Lightbringer said:

From an old rogue trader dynasty and an Inquisitor Lord Malleus no less.

I'd love to see battleships but I see them as the purview of only the most insanely rich rogue trader dynasties. We still should get rules for creating them, if only for those rare wealthy rogue traders and for NPC ships.

I think that the real problem is that the game system starts to break down around Grand Cruiser sized ships.

Fluffwise, well... you could argue that Rogal Dorn was living a life pretty similar to a Rogue Trader aboard the Phalanx , the largest ship known to the Imperium...

That said, many battleships are recovered from space hulks. The number one finders of space hulks? Rogue Traders and Space Marines

at the very least they should do the same trick they did for the Chaos ship and just make them "monster" ship...

I mean what else can you throw a good player group after a while besides a battleship, it fleet of cruiser and escort ships?

Since we are there, what about BIO ships? Kraken and tyranids? PLS pretty pls?

I dunno if I would field a battleship in a RT fleet. Historically, battleships cost A LOT to maintain. I'm not sure other than prestiege if there is any other positive point in using them over multiple smaller vessels which can be more versatile. Honestly, I'd like to see more commercial hulls - The idea of merchant raiders appeals to me.

Voronesh said:

Nerd Rage inbound.

That was false Propaganda spread by the Traitors and heretics. That is all I will say on the matter.

/end Nerd Rage

As for Battleships, I believe they serve a better purpose if left solely in the hands of the imperial navy. Players should never get their hands on that type of ship. It just screams abuse, which is what a private party or company would use it for. A Grand Cruiser is just as useful as a flagship.

Just not really feasable. The Navy takes a dim view of outsiders having weapons as good as them. Hell the Navy takes exception at the Space Marines having access to Nova class frigates:

Both the Imperial Navy and Inquisition have taken issue with the class, as it encroaches on the duties of the Imperial Navy, and upsets the balance of power within the Imperium, giving too much to the Adeptus Astartes. Due to this, the Nova remains a rare sight in the fleets of the Space Marines.

Can you imagine how they feel the Navy would feel about a Rogue Trader having access to battleship?

Actually I can illustrate it for you from Matt Farrers novel -Legacy

The Navy’s goodwill toward the Phrax flotilla tarnished quickly. Despite an invitation, then a request, then a demand that it halt
one hundred and fifty kilometres out from Coronet Triatic MRA-47 to await escort, the flotilla grudgingly dropped its velocity to
a little under cruising speed and set a course that would take them between Hydraphur’s two ecliptics, around the star and toward
the planet itself. Offended by the flotilla’s rudeness and unimpressed by the repeated and unsubtle references in its communiques
to the privileges the charter granted it, Traze took the opportunity to give his squadron a little live close-manoeuvring drill.
So the observers on the flotilla decks were startled to see the high, crenellated prows of half a dozen Battlefleet Pacificus warships
bearing down on them, fast enough for some of the more nervous flotilla commanders to issue orders to brace for collision.

So the observers on the flotilla decks were startled to see the high, crenellated prows of half a dozen Battlefleet Pacificus warships
bearing down on them, fast enough for some of the more nervous flotilla commanders to issue orders to brace for collision. The
Navy formation speared into the side of the Phrax flotilla and then, in a beautiful display of piloting and discipline, the powerful
warships wheeled around onto the flotilla’s course, effortlessly matching speeds. The flotilla crews, used to looking out of their
viewports to the comforting sight of other flotilla ships blazing with light, now looked out at the pitted grey hulls of the battlefleet
vessels, their arched gunports and the venomous, hulking shapes of lance turrets.

This time there was no invitation, request or demand, but an order. Navy pilots would come aboard with data-plaques and voxlinks
to guide the flotilla through the maze of minefields, sentry gates, gravitic tides and patrol squadrons that would, it was made
very clear, wipe out every one of the Phrax ships if they tried to fly into Hydraphur on their own. Flag-Captain Traze boarded the
Bassaan himself, and the first thing he did was walk onto the bridge and up to the captain, and send the man sprawling on the
deck beside his own command pulpit, his lips split and bleeding from the swipe of Traze’s pistol barrel.
The Navy, as a rule, did not like rogue traders much.

And this wasn't a small pissy Rogue Trader fleet from M39. This was a flotilla with grand cruisers with a grand charter signed by the EMPEROR HIMSELF!

They will not LET you have a battleship. If you get one and come back into the Imperium they WILL TAKE IT OFF YOU.

Grand Cruisers are more of a possibility as most of them will be mothballed in the reserve fleets (Because the Navy doesn't want them/like them) But Battleships? Seriously...

