There's a few fun tricks you can do with a Raider/Transport mix. Grab two Iconoclast Destroyers from BFK, load their Dorsal spots with Grapple Cannons, and give them skilled pilots with Evasive Maneuvers, some stealth components and Defensive Countermeasures. Load your Transport with Barracks, Murder-Servitors and generally things that a warship would have. Send your Raiders in to Grapple the enemy, with all four Grapple Cannons firing one of them SHOULD hit, and have them keep on firing to keep the enemy vessel pinned. Once grappled they can do nothing but try to escape the Grapple, giving your transport time to close and start the full boarding action.

And that's how Granddad earned his first Cruiser kids.

Is there something I'm missing about the Godsbane? It's Range 12, but it's also 1d10+2 compared to the 1d10+5 of the Sunhammer at Range 9.

The Star-Flare Lance can fit with some minor adjustments... The easiest thing to do is remove the Hecutor completely and replace it with a Sunsear battery. Strength 3 and 2 DoS per hit is pretty sweet.

And thanks, I thought we could at least have multiple Gellar Fields. Or at least have the Emergency Gellar Field or perhaps a backup.... I am travelling in a Repulsive with a Miloslav warp engine that has Blasphemous Tendencies (now). Thought some backups would be nice, haha.

Redundancy means you don't have faith in the Omnissiah!

Isn't the Sunhammer 1d10 + 3? Also 3 range is actually 6 extra maximum firing range, and it is one of the most important factors. That and crit stacking.

My players have put the Star-Flare to great use. Get the shields down, use Stacking the Deck and a drugged out Arch-Militant and so long whatever is in front of you.

There's a few fun tricks you can do with a Raider/Transport mix. Grab two Iconoclast Destroyers from BFK, load their Dorsal spots with Grapple Cannons, and give them skilled pilots with Evasive Maneuvers, some stealth components and Defensive Countermeasures.

Grapple Cannons? What book are they in?

There's a few fun tricks you can do with a Raider/Transport mix. Grab two Iconoclast Destroyers from BFK, load their Dorsal spots with Grapple Cannons, and give them skilled pilots with Evasive Maneuvers, some stealth components and Defensive Countermeasures.

Grapple Cannons? What book are they in?

Hostile Aquisitions as I recall

Another idea to give some thought to...
Keep long ranged hecutors in Dorsal slot for bringing down enemy Void Shields.
Replace the Sunsears with lance batteries that should be shooting in savos after the hecutors strike. (so you ignore any armor the enemy might have)

Just a few closing comments about the general state of the rules: I'm generally against lances, since they tend to take a lot of space and power, and their ability to ignore armour (with one or two hits) generally doesn't mean anything if you salvo your macrobattery shots (since anything after the first 2-4 hits is going to ignore armour anyway), and I generally find crits of be of very little value, since a decent salvo will kill or cripple your target anyway.

Another idea to give some thought to...

Keep long ranged hecutors in Dorsal slot for bringing down enemy Void Shields.

Replace the Sunsears with lance batteries that should be shooting in savos after the hecutors strike. (so you ignore any armor the enemy might have)

By strict RAW and with competent gunners, this is an inferior choice.

This said, if you house rule in any way to make lances viable or your gunner isn't good enough to consistently get those 4+ DoS on his shooting rolls, then yes, this is a rather nice set-up, if horribly demanding in terms of power.

Thanks for all the feedback, fellas.

I've prepared a Lunar-class Cruiser as an alternative at 73 Ship Points. I have the sinking feeling that everyone chose Child of Dynasty, or that the bonus SP was in fact in error. In any case, my character will have CoD any way.

Consilium Beta

So, had a quick meet with the group (mostly ate sushi) and we arrived at some conclusions:

1) 85 Points - Two of the characters will have CoD, my RT and the Void-Master/Seneschal (he's not sure yet). That accounts for 6 extra SP. The other 9 will be taken from our 20 PF and the other PFs generated by the characters.

2) I suggested some House Rules, we're all fairly new, but I illustrated just how powerful salvo'd macrobatteries could be. The GM was smiling in the corner, silently, as I showed just how quickly we could destroy stuff with average skills and average rolls.

They were fine with it... until I showed them that the same thing could happen to us. Not in one shot, but in sufficient numbers it could easily destroy our sexy Grand Cruiser.

