I am starting a new Dark Heresy / Rogue Trader cross-over and the ship I've chosen to give to the players for starting is a Nova Class Frigate (formerly an Astartes ship). I've made statline for the ship using Havoc-class raider as a baseline, but I started to wonder if anyone has found or made stats for the Nova Class hull before?

Nova-class Frigate
Hull Type: Frigate
Dimensions: 1.5km long, 0.62km abeam at fins approx.
Mass: 5.7 megatonnes, approx.
Crew: 20,000 crew, approx
Accel: 6.1 gravities max acceleration
Speed: 12
Maneuverability: +15
Detection: +10
Hull Integrity: 42
Armor: 20
Turret Rating: 1
Space: 50
SP: 52
Weapon Capacity: 1 prow, 1 dorsal

Errant said:

Thats one tough customer... Although it is expected because its Astartes ship. Where did you find the stats?

In any case thanks a lot.

Couple of things. If you go by BFG both its weapon mounts would be dorsal both have the forward/port/starboard arcs, yes with its lance too.

I would lower the armor few points 20 seems high.

Also might want to add in the servitor crew trait, though I guess it could be replaced.

But yes a Nova would be very impressive, it was one of if not the most expensive escort in BFG.

Polaria said:

Ships of the Adeptus Astartes from DarkReign40k, I believe.

That thing is insane. It has only 8-10 less space than light cruisers (and 8 more than the largest official frigates), is faster than any other frigate (or raider, at that) and is better armoured than most, too.

Its better than everything else by so much, I really, really would reconsider those stats.

I found the Ships of Adeptus Astartes 1.0.5 pdf from Dark Reign. The statline there is slightly different:

Nova-class Frigate
Hull Type: Frigate
Crew: 26,000 crew, approx
Speed: 12
Maneuverability: +20
Detection: +15
Hull Integrity: 40
Armor: 18
Turret Rating: 1
Space: 40
SP: 50
Weapon Capacity: 1 prow, 1 dorsal

Being an Astartes ship the "real" crew is somewhere around 100 to 200 while the rest are servitors. Other than that it looks solid.

Fluff from Battlefleet Gothic:

""Unlike the vessels of the Imperial Navy, a Space
Marine ship has a relatively small crew. A Space
Marine is far too valuable to waste in manning a
gun or watching a surveyor screen, and so only
the officers aboard a vessel are likely to be
Space Marines, as well as the few Techmarines
who oversee the engines and perform other
mechanical duties. Almost all the ship’s systems
are run and monitored by servitors; half-human
cyborgs who are wired into the vessel’s
weapons, engines and communications
apparatus. There are also a few hundred
Chapter serfs to attend to other duties, such as
routine cleaning and maintenance, serving the
Space Marines during meal times and other
such honoured tasks. These serfs come from the
Chapter’s home planet or the enclave they
protect, many of them Novitiates or applicants
who have failed some part of the recruiting or
training process. These serfs are fanatically loyal
to their superhuman masters, and indoctrinated
into many of the lesser orders of the Chapter’s
Cult. Although human, they still benefit from
remarkable training and access to superior
weaponry than is usually found on a naval
vessel, making them a fearsome prospect in a
boarding action – even without the support of
their genetically modified lords. ""

Nova frigates are rare, even for Marines. The Imperial Navy and the Inquisition are not so happy with Marines flying around in lance armed ships.

Compared to the Firestorm Frigate the Nova has the following in Battlefleet Gothic:

+10cm speed

lance turret is Left/Front/Right instead of Front only.

It costs 50pts instead of 40pts for the Firestorm.

horizon said:

I think the Imperial Navy and the Inquisition would be quite happy to have Marines flying around in lance armed ships. The problem seems to be the fact that Novas are pure attack ships with no transport capacity and most of them don't have a single Astartes on board... Which kind of conflicts with the idea that Astartes should have ships only for transportation purposes.

Polaria said:

According to my understanding of fluff...

That isn't true. The SM fleet's escort sized ships don't carry more than, say, 1 squad of SMs. NONE of the space marine escort sized ships are designed for transporting SMs. They are designed to screen the Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges, which do the job of landing SMs incredibly well.

However, what the Navy and Inquisition don't like about the Nova Class is that its a class purely designed for blowing up bigger ships- its turreted lance weapon, and incredibly powerful drive allowing it to easily hunt cruisers or even battleships.

After the Horus Heresy, many (including the Imperial Navy and Inquisition) argued that the Space Marines don't need to own any ships, the IN would transport them around. Some, like Primarch Corax, argued that if the SMs had a better fleet maybe they would have been able to stop the Heresy before the Emperor paid a steep price to do it.

The concordiat that the Imperium as a whole came to was that the Space Marines would be allowed a fleet, but it would have to be designed around planetary assault, and not Ship to Ship fighting, allowing the Imperial Navy very good fighting chance against SM forces that went rogue.

Personally, I think Novas are an OP design. The only real downside in BFG is the fact a master with a Nova Cannon can stop you from swarming him to death with Nova Frigates.

Also, comparing the size of the pictures of Nova Frigates in BFG to other ships, these things are a bit bigger than average frigates.

Exactly as NewAgeOfPower says.

The Nova is designed to attack ships. Something Marines are not supposed to do. The Imperial Navy must always be in upperhand when in a fleet engagement versus Marines.

What do you mean with master of Nova Cannon? That this is a scatter weapon nowadays (quite some years really). And yes, in the guess days my opponent had a hit accuracy of 99.9 %. ... lovely. haha

In FAQ/Compendium 2010 Marines finally get some options. Especially the 2nd shield upgrade is needed to fulffill their task in planetary assaults.

Novas in squadrons are a nasty anti-capital ship force. The Astartes are, since the break up of the Legions, supposed to be assault oriented, not anti-ship oriented. This is to keep them from being able to rebel effectively in large numbers. Squadrons of Novas make them a deadly foe to Battlefleets.

To throwa few more bones on the fire: the Adeptus Mechanicus is none too pleased about the Nova (and the Hunter and Gladius) class RSVs because they were designed, built and distributed wholly without support and oversight from the AdMech.

If memory serves, they only reason they haven't demanded or inflicted sanctions on those astartes chapters that field them is that they lack the firepower and political clout to take them all on (especially since they were pioneered by the Dark Angels), and they know that going after a single or small group of chapters that use the design is just going to invite wrath from the others.

Dark Angels pioneered the Hunter Class Destroyer. Which is a might fine vessel. A Cobra destroyer on steroids.

**** right. And another one which doesn't fit the stated mission of astartes fleets (blockade running and planetary assaults): sure, torpedoes are good for orbital bombardment, but shoving them on something that fast and maneuverable just screams "capital ship hunter"

Well, you could argue they use the Hunter to launch boarding torpedoes in order to capture Fallen Angels. They rather capture them then destroy them on a ship. They must repent before they can... ehm.. 'go'.

The Astartes are supposed to perform planetary assaults, even when said planet is blockaded by enemy fleets. It stands to reason that while their heavier ships (Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges) would be dedicated to just such a purpose, their escorts would diverge in some ways from that function. Escorts are, as was stated, designed to screen larger ships. As those larger ships are meant to get into a fairly close orbit against potentially overwhelming numbers of vessels which are designed to kill other ships, it makes sense that the Astartes escorts and rapid strike vessels would be ship killers. After all, an Astartes fleet can have Firestorm and Sword class frigates as part of their RSV squadrons, and Cobra destroyers as well.

You also have to consider that not all Chapters use the Astartes craft. Hell, one of the Space Wolf great companies uses a captured battleship recovered from traitors as its primary strike ship.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said: