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I must be the only 40k nutter who doesn't find BFG appealing. I mean, the miniatures are fine and that, but I just cannot justify a tabletop game mechanic for space fights where the game is played ON A 2D PLANE!

Man O war on the other hand, now that I could manage, since naval battles are pretty much a 2D affair

Billicus wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

I mean... the entire BFG range was 1 cruiser sculpt per faction with combinations of 3 weapons modules...

Yeah, but it gets a pass because it was a bajillion years ago I think.

The entire PLASTIC line was 2 sprues, but there was a huge metal and resin line as well.


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As for that the Battlefleet Heresy ships might looked like, the BFG predecessor Space Fleet had a nice looking family of ships that were basically Star Wars Super Star Destroyers by way of 40k. A sword-like hull with a city build on it.





They don't look like any other line of ships and have a history GW can use to launch their new line.

 Crimson wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

If it was set into 40K, people could still easily play it in HH as well. Reverse is not true.

BFG fluffed that the Chaos ships were mostly M36-M39 designs, while the Imperial ones were M39-M41 and represented a paradigm shift in Imperial tactics. The Vengeance-class Grand Cruiser was designed as a transitional model to show the progression. If GW brings back BFG in any form I'm sure there'll be some retconning, but the whole reason the Chaos and Imperial fleets are visually and functionally different is because they come from different eras. Would Heresy players really be excited to play Chaos v Chaos games, skip daemons and marks of Chaos, and have to homebrew/houserule their own Legion-specific rules? I kinda doubt it. As much as I prefer the setting of 40K, selling a single set of minis to all the Heresy players does seem like the safer option.

I mean you basically outline here why HH fleet game would be boring. Aside from having legion rules, this is exactly what it would be. Boring mirror matches with very limited selection of ships.

Adeptus Titanicus also has "boring mirror matches" - both sides have almost the same options, and there's about five different Titans to choose from, depending on how you count. Despite that, it is still an absolute joy to play. There is enough flexibility in army selection and faction-specific rules that different armies can still feel quite different. While having more choices is always better, and a diverse Battlefleet 41k would likely be more fun than Battlefleet Heresy, I don't think the latter would necessarily be boring, and could even be pretty good. I am cautiously optimistic, although I still have far too much Epic to paint, so I'd be perfectly happy if they don't release a fleet game for another couple of years...

 Hellebore wrote:
Yeah The info implied that it was mostly the aesthetic that changed, the underlying technology didn't.

The ramming prows were added to the ship designs later. The emperor battleship chassis was older than the great crusade, but the gubbins the imperium stick on later was new.

They often talk about advanced plasma guns, or drives, but from the outside you can't tell.

So the concept of a hard line between the HH era and modern imperial ship is a lot less obvious than it appears

The ship stats tell the difference between the Martian shipyard style (the armored prow and multiple engine tubes as seen in ships like the Emperor class) and the dagger prow shaped ships that have since fallen out of favor but are still used by Chaos renegades. Basically there seemed to have been several schools of ship design. The dagger shaped ones were higher tech but more difficult to build and maintain.

The Chaos ships fell out of favor because Imperial technology declined. That is why the Chaos ships are a little faster and use long range lance weapons and have longer range weapon batteries. The armored prow Imperial ships have torpedo tubes in the prow and generally shorter ranged weapon batteries. Even when the BFG rulebook talks about rediscovering superfired plasma weapons for the Tyrant class cruiser, the Tyrant's superfired weapon batteries just have a slightly longer range compared to the Lunar class and still not comparable in either firepower or range to some of the equivalent Chaos cruisers.

As Imperial technology declined, it was easier to build ships where it is just putting on slabs of armor in front instead of putting in long range lance weapons. The Repulsive grand cruiser fell out of production because the secret of making compact yet powerful engines was lost, with later inferior engines being unable to get that hull up to a useful combat speed.

So the Martian school of reilable armored prow ships won out over the more exacting but difficult to build and maintain dagger blade hull designs as the Imperium regresses and falls back on reliable understood technology.