So, we'll examine alternatives for it.

3) I also brought up the possibility of house ruling Nova Cannon. But these guys and gals all played BFG with me and remember how... "balanced" my fleets were with just two. We'll see.

4) Thanks everyone for contributing to this thread. Looking forward to actually playing in the New Year!

1) 85 Points - Two of the characters will have CoD, my RT and the Void-Master/Seneschal (he's not sure yet). That accounts for 6 extra SP. The other 9 will be taken from our 20 PF and the other PFs generated by the characters.

I've never liked this idea, especially since dropping below 20 Profit Factor means that according to the conversion chart you have purchasing power on par with a Weak Hive Guild or Common Labour House, and approaching that of a struggling Merchant House. It becomes hard to imagine that you have a Grand Cruiser in pristine repair when your Dynasty is on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. Even burning all your assets to keep your Cruiser going, you wouldn't have fully stocked macrocannon shells or Best-quality equipment, because you wouldn't have the money for maintenance or repair.

Well, the backstory is that the dynasty's nearly dead after a rival dynasty outmaneuvered the former head. We're fleeing, Battlestar Galactica style. Eventually we'll go out there and kick butt, but the Galactica (as it were) is going to be beat up for a while.

Then, we'll go out and shoot people in the face for money to survive.

well all you need now is another cruiser that has had it's servitor crew somehow take over the ship and is trying to kill yours.

We'd be kinda screwed then, with no Vipers to screen for us... Guess I'd have to lance the thing to death.

Made a few more changes and I emailed this to the group yesterday. They wanted crack (as in the crew) and I didn't have any spare points for an archeotech component.

The story is we're launching before the ship is fully ready simply to save ourselves. Not factored in the stats are the stormtroopers and displays of wealth upgrades which we'll "recover" in January.

Behold! The Whispered Promise!

REPULSIVE Class Grand Cruiser

SPEED 6
MANOEUVRABILITY 11
DETECTION 8
TURRET RATING 3
SHIELDS Triple Void Shield
ARMOUR 20
HULL INTEGRITY 85

SPACE AVAILABLE 90 POWER AVAILABLE: 93
SPACE Left Over 2 POWER USED 93

Skill Test Modifiers
Ballistic Tests 10, Navigation/Warp 20, Navigation/Combat 5, Navigation/Escape Combat 5, Navigation/Piloting 5, CMD/Hit&Run 20, CMD/Boarding Action 20, Manouvre/Stellar Phenomena 5, CMD/Hit&Run (Def) 20, CMD/Boarding Action (Def) 20,

Achievement Bonuses
Achievement Bonuses: Trade + 100 Military + 100 Explore + 100

Essential Components
Saturnine Pattern, Class 5 Drive (Grand Cruiser) , Miloslav H-616.b Warp Engine (CL,C) , Warpsbane Hull, Ship Master's Bridge (C, CB, CG) , M-1.r Life Sustainer (+1 Morale Loss) [C:POOR], R-50 Auspex Multi-Band Auger Array , Voidsmans Quarters [C:POOR]

Supplemental Components
Compartmentalized Cargo Hold, Barracks, Observation Dome,

Complications / Past Histories
Blasphemous Tendencies, Wrested from a Space Hulk (For misfortunes GM rolls twice and picks the worst), Cursed (Warp Nav Penalty), Ancient Grand Cruiser (Can't take +Armour Components).

Weapons
Sunsear Laser Battery [strength: 4, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 4, Range: 9] Location:PROW
Sunhammer Lance Battery [strength: 2, Damage:1d10+5, Crit Rating: 3, Range: 9] Location:DORSAL
Sunsear Las-Broadside [strength: 6, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 4, Range: 9] Location:PORT
Sunsear Las-Broadside [strength: 6, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 4, Range: 9] Location:PORT
Sunsear Las-Broadside [strength: 6, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 4, Range: 9] Location:STARBOARD
Sunsear Las-Broadside [strength: 6, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 4, Range: 9] Location:STARBOARD

You've got blasphemous, cursed, wrestled form a space hulk repulsive cruiser which travels through the warp with haste of the damned... I'd give your group Peer (the Insane) just for this .

Well, it's the price we paid for 85 Ship Points... something that I fear we'll be paying for quite a while.

