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I know that hard facts for the Imperial Navy and 40k warships are hard to come by, however I'm looking for a rough idea of how often or likely Chaos forces will capture and use IN capital ships.

With more limited ship building resources in the EoT, I'd imagine that pirating ships would be mandatory but most texts refer to ancient heresy era ships being used, not more modern ones.

Only two examples I can think of are the SW cruiser and Huron and the light cruiser from Retribution Hour.

I ways thought they (Followers of Chaos) would use pre-heresy pattern warships, and commission the daemon possessed vessels within the Eye of Terror (was there a daemon forge world of sorts? Somehow the name escapes me ATM). However, as you've mentioned, renegade SM chapters turned to chaos, such as Red Corsairs would use later patterns for obvious reasons.

Writers tend to write things based on what they know, hence the many contradictions amongst the BL books; besides, using pre-heresy warships further reinforce the Forces Chaos as Elderly Abominations, with their ancient and twisted appearances.

However, it's certainly within the realm of rationality that Chaos Warbands would commandeer Imperial vessels, or raid worlds for such resources. It may not be so practical however, as it'd require massive resources input to achieve such goals (the formal being in risk of losing the raider's own vessels, the latter could quickly escalate into full-scale planetary warfare a warband can ill afford).

Moreover, It'd be difficult to put together a considerably large fleet through such means. Thus it could be much more cost-effective for warbands to just raid worlds for slaves, and sell them for warships in the eye of terror, or some secret pirate base (not sure if the latter is possible tho). Take this with a grain of salt.

The vast majority of chaos ships are not pre-heresy. The Murderer, the Slaughter, the Repulsive, etc. All those types of ships were designed post-heresy with a fatal flaw in their warp drives that led to them being easier to corrupt. It is this class of ships that we commonly see chaos using.

 lcmiracle wrote:
I ways thought they (Followers of Chaos) would use pre-heresy pattern warships, and commission the daemon possessed vessels within the Eye of Terror (was there a daemon forge world of sorts? Somehow the name escapes me ATM). However, as you've mentioned, renegade SM chapters turned to chaos, such as Red Corsairs would use later patterns for obvious reasons.

Writers tend to write things based on what they know, hence the many contradictions amongst the BL books; besides, using pre-heresy warships further reinforce the Forces Chaos as Elderly Abominations, with their ancient and twisted appearances.

However, it's certainly within the realm of rationality that Chaos Warbands would commandeer Imperial vessels, or raid worlds for such resources. It may not be so practical however, as it'd require massive resources input to achieve such goals (the formal being in risk of losing the raider's own vessels, the latter could quickly escalate into full-scale planetary warfare a warband can ill afford).

Moreover, It'd be difficult to put together a considerably large fleet through such means. Thus it could be much more cost-effective for warbands to just raid worlds for slaves, and sell them for warships in the eye of terror, or some secret pirate base (not sure if the latter is possible tho). Take this with a grain of salt.

You're thinking of the forge of souls and it has a larger output than any forge world.
As to the question I think that around 20% of all imperial ships will be captured and used by chaos in their lifetimes. Just a rough guess.

They wll definitely try and steal or salvage any type of ship they can. From trashy freighters to warships.

jareddm wrote:
The vast majority of chaos ships are not pre-heresy. The Murderer, the Slaughter, the Repulsive, etc. All those types of ships were designed post-heresy with a fatal flaw in their warp drives that led to them being easier to corrupt. It is this class of ships that we commonly see chaos using.

That's very true and I was not clear.
I was more thinking of the various accepted and common ships of the IN such as Lunar class or Mars class ships.

How often are ships of those designs used by the forces of Chaos, either willingly or taken by force.

I seriously doubt it's there are hard numbers available, I'm thinking more in terms of percentage or common vs uncommon vs rare vs never sort of answers.