Iracundus wrote:


The ship stats tell the difference between the Martian shipyard style (the armored prow and multiple engine tubes as seen in ships like the Emperor class) and the dagger prow shaped ships that have since fallen out of favor but are still used by Chaos renegades. Basically there seemed to have been several schools of ship design. The dagger shaped ones were higher tech but more difficult to build and maintain.

The Chaos ships fell out of favor because Imperial technology declined. That is why the Chaos ships are a little faster and use long range lance weapons and have longer range weapon batteries. The armored prow Imperial ships have torpedo tubes in the prow and generally shorter ranged weapon batteries. Even when the BFG rulebook talks about rediscovering superfired plasma weapons for the Tyrant class cruiser, the Tyrant's superfired weapon batteries just have a slightly longer range compared to the Lunar class and still not comparable in either firepower or range to some of the equivalent Chaos cruisers.

As Imperial technology declined, it was easier to build ships where it is just putting on slabs of armor in front instead of putting in long range lance weapons. The Repulsive grand cruiser fell out of production because the secret of making compact yet powerful engines was lost, with later inferior engines being unable to get that hull up to a useful combat speed.

So the Martian school of reilable armored prow ships won out over the more exacting but difficult to build and maintain dagger blade hull designs as the Imperium regresses and falls back on reliable understood technology.

Very good analysis.

Supply lines were also an issue, Chaos favored lances (energy weapons) and batteries over torpedoes and launch bays because they did not have forge worlds churning out torpedoes, fighters and bombers for them.

Iracundus wrote:
The ship stats tell the difference between the Martian shipyard style (the armored prow and multiple engine tubes as seen in ships like the Emperor class) and the dagger prow shaped ships that have since fallen out of favor but are still used by Chaos renegades. Basically there seemed to have been several schools of ship design. The dagger shaped ones were higher tech but more difficult to build and maintain.

The Chaos ships fell out of favor because Imperial technology declined. That is why the Chaos ships are a little faster and use long range lance weapons and have longer range weapon batteries. The armored prow Imperial ships have torpedo tubes in the prow and generally shorter ranged weapon batteries. Even when the BFG rulebook talks about rediscovering superfired plasma weapons for the Tyrant class cruiser, the Tyrant's superfired weapon batteries just have a slightly longer range compared to the Lunar class and still not comparable in either firepower or range to some of the equivalent Chaos cruisers.

As Imperial technology declined, it was easier to build ships where it is just putting on slabs of armor in front instead of putting in long range lance weapons. The Repulsive grand cruiser fell out of production because the secret of making compact yet powerful engines was lost, with later inferior engines being unable to get that hull up to a useful combat speed.

So the Martian school of reilable armored prow ships won out over the more exacting but difficult to build and maintain dagger blade hull designs as the Imperium regresses and falls back on reliable understood technology.

Besides all that, there were also hints throughout the blue book that the dagger classes were inherently more corruptible because of the geometries of their design, their machine spirits, etc. and thus the aesthetic divide in the fleet lists was "statistically representative" - the majority of dagger ships fell to Chaos and the majority of prow ships didn't.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The ship stats tell the difference between the Martian shipyard style (the armored prow and multiple engine tubes as seen in ships like the Emperor class) and the dagger prow shaped ships that have since fallen out of favor but are still used by Chaos renegades. Basically there seemed to have been several schools of ship design. The dagger shaped ones were higher tech but more difficult to build and maintain.

The Chaos ships fell out of favor because Imperial technology declined. That is why the Chaos ships are a little faster and use long range lance weapons and have longer range weapon batteries. The armored prow Imperial ships have torpedo tubes in the prow and generally shorter ranged weapon batteries. Even when the BFG rulebook talks about rediscovering superfired plasma weapons for the Tyrant class cruiser, the Tyrant's superfired weapon batteries just have a slightly longer range compared to the Lunar class and still not comparable in either firepower or range to some of the equivalent Chaos cruisers.

As Imperial technology declined, it was easier to build ships where it is just putting on slabs of armor in front instead of putting in long range lance weapons. The Repulsive grand cruiser fell out of production because the secret of making compact yet powerful engines was lost, with later inferior engines being unable to get that hull up to a useful combat speed.

So the Martian school of reilable armored prow ships won out over the more exacting but difficult to build and maintain dagger blade hull designs as the Imperium regresses and falls back on reliable understood technology.

