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Alright, I really want to start getting into battlefleet gothic (at least over vassal) but I am very confused by most of the stuff. mainly...

how the heck do weapon batteries work?!

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Alright, I really want to start getting into battlefleet gothic (at least over vassal) but I am very confused by most of the stuff. mainly...

how the heck do weapon batteries work?!

You look at the chart, compare the value of your weapons battery with the facing of your target, add any modifiers that apply (for blast markers or range, for example) then see what the result is.

Whatever the result is, is how many dice you roll. For each die that scores equal to or higher than the enemy's armour value, you score a hit.

The mechanism doesn't follow the standard GW mechanic of rolling to hit, rolling to wound, and taking armour saves. It's much simpler. If it helps, think of all your shots as actually hitting, then you just need to roll to wound. And the value you need to wound is the enemy's armour value. And nothing gets an armour save.

So, looking at the Space marine bombardment cannon for "wounding" it says it always hits on a four up.

is that powerful?

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
So, looking at the Space marine bombardment cannon for "wounding" it says it always hits on a four up.

is that powerful?

Yes, it is. Lances work differently to weapons batteries. They always roll their full dice, and always hit on a 4+. To compensate, even the most powerful lance batteries roll only a handful of dice.

Bombardment cannons are a mix of the two. You work out their dice using the gunnery table, just like weapons batteries, but you always hit on a 4+. Incidentally, you always cause a critical hit on a 4+ (bridge smashed!) with bombardment cannons instead of the usual 6+ as well.

Well, that's cool! but Still can't make heads or tails of it. is there a simpler way to do that? or a detailed explanation?

And would a space marine fleet be a good starting point?

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Well, that's cool! but Still can't make heads or tails of it. is there a simpler way to do that? or a detailed explanation?

Well, there's always the rulebook itself. Free to download from the Games Workshop website.

And would a space marine fleet be a good starting point?

They're not bad. There's an updated list floating around somewhere that lets you add a second shield to the strike cruisers for a certain amount of points which greatly increases the utility of the cruisers themselves.

 Kaldor wrote:


Whatever the result is, is how many dice you roll. For each die that scores equal to or higher than the enemy's armour value, you score a hit.

Minus how many attacks the shields can block. For example: If the shield value is two and no blast markers are in contact, reduce the weapon battery attacks by two. Assuming of course, you fire weapon batteries first. I suggest you do; smash the shields with weapon batteries and inflict as much damage before firing the armor-piercing lances.

I tried the rulebook, but came off more confused X-X

and thanks for the advice!

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Well, that's cool! but Still can't make heads or tails of it. is there a simpler way to do that? or a detailed explanation?

And would a space marine fleet be a good starting point?

Overall and personal summations of fleet strengths:

Imperial Navy: they're the jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none of BFG.

Chaos: Best weapon batteries and the most versatile fleet list.

Tyranids: Can field the largest fleet on the table, deadly at boarding, but have a nasty Achilles Heel: if they lose the Hive Ship, the fleet is in deep gak.

Eldar and Dark Eldar: Glass cannons; they move fast, hit hard, and difficult to hit, but melts under fire.

Orks: Very fun to play, but only if you're patient and have a sense of humor.

Tau: Deadly when it comes to torpedoes, but pathetic in line battles and boarding.

Necrons: Deadly; they move fast, strike hard, difficult to hit, and DO NOT melt under fire.

Space Marines: solid vessels that excel at boarding, taking damage, and dish it out respectably as well.

Adeptus Mechanicus: a bit hard to use, but they get shiny upgrades compared to their fellow Imperials, so yeah...

EDIT: Necrons get an armor save. Their armor value is 6+ (supposedly due to some kind of targeting scramblers but in a different fashion from Holo-fields/Shadow-fields), but they get an armor save to represent Necrodermis' regenerative ability. For Tomb Ships its 4+, for Harvesters its 5+, while Shrouds and Raiders get 6+. When Brace for Impact special orders is used, stealth is compromised reducing armor to 4+, but the regeneration is optimized, and all ships get an armor save value of 2+.

hmm. So marines are kinda good. heard about the hit and run abilities of them, and is it true torpedos and thunderhawks can use them?

Sorry to thread jack, but are there any drawbacks on Necrons? Admiral Valerian made them seem pretty untouchable

Necrons are expensive, and thats about it.

Hey! thread moved! huh. oh well


any dummie's guide on how to use batteries?