Remember that a lot of ships in the Chaos armadas are renamed once they "go over". So what is called, by the forces of Chaos, a "Rapetastic-class Battleship" might have been a "Lunar-class cruiser" six months ago.

The Battlefleet Gothic rules have quite a few examples of individual ships.

 Psienesis wrote:
Remember that a lot of ships in the Chaos armadas are renamed once they "go over". So what is called, by the forces of Chaos, a "Rapetastic-class Battleship" might have been a "Lunar-class cruiser" six months ago.

I'm aware of ships changing their unique name but not of changing the namevarious of an entire class of ships.

Well, you know that no Chaos Captain or Traitor Naval Officer is going to tool around the Eye in an "Emperor-class Battleship" (apparently, just saying the name is painful to Daemons, if we want to take Abnett's writings into account). They're going to rename the ship itself and, if they have a few (a super-lucky defection, let's say) probably rename it to a "Hellfire-class" or a "Corpsegod-class" or something particularly Chaosy, because that's how they roll.

I doubt, given the naming patterns of other Imperial vessels, that the pre-Traitorous "Murder-class cruiser" that are now a part of the fleets of Chaos had similar class designations when part of the Imperium. Doesn't really fit the naming pattern of other Loyalist ships.

 Psienesis wrote:
Well, you know that no Chaos Captain or Traitor Naval Officer is going to tool around the Eye in an "Emperor-class Battleship" (apparently, just saying the name is painful to Daemons, if we want to take Abnett's writings into account). They're going to rename the ship itself and, if they have a few (a super-lucky defection, let's say) probably rename it to a "Hellfire-class" or a "Corpsegod-class" or something particularly Chaosy, because that's how they roll.

I doubt, given the naming patterns of other Imperial vessels, that the pre-Traitorous "Murder-class cruiser" that are now a part of the fleets of Chaos had similar class designations when part of the Imperium. Doesn't really fit the naming pattern of other Loyalist ships.

The fact that the chaos ships are referred to by their current class in BFG even during their history of Imperial service, and none of them have ever even once had a mention of a prior class name makes me think their class names have not changed.

Gotta wonder what the Imperium was thinking when they dubbed one the Despoiler class.

I always thought that they took the ships they disabled to dark mechanis guys or warpsmiths to screw around with them and dedicate them to chaos? And i would think that it would be quite frequent, judging by the amount of ships that get lost in the warp. Also, Ahriman's ship in exile was an ex imperial one that he commandeered by getting three marines into his service.

TiamatRoar wrote:Gotta wonder what the Imperium was thinking when they dubbed one the Despoiler class.

A number of these ships came into service around M35-M36, during the height of the Age of Apostasy, and Goge Vandire was particularly famous for his...rather savage and fear-mongering practices. The Pre-Sabastion Thor period and the height of the Ecclesiarchy's power was a very different place in the Imperium.

thetallestgiraffe wrote:I always thought that they took the ships they disabled to dark mechanis guys or warpsmiths to screw around with them and dedicate them to chaos? And i would think that it would be quite frequent, judging by the amount of ships that get lost in the warp.

Those that have access to such things. Most ships that turn traitor probably aren't captured, but instead have their crew rebel and join up with a larger chaos fleet. And then they'd get properly profaned. And I'd say relatively few ships get lost in the warp compared to how many actually operate on a day to day basis. We only hear about them because ships getting lost in the warp are interesting. It's like comparing how many car accidents there are in the world everyday, compared to how many cars are actually being driven.

 minigun762 wrote:
I know that hard facts for the Imperial Navy and 40k warships are hard to come by, however I'm looking for a rough idea of how often or likely Chaos forces will capture and use IN capital ships.

With more limited ship building resources in the EoT, I'd imagine that pirating ships would be mandatory but most texts refer to ancient heresy era ships being used, not more modern ones.

Only two examples I can think of are the SW cruiser and Huron and the light cruiser from Retribution Hour.

