I'm trying to use Star Wars Armada rules as a substitute for Dark Heresy (Battle Fleet Gothic) ship to ship combat any suggestions on ship type conversions and weapons? (Victory Class = BFG equivalent) (turbo lasers = Light Lances) (SW = Boarding Torpedoes)

Not to put too fine a point on it - the closest equivalent to a Victory-class Destroyer is a Cobra-class Destroyer.....

40k ships are quite a bit....bigger.

Mechanically, it works; tokens, dice etc, but the ships themselves should (at least for big ships) be very broadside-focused (more like the assault frigate), so I'd suggest you'd have trouble using ships one-for-one.

Torpedos are the one thing that'll cause you a headache - they're slow-firing (even on a warship scale) but penetrate shields - they can be shot down en route to target, but if you don't shoot them down or dodge them, the damage from a torp spread is back-breaking.

Do you have, or can you get, access to Rogue Trader? The Rogue Trader Core Rulebook and Battlefleet Koronus expansion have a 40k RPG fleet combat rule set which is designed with BS/Navigate (Stellar)/Scrutiny set of rules which should bolt straight on to the character's skills and abilities.

I'd be very careful with this. XWing/Armada are balanced for tournament play. RPGs are not. In RPGs the players should win most of the time. If you guys play a game of Armada in between, figure a 50/50 shot of the players winning or the player's ship getting blown up depending on who is a better space admiral. On top of that, Armada is a 2 player game, and you'll have what, 4-6 people at the table? Are they supposed to agree on what to do by committee each turn? Is this something your players have asked for?

Rogue Trader might be a better fit.

Thanks for replying, I do have Rogue Trader, I just wanted something a little cleaner/faster, certain aspects of the my game are done outside of role playing (if the players find or fail to find certain information in the rp game then it affects the amount of points or position of fleets and battles, I feel it gives a more epic scale to the players role in game. "The Empire lost two light cruisers because you didn't get that artifact" and I like the visual imagery a battle would give, instead of just telling them). Plus the idea of FFG putting out a Battle Fleet Gothic minis game got my gears going.

I'll look up the 40k RPG fleet combat rule set and see if that works.

Whilst I would love to see it - they even have model sculpts sitting there in Forbidden Stars ! - I don't see it happening any time soon; with both Armada and X-wing drawing games design resources.

Why not just use BFG rules, though, while you're at it?

Or perhaps one of those Age of Sail games? They should be relatively easy to convert.

Lynata@ I think it's a knee jerk reaction to not using BFG rules. Games Workshop stuff can be a bit clunky, especially their older games. I'll have to see if I can find the rules for it.

Magnus Grendal@ Now I want to buy Forbidden Stars even more.

Lynata@ I think it's a knee jerk reaction to not using BFG rules. Games Workshop stuff can be a bit clunky, especially their older games. I'll have to see if I can find the rules for it.

Magnus Grendal@ Now I want to buy Forbidden Stars even more.

I aleays thought BFG was a pretty good game! (It's the game that got me into 40k.) It takes the VERY complex nature of naval warfare and simplifies it to a playable form. The Rogue trader rules are a fairly faithful attempt to recreate that same atmosphere. It's not the exact same but it works!

It also bears mentioning that the theory of Starship combat is VERY different in Star Wars vs. that of the 40k 'verse! Star Wars heavily emphsasizes the Starfighter while 40k ships operate more like ships in the age of sail!