issue them at other points or after moving?
- Can each ship have any number of orders (until it fails a Command Test) or only one?
- What happens if, because of all the various minimum movement rules, your base ends up overlapping that of an enemy ship? Do you stop in base contact? And, if this happens in the first half of your movement, can you then do your turn and keep moving through the rest of the base and out the other side?

SHOOTING

- Nova Cannons - they're quite good, right? It says the template has to be entirely within the range - so presumably the range guessed is where the EDGE goes, not the centre?
- Given that ships are actually teeny little things on their stems, can an enemy ship ever be in both your front and side fire arc at the same time, even if it's 'on the line'?
- Can you ever ignore the closest target?
- Are the closest target rules separate for each fire arc? So port weapons must target the closest port ship, starboard weapons the closest starboard ship, and dorsal weapons the closest ship in any direction?

ORDNANCE

- Are torpedoes fired in any direction in your front arc, or directly forward down the line of the ship?
- If a ship moves, and it's base touches some torpedoes, does this mean the torpedoes attack it automatically? Even if it's your own ship?
- Can you choose to fire torpedoes if they're gonna hit one of your own ships before hitting an enemy ship?
- Is there a limit to how many fighters and bombers can be in the air at one time? So, your ship launches four blobs of fighters, then next turn reloads and launches four more (while the other four are still flying around), etc etc.
- Bombers against capital ships - their wave attacks, and the turrets fire, possibly killing bases. Then the remaining bases inflict D6 attacks each minus the turrets value. Is this correct? This means that Ork fighter bombers are a bit gak against capital ships, as they're only getting D3-2 hits each...

OTHER

- What stuff is measured to the base and what to the stem? As far as I can tell, direct fire weapons use the stem, but ordnance, ramming, boarding, blast markers and everything else use the base?
- Can you ram, shoot and board all in the same turn?
- How big should blast markers be?


Thanks!

,

Heya!

Movement:
1) All orders issued at start of turn, before any movement. Except Brace for Impact (BFI)
2) No, only one per ship. BFI replaces the one given before at all times
3) Regarding FAQ2010: stacking. Personal: fudge bases until fit.
And when during move: nothing happens, just move on as you say.

Shooting
1) No! Nova Canon is no longer a guess range weapon. FAQ2001 already changed this. BFG 1.5 (last sold rulebook) has Nova Cannon as a scatter weapon.
2) If exactly on the line then choose which arc it is.
3) Yes. To do so you have to pass a leadership test
4) Yep.

Ordnance
1) Any direction in forward arc
2) Yep, attack automatically. Own ships includes. Only Tau missiles ignore own ships
3) Well.... you can....
4) Yes. Launch bays is limit (FAQ2001/rulebook 1.5). So if you have one carrier with 8 launch bays you may have a maximum of 8 AC in play.
5) Ork rules changed. Read FAQ2010.

Other
1) Direct weapons indeed from stem to stem. Ordnance weapons upon launch from stem but when in play they interact with the base. Templates (NC) with bases as well.
2) If your ramming attack gets you into base contact at the end of movement you can board. But you cannot shoot & board in one turn.
3) about 1cmx1cm.


Perhaps this thread may be interesting:
http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=5203.0
For the newer rules and more.

Ah, brilliant.

Thanks for the answers!

Regarding Fleet lists and composition, what is the accepted practise - there are lots of new Imperial classes of vessel in Armada and the Ship Compendium, but these are only listed in the Solar/Bastion fleet lists. Do people generally stick to this?

So, I can either field a 'Gothic' fleet with Retribution battleships and Dauntless light cruisers, or I can field a 'Solar' list with Oberon battleships and Defiant light cruisers, but I wouldn't usually see a mix of those in the same army....

What the Is this game? I've never heard of it.

Battlefleet Gothic!! Warhammer in space IN SPACE!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefleet_Gothic

A game in which a mere, simple, cruiser, costing only 180pts (in a 1500pts game), being (when sold by GW) only less then 20 dollar, could wipe out an entire space marine company with 1 shot.

