Is it expected that Rogue Trader Vessels will be equipped with Fighter bays?

I should hope so.

I just hope they don't go the BFG route and treat fighters and bombers as expendable ordinance.

I for one, would relish playing a Fighter Pilot and would like a system where my pilot's performance affects the overall outcome of the encounter.

Besides, there's way, way too many cool plotlines involving "scouting nearby systems" etc. etc. which need small craft.

Well given that the new designer diary says that the smallest interstellar ships are 1,000 metres long, I can see many of them landing on a planet too easily. So they'll need shuttles...probably mostly Aquila or Arvus class shuttles, but I reckon if a ship can carry an Aquila class it can also carry a Thunderbolt class fighter!

That said, I'm more excited about guncutters, which will almost definately feature as the armed shuttles of relatively powerful characters like Rogue Traders.

Maxim C. Gatling said:

Even if it does say in the core rules that fighters/bombers are treated as expendable ordinance i would totaly ignore it and would create a set of house rules. I will probably use Battlestar Galactica tv series as a basis of how the fighters are used. I loved all the fighter duels in that.

You should remember though, that the most common starfighters employed by the Imperium aren't any similar to BSG Vipers.

The Fury Interceptors are craft the size of a Jumbo Jet, with crew of four and armed with several forward facing lascannons, multiple missile bays, and thick armour. For further reference see BFG rulebook.

The Thunderbolts seen in 40k tabletop are exclusively atmospheric planes, able only to descend from orbit when launched, but incapable of dogfighting in vacuum.

Maxim C. Gatling said:

It should be remembered that, when dealing with things on the scale that BFG does, the performance of individuals, or even the small crews of fighters and bombers, is largely irrelevant. For mechanical purposes, the fighters, bombers and assault boats are removed after use... but the book actually describes that attack craft markers removed after use represent the craft returning to their carrier to rearm and refuel - having done their job, they are irrelevant to the game until rearmed. Dealing with the distinction between armed and unarmed bombers, and having attack craft on the table returning to refuel, would add an extra level of complexity to the game that BFG really doesn't need (amongst other things, you'd need some way of distinguishing which squadrons are able to attack and which are returning to their carrier, such as a second set of attack craft counters).

It's a matter of scale and appropriate complexity, nothing more or less than that. It isn't a representation of how such things are treated within the setting.

They aren't expendable ordinance in BFG. When Fighters and Bombers are removed it does not necissarily mean they are destroyed just that they have been forced to disengage from fighting either because they have expended too much fuel and ammunition or because they have taken damage to make them ineffective. When fighters engage bombers it does not mean the instantly wipe them all out but it ties the bombers up and forces them to burn up fuel so that they cant reach their targets. Yes some will be destroyed but not all.

Kaihlik

Anyone here play Wings of War? I'm a huge BFG fan and so I've played all sorts of other space-mini games as well. I was playing an epic game of Wings of War this weekend (WW1 aerial combat NOT space combat) and thought that it couls easily be adapted to use in Rogue Trader space battles for smaller craft. It could even benefit directly from the players by using special movement or ability cards (for those of you familar with the game the plane use a preplaned movement of three cards). Lots of possibilites.

At anyrate, depending on how this is handled in RT I may adapt this system into my games. Its simple, fast, lends itself to getting the players into the action and I don't think would detract much at all from the storytelling.

If you like that you should also like Forge World's AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS AND TACTICA AERONAUTICA

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/tactaero.htm

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/RULES_AND_ACCESSORIES.html

it uses a VERY similar card system and

mmm such lovely imagery and some great info on aerospace combat and at £45.00 the two books are IMO a bargin

Da Boss said:

Yeah, I've looked at that and given it thought but by the time I buy the books, the stands, the ships AND get it shiped to me it just seems expensive. Granted though that its actually a 40K game its probably much easier to marry it to RT.

Yes, yes, I know it's a "matter of scale".

I'm saying that from a game mechanics standpoint, small craft are treated as expendable ordinance (which they are) and that I found that to be highly ...unsatisfying. Torpedos, strike craft, bombers, interceptors were all given the rock/paper/scissors approach in BFG.

I truly understand that BFG needs to be simple because the game was intended to be played with lots of ships. I just don't like how they did it. Unfortunately, the ships are expensive and hard to get. Play a BFG with less than a dozen ships total and you'll see what I mean. In BFG more ships=more fun. 3 ships on each side and tactics become rather rudimentary and you're wishing for WH40kRT style Torpedos which had multiple warheads and banks of Plasma Cannons, Macro Cannons and D-Lasers instead of arbitrary broadside firepower ratings.

Don't you want to have a Pilot character who dodges incoming defense turret fire and lands the plasma bomb square on the enemy's Bridge and then has to fly his wounded bird back to the PC ship and successfully land? Don't you want the added pressure that the bird he's flying is really expensive and less expendable than he is? I do.

