They probably should be here somewhere, but I am never at best trying to appease the tech spirits. Are there allready any better and workable boarding houserules, that, for example, stop crippled raiders being the defensive anti-boarding powerhouses compared to crippled grand cruisers? As the percentile crew rating is ideal during a void battle, but becomes downright silly when we talk about 100.000 crew cruisers boarding 8000 crew raiders.

Friedrich van Riebeeck, Navigator Primus, Heart of the Void

If you have BFK or are a wargames minded GM, i might be able to help you.

Recalculate the crew numbers and play out a warzone according to BFK rules, or represent every 1000 crewmen as a resource point (one 40k mini) and have at them.

If you modify crew numbers (half a million for a Lunar), frigates will never be able to board cruisers, unless beaten to an inch of death.

But that means stopping in the middle of space combat and play out 1-3 hours (ingame time) of personal combat and command dice to represent troops being ordered around.

Well in this situation, you don't face all of the crew members on a given ship. The actual fighting portion of a given crew would be small as the guys manning the macrobatteries or keeping the plasma drive going are not going to leave the ship to go do battle.

Also, in boarding actions during battle, a small raiding crew strikes and damages a component or two before leaving again. This means that they are fighting those crew in the components and those who can get there in time to help before running (or dying to a man, what have you).

After a ship is defeated, you still may not be fighting the entire crew of a ship when you go to take it over as the ratings down below may not even know who they fight for or met the captain of the ship. They might not have met a captain of the ship for generations as it changed hands from one master to another. Take out those loyal to the captain and the others will simply obey the new captain (even if you start out with a low morale)

I really do not see how 'not fighting the entire crew' changes the facts. This applies just as easily to the crew of a comparatively small raider as to the crew of a battlecruiser. Nor are the hit and runs a problem. It remains downright foolish that it is easier to board a crippled kill kroozer then a ramship.

FvR

Maybe apply a bonus/penalty based on comparative weight class? I mean, while I agree that probably 85% of the Crew plays no part in the battle, this isn't a hit and run, this is the full force of attackers any given ship can muster in hopes of blasting her opponents into the Warp on Lasgun and Bayonet. IE, a Cruiser boarding a Frigate would be laughing as her attackers outnumber the defenders by 10 to 1 would get a +20. Meanwhile a Light Cruiser boarding a Cruiser would be wary, for while the initiative lies with her, the numbers weigh in to the opponent.

Likewise crew rating should play a part, IE a Crack crew would beat the snot out of a lame crew. Maybe add some (minor, these aren't Eldar just veterans) morale damage to reflect the "Oh man, we got F***ED" factor.

Don't base the boarding modifier on remaining Hull Integrity. Base it on undamaged Hull Integrity, and perhaps increase the proportional modifier as you see fit (+20 per 10 full points of difference or something). This makes Hull Integrity the "size modifier" and means that damage doesn't count double for crew losses and hull integrity losses.

Applying the difference in Crew Rating is also a good idea. If you wanted it to be really significant, just apply a modifier equal to the higher of the two crew ratings. Crack Crew would then give you a +40 bonus against an Incompetent or Competent Crew. I'd call that "beating the snot out of".

+40 is an absurdly high bonus, the Kroot Warsphere gets that, IIRC, and it's a full battlestation filled to the brim with vicious, bloodthirsty Xenos with Unnatural Strength. Maybe +10 per difference in rating, ie Crack (40) gets +20 against Incompetent (20), or simply make it equal to the difference to grant a bonus for the +5 Crew upgrade from Into The Storm. I do prefer the extra morale damage though, because that's how they reflect the Aspect Warrior's vast superiority.