Besides all that, there were also hints throughout the blue book that the dagger classes were inherently more corruptible because of the geometries of their design, their machine spirits, etc. and thus the aesthetic divide in the fleet lists was "statistically representative" - the majority of dagger ships fell to Chaos and the majority of prow ships didn't.

That is one possibility. There is another though that was referenced in the BFG magazines I believe (don't have them handy to check the reference). As the Imperium's technology declined, the dagger ships were increasingly sidelined and not given priority for maintenance or repairs (probably because the Imperium could no longer do so easily), leading to their neglected captains denouncing the Imperium and turning renegade. So rather than the ships being inherently corruptible, the Imperium's neglect of the ships and their captains and crews caused mutiny.

BFG Chaos ships also used plasma drives, with 25 cm movement over the imperium’s 20cm movement, which were stated to no longer be able to be easily or at all produced.

The same was said to be true of the Chaos ships’ longer range plasma macro-batteries being lost technology.

Lance weaponry was also commonplace among Chaos cruiser, grand cruisers, and battleships, and these lances had greatly superior range than Imperial lance batteries.

I have been waiting for the return of BFG for years. I went a bit crazy back when they shut down Specialist Games and bought a lot from the US, UK, and AUS webstores to fill out my collection. Still have my Ramilies Star Fort somewhere. And as long as they don't completely screw it up, I'll buy lots of new stuff, too.

This is just an example of GW trying to make a meme like they did with Sisters of Battle and Squats. Will it turn into something? Very possibly, they've probably got launches like this in their back pocket to prop up any slightly poor performing year.

 ph34r wrote:
BFG Chaos ships also used plasma drives, with 25 cm movement over the imperium’s 20cm movement, which were stated to no longer be able to be easily or at all produced.

The same was said to be true of the Chaos ships’ longer range plasma macro-batteries being lost technology.

Lance weaponry was also commonplace among Chaos cruiser, grand cruisers, and battleships, and these lances had greatly superior range than Imperial lance batteries.

I think what's more important is that these are all rules based differences, not aesthetic ones.There were named imperial.shipsnthst were retrofitted with captured chaos equipment to improve their guns or speed. But the models themselves were indistinguishable from the normal imperial ships.

The only aesthetic that had a rule was the armoured prow, because it was thicker armour. But the greater external aesthetic of the two lines of ship are pretty independent of the mechanics underneath. So there's no issue with having both variants around in the HH, or having modern imperial classes with different aesthetics - the aforementioned battleship could exist without an armoured prow but otherwise the same




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Iracundus wrote:

Snip
.

Yeah exactly. The interchangeability of the technology without external aesthetic change allows for HH to have. Wide range of designs. The emperor having the knife shell with the same underneath would be an interesting design choice.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Interesting.

More specifically, they compare the new Custodes change to the change from 1st generation Stormcast to Stormstrike armor complete with gendered armor.

*sigh*

I really hope that's just ragebaiting.

I'm probably in the minority but I would love the models to be slightly larger, I know the gamers will hate this. Just want a plastic Apocalypse class battleship (the only true battleship) for display

 Rolsheen wrote:
I'm probably in the minority but I would love the models to be slightly larger, I know the gamers will hate this. Just want a plastic Apocalypse class battleship (the only true battleship) for display

Who knows, if they bring back BFG we might see something like the JoyToy line, or one of the other large scale display options. There has got to be a market for people who want a foot long imperial/heretic warship sitting on a desk or mantel. Is building ships in bottles still a thing?

Wonder how many parts a Cobra might come in?

Because whilst I love the new epic scale kits? There’s definitely a question of should over could in terms of the fiddly.

 Rolsheen wrote:
I'm probably in the minority but I would love the models to be slightly larger, I know the gamers will hate this. Just want a plastic Apocalypse class battleship (the only true battleship) for display

It is preferable to many people if the game remained compatible with old models, but ignoring that slightly larger scale might be good idea. The smallest escorts are pretty tiny, and in the fluff there exists even smaller corvettes and it would be nice to have those in the game. And in plastic you obviously can make the largest ships much larger than they were when the models were metal.