See, I cut my teeth on Star Fleet Battles, which (mechanically) is a far superior game to BFG. Now, it would be incredibly disappointing if BFG came anywhere near a SFB clone game, but there are certain aspects of SFB that are worthy of emulation as SFB has been a wildly popular starship game for decades. For instance, SFB is far more complicated than BFG ever needs to be, but the gameplay is exceptionally smooth.

My point is, even in a complicated game like SFB, fightercraft can be very potent and they manage to do it smoothly while keeping track of individual fighters/bombers/shuttlecraft. I see it as a game mechanics issue, not an issue of scale. Sure, one Hydran fighter isn't going to take on a Klingon B10, but a dozen of them are going to do some nasty damage.

Games Workshop is pretty notorious for dumbing down their rules sets with each revision in the interests of "gameplay" with the emphasis on attracting newer players with ADHD. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, older gamers want to be able to use as many of the miniatures they've collected over the years as possible and secondly, GW wants to sell more miniatures.

Fortunately, Rogue Trader is an RPG and FFG can go the reverse direction in the interests of "flavor" and "immersion". I'm chomping at the bit to see how they plan to accomplish this. What little we see so far is very encouraging. I really hope whoever's designing this portion of the game goes back to basics and incorporates as much of the original WH40kRT as possible. If he can find a copy, that is.

I'm making the assumption (which I probably shouldn't do) that the RT space combat will be playable without BFG minis, but will be greatly enhanced if you choose to make use of them. I'll make House Rules if need be, but being old and warty with a lot less time than I did when I was 21, I'd rather they get it as right as possible in the published rules so I don't have to.

Da Boss said:

That's the problem. I'd love to pick up a copy BUT.... 45 quid is approximately $75. Two books you say? There is just NO WAY I'm going to spend $150+ on two rulebooks sight unseen (because our local GW stores refuse to stock any BL or ForgeWorld stuff) for a game I can't play because I don't have the uber-expensive miniatures (for much the same reason....).

For $150 there better be some boobies in there somewhere, know what I'm sayin'?

The nearest Bunker store is about an 8 hour drive away and there's only 2 on the West Coast. Needless to say, I've only been there once. I bought about a dozen DeathCorps (which were beautiful, btw) and shelled out over $100, at which my wife pitched a sh!t-fit.

I would LOVE, ...LOVE to see the AERONAUTICA game mechanics. But unless one of my friends decides he wants to shell out for a game he'll never get to play, I'm S.O.L..

Understandable

but to be clear the price is £45.00 for both of the two books not £45.00 each, so it would be $75.00 for the two . Not cheap but then they are simply lovely...........The rules are only about 20 pages rest is lovely lovely pictures and fluff...................there is a minor glitch I feel in the rules for Iniaitive. The cards are basically the same as Wings of War - combat is pretty different.

in that a player who wins moves last (makes sense) but fires last as well (prefer the other way round).

re the minis - very expenisve (although nice) but there are some counters floating around the interweb that would work just as well.................

I like BFG and the Mongoose Publishing Games BFG "inspired" game A Call to Arms (for Babylon 5) as well more than SFB or similar................

Maxim C. Gatling said:

Hoping I don't mess this up like the last quote I did... don't understand the quote system on this forum yet,

Anyway, Battlesleet gothic is actually more complicated than the game that is replaced (Space Fleet, or something like that), at least from what I can tell about that game. Also, I suspect that the rules for Space Combat will not require BFG miniatures. In fact, I suspect they will actually be totally abstracted, or even simpler than BFG. RT is not intended as a Space Combat system, it will be a roleplaying game, and what matters is what the character does, and so the exchange of fire of two 500m+ ships is not likely to be covered with very detailed rules. The characters actions will be important to the battle, but the actual battle will not take up most of the time taken to "roleplay" the battle. Now, this is total guesswork, but if I am right I suspect you will be sorely disappointed by what they do for space combat.

I am not so sure Battlefleet Gothic was meant to be played with as large fleets as you imagine. Ok, sure, it was meant to be able to deal with those, and 3 cruisers is going to be a short fight, but some of the scenarios are suggested to be played with UP TO 750 points (which will buy you less than 5 cruisers, if you choose to spend it all on capital ships. If I had the money I would be tempted to try an all escort fleet...). Instead, I suspect it is meant to play games more quickly than you want it to. From what I have heard about SFB it is massively complicated, and takes loads of time to do anything. Now, this may be based on players pushing the system further than what it was designed for, and loads of add on rules piling on top of each other, but thats what I have heard.

LOL, Space Fleet...

I still have that game, actually. To see if you hit, you drop a D6 in the box lid. Oh, no it didn't matter what rolled on the dice...what mattered is which of the tic-tac-toe squares printed inside the box lid it landed on.

Yep, it was THAT lame. The minis were cool though. They didn't look like Space Locomotives either. Kind of wish they'd made rules for them in BFG. Instead, they kind of pretended they never existed. Too bad, I liked them.

Ok, it's just that... Well, I'd been a big 40k fan and had been waiting nigh on 10 years for them to come out with BFG. I have a picture of Rick Priestly holding up some of the box art a year or so before it came out. I don't think I expected too much, I just expected something completely different.

SFB IS massively complicated.

That is to say, the rulebook is about 3 inches thick and if you don't know the rules better than your opponent you can get your arse handed to you easily. The rules cover any aspect of space combat you can think of...boarding...Legendary Crew...tractor beams...debris...Transporter Bombs...etc.

On the other hand, the rules are laid out with an incredibly efficient numbering system so looking up a rule in question is pretty easy.

Despite the intimidating rulebook, SFB flows very well and the hardest part always seemed to be able to find a copy machine (this was back in the day, yo). To actually play, you had a sheet with the movement and firing charts, one sheet for each individual ship and hex map/dice/counters.

Ranges, damage, how many crew etc...in otherwords all you needed to know about that particular ship, was on a single sheet of paper. You'd mark damage on the checkboxes and after the game you just throw it away (or bust out a big eraser).

One thing I liked about the game was Hexes (although I don't think RT should implement them) and the movement system. Basically, a turn was based on 32 phases and everything that happened in each phase was considered simultaneous. A chart told you when to move, the maximum speed being 32.

Feds vs. Klingons= Piece of cake. Where it got squirrelly was when you had a half dozen ISC ships vs. the Lyrans...because they don't just have Phasers and Photon Torpedos, they had other weapons which required you know the rules for them.

Just to be clear, I don't want RT to be anywhere near as complicated or comprehensive a rules set as SFB, I'm just saying that as complicated as it was, it was a true classic and before the days of ADD had a huge following. My point is that I don't mind one bit if the RT designers borrow elements that work from other games that worked, be it SFB or Aeronautica or Wings or whatever. It's not plagerism, it's re-engineering.

IMPO I wouldndn't focus too much on pilots and attack craft (or equivalent) in RT. I think they'd work just as well in DH and would act as a nice link between the sytems. If you did this you could incorporate a pilot career path (with Commercial and Military routes) with the existing rules. Keep the craft for RT but have the pilots in DH (with NPC templates to cover the gap) where they have many potential uses. It just strikes me as a fairly obvious ommission of career (that and Commisars ). And since DH 3.5® ( paragon ) is coming out towards the end of the year... it could be a good place to include these.

I belive it varies (alot) from ship to ship. In the Ciaphus Cain novels the RT uses heavilly modified cargo shuttles and Aquila's and launches them from retasked cago bays, whereas in the Rogue Tader novels they have dedicated fighter bays and shuttles (even if they can't man them).

the into the storm expansion book will include player usable fighters

Idaan said:

Amusingly enough though, the Maurader *is* a space capable aircraft, being the Starhawk's predecessor. So: if a Starhawk is larger then a Fury, but around the same size as a Maurader, how is the Fury *not* the same size as a Thunderbolt? And yet, the fluff states they're 180 feet long!

Don't you love GW?

From the old Imp Armour book they aren't all that big.

Lightnings are 10.8m long, 13.75m wingspan and 9.8tonnes

Thunderbolts, 14.2m long, 16.06m wingspan and 14tonnes

Marauders, 19.2m long, 24.6m wingspan and 41tonnes

Valkyrie, 18.5m long, 16.9m wingspan and 13tonnes

Vultures (not space capable) 19.2m long, 14.2m wingspan and 9tonnes

Bit smaller than a 747! Course, consistancy and ret-con is part and parcel of 40k when you have a bit of a history of drunken writers...

None of those is all that big, the Fury is a different beast all together. In general it's patterns make it about 70 or 80 meters long, though some are bigger.

The starhawk is much larger but a difinaitive size has never been given. We know it has better armor, propulsion and armament (MUCH better) then the Marauder, Which means it is probably much larger, especially because of the size ship killing missiles have to be. The Starhawk is also capable of carrying Anti-ship torpedoes, which are generally 200 plus feet long.

If the Starhawk was even as small as twice the size of a Marauder bomber it would still be carrying weapons nearly three times its length, which doesn't make a lot of sense, even by geedub's standards.

Your assuming that the weapons the Starhawk caries to create "two torpedo markers" are the same torpedos that are fired from the capital ships. Torpedo markers are, however, just an abstract term, they're only 1 to 1 for Imperial and Chaos torpedos.

Ships in 40k don't launch bombers at eachother, they launch entire flights of bombers at eachother. And while the individual weapons they carry may not be particularly powerful, they can be placed more precicly then normal ship-to-ship weapons, and there are lots and lots of them. The bombers themselves don't have to be of unusual size for this to work.