Tullio said:

No, Im not hard to please. I am not asking for hundreds of hundreds of pages on stats and info. I would just assume that a book on Battlefleet Koronus would have something in it about the men in the battlefleet and possibly how to represent a PC as one or a former one. While I appreciate the hull upon hull upon new wargear and what not, the background fluff and the rules for mass combat, the RPG is based on the PCs. So a short 8 page or so section on PCs in the battlefleet would be nice.

I do not have the book yet, I may be very pleased with it. But I am not lying when I say I was hoping for some PC crunchiness as well as fluff and new ships and what not. So I do consider this a missed opportunity. The same as when Dead Stars had the cool Maccabean Jannisaries (or whatever) but no guidelines for PCs as such (a side bar with a package deal and XP cost would have been simple enough).

I like my fluff with a little crunch in it.

I have to agree with Peacekeeper. It would have been nice to see an Imperial Navy career.

Reading the descriptions of the book on Amazon and other places would have shown you that this book was all about the ships, not about character options, though.

You know what they say happens when you make assumptions, don't you?

Yeah, you're essentially criticising an apple for not being an orange. Bit daft if you ask me.

Anyway, my copies are on their way. Pre-ordered from Maelstrom Games UK a while back, and they finally shipped yesterday (along with The Frozen Reaches). Looking forward to it.

BYE

MILLANDSON said:

You get a smart ass retort from Millandson?

Seriously though, I wasnt making any assumptions, I was merely hoping. I understand the book is primarily about the ships (and apparently ground combat). But I also (and I use this word unwisely) ASSUMED that part of that notion of ships would be the crew. And while I understand there is fluff about the navy, a little crunch on them would be nice as well.

H.B.M.C. said:

No, Im critcizing a Jr. Cheeseburger from Wendy's for not being a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. Similar, not the same 100% but room to be upgraded (or downgraded) with relative ease.

And for the record, I never stated anything about the book not being good or what it claims to be, but stated that in my personal opinion it missed being just a little bit more.

There is a section on the fleet known as Battlefleet Koronus as well as a section on the various components of a ship. This includes things like the various ranks, the way the watch is timed, sounded, and handled, plus some historical fluff and NPCs. So there is fluff on the imperial navy and its personnel.

Honestly I don't see the need for an imperial navy career in the book since the options in the core and Into The Storm seem to do the job, and I'd rather have rules for all the 'missing' components and options they couldn't squeeze into the core rules.

Overall I found the book extremely useful for what I needed, except for the ground war part which is either confusing, or incomplete.

George Labour said:

Sounds good, and while I agree, I want a more complete starship covereage, I would have liked that in the core rules as well.

And again, wasnt asking for a whole imperial navy career, sometimes something as simple as a alternate background package for "Ex-Imperial Marine" or "Ex-Naval Officer" adds a little bit more spice to a Arch Militant or Rogue Trader or Void Master then the standard template as is. Nothing seriously necessary, or that I couldnt do myself, just sometimes I like official stuff as well.

I am looking forward to this book in the end though. Oddly enough, I am eager for these confusing incomplete ground war rules LOL.

Isn't there a battlefleet Origin in Into The Storm? I know the Senschal of our group took it as he used to be the ship's secondary master provisioner first class before he was...given over into the service of the Rogue Trader's Dynasty to help with its 'eccentric trade practises'.

Also it's not that the ground war is bad...I try not to make such judgements as I'm not technically inclined in that way, just seem to have gaps.

@Bobh: Hmmm, from Deathwatch? Will they also labelled as 'astartes only'? Can a rogue trader acquire them as well? (AFAIK, Deathwatch seldom put 'availability' in their book, thus I do not know how to handle them without house-ruling; or often they have this 'astartes-only' fluff). If 'common wealthy rogue trader' can acquire it, maybe I'd also like to acquire the book

Regarding Battlefleet Koronus: Any great news concerning Attack Ships etc?

Telosse said:

What do you mean by Attack Ships? Do you mean Fighters + Bombers?

Well the bombers are nasty, fighters have several uses, and assault boats make orks happy. Also there are vehicle stats included for the Bomber, assault boat, and an ork fighta bomma for personal scale dogfights.

The section with alien ships also lists their normal tactics, including when and how they employ their launch bays. Needless to say...rak'gul + assault boats is a nasty combo.

George Labour said:

I found the explanation of the different enemy standard tactics to be really useful for playing them characterfully in-game. You're right though, the Rak'gul are deadly if they get close enough to use assault boats, boarding torpedoes and their macro-cannons...

Telosse said:

I think the answer to your question is on page 139 and 140 of the Deathwatch Core Rules. Where Requisition points and Renown are roughly Correlated in two charts. If the item comes with a Requisition point cost you have the chart to do a conversion handy on page 139 (Example: Astartes Meltagun REQ PTS 20 or Very Rare according to the chart).

Example: Damocles Command Rhino is given a Renown Requirement of : Distinguished. That corresponds to a Renown Rating of 40-59. IF thats roughly equivalent to requisition that is about Extremely Rare to Near Unique.

