My group has chosen a rather unusual approach. They started with a Cobra Class (a frigate hull with more space might have been even better, however, they chose the Cobra for style and fluff reasons) kitted out with a Cypra Pattern stealth drive ( Battlefleet Koronus ) and an Empyrean Mantle, a combination which makes their ship almost undetectable to enemy sensors when on silent running unless their opponent has a really solid detection rating. Coupled with the Passive Augur Array from Hostile Acquisitions their ship may run full augur sweeps on silent running without giving away their position in turn.

Consecutively, they crammed a prow Plasma Accelerated Torpedo Tube component, a dorsal best craftmanship Jovian Missile Battery and a Munitorium for increased battery damage and more torpedo storage into the ship.

Now, with short-burn torpedoes and the initial speed boost from their tubes their torpedo salvos may hit targets within 19 VU in the same turn they have been fired. With the surprise round and to-hit bonus from attacking from silent running they usually hit with the full salvo, quick load their tubes, slow their ship with retros to stay more or less on the same spot and fire a second salvo on their target. They then close in on the target (usually some critical hit has taken out the enemy's shields) and proceed to pound it with their rocket batteries which are equivalent to a Mars macrocannon broadside with the damage boost from the Munitorium and best craftmanship.

At first, I was really surprised how **** effective this build is if used properly. Oh and the best thing is the name their ship has been given... they havee christened her "Red October".

My current group has a rather powerful ship as well right now, at least using just core book components. But I was wondering what I should throw at them since traditional combat has been rather stayed right now... I think you've given me the answer.

I´ve generally not been that fond of torpedoes, but a variant of the above - perhaps with the ItS background that boosts silent running (the former pirate ship, I think) could be quite unpleasant.It is also an interesting PC ship, especially with a bit of cargo capacity and perhaps high-class accomodations for valuable cargo and people you want to get anywhere, past anything.

A pity the falchion can´t put another torpedo tube up front, but iirc the lightest ship with 2 torpedo components is the Endeavour.

So I tried to make a homebrew heavy ship that would fit some of these philosophies...

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/131886-ifrit-heavy-cruiser-modern-heavy-cruiser-pocket-battleship/

And I still need some help with it. Thoughts?

It... is a transport/carrier? Imperial guard regiments land and drop from armored transports? And the Imperium is not good at making armored dedicated transports self-combat-capable, the Carrack is as good as it gets for modern-created things? And this used the capabilities of that as a baseline? And it's not meant to launch a bunch of air support or strike craft! Those would be launched from an entirely different carrier! It's meant to be able to take a couple of hits and successfully launch drop troops and airdrop aircraft that drop troops drop from, from upper atmosphere? And not much else?

IE, It's meant to launch air drop craft like valkyries! Which is the purpose of the launch bays?

Also. Drop Troop armor is generally Drop Sentinels, Drop Support Sentinels, Tauros, and Tarantulas... ie, things that can be dropped themselves or carried by Valkyries... so all the armor is actually immediately made available if you can, you know. Disgorge enough Valkyries...

If all it is meant to be a transport/carrier, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. There's already transports/carriers in existence in the materials. Any of them can be designed in the way you seem to want. Thus, no new class is really called for. Especially when it really doesn't create anything new.

What I gave you was a Planetary Assault Ship... something like the Hellbringer-class (chaos voidship). It is meant to function like a space marine strike cruiser by being self-sufficient, capable of defending itself and carrying enough troops to essentially assault all but the largest and most heavily populated worlds.

The Elysian-class, if you are intent on making it, must differ enough from the existing classes to be worth building. All you are doing is offering alternative loadouts for existing ships. This is totally fine, but they certainly don't need a special name.

Tell me what armored transport there is in the rules of this size that the Imperium can currently make.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

So you presumably found the Carrack, which was smaller, the Goliath, which is specialized and not up-armored, the Universe, which is too big, and the Conquest, which can't be made any more and is possibly too big to land.

