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There is a Tyrannid vs Eldar space battle in the Apocalypse novel Valedor.

The space battles are a big part of the lore, you just dont hear much about them.

Although, why send a fleet when a squad of terminators can teleport to the command vessel ?

Planetstrike has the space battles in the background, most of the events in the mission is after the attacker has mostly gotten through the defenses, but many of the missions and strategems concern themselves with a "what is going on above us". I believe at least 1 defensive stratagem is having your fleet disrupt/distract theirs for reduced effectiveness on certain things.

For other pure fluff: Farseer(novel) had a space battle(iirc), Caine was involved in at least 1(landing on an ork invaded world behind enemy lines and brings an entire army of ragtag survivors back to imperial lines) but I think there were others, Rogue Trader(novel) depicted a few.

A couple of the first hh books had pretty much 1 each.

Oh, and iirc, the 13th black crusade campaign event included bfg games for their tracking and fluff. The events of those games made it into some of the official fluff and the space battles there played some significant roles.

Look at the Eldar Codex. Lots of stuff about Eldar, not so much about Orks and Space Marines and Tau.

Look at the Tau Codex. Lots of stuff about Tau, not so much about Eldar, Space Marines or Orks.

Space Battles take a back seat in the fluff in general because Warhammer 40,000 is a game about 1" tall plastic men shooting and stabbing eachother. It's a game about 1" tall plastic men shooting and stabbing eachother as it was created as an addendum to Warhammer Fantasy.

They need to bring back battlefleet Gothic or something similar

There is an awesome space fight between the IoM and Necron forces in IA12: The Fall of Orpheus. Check it out, it's a fun read!

I already said only non-forge world books. IA books are great.

In the setting; yes, very.

In the game/tabletop; no, not really.

Another factor, I think, is that decisive space battles don't get a lot of coverage. If the Imperial Navy wipes out an ork kroozer, there's not much coverage. Same if an ork rok shows up and wipes the AdMech off an asteroid.

Indecisive space battles tend to become land/orbital platform battles. So, even when there's a component of space warfare, you tend to hear about the ground pounders.

GW is trying to sell the board game of space dudes killing each other (even CC is a bit silly when you think about it). I would imagine space battles play an immense role in campaigns and the wars of the 41st millennium, just like how naval battles played large roles in WW2, WW1, Napoleonic Era, etc. to name a few. While naval battles are important, if you want to take and hold the resources on the earth, you'll need boots on the ground to secure it. Since the codices are for the ground game, the lore will talk about what kind of badassitude the models you're buying and playing with are capable of. It wouldn't be very inspirational to read the rules about how awesome the Death Company is in CC and then the background story is all about a naval battle where they stood waiting and slobbering in a boarding craft, but weren't needed thanks to the Imperial Navy's might.

Space Battles can't be about individuals, so they are less dramatically intense.

No individual, no matter how important, matters all that much on a ship of a hundred thousand. Let alone in a fleet of such ships.

Space battles are things that happen, but they aren't about people. And people is what people are interested in.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Space Battles can't be about individuals, so they are less dramatically intense.

No individual, no matter how important, matters all that much on a ship of a hundred thousand. Let alone in a fleet of such ships.

Space battles are things that happen, but they aren't about people. And people is what people are interested in.

There is plenty of people interested in space battles.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Space Battles can't be about individuals, so they are less dramatically intense.

No individual, no matter how important, matters all that much on a ship of a hundred thousand. Let alone in a fleet of such ships.

Space battles are things that happen, but they aren't about people. And people is what people are interested in.

Except they are about individuals - the ships themselves.

There's a reason why humans have, over time, assigned genders to ships and given them names instead of just numbers stamped on the side. And why, when speaking about naval engagements, we refer to the ships as the ones taking actions, not "the crew of the X" (for the most part, at least). Ships can have histories, can turn defeats into victory, or turn tail and run, just like any soldier on the ground can.

For the most part, Necrons avoid direct confrontations with the Imperial Navy as well. While their ships are the fastest thing in the game with ridiculous firepower and regenerating hulls, they also have no shields. They can't hold up in a protracted brawl.

Necrons were broken OP in battlefleet gothic....

Why risk warfleets when a squad of 10 terminators can purge an entire planet single handed? with 0 loses.

 infinite_array wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Space Battles can't be about individuals, so they are less dramatically intense.

No individual, no matter how important, matters all that much on a ship of a hundred thousand. Let alone in a fleet of such ships.