I would imagine they get their hands on them VERY often. With regiments of imperial guard going traitor every day I have to assume that there are capital warships going traitor every day.

jareddm wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:Gotta wonder what the Imperium was thinking when they dubbed one the Despoiler class.

A number of these ships came into service around M35-M36, during the height of the Age of Apostasy, and Goge Vandire was particularly famous for his...rather savage and fear-mongering practices. The Pre-Sabastion Thor period and the height of the Ecclesiarchy's power was a very different place in the Imperium.

While that's true (about Vandire), it still doesn't line up with other, still-Loyalist vessel classes of the same period, with names like "Defiant", "Endeavor", "Dauntless" and so forth. While I suppose it's perfectly possible that there was an Imperial class of ship called the "Murder", the list of Loyalist ship-classes does not list it anywhere. You'd think that, if there were a Loyalist "Murder-class cruiser" that a few fleets in some backwater sector would still be sporting a few... the Reservists of the Imperial Navy, making do with vehicles the Imperial Navy mothballed 50 years ago.

I would imagine that soon after turning traitor the ship would need a new support base. Not everything would fit, certain types of weapons would not be availible so different perhaps equivilent weapon systems would have to be substituted.

so when the type LXI Godhammer torpedos are replaced by Mark 87 defiler torpedos, the recharging coils on the laser batters are replaced, the engines reactor housing upgraded, the lateral thrusters removed to be fitted onto another vessel and replaced by demons the name of the class of ship changes.

I see your point Exergy but I don't think that component differences would yield different naming conventions.

The reason is it's often mentioned that ships made at Forgeworld A can be radically different than those from Forgeworld B but both retain the same class title.

That said, the conversation has shifted some and I wanted to get a better idea of "Loyalist" ships in traitor hands.
Looking at this another way, would you agree that Chaos fleets are equal parts ancient, captured or homegrown vessels? Or would the proportions be different.

I would think that the current Chaos fleets are more-heavily skewed towards "ancient" ships (Heresy-era and a few millennia post-Heresy) in their battleships, grand cruisers and other capital ships, with a growing number of escort and frigate vessels being of more-recent construction, as getting 25,000 people to follow a charismatic, Chaos-aligned Naval Captain is much easier than expecting 150,000 people on a larger vessel to do the same thing. More safeguards, more personnel to question the direction the Captain is taking things, more likely presence of Naval Commissars, etc.

Also, couple Chaos' greatest chance to acquire vessels, which was during the Heresy when half of the Imperium's war-machine turned to follow Horus, it simply makes the most sense. There's also the fact that Chaos has much less trouble moving through the Warp than the Imperium does, this affords them a greater chance to seize vessels that have been lost in the Warp for an extended time, seizing Space Hulks and other flotsam drifting about on the tides of the Immaterium.

 Psienesis wrote:

jareddm wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:Gotta wonder what the Imperium was thinking when they dubbed one the Despoiler class.

A number of these ships came into service around M35-M36, during the height of the Age of Apostasy, and Goge Vandire was particularly famous for his...rather savage and fear-mongering practices. The Pre-Sabastion Thor period and the height of the Ecclesiarchy's power was a very different place in the Imperium.

While that's true (about Vandire), it still doesn't line up with other, still-Loyalist vessel classes of the same period, with names like "Defiant", "Endeavor", "Dauntless" and so forth. While I suppose it's perfectly possible that there was an Imperial class of ship called the "Murder", the list of Loyalist ship-classes does not list it anywhere. You'd think that, if there were a Loyalist "Murder-class cruiser" that a few fleets in some backwater sector would still be sporting a few... the Reservists of the Imperial Navy, making do with vehicles the Imperial Navy mothballed 50 years ago.

You are incorrect with regard to the Murder class. It is explicitly described in the BFG rulebook as having formed the mainstay of Battlefleet Obscurus from M33 to M37.