Just checking about Haarlocks ship The spear of destiny.

In the dark heresy supplement Dead Stars (p.49) its described as

" At the centre of this fleet is a mighty Battleship,
decked out in ivory and brass, dwarfi ng all the other vessels
around it, its armoured prow mounted with the heraldic arms of
a great golden spider."

But in Tattered Fates (P,70) it says on the players handout:

"A nephew of Albrecht Haarlock by his long dead sister Erasmus is recorded in the Ambulon Chronicles as being without ambition, remarkable only for a sharp wit and a valuable talent for the mysteries of techno arcana and xeno lore. He was granted captaincy of the scout Frigate, "The Spear of Destiny"

Chalk another one up for a background descrepancy, though considering how the spear of destiny sneaks up in Dead Stars I'd rather believe that its a frigate and battleship is just a descriptive term.

Lightbringer said:

Probably Kobras Aquairre, the nutter who pushed beyond the rifts of hecaton.

The only thing that I Know about his ship is from DH radicals handbook (p 120)

Kobras Aquairre
One of the most feared and controversial figures in the
history of the Calixian Holy Ordos, Kobras Aquairre
was almost unique in holding both the ranks of Lord
Inquisitor Malleus and the Warrant of a Rogue Trader,
the latter belonging to him by a bloodline reaching
back into the age of the Imperium’s founding. For
nearly five centuries, his flagship Omega Thule—

No mention of if its a battleship or not, though if any individual could own one it would be a Rogue Trader/Inquisitor

Captain Harlock said:

From Dark Heresy Timeline on the FFG website (with sinking feeling)

"THE MACHARIAN CRUSADE
552-570.M40 The White Sorrows: Eldar corsairs, later known as the Cabal of the White Sorrow, plague the area of space known as the Periphery
with a devastating series of raids. The corsairs are shattered and their threat ended at last when confronted and brought to battle by a
force consisting of Battlefleet Calixis, Explorator and Rogue Trader forces (aided it is rumoured by unknown xenos forces) under the
overall command of the Rogue Trader Kobras Aquairre. The battle turns when Aquairre’s flagship, The Son of Seth , successfully rams
and boards the corsair flagship Altar of Torment, Kobras himself slaying the enemy’s Butcher Archon in single combat""

Arrgghhhhhhhhhhh! (throws up hands in despair) for god sake!

Hantheman said:

Nope. The setting is very clear on that point: There are no 'commercial' vessels. The Navy and the Ad Mech are pretty much the only two factions that commission ships, simply because of the time and effort and resources involved. A Transport, for instance, as a small and relatively unsophisticated craft that will quite likely wind up in service to a merchant fleet, would only be commissioned and built by a Navy shipyard in order to work the supply lines for Battlefleet Calixis. It is much cheaper and more time-efficient to simply buy and/or refit an older one (which is just as good or better then a new one anyways), instead of placing an order that becomes low priority for a Forge World shipyard and waiting the minimum ten years for their sub-quality ship to finish. Only a monolithic organization has the time and knowledge that the ship will be needed at the end of the wait.

As far as owning a Battleship goes, it wouldn't happen while the Navy hold any kind of authority. It's not so much a jealousy, as it is a need and desire to have as many as possible. Those things are the spearheads of entire campaigns, the Captains almost always admirals and the mighty hulls among the most powerful things to drift through the void. A Navy captain would gladly risk the ire of your dynasty for the accolades and rewards he would receive for bringing a Battleship into the folds of the Navy, and should he stumble upon you while you recover it from a Hulk or as a drifting wreck, it would be confiscated, influence be damned.

Captain Harlock, all you are proving, is that Rogue Traders change flagships every few decades.

Or that FFG is as good as GW at checking for errors.

Good info for the "whats canon in FFG's version of 40k."

Answer: The book you currently hold in your hands, do not compare to other books !

BangBangTequila said:

BangBangTequila said:

I think you have the wrong idea here up the The Imperial Navy is part of the The Imperial Fleet. The Fleet comprises of the Navy, The Merchant Fleet (The Chartist Captains) and the Civil Fleet.

The navy only staffs war ships - for the same reason why planets do not have interstellar craft. This is to segregate the different divisions in the Imperium so that none can be truly self sufficient to prevent rebellions and revolutions.

The merchant fleet is where all the commercial vessels belong to: transports (which are goods and people carriers - a large number of these already exist in rules, not interested in these), tugs, salvage vessels, mining vessels, factory ships, construction ships, livestock ships, etc (These I am interested).