Space battles are things that happen, but they aren't about people. And people is what people are interested in.

Except they are about individuals - the ships themselves.

There's a reason why humans have, over time, assigned genders to ships and given them names instead of just numbers stamped on the side. And why, when speaking about naval engagements, we refer to the ships as the ones taking actions, not "the crew of the X" (for the most part, at least). Ships can have histories, can turn defeats into victory, or turn tail and run, just like any soldier on the ground can.

The ship is just a tool. It doesn't drive around by itself winning the battle. In nearly every scifi story, the ship is a setting, not a character. Same as a planet.

With the habit of Imperial captains to mind-link with their ships, a ship as a character is very much a possible thing.

Actually, that's something I didn't understand about Ahriman: Exile. The captain was cast out of the Mechanicus for bonding with her ship in some way... but MIU links with ships are common.

DorianGray wrote:
Necrons were broken OP in battlefleet gothic....

Only in one off games. The entire game was really balanced around playing a campaign, where necrons had some crippling drawbacks.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
For the most part, Necrons avoid direct confrontations with the Imperial Navy as well. While their ships are the fastest thing in the game with ridiculous firepower and regenerating hulls, they also have no shields. They can't hold up in a protracted brawl.

They also do not need to


Automatically Appended Next Post:

In reality, the vast majority of battles would be space-bound, and as a result, the Orks, Chaos Marines and Tyrannids would be of little to no threat due to a lack of anything resembling a modern, organised fleet for the first two, and an inherent need to conduct land battles with the latter, who would simply be nuked out of existence from orbit.

First of, what do you even mean by modern fleet?
Second, Orks in a big Waagh also have a big organized fleet. They can and have defeated imperial navy many times, and repurposed broken vessels into their kroozers. In fluff, orks raiders and pirates are about the most common enemies imperial fleet faces
Third, Chaos presents a different threat. Raids and invasions on planets before the response ( from the fleet as well) can be mastered - Chaos Marines, being hard hitters, are notorious for that. Subversion of fleet bases or fleet themselves is also one of scenarios playing out moderately often. In fact, that is how Chaos usually gets their ships
Fourth, Tyranids are amazingly strong in space ))) and you are right about nuking from orbit - standard scenario in dealing with Tyranids is evacuating the planet then performing Exterminatus on it. Then hopefully starving the fleet and weakening them until they can be dealt with. Problem is, it is a bad thing to lose planets.
Fifth, in fluff space battles can often be protracted and inconclusive. Ships can play hide and seek and interfere with each other's attempts to support land forces

So face-wrecking space marines with chainsaws are more important than anything including 100 giant battleships blowing up a planet or another giant fleet?

Got it. 40k = makes total sense. O_o

DorianGray wrote:
So face-wrecking space marines with chainsaws are more important than anything including 100 giant battleships blowing up a planet or another giant fleet?

Got it. 40k = makes total sense. O_o

Well, that wouldn't be fun to read about, for the average 12-year-old (don't forget the target audience, it's the whole reason that Slaanesh sucks). I mean, space battles are badass and cool (not to mention the primary means by which victory is acquired in 40k), but who wants to read about how the Chaos Fleet got destroyed by the Imperial Navy, and the Space Marines just sat around praying? I would, but I doubt Johnny Twelve-year-old would.

In 40k, 99% of battles are decided in space, but, the only way to destroy a ground army with a space navy is to nuke it, and that would devastate the planet, which isn't exactly good for business if you want that planet's resources for yourself. Which is why the IG get sent in, to [literally] drown the enemy in a mountain of corpses until they give up. Half a century later, those corpses made excellent fertilizer for the crops that were later planted there.

Johnny 12-year old is re tarded and he probably plays SPACE MARINES.

Face-palm*

GW needs to grow up sometimes.

A lot can be decided in space, but you've also got to consider that a lot of conflicts are being fought because someone wants something on a planet. It might be information, it might be an artifact, it might be the billions of souls down there, it might be the prospect of a really good war, or because you want to strip the planet of all useful materials.

Space battles determine whether or not these ground battles can occur, and have a big impact on the nature of said ground battles.

They are very important, and it's a shame that BFG faded out.

With the rise of X-Wing and hopefully Armada taking off, I would love to see GW return to a ship-based game. I'd buy that for sure!

I've been burned too many times buying into GW's "specialist" games. I think the days of GW putting any real support behind any product that isn't 40K are long gone, and as much as I liked the designs of BFG's clunky churchships I would prefer if GW just focused on their 40K releases.