After all, that is why I wrote the Harvest. And the more specialized Elysian to go with it.

And this ship is not designed to act like that independent strike cruiser, which is mainly designed to work outside of a large fleet.

This ship is designed to be part of a fleet, and when the void-capable defenses are surpressed, quickly disgorge lots and lots of drop troops and valkyries that function with drop troops from upper atmosphere, and be able to take a hit or two from the remaining ground to void or ground to upper atmosphere weaponry, and then go back to the void and be able to continue to participate in bombarding ground targets and running a drop invasion.

Once a planet's orbital defenses have been neutralized, you'd go for the ground-based orbital attack weapons, the torpedo, lance, and macroweapon silos. Then you can apparently just land the smaller ships (Vagabonds, Carracks, etc.) right on the planet. The fluff seems to support this. Then you just disgorge the troops by the tens of thousands.

I like Drop Pod Bays but they are incredibly inefficient. They take up a lot of space for something that can only deliver a couple hundred troops before needing retrieval. You use them to precision target AAA defenses that you can't approach with aeronautica.

If you just land troops, what use then is drop troops AT ALL? I think it's for when you can't completely annihilate all the ground to orbit and ground to air assets, and need to get SOMETHING on the ground quickly while there is still some risk -- which is what this is used for, when you can't actually land ships, or even expect things much bigger than a Valkyrie (larger landing craft...) to get through the anti-air flak...

And this does not specifically need drop *pods*...

Yeah, I thought we might be mixing the terms drop troops and drop pods. Drop troops seems to include troops jumping from Valkyries with grav chutes, jump packs, land speeders, etc.. Drop pods are just that.

Still, drop pods are for those situations where AAA makes Valkyries, Thunderhawks, etc. a risky operation. Drop pods are supposed to come in so fast that AAA can't accurately track and target. And those take up lots of buck for little bang, and thus are limited to very special ops.

Drop troops on the other hand are still light infantry. For all their special weapons, they have little or no armor, and no artillery save orbital bombardment, which isn't very discriminating. But, drop troops are still very useful after the landing. A secure airfield permits refuel and further deployment. They are the paras, the airmobile, in-and-out, search & destroy, insertion-extraction forces used for lots of maneuvers. And well after the battle is won they are still your best mopping up and counter-insurgency forces.

Astartes drop pods come down so fast 40k style AAA can't track the target. Non Astartes drop pods come down much slower, and even then special technology still has to be used so that the people and machines don't go crunch. And this ship is for the drop troops, the various sorts of Valkyries to land them and their materiel, and the Drop Sentinels, Drop Support Sentinels, Tauros, and Tarantulas to support them on the ground. Hence the phrase "Elysian"...

My RT game into its 4th year of play (Well over 50,000xp), And we just pootle about in a Chalaice Battlecruiser.

We've gone for a bit of an Allrounder.

We have Best Quality hecutor Broadsides for when everything must die, a Best Quality Sunhammer Lance for then the Hecutors fail to do their job, we also have Landing Bays, and Bombardment cannons.

It has a nice little Archeo Plasma Drive, 3 Void-shields (overloaded shield capacitors), Reinforced Prow. Targeting Matrix, interior bulkheads, Barracks, Temple, Librarium, Xenos Librarium, Flak Turrets, Sensorium, Resolution arena, Medicae Deck, Bridge of Antiquity, Manufactorum and Astropathic Choir. Crew is 98%, Morale is 111%. The entire ships crew has Best Quality uniforms. and they are Pressed Crew Quarters.

We only have two ships and only recently lost our first Dauntless after we got ambushed by 9 other vessels, and took 6 of them out before the ship broke.

Its a 2 PC, 1 GM game to boot, The Rogue Trader Lord-Captain, and his Seneschal. We play of each other pretty well.

Helps that we are all about keeping it too the canon, with some rule of cool thrown in when appropriate.

