The Blessed Enterprise has served the Strom dynasty faithfully for several millennia before it was frantically gutted by rampaging xenos in the Koronus Expanse some two centuries ago. Recovered at great expense to the dynasty, the then-Lunar class cruiser was refitted to the Dictator standard to shepherd the remains of the dynasty fleet not sold off to creditors.

The disastrous journey into the Koronus Expanse saw this fleet halved, with the rest badly damaged, and what was to be a free endeavour for profit soon became a new fight for survival. The latest scion to take the Blessed Enterprise's helm has tapped both the Ecclesiarchy and the Mechanicus for aid, in exchange for short-term promises and pacts to restore not only the flagship but its fleet.

The refits have not gone well, adding another 15,000 souls aboard has strained the life support systems and has forced some of the crew to hot-bunk until such a time as some parts of the vessel can be restored to full working order. Even the Mechanicus' generous addition of an Emegency Gellar Field provided no relief for the crew who now believe the ship to be in danger of slipping into the warp at any given moment.

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The Blessed Enterprise

* Barracks staffed with fanatical, if unskilled, volunteers. Maintenance and upkeep paid for by the Ecclesiarchy until the recovery of a holy relic and the establishment of a secure pilgrimage route, at which point becomes +2 PF.

** Manufactorum and Small Craft Repair Bay staffed with itinerant Explorators, Tech-Priests, and so forth. Primary purpose is to give the "volunteers" above arms and armour, ensure the attack craft are sustained to acceptable levels, and aid in the ship's maintenance. Requires a (let's not call it a tithe) percentage of resources acquired by the group. This is the "Reliable Contact" above.

(Remove the Barracks , Manufactorum , and Small Craft Repair Bay to arrive at 73 SP.)

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Update - Post-Damaris Blessed Enterprise

Upgrades: Best Life Sustainer, Best Crew Quarters - Rewards from a thankful Damaris, suffering very little during the Ork invasion

New Components: Observation Dome (not listed above), Trophy Room, Laboratorium

Past History: Finances in Arrears - Significant PF was invested to halve penalty, only need +25 Achievement Points to accomplish Endeavours. This was possible after Damaris' successful defense, pleasing the Ecclesiarchy in defending the relic as well as the Mechanicus in not disturbing their research.

New Traits:

Ork Killas: +5 to any Command or Ballistic tests against Orks in the void

Big Damaris Heroes: +20 to any Social tests with Damarans, +10 with Damaris trade partners

Nice ship. I do understand your choice of archeotech, especially with tearing lances, but instead, I would have taken a Modified plasma drive, more space for latter. Or even better, the "Planet Bound for millenia" past history, thought it might not be possible, both story wise and Ship-Points wise.

What kind of squadrons do you have access to for your launch bays, and how many ? I suggest at least one of Aeronautica & one of Support for delicious AP points if your Game Master use them. If not, don't bother.
In both cases, take more bombers than fighters to get more punch to your bombing runs. With a PC leading your small craft squadrons, you won't have much trouble .

I feel like you're one of those used car salesmen, where you advertise a 73SP Cruiser, but it's actually more than that if you just remove these few components to drop it to 73SP. Of course isn't it so much nicer with this Barracks? You should totally buy it at this price.

As a big proponent of Mathhammer I've never found the Lance change to be necessary. The change to Macrobatteries means that Lances are the capital ship killer they were meant to be, and the Star-Flare lance really is a beast of a weapon. If you're also using the change to Lances where every 2 DoS is an extra hit instead of 3, then you should probably change the Star-Flare to be every 1 DoS, which is going to result in your players steamrolling people anyway.

I feel like you're one of those used car salesmen, where you advertise a 73SP Cruiser, but it's actually more than that if you just remove these few components to drop it to 73SP. Of course isn't it so much nicer with this Barracks? You should totally buy it at this price.

As a big proponent of Mathhammer I've never found the Lance change to be necessary. The change to Macrobatteries means that Lances are the capital ship killer they were meant to be, and the Star-Flare lance really is a beast of a weapon. If you're also using the change to Lances where every 2 DoS is an extra hit instead of 3, then you should probably change the Star-Flare to be every 1 DoS, which is going to result in your players steamrolling people anyway.

Well, of course that's the base model! What self-respecting Rogue Trader would go without a little embellishment? Now, with a small downpayment, perhaps an agreement to help fund new hospital missions for the hospitallers and supplying them with meds, I can install a Medicae Deck. We'll even throw in an Observation Dome for the crew's mental health. All they really want is the chance to spread the Emperor's Light...

We won't be implementing all of Mathhammer, and maybe Tearing won't be worth it but we're keeping the 3 DoS for baseline Lances. They can be separately upgraded to 2 DoS/Hit as a Best-like upgrade, essentially reserved for other Rogue Traders, the Navy, and other opponents of worth.

