Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

BFG Rules, stats for Blackstone Fortresses, Ramilies-class Star Forts and other space installations

Having had some new ideas for variations and new uses of Blackstones and Ramilies for some time now, I had been hitting the lore hard for some time now, to better understand these behemoths and their context (among other things).
Some of you are probably familiar with my explorations & extrapolations, trying to better define the sizes of these two juggernauts, and having to settle for an improved concept of their relative scale.
I regret that I based my initial thinking off of the stats published and the relative sizes of the models. (I have 2 Blackstones and scratch-built a 6" pyramid for my Ramilies).
The LORE however, disproves my early notions as FALSE. I was mistaken in thinking the Ramilies as bigger than the Blackstone, but I had thought that for years.
I was going to export the images of the full rules from my pdf of the rules by Andy Chambers, but Adobe Reader is not allowing me to do that. So here are the short version copied from Planet Killer #1 and the BFG Rulebook for the units I am concerned with, minus the pages of Special Rules for the Ramilies.

From Battlefleet Gothic Rule Book, p.145 (1999?)
SPACE STATION....................................150 pts
TYPE/HITS SPEED TURNS SHIELDS ARMOUR TURRETS
Defence/8 0 0 2 5+ 4
ARMAMENT RANGE/SPEED FIREPOWER/STR FIRE ARC
Weapons battery 60cm 12 All round
Lance battery 30cm 3 All round
Launch bays Fighters 30cm
Bombers 20cm 4 squadrons -


BLACKSTONE FORTRESS....................................400 pts
TYPE/HITS SPEED TURNS SHIELDS ARMOUR TURRETS
Defence/16 0 0 6 5+ 6
ARMAMENT RANGE/SPEED FIREPOWER/STR FIRE ARC
Weapons battery 60cm 20 All round
Lance battery 60cm 4 All round
Launch bays Fighters 30cm
Bombers 20cm 8 squadrons -

From Battlefleet Gothic Rule Book, p.127
ACTIVATED BLACKSTONE FORTRESS...........................750 pts
TYPE/HITS SPEED TURNS SHIELDS ARMOUR TURRETS
Defence/16 10cm Special 6 6 0
ARMAMENT RANGE/SPEED FIREPOWER/STR FIRE ARC
Warp cannons 90cm 8 All round

Special Rules: A Blackstone Fortress cannot go onto special orders but is assumed to automatically pass all other Leadership tests it is required to
make. The Blackstone Fortress can move up to 10cm in any direction in the movement phase: it does not turn like a normal ship. It has no crew and so
does not add a D6 to its boarding score during a boarding action. A Blackstone Fortress' warp cannons roll 1 dice per point of Strength and require a
4+ to hit, like a lance. However, a warp cannon shot ignores shields, holofields or similar mechanisms; all hits will affect a ship directly.

Designer's note: At the moment, we're leaving the Blackstone Fortress' 'super-mega-death' shot out of these rules, but maybe we'll introduce them, along
with rules for combining Blackstone Fortress together, in an issue of White Dwarf magazine. If you've got any ideas in the mean time, we'd like to
hear them!

Planet Killer/Battlefleet Gothic Magazine, p.12-17 (in the year 2000)
Ramilies class Star Fort
RAMILIES CLASS STAR FORT...............................875 pts
TYPE/HITS SPEED TURNS SHIELDS ARMOUR TURRETS
Defence/12 per quadrant 10cm Special 4 per quadrant 5+ 4 per quadrant
ARMAMENT RANGE/SPEED FIREPOWER/STR FIRE ARC
Quadrant Batteries
Weapons battery 60cm 12 quadrant
Lance battery 60cm 5 quadrant
Launch bays Fighters 30cm
Bombers 20cm 8 squadrons quadrant

Special Rules: (there are a few sites that have the original, official pdf files as posted by GW/Specialist Games; I will check with Admins on IF I may post a link)

So as I see it, my options are:
(1) Treat the Blackstone Stats as published are in fact for Quadrants of the structure, and quadruple the Blackstone's Point Costs, to 1600 and 2800 respectively, making them prohibitively expensive.
(2) Rework the Ramilies and rework the Blackstones on a curve, with new Special Rules and balanced Points Costs.

What are the BFG community's thoughts and/or suggestions?

https://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Ramilies-class_Starfort

Another idea I had, was to reduce the cost of the Ramilies to 800 pts, and make the Imperial Blackstone (with Quadrants) 1,000 pts and the Chaos Blackstone (with Quadrants) 1,200 pts.

Where are the sizes of the Blackstone Fortresses and Ramilies Star Forts defined? I don';t recall the BFG rules giving the sizes of anything, so I'd be interested in seeing them.

They aren't.

see here for background:

Stuff

Gathering Storm/Fall of cadia has cadia destroyed by crashing a blackstone into it (which is kind of stupid since 'I've been destroyed oh well I'll crash and destroy the planet anyway' feels like lazy writing). Whether that was sheer size and mass or the warp-based energy core going up isn't entirely clear, though.

It also gives some truly ridiculous dimensions for a chamber inside an activated blackstone fortress (although the warp being the warp, it needn't line up with the external dimensions).

Also note that it gets slapped down in a fleet engagement by the Phalanx with almost contemptuous ease, and the Phalanx - whilst 'big' for a naval ship - isn't that big and is certainly lower tech than an old one superweapon. Certainly it's always described in a scale of 'kilometres' not 'hundreds' or 'thousands' of kilometres.

So as I see it, my options are:
(1) Treat the Blackstone Stats as published are in fact for Quadrants of the structure, and quadruple the Blackstone's Point Costs, to 1600 and 2800 respectively, making them prohibitively expensive.
(2) Rework the Ramilies and rework the Blackstones on a curve, with new Special Rules and balanced Points Costs.

What are the BFG community's thoughts and/or suggestions?

If you are determined to make a super-duper-blackstone, I'd do that. The Ramilies-class is pretty well balanced for its defined roll - a mobile dockyard.

The docking arms each accept a single capital ship, and are therefore near enough 'to scale' with cruisers, which means the quadrants between them having a (big) capital ship's armament and durability makes sense because they're (proportionately) about that size.

If you're convinced the Blackstone is too small, up that rather than shrinking the Ramilies.

locarno24 wrote:


It also gives some truly ridiculous dimensions for a chamber inside an activated blackstone fortress (although the warp being the warp, it needn't line up with the external dimensions).

I'm reminded of Greg Bear's Eon, in which an infinitely long tubular universe is contained within an asteroid less than 1,000km across.