#fluffstapo

They're called Elysians because they're from Elysia.

They're called Elysians because they are either designed FOR Elysian drop regiments, or named after the best drop regiments, or from Elysia and also for drop regiments, etc. etc. etc. -- it's an armored transport designed to work with a drop regiment. Is that so hard to understand?

Tell me what armored transport there is in the rules of this size that the Imperium can currently make.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

So you presumably found the Carrack, which was smaller, the Goliath, which is specialized and not up-armored, the Universe, which is too big, and the Conquest, which can't be made any more and is possibly too big to land.

After all, that is why I wrote the Harvest. And the more specialized Elysian to go with it.

And this ship is not designed to act like that independent strike cruiser, which is mainly designed to work outside of a large fleet.

This ship is designed to be part of a fleet, and when the void-capable defenses are surpressed, quickly disgorge lots and lots of drop troops and valkyries that function with drop troops from upper atmosphere, and be able to take a hit or two from the remaining ground to void or ground to upper atmosphere weaponry, and then go back to the void and be able to continue to participate in bombarding ground targets and running a drop invasion.

It's not that an armoured transport altready exists, it's that you can make one using existing classes by simply adding armour/hull reinforcing components.

Also, if its meant to be part of an invasion fleet, why bother with an armoured transport at all - that's what the fleet is for - screen the troop ships and bombard before invasion.

Ultimately, what I'm getting at is that your concept makes absolutely no sense. There's no need for such a vessel and, even if there were a need, it could be made using an alternative build for a number of existing hulls in the light cruiser weight class. To say that an entire ship class is designed for one particular formation of imperial guard is similarly so far outside what the Imperium does that it further pushes this concept towards making no sense.

Again... this design is purposeless. Homebrewing voidship classes is totally fine. I do it all the time. But, when I do, they generally serve a function or are build around a method of warfare that cannot be readily performed by existing classes.

They're called Elysians because they are either designed FOR Elysian drop regiments, or named after the best drop regiments, or from Elysia and also for drop regiments, etc. etc. etc. -- it's an armored transport designed to work with a drop regiment. Is that so hard to understand?

Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding. Is there such a thing as an Elysian Valkyrie that isn't being used by Elysians? Are we talking about a class of vehicles? Are you suggesting that there are Elysians Drop Troops that come from somewhere besides Elysia? I must be missing something.

Russians are people from Russia. Indians are people from India. Elysians are people from Elysia.

It's named the Elysian class in honor of the best drop troops in the Imperium? What's hard to understand?

Edit: Okay, I modified the ship to remove any references to the word 'cruiser'. It's an armored transport/carrier. That better?

And I don't know of any ship or component that is specifically designed to do the launching aircraft while in upper atmosphere thing? It's presumably something that can't be done in large scale, rapidly, without some specific carrier-like components designed for the task?

And drop troops are when you want to get boots on the ground before a full scale bombardment is completely over, where you launch them during the bombardment or only do a partial bombardment, for whatever reason.

It's named the Elysian class in honor of the best drop troops in the Imperium? What's hard to understand?

Edit: Okay, I modified the ship to remove any references to the word 'cruiser'. It's an armored transport. That better?

And I don't know of any ship or component that is specifically designed to do the launching aircraft while in upper atmosphere thing? It's presumably something that can't be done in large scale, rapidly, without some specific carrier-like components designed for the task?

And drop troops are when you want to get boots on the ground before a full scale bombardment is completely over, where you launch them during the bombardment or only do a partial bombardment, for whatever reason.

I think this is an issue of your level of knowledge.

Launch bays are not necessary to launch drop craft. That can be done out of lighter bays. Launch bays would certainly allow faster deployment, but they are not exclusively necessary.

In addition, I think you're attempting to apply WW2/modern combat tactics to 40k. Don't do that. It doesn't make sense. Drop troops may go down early to take very specific targets, but given than macroshells are in the range of 38 kiloton warheads, there is no such thing as danger-close bombardment because one macroshell would level multiple city blocks. As such, you wouldn't need dedicated transports just to have a handful of companies run special ops during bombardment.