Now that is cool.

Onto the question of Arbitorian regarding fleet composition.
Yeah we stick to the fleet lists. This because of background story and because of the balance options it gives.
With the reserve rules you can use ships from another list in another. Reserve rules can be found in the FAQ 2010 (updated).

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
What the Is this game? I've never heard of it.

Not surprised if you're a high school student lol. Tis before GW turned fully to the Dark Side and had more than 3 games in its range of products.

 ArbitorIan wrote:


Battlefleet Gothic!! Warhammer in space IN SPACE!

QFT

 horizon wrote:

Yeah we stick to the fleet lists. This because of background story and because of the balance options it gives.
With the reserve rules you can use ships from another list in another. Reserve rules can be found in the FAQ 2010 (updated).

Brilliant. Thanks for this.

Given that there are so many ships added by the 'Additional Ships Compendium' which aren't in the Rulebook or Armada fleet lists, are there some sort of consolidated fleet lists somewhere? Some new classes (like the Grand Cruisers or the Black Ship) explicitly state that they can be used in any fleet, but others (like the Nemesis Fleet Carrier) have no such information...

As you can read in the thread I linked to earlier the Additional Ship Compendium is a PDF with a collection of vessels previously been published in the magazines (and thus not in official works). Some of the vessels made it into the Armada expansion book.
Those ship which did not make it into Armada just never become official thus are never been worked into a fleet list.

You can look into the old magazines like planetkiller in which the vessel was published and perhaps a fleet list is in there as well.

In the fanmade BFG:R project a lot of these vessels have been taken onboard again.

And, well, if you like an unofficial ship and you agree with your opponent on it you can add it any fleet list you like.

Yeah, the faq from 2010 has alot of the updates and what not. Also all the additional ships and all the "fan made" stuff is usually accepted widely by those who do play the game.

Personally LOVE the game, and have recently filmed a batrep as well that I shall be posting soon when im done editing it.

Regarding orders:

The Updated rules say you can give a ship an order, move it, then move on to the next ship, give it an order, and move it.

No need to give all orders first and then start moving.

Well answered - a couple of clarifications:

 horizon wrote:
Heya!
Ordnance
2) Yep, attack automatically. Own ships includes. Only Tau missiles ignore own ships
4) Yes. Launch bays is limit (FAQ2001/rulebook 1.5). So if you have one carrier with 8 launch bays you may have a maximum of 8 AC in play.

Boarding Torpedoes can also ignore your own ships (and manouvre). Not everyone has the option of them, though, but they're more common than tau drone missiles.
The launch bay limit does not apply to a handful of specific cases - you may or may not have a Tyranid Player, but if you do he or she isn't bound by launch limits. You'll note tyranid ordnance is bug-ass slow, though, compared to everyone else's. Also, Dark Eldar Impaler Assault Modules are tracked seperately and don't count as ordnance for normal launch limits.


I really miss BFG. The aesthetic of imperial warships is just so freakin' cool. If you've not read the Horus Heresy novel Macragge's Honour, do so!
Looking forward to Star Wars Armada, as I'm hoping it'll be a decent capital ship game, but it's still not the same - Armada is set up for a 'normal' game to be about 2-3 ships as your 'fleet'; a decent sized game of Battlefleet Gothic could feature two full squadrons of four cruisers each, with hailstorms of torpedoes and fighters sweeping back and forth between the two.

I think the scariest BFG-to-40k scale comparison we ever had was our local Tau player, who used the (pretty) forgeworld ships and ordnance markers and the (non-broken) GW BFG rules.
The core of his fleet for the big battle at the end of the campaign was a Gal'Eath squadron of three carriers. On the first turn of the game, he launched twenty-four Manta Missile Destroyers...

locarno24 wrote:
Well answered - a couple of clarifications:


The launch bay limit does not apply to a handful of specific cases - you may or may not have a Tyranid Player, but if you do he or she isn't bound by launch limits. You'll note tyranid ordnance is bug-ass slow, though, compared to everyone else's. Also, Dark Eldar Impaler Assault Modules are tracked seperately and don't count as ordnance for normal launch limits.