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 YodhrinsForge wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Interesting.

More specifically, they compare the new Custodes change to the change from 1st generation Stormcast to Stormstrike armor complete with gendered armor.

*sigh*

I really hope that's just ragebaiting.

What's wrong with it?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wonder how many parts a Cobra might come in?

Because whilst I love the new epic scale kits? There’s definitely a question of should over could in terms of the fiddly.

Well, luckily at least we don't already have 40k scaled ships that GW would feel obliged to 100% match. So theoretically they could design models from scratch with construction in BFG scale in mind.

True, but the do like to show off how much noodly detailing they can get in these days.

Consider the humble Deimos Pattern Rhino (or RH1NO for particularly old folks).

The Epic kits have the exhausts as separate parts, four per tank. When, at that scale? Sure moulding them onto the side might cost some fine detail, but not to a noticable degree for most paint jobs.

 winnertakesall wrote:

This is just an example of GW trying to make a meme like they did with Sisters of Battle and Squats. Will it turn into something? Very possibly, they've probably got launches like this in their back pocket to prop up any slightly poor performing year.

That's not how GW works - they have a lead time of anything between 18 months and 3 years on the things they release, dependent upon the scale and complexity. They don't just 'hold things in their back pocket to prop up any slightly poor performing year'.

 tauist wrote:
I must be the only 40k nutter who doesn't find BFG appealing. I mean, the miniatures are fine and that, but I just cannot justify a tabletop game mechanic for space fights where the game is played ON A 2D PLANE!

Man O war on the other hand, now that I could manage, since naval battles are pretty much a 2D affair

BFG is one of the better representations of space fights on a tabletop precisely because it accepts that space is big and doesn't worry about the third dimension that would basically amount to a range modifier in most cases. Ships can't collide unless explicitly ordered to, all measurements are taken from the mathematical midpoint at the stem while the models themselves are just purely there for eye candy and so on. I have much more problems with similar games that try to model atmospheric dogfighting with aircraft and forget to account for energy-altitude-velocity trades, or the worst of them all, games about dogfighting in space where your pitifully small fighters can stop larger craft in their tracks by moving in front of them (looking at you, X-Wing)

 Crimson wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
I'm probably in the minority but I would love the models to be slightly larger, I know the gamers will hate this. Just want a plastic Apocalypse class battleship (the only true battleship) for display

is preferable to many people if the game remained compatible with old models, but ignoring that slightly larger scale might be good idea. The smallest escorts are pretty tiny, and in the fluff there exists even smaller corvettes and it would be nice to have those in the game. And in plastic you obviously can make the largest ships much larger than they were when the models were metal.


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 YodhrinsForge wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Interesting.

More specifically, they compare the new Custodes change to the change from 1st generation Stormcast to Stormstrike armor complete with gendered armor.

*sigh*

I really hope that's just ragebaiting.

What's wrong with it?

Femstodes all over again I think.

Finally they are coming out with BattleFlotsum. The sequel to Dreadfleet. Where you are the captain of a damaged frigate from your army and you have to collect pieces of flotsum to get seaworthy again. So, you'll have shoreline fights with other crews to collect driftwood to patch holes. So, it will be a skirmish game building to a whole armada range.Product will come as blind draws of sprues as you never know what the tides will wash ashore.

Dudeface wrote:
Femstodes all over again I think.

It does seem a bit left field to bring it up during a discussion on space naval battles, unless the point is to derail or distract.

 Theophony wrote:
Finally they are coming out with BattleFlotsum. The sequel to Dreadfleet. Where you are the captain of a damaged frigate from your army and you have to collect pieces of flotsum to get seaworthy again. So, you'll have shoreline fights with other crews to collect driftwood to patch holes. So, it will be a skirmish game building to a whole armada range.Product will come as blind draws of sprues as you never know what the tides will wash ashore.

That just sounds like red hot Skaven on Goblin action, and I’d love that.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 tauist wrote:
I must be the only 40k nutter who doesn't find BFG appealing. I mean, the miniatures are fine and that, but I just cannot justify a tabletop game mechanic for space fights where the game is played ON A 2D PLANE!