Before being replaced by Lunar class cruisers, the Murder class cruiser was the mainstay of Battlefleet Obscurus. Almost five hundred were built between the 33rd and 37th millenia but a proportionate number turned renegade, joining the forces of Chaos.

BFG rulebook, p. 123

Murder class cruisers are also available in BFG to Imperial players playing reserve fleets which include old mothballed ship classes.

Given the fact the Imperium has existing ship classes with class names like Tyrant or Dominator, a class called Murder doesn't really stand out as unusual.

 minigun762 wrote:
I see your point Exergy but I don't think that component differences would yield different naming conventions.

The reason is it's often mentioned that ships made at Forgeworld A can be radically different than those from Forgeworld B but both retain the same class title.

That said, the conversation has shifted some and I wanted to get a better idea of "Loyalist" ships in traitor hands.
Looking at this another way, would you agree that Chaos fleets are equal parts ancient, captured or homegrown vessels? Or would the proportions be different.

It would depend on the fleet. Some might be entirely homegrown, others entirely rebel/captures, others entirely ancient.
But overall, the forces of Chaos would be about that I think.

When you bring in salvage and repair the lines get blurred further. You could have an ancient loyalist ship that was captured, severly damaged and then rebuild in a homegrown style.

Iracundus wrote:


Given the fact the Imperium has existing ship classes with class names like Tyrant or Dominator, a class called Murder doesn't really stand out as unusual.

Murder is yada yada yada and all, but... Despoiler? That's like, one step away from naming a battleship, the "Horus" class and two steps away from naming it the "Chaos" class.

 Psienesis wrote:
I would think that the current Chaos fleets are more-heavily skewed towards "ancient" ships (Heresy-era and a few millennia post-Heresy) in their battleships, grand cruisers and other capital ships, with a growing number of escort and frigate vessels being of more-recent construction, as getting 25,000 people to follow a charismatic, Chaos-aligned Naval Captain is much easier than expecting 150,000 people on a larger vessel to do the same thing. More safeguards, more personnel to question the direction the Captain is taking things, more likely presence of Naval Commissars, etc.

I think the skewing towards ancient ships, (like grand cruisers but away from light cruisers) has to do not with availibility but with naval leadership. While ships come and go, some of the naval officers are essentially living on from the HH(either by being a daemon prince, SM, or in the warp's time lag) and others in command were trained by those very old officers. These older officers and those who were trained by them prefer older tactics.

Naval Combat Doctrine is a hard thing to change and I think this shapes Chaos' deployment.

Also having light cruisers is a logistics game trying to spread your fleet every thinner across a large territory like the IoM has to, while grandcruisers are about getting into a slugfest.

To expand upon the grand vs light cruiser discussion, my understanding is that grand cruisers contain a variety of systems that can no longer be produced or effectively maintained, so their front line role are being phased out for Battlecruisers.

Odd thing about Battlecruisers is they are virtually identical to the Chaos heavy cruisers. More firepower on a cruiser shell.

TiamatRoar wrote:

Iracundus wrote:


Given the fact the Imperium has existing ship classes with class names like Tyrant or Dominator, a class called Murder doesn't really stand out as unusual.

Murder is yada yada yada and all, but... Despoiler? That's like, one step away from naming a battleship, the "Horus" class and two steps away from naming it the "Chaos" class.

What percentage of the Imperial Navy actually knows Abaddon's name let alone his epithet? Only officers of flag rank assigned to fleets cordoning the Eye of Terror would have any legitimate need to know either. Anyone else in possession of said knowledge would be sanctioned by the commissariat for spreading enemy propaganda if caught. Its not likely to be common knowledge amongst naval architects half way across the galaxy.

EDIT: Eh, mind-crossed between Horus and Abaddon for a moment there.

Still, I think that the Despoiler figures into the Creed pretty heavily, as a perfect "bogeyman" to represent Evil, Darkness, all the terrible things that God-Emperor forbids.