Do yourself a favor... just take an existing light cruiser, fit it how you want and use it for what you want. The Elysian is unnecessary.

Oh, and for the record, I prefer Harakoni Warhawks to Elysians... so the issue of who is the best is similarly a matter of opinion.

Ok Gavinfoxx, I'm starting to get it now. I didn't realize you were referencing the name of your ship design. Try not to get impatient when there's an obvious communications difficulty. English isn't the first language of many people that post here, and your pronoun usage isn't very formal. Always be ready to take a step back in the conversation.

Now that we're on the same page I think I have some constructive criticism. Your ship isn't overly large, and it's speed is slow. This says to me that there's probably power left over for its attitudinal thrusters, and while invasion ships have little need for speed, they might very well need Maneuverability for atmospheric maneuvers. So, I'd suggest increasing the ship's Maneuverability....a lot. It's not too large to consider a frigate, so if it's purpose-designed for war it could very well be a frigate, in which case that Maneuverability combined with low speed could conceivably be quite high, say +30.

I'd also make the Landing Bay a built-in component so my players didn't want one for all their ships. I'd make room for several different sizes of drop ships for differing landing situations, and with that increased maneuverability make landing the ship on a planet a possibility, too. I'd also consider making one or two Barracks components also built-in, maybe even more...after all, it's a purpose-built landing ship.

Edit: I hadn't realized all the extras. It actually is a large ship. I'll address that below.

Think of it a bit like a void-capable Shield Helicarrier.

It has, built in:

Port Launch Bay, specialized for atmospheric use and rapid airborn launch and retrieval

Starboard Launch Bay, specialized for atmospheric use and rapid airborn launch and retrieval

Two Barracks Components

One Main Cargo Hold

A Specialized Invasion Bridge

And power must be supplied to all these components, none of which can be removed.

My main reason to make the maneuverability low is because Armored Transports seem to have pitiful maneuverability. I would presume they would pre-calculate, on approach, a launch window, which they can not generally safely deviate from without an exceptional helmsman.

And the entire concept is predicated around extremely fast deployment. As in, like a few minutes total for the launch, for a hot drop. Also, there isn't an atmospheric focused launch bay statted out in the rules . That's one of my main reasons for making it, and also, making it not removable -- the entire ship is built around the concept -- is a core feature.

Also, this is roughly the size of a Goliath: Bigger than a Heavy Frigate, smaller than a Light Cruiser. IE, the biggest sized ship that can generally be said to do stuff like land and do atmospheric stuff as a fairly routine (ie conceivable) concept.

All told, if you can equip it with an appropriate amount of drop troops, valkyries, appropriate sentinels, and the cargo bay with appropriate support equipment, you can get +mucho to military endeavors like an invasion -- I haven't statted out exactly how much it should be (that would take even more homebrewing). Maybe +400 or so to invasions, if you equip it with a Stygies? Maybe 500, the entire ship is dedicated to the task.

Hmmm. It has 43 spaces (but overall size of 65+), while the Turbulent-class has 42. The Goliath-class is listed with space 40, but it has 2 main cargo holds and an undefined plasma refinery, which probably takes up at least 5-6 spaces and probably more, giving the Goliath at least 53 spaces and probably closer to 60.

You've built in the equivalent of 2 escort landing bays (total space 8), a bridge (space 2-3), 2 barracks and a main cargo hold (total space 12). I'm curious why it has so much discretionary space. The essential components (if it's a transport) would only take up 23 spaces. Why 43 then? A specialized vessel wouldn't have that kind of discretionary space.

It's a niche vessel, so it needs to be economical. I'd find a way to pack in the maximum number of troops, and means to deploy them, in the least possible space.

Let's see if I can come up with the same bang for less bucks. I'm going small, just for fun.