The civil fleet is probably the smallest and comprises of privately owned interstellar craft, these are normally owned by the filthy rich or by trade consortiums. usually for transport of VIPs. The civil fleet is probably a registrar for purpose of vessel identification, since it does not own the vessels. The range of ships here may include mega yachts and passenger liners of the mega rich.

The fleet controls all shipping and its authority is divided by segmentium - crossing a segmentium requires a permit.

I am not sure where ships of other organizations (eg Explorator Fleets - Adeptus Mechanicus, Rogue Traders - Adeptus Terra, Black Ships - Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Space Marine Fleets - Adeptus Astates) belong but they are certainly contained in a registrar somewhere, if only just for identification.

Anyway the Navy is not the only organization with battleships - the strike cruisers of the Astates are of an equal power to a battleship and the Mechanicus have their own. The major problem with a battleship is the cost as per mentioned before - a battleship should require upkeep tests twice as often as a cruiser.

That being said I agree with you about what a Navy Captain would do if he finds you salvaging a battleship.

My point was not that such things don't exist, I suppose I was more shooting semantics then anything. My point being that vessels are not made to be RT or merchant vessels, but rather to belong to one of the vast, Imperium-spanning fleets, which I have inelegantly lumped together into the Navy. Due to the significant tactical importance of every ship, I can't imagine that the Merchant Fleet and the incredible number of transports contained therein would be left under any authority but the Navy's. If you can't agree with any other reasoning, the Navy provides virtually all of the escorts, and so it stands to reason the Imperial ships under guard are at least indirectly a part of the Navy.

My point being none but the Adeptus would ever bother commissioning vessels. And furthermore, Battleships are so vastly powerful and specialized in the field of waging total war that nothing else would really have use for them. The Space Marines use Strike Cruisers designed to punch above their weight and take more punishment then anything since the Dark Age of Technology - but are built with the goal of getting the Marines to the ground, not waging prolonged naval warfare. Battleships, however, are designed with the sole objective of bring an insurmountable force of armour and super-heavy weaponry to bear on anything foolish enough to cause the Imperium a big enough problem to muster such a mighty weapon of war.

These things take centuries to build. They cost more then it would take to build a new Hive City. They can only be produced by the greatest and most advanced Forgeworlds by the wisest Arch-Magos shipwrights. I can't help but think that the Navy is the only organization capable of funding such a project, since they cost so much more then money. Why would the Ad Mech agree to build one for mere money? No, this would require treaties and agreements set in Adamantium for a thousand years. How would the Navy justify ever letting such a thing go after so much went into building it? Many of them are thousands of years old and utterly irreplaceable with the fallen level fo technology, why would they let even the hulked wreck of such a pinnacle of pure might fall into anyone elses hands without leaping at their throats with promises of wealth and grandeur for cooperation and utter oblivion for failure to comply.

Obviously this is subject to your individual GM's vision of the Universe, and if you feel like the only thing you wish to reward your players with is a Battleship, go for it. The Battleship is something that waves of Raiders and Frigates break against like infantry on the plating of a Leman Russ Vanquisher, and I (as a Lord Captain) would take the greatest pride in owning and operating one. Likewise, toning it down to a Grand Cruiser + 2 weapon slots (likely Prow and Dorsal, maybe 2 of each or + 1 Keel mount if you wanted to reflect the massive power) would be fine, and that would certainly lessen the extent the Navy would go to in order to recover this piece of unique and perfect weaponry. Everything is subjective, and the beauty of an RPG is that a GM is God. You can take anything you like from it and discard anything you don't, dismissing objections with a wave of his hand, saying "I am the Kwisatz Haderach, that is reason enough." I've presented my interpretation, nothing more, and while I would hope it agrees with the popular view, by no means does that limit your options.

BangBangTequila said:

Excellent point. Fine use of that quote. But in the end its the GM's Call. I for one want to link a DW and RT rule sets. Still unsure how to do that. But that is a post for a different thread.

I don't think you have the point - the Navy has no influence over the Merchant fleet. However, if the Imperial Fleet deems it necessary, they will order the Navy to escort the Transports. The Fleet is the strategic and logistical organization one step up from the Navy with a totally different hierarchy - it answers directly to the Adeptus Terra (ie the government). It controls the supply of the Navy munitions, supplies, and most likely even the commissioning of new ships. In fact the Speaker for the Chartist Captains (highest rank can that a Chartist Captain can achieve) - and at times has occupied a seat on the High Lords of Terra, just like The Lord High Admiral (highest rank in the Navy) - both on the non-permanent High Lord seats.

