My players stay out.

Anyone have any experience with the Rak'gol in void combat?

I looking to put the PC's up against them next session, but I'm a bit concerned about the capabilities of the Mangler, which looks rather hideous.

The (rank 1) PCs have an under-gunned Overlord battlecruiser, armed with two Lathe launch bays and two Mars broadsides (no prow or dorsal weapons). The Mangler looks like a reasonable opponent, except for that massive turret rating, which threatens to tear the PC's small craft wings apart and totally dominate any boarding action.

Would I be better off using a couple of Maulers and maybe a Butcher instead?

The group has already had a pair of Eldar frigates run rings around them and then withdraw arrogantly back into the void before suffering any losses, and I don't want them to develop the impression that they're outclassed by every opponent they come up against.

For context, the encounter will occur in a system that contains a minor trading station and an astropathic relay station, and when the PCs arrive they will discover a small Imperial Navy force attempting to fight of the Rak'gol. Assuming the PCs choose to intervene, they will draw off a sufficient number of Rak'gol craft that the Navy can prevail (with losses) against those that remain.

Think your throwing to much at them at this point in time. The Overlord is way under armed for a vessel of it's class with it's current load out. The turrets will tear the fighter and bomber wings to pieces and it lacks a Prow and dorsal weapon mounting. The mars pattern broadsides are also not really a good choice either. Keep them on small human vessels of frigate size until the party can afford to properly arm it.

First...don't board a Rak'Gol ship. Cripple the damned thing then pound it into scrap and walk away. You don't want to send troops/crew into hand to hand with Rak'Gol. You don't want them, even if they win, coming back and dying on your ship with radiation poisoning.

If they have a CB (battlecruiser) and you feel they are undergunned provide them with a way to add some guns to those open slots. A distant relative leaves them a cache of stored ship components when he dies, a mechanicus adept really has the hots for the ship - wants to be able to take care of her and can 'influence' his bosses to let go of some weaponry, give them some encounters with pirates first so they can capture new weapons for their vessel nearby the outpost - and give them time for a refit.

Let them face some smaller RG ships in lopsided battles in their favour so they can get a feeling for the RG and adapt to the RG tactics. This will give them an edge.

What is the BS of their ship's gunner? If it is less than 50 get a new guy to shoot. Add an MIU to the fellow for +10, make sure the RT works on adding his bonuses.

Manglers are usually accompanied by their escorts so... you could have the players deduce the inital encounters were from the escorts of a damaged Mangler, looking for slave crew for their damaged ship or parts for their ship to get it going again - how you do this I don't know. Bu *** might lead them to a battle with the Mangler that is more believable than a warship showing up withou **** escort - or of course have the Navy deal witht he escort and the PC ship be the last line of defense for the outpost.

The outpost can be armed and in the area so it can led the weight of its fire to that of the PC ship, evening the fight.

Also, the Manglers have squadrons of fighter/Bloodslayers. Your PCs will likely need their fighters as a screen against these nasty little attackers.

And the Mangler's weapons are all in the PROW. Get close, manoeuvre into their blind area and broadside the crap out of them point blank for the BS bonus.

With only 17 armour and 1 void your broadside cannon - with a high enough BS will score multiple hits and do some nice damage.

First, I should clarify that I'm not about to meddle with the PC ship at all. I am not putting them on a smaller ship, or just "giving" them more weapons to round out the vessel they have. The players made a conscious decision to select a battlecruiser and accept the fact that they can't afford to properly arm it. I am not about to overrule their decision by dumping them into a frigate or smaller cruiser, nor will I simply handwave away the consequences of their decision.

However, it does seem that so far my initial concerns were correct, and the Mangler is going to be a bit much for them to handle. At this point, I think I will definitely downgrade the threat level of the encounter. If I limit it to a couple frigates and maybe a Butcher, I can also have a Navy vessel move in to assist if things go badly.

yea, frigates with boarding torpedoes. I hate to point this out, but the Battle cruiser is not able to take on much at this point in time. The Rak'gol are Designed for high level groups with a well outfitted ship. justly in the same sense things would go equally badly or worse if you used eldar. Keep the targets simple, and the fights challenging but still with in the groups favor, maybe add a squadron of imperial navy frigates for support. Personally i would never choose a vessel that i could not properly fit. though the Rak'gol encounter will hit home this lessen well.

I just realised that there is a Rak'gol raider in Edge of the Abyss. Two Marauders that can attempt to close and board while a single Mauler stands off and launches boarding torpedoes should pose a reasonable but not overwhelming challenge.