The vagabond is size 40 (44 including main cargo hold). It's essential components consume 25 spaces and 25 power. Throw in the assault scanner for +2 power. The cargo hold is transformed into a hold landing bay, and one of the special prow landing bays goes on the prow mount, leaving the dorsal mount open. Let's use some pyro-meltas for good bombardment capabilities (4/3). We've used up (I think, I'm still unclear as to whether hold landing bays replace their 1 power usage for the main cargo hold's 2) 31 power, 32 spaces, and used up 26 SP. I put your 2 barracks components in, taking up the rest of the space and power exactly. I don't have the bombardment cannon, my armor isn't as good, and I don't have the paltry ability to drop pod 200 troops. My detection and maneuverability are both 5 better. My small craft capability, however, is 50% greater. You're carrying 6 squadrons; I'm carrying 9. That's a big deal.

And all this for 30 SPs, less than half the SP cost of a light cruiser-sized invasion ship.

My ship can't drop pod any troops, so that's a false comparison. The numbers are intentionally left vague as to precisely how many troops it can grav drop or put in valkyries, though. Thousands? Several Thousand? Alas, the system never actually tells you how many troops fit in a 'barracks' component... Ands you have some landing bays that AREN'T air specific for rapid upper atmosphere airdrops and launching; we don't even know if those exist outside of specially designed ships. And you don't know the stats of these specialized landing bays, which might hold more aircraft than an equivalent void-specialized landing bay, and you don't have a main cargo hold for extra supplies to drop.

Well, it is mentioned that a landing bay can hold double the number of Aeronautica craft compared to its normal voidcraft equivalent, so we do have some idea regarding the capacity.

@ Errant knight - wasn't the range of most land-based anti-orbital weaponry specified anywhere to be 4 or 5? I like the overall idea (maybe with a Q-ship, I think those had a bit more space) but am a bit worried you might be sitting too close to return fire with those pyro-meltas.

Well, it is mentioned that a landing bay can hold double the number of Aeronautica craft compared to its normal voidcraft equivalent, so we do have some idea regarding the capacity.

@ Errant knight - wasn't the range of most land-based anti-orbital weaponry specified anywhere to be 4 or 5? I like the overall idea (maybe with a Q-ship, I think those had a bit more space) but am a bit worried you might be sitting too close to return fire with those pyro-meltas.

I don't know where any land-based weapons have been statted out, but going by BFG (and lacking anything from FFG, I always go by BFG) land-based lance silos are STR 3 Godsbane batteries, and land-based torpedo silos are standard Mars-pattern torpedo bays. There are no land-based macroweapons in my copy of BFG, though they do have air bases (of course).

And that was just throwing something off the top of my head. Given time to sit and look at the problem, here is what I'd do.

Imperial Troop Transport - Vagabond

Speed: 4

Maneuverability: -10

Detection +10

Hull Integrity: 35

Armor: 13

Turret Rating: 1

Power: 37/40

Space: 40/40

SP: 20 + 8 = 28

Weapons: 1 Prow, 1 Dorsal

Crew Population: 100 Crew Morale: 98 Crew Rating: 30

Essential Components: Jovian 2, Strelov 1, Geller Field, Combat Bridge, Single Shield, M-1.r Sustainer, Pressed Crew Quarters, M-100 Augur Array

Supplemental Components: 2 x Jovian Missile Batteries, Hold Landing Bay, 2 x Barracks, Munitorum

Standard Aeronautica Complement: 60 Thunderbolts, 20 Lightnings, 40 Marauders, 80 Valkyries

Standard Troop Complement:

1. Striker Brigade (3 Mech Battalions (each with 2 Mech companies, 1 Armored company, and 1 Recon company), 1 Artillery Battalion, 1 Service Battalion, and 1 HQ Battalion
2. 4 x Garrison Battalions (each with 3 infantry companies and attached towed artillery including Earthshakers, heavy mortars, Icarus or Hydra batteries, Sabre platforms, Tarantula turrets, and void shielding
3. 2 x Airmobile Battalions

I wouldn't plan on staying in the atmosphere more than a single strategic turn, if at all, so those Jovians are sufficient for rate of fire, and they pack a big punch for little power and space, plus the Munitorum reinforces them a bit.

