With the upcoming Rogue Trader Sourcebook and generally some GM´s eager to write stories involving characters having their own means of transportation, i would like to drop a nice little (*choke* *cough*...LITTLE) ship:

Free for download med-res deckplan: www.zaon.com/online/Downloads/Entries/2008/5/3_ZAON_Deckplans_for_Garretson_Class_Recon_Scout_Ship.html

Variant: stargate525.deviantart.com/art/The-Pride-of-Mossley-111945495

Simple Shader-Renders: http://www.zaon.org/showpost.php?p=42786&postcount=30

(Sorry, couldn´t make a correct link of the last one)

Yeah, its as big as an airliner, but hell, 40k is big. Convert the guest quarters into secure "guest quarters" and there you go.

Looks pretty impressive and it's certainly not too big. I'd actually say it's small for a true star ship, especially if you intend it to be warp capable.

Already been using that one, and others from the website for a while.

Some Very nice stuff on there.

The Garretson in mygame has been designated a Relic and is presently being used by an Ad-Mech Explorator, the ship has been recognized as being built from Archeotech and as such passed from one explorator to another, with their minds fusing to the ship much like a Titan and its Princeps

Looks good, I wouldn't personally use it since it's dons't look or feel very imperial, but it's a good base to maybe write up your own, though I'm not quite sure what ship would be fitting since I don't know much about the spaceship part of 40k, but it's worth investigating.

Very nice link and very inspiring.

Very nice.

No need to hum and cough when saying it is little. By 40k standards, it is. I go by the theory the ships are huge but that is a personnal choice. I am definatly going to use this as a system craft though.

Nice ship, though I don't see a vessel of this size being capable of Warp travel ... which certainly isn't necessary if it's only plying its trade in a single system ... but I imagine it would need to bribe its way onto a much larger vessel in order to sell its ill gotten gains in another region.

Nice on and I always root for freebees

It is rather small for WH40K-Ship, but I think it will make a very good inner-system-ship.

I agree that its small for the most of what we know of 40k. But small and agile always had a niche and will always have (at least for me). Especially for players that don´t want to look like a threat all the time. Small and unthreatening with limited offensive capabilities is best.

Most ships of this size would dock with larger craft for warp travel, agreed. And we don´t have rules for navigator characters, so a warp drive for an acolyte cell is unneccessary.

I wouldn´t completely out that such a craft could be warp capable. Fluff supports small specialist craft that have such engines, like the ships used to deploy eversor assassins. The adeptus mechanicus would be able to build something like that if chucked enough money at.

Regarding the design: Why wouldn´t it not fit in 40k? BFG tells us how big ships look, and i can agree that bigger ships have limited design ranges in cause of their age and difficult production. Small ships on the scale we´re talking here are never shown in BFG and are seldom described in fluff and novels. Theres room for some creativity here. I wouldn´t get red faced if i show players a garretson or a firefly. Its industrial looking and not very fancy or organic looking. I would definitely get weird looks for proposing lesser known star trek or babylon 5 designs. These sure woulnd´t fit.

For my campaign this is the ship that is the current base of operations for my party.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/item/lathe

The guys are malleus are currently looking at some initial work I did on it, and will hopefully do the beautiful stuff they normally do.

Salcor

Is there a pic of this, or just the description?

If you mean the Lathe class, at the moment it is just a description. The guys over at malleus.dk are looking at it to do the amazing level of detail on it (Once that is done it will be on their website.)

Salcor

I quite like the lathe-class salcor. I do have one small problem with the description- Valkyries are strictly air-breathers, they can't operate outside of an atmosphere, and so aren't particularly good choices for dropships. The Aquila lander might potentially be suitable, or, if you think that is perhaps a mite too opulent, an Eagle assault shuttle might serve. They are (according to Execution Hour ) the landing/boarding craft of choice of the Adeptus Arbites, and in my campaign, the preferred inter-atmospheric vessel of the Imperial Navy; particularly the armsmen of the Battlefleet Disciplinary Detachment.

Hmm didn't know about the eagle class assault shuttle. I haven't seen any 40K references to a combat trans-orbit shuttle, and I figured for hard work the aquilla is a little too 'nice.' I was figuring valkyries were actually void modified by the Scintilla factorums. Does anyone know if there are any pics of the eagle class? I also figured the shark class assault boats from BFG were too big since I just want something for a squad or so.

Salcor

I'm afraid I can't think of a picture source for the Eage (although I imagine the dropships from the Starship Troopers Roughnecks series are probably close). There is, however, a picture in the 'Conquest of Obzidion' article on the Black Library site of the Devourer class Dropship, although that may be too large.

In theory, you could modify Valkyries for (limited) void capability, but you'd have to rip out and replace the engines, make the doors and hull air-tight and vacuum proof, add a shedload of heat-shielding and that'd end up either eliminating/severely reducing the carrying capacity or altering the visual profile so much that it wouldn't be recognisable as a Valkyrie (and so getting a pic as a visual aid wouldn't be as helpful)

Salcor said:

Inquisitor Obvious points out that the ThunderHawk is a very common dropship/troop transport/gunboat depending on it's loadout.

Cool! They come in BFG-sized too.

Awesome, glad i'm not the only one who wants transport for his acolytes!

The Light and Heavy Atmospheric Drop Ships on this page look wh40k'ish. (like flying bricks!)

My players have a Black Ship and 2 Corvettes. They started out with just the Black Ship, but 2 of the characters (now deceased) wer e Rogue Traders.

I figure, how are my PC's going to chase the Archvillian all over the Galaxy without some Wings, eh?

What I'd like to see (never happen though...sob) is a plastic kit for Imperial Ships in a slightly larger scale. Originally, Space Fleet and V1 BFG ships were plastic kits with different configurations. A larger kit would allow a few more bitz for ship personalization.