It was my understand that limits merely doubled in the case of nids? Also - is it generally the done thing to use one marker + dice to indicate each wave? Also is it one 'wave up allowed' per 'bay set' or per vessel now? My hurt goes out to you on the 24 Manta's.

Per FAQ2010 it is double for Nids in the case of ordnance.

For attack craft it is a marker per point of strength. Thus a carrier with 4 launch bays deploys 4 markers (when he launches full capacity).
For torpedoes it is since FAQ 2010 the str3 torp marker + dice (D6)on top to show the strenght of the salvo.

@locarno, what do you mean with non-broken GW Tau rules? I now they are not broken but it implies something else is.

And 24 attack craft on the first turn is not much of a problem. Just use some long range direct fire to eliminate complete waves (a 6 destroys the complete wave when shooting at an attack craft wave).
Now if they are launched within immediate striking range it is time to shiver...

I meant the Forgeworld version of same, where pretty much every ship got given a prow deflector because 'reasons'.

And no, twenty-four attack craft isn't that big a deal for a carrier-heavy fleet. But I was making a comparison for 40k players - a Manta Missile Destroyer is £989 and about the same in points. Imagine someone's opening gambit in a 40k game being a strafing run by 24,000 points worth of super-heavy gunships...

 horizon wrote:
Per FAQ2010 it is double for Nids in the case of ordnance.

For attack craft it is a marker per point of strength. Thus a carrier with 4 launch bays deploys 4 markers (when he launches full capacity).

Cool, so I combine these into waves however I want or is it 'all wave' or 'all individual tokens?'

@WallofMeat,
if the carriers are in base-to-base contact you can combine them into waves. Thus, waves, yes.

@locarno24,
the FW rules were actually more balanced then the GW ruleset for Tau. The FW ones were a bit unimaginitive though. In the GW ruleset they had the fluffwise weaker then the Lunar Hero for 180 pts but the Hero is a better ship then the 180pts Lunar.... yeah.
Plus the restriction was easy to avoid. Just load on the Explorer+Hero combo to create an excellent fleet. The Merchant has never been a viable choice because of that.
The Protector was a tad weaker then Hero when looking at the FW rules.

Ofcourse the best rules for the FW Tau vessels are the ones that came with 2010 FAQ/Compendium (90* degrees!). And of course Distant Darkness. Yes, Distant Darkness.

And yes, that amount of Manta's compared to 40k is cool.

Cheers! I forgot about that. One last thing - once I leave CAP I cant rejoin it right? (and also blast markers kill all CAP fighters?)

You can go back on cap again, even with another ship. Blastmarkers kill CAP ordnance on a 6.

Yeah, that's the thing about attack craft (fighters/bombers/assault boats) in BFG...they are easy come, easy go in my experience. That being said, I always remember failing my Reload Ordnance checks at the worst possible moment!

I have to say, the revised BFG ordnance rules are some of the most elegant and easy to use to use of all the games I've tried, especially with the 2010 FAQ tweaking torp salvos so that they all use the same sized template. The revised fighter rules for Firestorm Armada 2.0 are a close second, but I still think that BFG does this particular aspect of space combat better.

locarno24 wrote:

I think the scariest BFG-to-40k scale comparison we ever had was our local Tau player, who used the (pretty) forgeworld ships and ordnance markers and the (non-broken) GW BFG rules.
The core of his fleet for the big battle at the end of the campaign was a Gal'Eath squadron of three carriers. On the first turn of the game, he launched twenty-four Manta Missile Destroyers...

Actually, those are squadrons OF manta missile destroyers, so way more than 24.

Also picture this: The game describes fighters as "only" being armed with "several BANKS of lascannons and missile bays", and they can't even scratch the smallest escorts. So imagine what the starhawk bombers would do to a 40k battlefield.