The infantry can be on the ground fast, especially the airmobile battalions. Vehicles still need a special drop ship. We've discussed those in several threads. 3 Devourers and 4 of those unnamed drop ships from Epic would get the whole sheebang on the ground in one drop. I wouldn't think that's necessary, but some people like the rapid deployment thingie.

Gavinfoxx, we'd always assumed the Barracks component included the means to carry on war for at least a month, and the Munitorum should make up for not having an extra Main Cargo Hold, and any serious invasion is going to need supply ships anyway. Those can be contracted for separately. And, the ship is still less than 1/2 the price of the larger ship. For what I'd spend on the specialized ship, I can use something like this and get twice as much on the ground. Call me cheap, but I like large numbers.

And yes, The_Shaman, you could get even better use with a Loki, but at 28 SPs, this baby is affordable to most Dynasties.

I'll keep my light cruisers as gunships and rely on troop transports for the ground war.

The problem with that Vagabond build is that it'll get blown to hell and back on approach of a defended or even just contested planet.

It's not tough enough for the Navy, or probably most Rogue Traders, to be willing to risk against anti-ship defenses or without significant escort, because it's squishy.

That's where a more specialized design has value, because, let's face it - if it's not being actively defended against starships, you don't really need a specialized assault ship to establish a beachhead and get your troops on the ground, regular transports and drop craft will suffice.

A planetary assault ship designed to establish beachheads on contested/defended planets, provide orbital fire support in the face of planetary defenses, and enter orbit to deploy planetcraft/airbreathers, is going to need to be well armored, have fairly powerful manuevering thrusters (it's not going to be relying on its main engines to hold position in atmosphere/extremely low orbits for planetcraft launch and recovery), have decent gun capacity - (relatively rapid fire rates is important for suppressing defenses, and fairly accurate is important as well), in addition to the transport and deployment capacity for the troops, you'd need/want space for training, and space for the ground forces command staff to manage the invasion operations before the beachhead is sufficiently established for the headquarters to be safely relocated to dirtside; there will probably also be capacity for a significant ground forces engineering/construction element as well.

You're basically aiming to design and build something akin to the battlestars of Battlestar Galactica, though, since it's 40k, it'd no doubt need to be much larger than Galactica .

Size-wise, you're probably looking at a light cruiser to fit in all the required functions and support.

It's not really something most Rogue Traders would invest in, because it's not really something they're going to be doing that often, if ever. If they run into something that requires a specialized planetary assault ship to attack and land ground troops, a Rogue Trader is likely to try to negotiate, employ some sort of deception, or, failing that, run and call for the Imperial Navy because these Xenos/Heretics are worthy of a Crusade/significant Naval action.

The Navy will have some of these specialized assault ships ... but won't like using them unless necessary, because committing them to action usually means accepting that they will be taking damage, perhaps significant damage. And, frankly, many, perhaps most, major (non-escort) Astartes ships are going to fulfill many of the requirements for a specialized planetary assault ship, because that's what they're nominally limited to, in addition to "necessary" support and escort ships.

Again, Said specialized assault ship already exists. It's called a Strike cruiser! It's big brother is called a Battle Barge! Both are Astartes ships. The Space marines use and maintain them because those kinds of opposed landings and beachead clearances are their specialty! The IG will simply seek to land their transports in a less defended area or use specialized landing craft (Like the Shark assault boat). Heavily defended and Strategically vital worlds will merit the attention of the Space Marines so the guard will not have to go it alone!

Technically, Rogue traders have the same options, although a successful appeal to a Space Marine chapter would probably require some pre existing compact between the two.