Its quite simple. Find what your battery rating is.


Slide over to the classification of the target ship and its facing(Abeam, Closing, or Moving away)

Then determine if there are any modifiers. The quick reference sheet references all the applicable modifiers.

For blast markers, you only deduct the penelty once.


This will give you the number of dice you roll to attempt to hit. Each roll that equals or exceeds the targets armor of the facing you are in causes a damage point.

If the ship has any active shields, deduct one damage point per active shield and deduct one active shield.


Basically, if a ship has 3 shields, it can take 3 hits before taking actual damage. If a ship is in base contact with 1 or more blastmarkers, it loses one shield per blast marker.

Some things ignore shields, like Torpedos and Strike Craft.




Bombardment Cannons are Weapon Batteries that always cause damage on a 4+(like Lances)

You determine the number of shots you get like a Weapon Battery, but instead of needing to meet or exceed the armor you only need a 4+ to do damage(and you cause Critical Damage on a 4+ too)

Lance Batteries always shoot the number of shots they are listed as having regardless of modifiers and always damage on a 4+

So Bombardment Cannons are sort of a cross between Lances and Gun Batteries.

 TheAngrySquig wrote:
Sorry to thread jack, but are there any drawbacks on Necrons? Admiral Valerian made them seem pretty untouchable

Necron vessels are harder to repair during campaigns, due to their advanced technology.

Thanks Grey! now I'm begining to understand!

so, between the hit-and-run attacks from boarding torpedos and thunderhawks, space marines could crit the enemy to death?

now, what would be a good fleet? I was thinking for below 500pts:

x2 strike cruisers
x3 hunter escorts

I'd definitly use the new 2010 FAQ update for Space Marines. https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0Bw_dULEfC3rbYzUyNjQzZTAtMDZiMS00ZjRlLWJjNzMtYTE5YmNjZjdjODQ1&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

Here is a 500 point list I made using the updated options for Strike Cruisers.

Strike Cruiser(addditional shield, replace Launch Bays with Bombardment cannons) 160 pts

Strike Cruiser(additional shield) 160 pts

Nova Frigate 50 pts

2 Gladius Frigates 90 pts

Hunter destroyer 40 pts



BFG really doesn't work all that great as a game under 500 points. Its ok for learning the rules but once you have that down your games should be somewhere between 500 and 2000 points.

is the new FAQ thing from GW? O-o

Its from the BFG design team(who no longer work for GW) and as GW doesn't support BFG anymore they havn't updated anything.

oh! okay awesome!

read before that a marine fleet's big power house is it's boarding torpedo's and thunderhawks. is that true? and is it worth spamming hunter frigates?

I've used boarding torpedos maybe once in all the time I've played.

Really? O.o read some tacticas on it, and heard they where good...


Really happy about the front bombardment cannon though

I generally go for close range bombardment cannon shots followed by real boarding actions.

If I want ranged hit and run attacks I use Thunderhawks.

With the 2010 update assault boats are better than boarding torpedoes in a huge way.

and what is that way? kinda still reading everything

The key is to use a mix of thunderchickens and torps (boarding or otherwise) as they can only use turrets against one or the other. When i played SM i went for boarding torps since they can turn. Your opponent is likely to try and avoid the torps since theyre easier than avoiding the THs so use that to try and split his fleet up a bit and jump on just one part.

You can overwhelm ships with just hit and runs also, i have had several ships disengage with no damage but so many crits they cant function.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
and what is that way? kinda still reading everything

Boarding torpedoes have to roll to penetrate the ship's armor before doing the hit and run attack, the boats just do them.
With that said regular torpedoes are an awesome way to overload enemy turrets, the enemy has to choose, does he get blown up or raided.

Boarding and hit-and-run tactics are all but useless against Eldar and Dark Eldar. Holo-fields and Shadow-fields give them a 2+ save against any hits except from Weapon Batteries, celestial phenomena, blast markers, and exploding ships.

Which is why you adjust your tactics to your opponent.

Eldar HATE bombardment cannons because their Holofields don't offer as much protection and their Critical Damage chart is nasty.


Boarding Torpedos are ok against most ships, but usually a regular torpedo is better.

The only Torpedos I usually have in my list anyway are on my Battlebarge, or occasionally I take a few Hunters for long range supressing fire.

True, but since I'm Imperial Navy, I have to rely on standard Weapon Batteries