I dont know if this has been mentioned or noticed before but in lure of the expanse Abel Gerrits Havoc Class Merchant Raider looks suspiciously like a chaos infidel class raider with all the chaos bitz smoothed off.

But in Battlefleet Gothics ships of the gothic sector rulebook it says

" Designs for a larger escort ship to fulfill the role of the Cobra Destroyer disappeared from the Monsk Orbital Shipyard in the late 40th millenium. Several years later, vessels of a remarkably similar configuration began raiding Imperial outpost..."

142 M41

But:

"The Havoc Class is a heavy raider whose origins go back to before the conquest of the Calixsis sector"

322- 384 M39

This means that either

A) Abel got himself an early prototype of what became the chaos Infidel class Raider

B) Abel stole one off chaos and sanctified it in the service

C) The Havoc Class is a Different but similar Class to what Became the Infidel class and indeed preceeds

D) None of the Above The Havoc Class is actually a broad class that has many forms.

E) It is the same ship and someone in FFG didnt do their deep fluff Homework.

As much as this is more pedantic and @nal retentive than a discussion of techno dogma between two stubbon Mechanicum techpriest does anyone have a response to this?

Interesting. I can only speculate, but given the glacial rate of change in Imperial ship design, it may be the case that the Monsk prototypes were themselves only limited variants of older ships. The Imperium rarely innovates completely, all of its ships are thematic alterations to older, tried and tested designs. A unique space hulk might be discovered dating back millenia, which may be then copied into a whole new class of vessels...these new Imperial vessels might then find themselves facing warp tainted versions of the same design that are thousands of years old dating back to the Horus Heresy, crewed by the lost and the damned...

True. Its not unusual for STC blueprints to be known at different parts of the galaxy at different time periods. After all The clan Arcadius operates towards the eastern Fringe rather than the segmentum Obsurus and there may be a class of Vessel in the broader imperium which is the same/similar to the Chaos infidel class, but for one reason or another was never adopted in the Segmentum Obscurus because the plans went missing, hence the probability that the Havoc class is a class of ship that is not native or built in that part of the galaxy...

Bloody era of strife and the loss of the STC contruct...no wonder the imperium is doomed.Shed a tear for the Administratum adept who came across this gem of data inconsistancy. His cogitator probably burst into flames trying to reconcile the contradictions and has now led to a three fold segmentum wide price rise in Havoc Class Raiders such is their rarity

Ah, but elegantly reconciling contradictions is half the joy of 40K!

I have an idea: Maybe they needed a piece of art real fast, edited the Chaos vessel picture, and put it in there. Hows that?

However, I do have a question about Chaos vessels: They way they look is unique. Is this the way Imperial ships looked at the time of the Heresy? I am just curious.

The Cobra replacement was intended to be a heavier design whereas Havoc Merchant Raiders are described as "glass cannons who have a hard time going toe to toe with a comparable naval vessel".

BFG and RT contradict on many levels, as does DH and the TT game.

Interesting note: the IMPERIAL FALCHION CLASS ESCORT is also related to the Infidel design.

...When traitors made off with the designs for a larger escort ship to fulfil the role of the Cobra destroyer from the Monsk forge world in 761.M40, the Magos set about reconstructing the records with what little information was left behind and brought it to Voss.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Yes.In Battlefleet gothic theres instructions for using the imperial navy reserve fleet which is made up of older vessels that are in effect the chaos class of ships. But I guess they dont have the spiky bitz

Captain Harlock said:

Scratch that Ive no idea if they are the same class at the time of the heresy. I think that there are hints taht some of the oldest 10000 yr old ships are the classes that were in the old game of space Fleet, a sort of GW wink to the past. I think in one of the Caiphas Caine novels the regiment is moaning about being stuck on a 'antidiluvian galaxy class troop transport' Galaxy class was of course present in that early 90's game. A shame because some of those older minis were cool..less gothic cathedral with a ram and more Baroque shaped blade with big thrusters.

guest469 said:

Now not only has the cogitator blown up but the poor adept is himself on fire....Lets get this straight...the mechanicum replacement looks nothing like the original ship, but a Rogue Trader from the other side of the galaxy has a raider which is meant to be ubiqitous in the expanse and present in the galaxy before the cobra repacement was ever produced , looks exactly the same without the spiky bits but is in effect not a sturdier military vessel intending to replace the cobra but is infact an inferior less sturdy glass cannon.

Some get a Ignis extinguisher and put that Administratum drone out of his misery and send a astropathic message to mars to send their best magos to sort this mystery out!