I say this because on page 145 or so there is an equipment list where various pieces of Equipment are listed as 'Respected' Renown required and the range of requisition points required is 20-35 or so and that roughly corresponds to the RENOWN charts Renown Rating and the AVAILABILITY AND REQUISITION range chart.

Of course this breaks down when you consider how rare Land Raiders are supposed to be and the range is split between Extremely Rare and Near Unique. I'd err on the side of caution and go with Near Unique for a LR.

@MILLANDSON: Euh, yeah, I mean Fighters/Bombers/Assaults. Can we use them for 'dogfights' or landing as well?

@Bobh: okay, thanks for the information. Will consider that as well then

Well they can fight each other, yea, but BFK only includes rules for using them in space combat, using the abstract starship combat rules in the core RT book.. Actual rules for players using them in dog-fights are in "Into the Storm" though.

Peacekeeper_b said:

No, it's apples and oranges.

Truly and honestly.

In space combat massed squads (like 3 or more squadrons) of bombers and assaults boats do get a small bonus when attacked by fighters. However you're better off having at least one squad of fighters escort them in, if only so they can take out ship turrets and thus leave your heavy hitters unmolested. If you also happen to have a void master and or flight marshal there's a role for him to play during such operations as well.

Oh you can also have fighters fly C.V.P (it's C.A.P in SPACE!), which basically gives you a layer of bubblewrap before you have to fall back on turrets.

There are 'personal scale' stats for the starhawk, Shark, plus the eldar, chaos, and ork fighters and bombers so you can also do personal dogfights. Also a good stopgap for normal planet side aircraft equivalents until we get a more substantial ground war based supplement.

Now one thing I need to ponder is, how many times can one person oppose hit & run attacks. With boarding torpedoes, assault boats, teleportariums and good old fashioned boarding you can now theoretically get nearly half a dozen hit & runs in a turn. Does one guy get to defend against each of those one after another? as a GM I'm undecided.

My main thoughts on reading the sections on attack squadrons was basically that anyone with experience playing BFG would recognise the rules straight away. Potentially through Mr Chambers (?) input, the rules are almost a direct lift. Hanger bays can hold a LOT of craft - a cruiser with 2 strength 2 bays can launch 4 squadrons a turn and carry 12 squadrons total. Squadrons can be combined in waves, turrets affect squadrons/waves the same as they did in BFG. Each squadron rolls a set amount of damage ignoring void shields...

Interesting aside regarding the Munitorium component. Fluff description of Lances and energy weapon broadside weapons mentions them needing various reaction chambers etc be replaced after each firing. This would indicate (to me, anyway) that the munitorum component can be used for all weapons, not just projectile macrobatteries.

Not a lot of non-warship hulls. But thinking about it the next book might include more of them (smuggling, etc).

Details of various aliens, ships and tactics are really good. Includes Rhak'gol and Stryixisisisisis as well as the standard Orks, Eldar, Craftworld Eldar (!) and Chaos. Also mentions likely numbers of 'support craft' (landers, etc) for ship size and number of Armsmen for ship size as well. Both useful numbers to know.

Biggest let down for me was my copy having the pages all mixed up and the ground warfare section being, and I use the term politely, a pile of pants. Understand it's a RPG not a wargame, but come on. Ground combat system from Frozen Reaches was a lot lot better and it makes little sense that they went with something different for BFK.

RobOut said:

I agree about the ground component part. What a bunch of mush. I'm thinking I can use elements of it along with the mass-combat system from Frozen Reaches and salvage something playable. Very disappointed.

On the other hand, the naval info was very well done. Now that there is an adequate amount of ships done it's not very hard to extrapolate other BFG ships, at least for NPC purposes.

Someone with the supplement could said me if there are rules for the Macrocannons of zaith? I`m speaking about the self-reloading cannons that are cited on Lure of The expanse

Nope, since Lure of the Expanse covers what few differences there are.

Personally, with the ground war stuff, the only thing wrong with it currently is how much damage a unit does. Once that is tweaked, and I'm sure it will be, it'll work fine.

RobOut said:

That was entirely deliberate - I wanted that section to be familiar to fans of BFG (of which I am one), but with more detail as befits a game where a single ship is the focus, rather than a fleet. The Attack Craft, Nova Cannon and Torpedo rules were all meant to be reminiscent of their wargame counterparts, and copious amounts of discussion amongst the various writers helped hone them into the published end result.

MILLANDSON said:

Lure of the expanse don`t cover any differences. It only gives the theorical concepts, not the rule concepts.

While there are no rules for zayth pattern macroweapons they do have rules for how quality effects both regular components, and weapon components. Combine that with the turbo weapon batteries or crew improvement upgrades from Into the storm and I think you get something that fits the idea, without needing more rules.

IIRC there is a bit in lure of the expanse on a void ship fighting a landship and it has a 'use this type of cannon with X strenght' or something like that.