Man O war on the other hand, now that I could manage, since naval battles are pretty much a 2D affair

BFG is one of the better representations of space fights on a tabletop precisely because it accepts that space is big and doesn't worry about the third dimension that would basically amount to a range modifier in most cases. Ships can't collide unless explicitly ordered to, all measurements are taken from the mathematical midpoint at the stem while the models themselves are just purely there for eye candy and so on. I have much more problems with similar games that try to model atmospheric dogfighting with aircraft and forget to account for energy-altitude-velocity trades, or the worst of them all, games about dogfighting in space where your pitifully small fighters can stop larger craft in their tracks by moving in front of them (looking at you, X-Wing)

Yeah, not that people aren't free to not like things because they're lacking in their eyes, but when you think about it from a game design perspective what would a 3rd dimension really add to space battles? A longer distance measurement from ship to ship and not much else. Which would cause designers to increase weapons' ranges to compensate. You could add top and bottom damage zones in addition to front/back/right/left, but as you're filling in damage bubbles to the bottom zone of your ship you'd really have to ask yourself, "Is this making the game better in any tangible way?" I've seen this discussion several times online over the years, and it just doesn't seem like we're really missing out on anything just because we have flat tables to play on.

Dropfleet used to have three height zones, but I think in 2nd edition they dropped it down to two.

 Crimson wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
I'm probably in the minority but I would love the models to be slightly larger, I know the gamers will hate this. Just want a plastic Apocalypse class battleship (the only true battleship) for display

is preferable to many people if the game remained compatible with old models, but ignoring that slightly larger scale might be good idea. The smallest escorts are pretty tiny, and in the fluff there exists even smaller corvettes and it would be nice to have those in the game. And in plastic you obviously can make the largest ships much larger than they were when the models were metal.

Yeah. Also, the game is pretty much the only gw one that uses an abstract point to represent the model that's perfectly balanced across all models, so the size of the model doesn't actually matter.

It might be the only time I wouldn't mind scale creep to add something to the game. Plus it helps thaf the buy in was low.


It could be cool if they took the route of treating battleships as 40k equiv titanic units, with cruisers as vehicles and escorts as infantry, in terms of the amount that appears on the table. You could then add smaller escorts like Corvettes as more regular units. It also opens up the light cruiser scale for expansion.

Maybe GW dropped that one to see what the reaction was. Considering how thoroughly they are exploiting their past IP, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are planning to bring back BFG.

I played BFG quite a lot - I liked the idea of Battle of Jutland style engagements in space. The metal models weren’t very practical, and looked pretty crude, so I tried to stick to plastic. Unfortunately, one of the players worked out that spamming small ships with torpedoes was very hard to counter, and everyone lost interest. I would quite like slightly larger ships, but not overloaded with small parts - LI models are just too labour-intensive for what they are.

If they kept to the original scale, maybe I’d be able to use the Chaos battlecruiser I converted. I never finished painting it. Here it is with some smaller ships I also converted.

Superb work on those ships.

 Snord wrote:
Maybe GW dropped that one to see what the reaction was. Considering how thoroughly they are exploiting their past IP, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are planning to bring back BFG.

I played BFG quite a lot - I liked the idea of Battle of Jutland style engagements in space. The metal models weren’t very practical, and looked pretty crude, so I tried to stick to plastic. Unfortunately, one of the players worked out that spamming small ships with torpedoes was very hard to counter, and everyone lost interest. I would quite like slightly larger ships, but not overloaded with small parts - LI models are just too labour-intensive for what they are.

That's what fighter screens were for, to sweep aside torpedo salvoes. If they try to counter by having lots of little salvoes, remember that ship point defense turrets got to fire against every salvo that attacked, so little salvoes are unlikely to get through the turret fire of big ships. Smaller ships can also base to base against larger ships to support their turret fire.

The scale of BFG is something that needs to be either adjusted or reflected in the background. As originally depicted, according to Andy Chambers, each cm = about 1000 km, and each ship is in the stem of the base. Yet in the Black Library books, we have captains and admirals looking over the hulls of other ships in detail out the window with the naked eye. That would be point blank collision range, or if they were a decent distance away then they should be little more than a dot (if that) and not really visible to the naked eye.