I've been talking with some of the group and it seems they're ending up with a fairly large amount of Insanity/Corruption points to start with.

Even the Missionary / fire afficionado seems more unbalanced than usual. It may be that my Rogue Trader's the sanest one of all of them, and that isn't a good thing.

I'm already statting out the various other ships of the dynasty fleet, as it were. They're bulk haulers mostly, but I've been allowed to customize them... any they all have the Miloslav warp engine.

You've got blasphemous, cursed, wrestled form a space hulk repulsive cruiser which travels through the warp with haste of the damned... I'd give your group Peer (the Insane) just for this .

SLAP A BELECANE IN THERE.

(the Geller fields that allows for "better navigation" but sometimes do "flicker")

Go from Footfall to Naduesh in a week or less if you also have the Hollow Atlas and Miloslavs. You might get some Daemonette-inflicted stds though.

Yeah, the Navigator's getting itchy enough as it is and is petitioning to remove the Blasphemous Tendencies for Ancient and Wise or Martial Hubris.

I don't think I can convince him to give up the Warpsbane Hull for the Belecane. Would be "interesting" though.

I'm finishing up the rest of the tattered fleet and am being given great leeway here. I'll be outlining what they were, not how they'll be once we start.

For those experienced with dynasty fleets, is is better to have Armed (and Stealthy) Transports or fat plodders with bodyguards (with the bodyguards being Cobras or other Raiders, and mayhap a Frigate or two which you can use for other things).

For those experienced with dynasty fleets, is is better to have Armed (and Stealthy) Transports or fat plodders with bodyguards (with the bodyguards being Cobras or other Raiders, and mayhap a Frigate or two which you can use for other things).

IME this is heavily dependant on game style and the tastes of your GM and so rather hard for us to answer.

I personally prefer the second option, because most transports either cannot be sensibly armed or are simply loose too much cargo-carrying capacity when sensibly armed.

An argument can be made that transports are cheap, so one could just get more to retain capacity, but then arming them gets pricey.

But that's just my 2 cents worth.

We're starting a Rogue Trader group, and being a wild and zany bunch we picked an AVENGER Class Grand Cruiser as our vessel. Our GM let us pick somewhat what we wanted and not use the SP/PF roll, so we went overboard somewhat (not being fully aware of what a very low PF will do to us, besides thats half the fun ).

Without further ado, here is our magnificent vessel.

Supplemental Components

Luxury Passenger Quarters, Brig, Medicae Deck (3xIB Patients Treatable w/out Penalty) ,

Complications / Past Histories

Ancient and Wise, Turbulent Past (+20 Heretics, -20 Inquisition on all Social Tests)

Weapons

Godsbane Lance Battery [strength: 2, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 3, Range: 12] Location:STARBOARD

Hecutor Pattern Plasma Broadside [strength: 5, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 4, Range: 11] Location:STARBOARD

Hecutor Pattern Plasma Broadside [strength: 5, Damage:1d10+2, Crit Rating: 4, Range: 11] Location:STARBOARD

Jovian Pattern Landing Bay [strength: 2, Damage:x+x, Crit Rating: --, Range: ] Location:PORT

And yes, it only has one broadside.... What happens when you get your hands on an old mothballed vessel, someone acquired the other broadside somewhere in the past 5000 years....

It's not too well thought out in layout, we more went with the "Ohh, that sounds nifty!" strategy. Sure it'll bite us in the rear and we'll be a space hulk drifting in the void in no-time, but it's all a learning experience. Our RT has to be quick on his feet to start amassing an imperium to support this vessel before it breaks down beyond our meagre means to fix.. (and by meagre I mean non-existing).

Cheers

Bottulf

If you are going Repulsive, a Warpbane hull is pretty much a must have. I like the Miloslav, and it is actually safer than other Warp drives as you make fewer encounter checks on a Warp trip. I don't see an Archeotech component on your list. I would usually suggest a modified drive for the extra speed/space. Another possibility is an Energistic Conversion Matrix, if you want to have a FAST Grand Cruiser that can maneuver well. You can add up to 5 speed when that is all you care about, and drop the speed to turn quicker when you need the maneuverability. As most of the time you can draw power off of the Warp Drive, you will usually have at least 2 speed higher. Nothing like having Raider level speed/Maneuverability and Grand Cruiser guns...