The reason for this division is that if the Navy or some portion thereof goes rogue, it will not have access to any supplies, ground forces, munitions, transports - therefore what is lost is only war ships. If the Fleet goes rogue, the loyalist Navy still controls the warships. This reason for this division, redunancy and required interdependency among various Imperium agencies is so that something like the Horus Heresy can never happen again.

This really has nothing to do with battleships but letting you know the power structures within the Imperium.

Anyway Adeptus Mechanicus Battleship . Its not mythical.

The cost issue isn't really the cost to build (although that is considerable), but also cost to value. A battleship would cost maybe the same materials as 3 or more cruisers. When would a battleship be more effective then multiple cruisers needs to be justified. While a battleship is much harder to destroy, and carries more firepower than a single cruiser, it is slower, carries less fire power than 3 cruisers, is only able to operate on a single front. Honesty, I do not think a new battleship has been built in the Imperium for a very long time (maybe the Mechanicus has built a prototype or two, who really know what the Mechanicus does). Even for the Navy, a battleship is usually used as a sector or sub-sector flagship. Which mean that it will mostly be in the sector base or on a sector tour reacting to threats rather than patrolling. In peaceful times, it might even be assigned out of sector or even mothballed till required again due to the high operating costs. All these thing make a battleship as bad a ship in my eyes a very bad ship as a mass hauler for a rogue trader to do exploration.

On the other hand should I manage to get one I wonder if making SDF-1 would be possible

Captain Harlock said:

No I think you have made an error here (and it is the same one I made when I first read the book).

Your first quote is what the players see out of the window of the vessel they have appeared on after stepping through the tesseract; the vessel that holds the wife and child of Erasmus, whose murder they then witness.

So that does not clash with the second at all.

DW

Hantheman said:

Before i forget while reading further on.

Cruisers needs no upkeep tests at all, so doubling it doesnt help.

Strike cruisers arent as good as battleships. They are simply specialised cruisers.

QUOTE efidm=499774]

No I think you have made an error here (and it is the same one I made when I first read the book).

Your first quote is what the players see out of the window of the vessel they have appeared on after stepping through the tesseract; the vessel that holds the wife and child of Erasmus, whose murder they then witness.

So that does not clash with the second at all.

DW

I stand corrected.

Captain Harlock, all you are proving, is that Rogue Traders change flagships every few decades.

Or that FFG is as good as GW at checking for errors.

Good info for the "whats canon in FFG's version of 40k."

Answer: The book you currently hold in your hands, do not compare to other books !

Guess Rogue Traders have a lot of disposable income Though to be fair I do do sound like Im nitpicking. After all Rogue trader is all about legends and half truths. I can just picture fights in brew houses erupting in footfall over the very issue of what Kobra's ship was actually called:

" She was called the Omega Thule" asserted the old voidsman slurring his worlds, roygut dribbling down his chin Things were getting heated in Esterze Bar. Or ar least more than it should be the case over another trivial matter.

"Nonsense!" cried another grizzled armsman "She were named the Son of Seth" baging his hand on the bench and spilling his rotgot over the table

"Wha? The Son of Feth?" Said the voidsman his eyes unfocused.

"Language" growled the barman, his augmented eye giving a wearsome gaze over the Arms segeant. His hand straying towards the shotgun beneath the counter.In Esterze’s Groxburger bar there hasn’t been a killing in over one hundred years, but fights were still common enough.

"No... Son of Seth! S e t h!" repeated the armsman "Battleship she were. Fawsands of men followed that demented lunatic to the rifts of Hecaton"

"I heard it was a light cruiser" said another with sitting at the bar, wearing the uniform of a lighter pilot " Oberon class"

"Oberon Class" spat the armsman "No such class fly-boy, and Ive served on ships of his emberors navy and I aint heard of a Oberon class"

"Can't be a battleship no Trader could afford one" said the lighter pilot " Besides the Oberon class are given only to the Inquisition"

"Limited to the Inquisition! Now you're just making things up! Who told you this rubbish?"

" Well down in the enginarium theres this squat and he says..." started the pilot but the armsn man stopped him.

"There's this what?"

"Theres a Squat. He says that the Light cruisers..." But the armsman interrupted him again, clearly confused.

"Squat? What are those?"

"They be abhumans" said the old voidsmen "Like ratlings but more squat and heavier. Big beards.Good techies"

"Now common' old timer" "says the barman " you see all sorts of things things when you drink.Ive never heard of squats"

"Nah its true, came from the core worlds they did. one used to let me ride on the back of his war trike when I were but a stripling." said the old voidsman, his eyes focused in the middle distance as if recalling some far off memory

"Sounds like ork feth to me" said the armsman "sure it wasnt just a hairy ratling?"

"Language!" growled the barman

"Nah its true! Homeworlds were eaten by the 'nids . Few of them survive now. Shame. Good allies. Nice super heavy vehicles" said the voidsman.

"I head that the High Lords of Terra purged them, something about them not being financially viable" said the pilot "whatever that means"

"Are you sure you're not talking about the Demiurg?" said the barman

"Nah Demiurgs is different" said the voidsman "Demiurgs are small squat with big beards" said the voidsman and taking another gulp from his ale mug "and they smell of feth"

"Language!"

Voronesh said:

Cruisers or anything any ship requires upkeep whenever the GM feels necessary, this is mentioned in what upkeep is as fuel, maintainance, berthing fees and levies and general upkeep, it just is not a hard and fast mechanic - if you own a battleship, the GM just needs to annoy you with this more often

Well you could hit even the frigs with upkeep tests.

And an upkeep test for cruisers just means the RT group will lose their cruiser. They start at PF 20 only after all.

So its really a very soft rule, double something soft...

There are other possible consequences to failing upkeep tests than loss of the item. Penalties to acquisition tests and the like. I wouldn't bother with upkeep tests on a single cruiser, especially if the explorers are using it to earn profit factor. But having a battleship lumbering through the stars is unlikely to pay for itself. These things are intended to have a fleet's resources backing them.

And a nice piece of writing Captain Harlock.

Captain Harlock said:

That's because you're looking FROM the Spear of Destiny TOWARD the Haarlock's flagship, as this is in the few moment following the death of the head of the Haarlock RT dynasty. Erasmus has not yet gone on his roaring rampage of revenge, leaving the Spear as the dynasty flagship. Further, Winterscale is described as losing a full on battleship in Epoch Koronus, which had long been the lynchpin of that dynasties fleet.

One: there are actually quite a few civilian warship manufacturers, some are even named in Battlefleet Koronus, both in the 'civilized' Calyxis Sector and in the 'lawless' Koronus Expanse, so, no, not every ships is manufactured by the fleet, and appearently entire classes of warship exist that are in no way fleet vessels (such as the Shrike and Iconoclast classes).

As far as them finding you salvaging one, I hate to say it but the odds are near nil, considering how few ships thy have in the expanse at all, and (in the case of the Light of Terra) is drifting at a location far from pretty much anything.

Further, at Hydraphur, a segmentum fortress, or Cadia, the Navy might get away with something like in the first quote. It's been made plain in he fluff that in Calyxis, Rogue Traders are often used as fleet auxiliaries.

Fleet auxiliares rarely get the best equipment available though. Thats why they are auxicliaries after all.

A RT with a battleship is a fleet by itself (lest he lose a battleship once it is alone).

Winterscale lost a battleship? WOW that guy/dynasty would have quite a tainted reputation then.

Reading up the various fluff around especially from BFG, the most likely way to get a battleship is through the mechanicus or navy. The techpriests at the mechanicus do build up a battleship or two every once every so often to test out reacquired tech or reapplications of current tech. If the ship works well enough, they get sent to the navy for combat trials. Some times they don't work out in the trials, or are just too expensive to upkeep. Others get sent out into battle but cannot cut it as a line ship or their intended role. Note that acquiring a battleship this way is probably an background endeavour that generates no profit. This represents, having agents either in segmentum naval bases or influenial forge worlds passing on word of availability and arrangeing the acquisition. Even buying a mothballed battleship is going to be very very expensive, and as you might be buying from across the galaxy it could take many years just to reach your pcs.

You also have battleships like the Invincible class that, if used properly, they're fantastic, but, as fluff points out, Imperial stratagists have no idea what to do with them, resulting in them getting nicknames like Kicher's Combustables. Sure, it shoots like a battleship and moves like a frigate, but it only has the hitpoints of cruiser under that armor, so the IN 'line of battle' is not a good place to use it.

A Rogue Trader however would probably sell their children to Inequity to own one.

Fluff Oddity: Due to the rolling retcons of 40k, there a bit of a peculiarity: The Despolier class was supposedly built by the 'New School' as part of the Gareox Prerogative, then the Gareox sector was destroyed and decalred heretics by the 'big gun lobby' from the Bakka fleet base in m36. The problem is that Bakka was, at the time, in the throws of the plague of unbelief, with the battlefleet bending a knee to the apostate Cardinal Bucharis while Gareox was in a sector of space still controlled by the Imperium. So, reguardless of the outcome of the battle, wouldn't it be the Bakka fleet that the Inquisition would be naming Heretics rather then the Gareox fleet that mostly died opposing them?