Nice ship. I do understand your choice of archeotech, especially with tearing lances, but instead, I would have taken a Modified plasma drive, more space for latter. Or even better, the "Planet Bound for millenia" past history, thought it might not be possible, both story wise and Ship-Points wise.

What kind of squadrons do you have access to for your launch bays, and how many ? I suggest at least one of Aeronautica & one of Support for delicious AP points if your Game Master use them. If not, don't bother.

In both cases, take more bombers than fighters to get more punch to your bombing runs. With a PC leading your small craft squadrons, you won't have much trouble .

Thanks. Hmm that could work, I could use more space. The ship will be thrown into combat right away so I needed the ship-killing right away.

I was going for something extreme with 12 potential squadrons in the thing, something like 3 Fighter Squadrons and 9 Bomber Squadrons. Enough for 3 full launches of 1 Fighter, 3 Bomber wings. But that's probably overkill. I do need Support and Aeronautica to help the poor foo--err, pious volunteers on their suicidal attacks.

The problem is we haven't actually worked out the initial supply of attack craft yet.

Rule as written, you only get 1 squadron at creation for each point of Strength for the Bay.Your Game master can decide, R.A.W as well, to go up that to 2 squadron for each point of Strength.

In the first case, I suggest : 3 bombers squadrons, 1 of Support. Your Luke Sywalker has still room for his own X-wing, don't worry. Or go 2 bombers/1 fighter/1 support if you want to be safe.
Second case : 4 bombers/2 fighters/1 support/1 Aeronautica.

Especially at the beginning when you have a low Profit Factor, be carefull with your smallcraft, as they are expensive. Use your Auger Arrays as your main way of scouting for instance.
When scrambling squadrons, it is always a good idea to keep one fighter squadron in Void Combat Patrol to intercept other small crafts, torpedoes, and , not R.A.W, but sounds logical, asteroids.

At the beginning, use your bombers to get the killing blow on ennemy ships and/or protect the stern of your cruiser. Once you get richer, you will be able to use them more offensively, as you can more easily recover your losses.

I think we were talking about half the total, so 6 squadrons to start things off.

Eventually, I want to build to something like 10 attack squadrons though, with the last spots going to support and aeronautica. 4 Fighters and 6 Bombers, does that seem reasonable?

And uhh, completely for the sake of curiosity, are Thunderhawk stats (in the same way as the squadrons are) given anywhere?

And uhh, completely for the sake of curiosity, are Thunderhawk stats (in the same way as the squadrons are) given anywhere?

Deathwatch's Rites of Battle.

Just an FYI: I run a Deathwatch game, and as part of one mission the players in a Thunderhawk sortied against some Rak'gol star fighters providing air cover to boarding torpedoes assaulting a space station (the Thunderhawk later dropped them off to clear the station).

The Thunderhawk's stats are for AU (atmospheric combat speed) not VU, so that had to be guessed at for me; on top of that, the Thunderhawk's weapons are slated for antipersonnel combat, not starship-scale (unlike most of the enemy fighter stats in RT, which are stated to suggest how much damage a squadron of them could do to a void-based starship, not to people). So I improvised, mostly using the stats for a Starfury and adding a couple of xenos-y weapons as described in Battlefleet Koronus for the Rak'gol fighters.

On top of all that, the Thunderhaw literally could not be damaged by the armament of the xenos craft, mainly due to the massive differences in armor scale of DW vehicles vs RT aircraft. Granted my conversion was rushed, but I did not find a good medium. The Thunderhawk stomped them while barely getting its paint scratched. Saving grace was the players had fun, at least up until they realized I couldn't hurt them with the fighters.

Leaving aside the fact that there's little justification for an RT to have a Thunderhawk (and would result in their probable immediate termination if any Astartes found out) I have to say the system statting is far too incompatible to use Thunderhawks against RT-statted air/space fighters while providing any sort of challenge or threat to the Thunderhawk pilots. I mean this thing effortlessly shrugged off fighter-to-fighter missiles which I had very crudely converted and which would pose a significant threat for a Starfury interceptor.

Not trying to be preachy, just voicing my experience in full disclosure if you're thinking about giving RT players a Thunderhawk. Personally I think tweaking the conversion is a lot more work than I care to do, without considering the in-setting fluff issues.

I thought Thunderhawks were always designed for atmosphere combat, even though they're listed under "Spacecraft", thus it sort of makes sense that it wouldn't have a VU speed. I do imagine they are probably void capable, so given that their Cruising Speed is a little faster than a Bomber with 5VU speed, I would give it a 6VU speed in combat.

Also I agree that no matter how powerful a Rogue Trader gets, trying to keep Space Marine gear working for humans would be ridiculously difficult, and something any Space Marine Chapter would violently frown on.

BFG: Thunderhawks function as both fighters and assault craft, with all the speed of a bomber.

From this we learn that:

1) Thunderhawks are certainly void capable.

2) Thunderhawks are slow - on the order of 5-6 VU seems sensible

3) Thunderhawks are hybrid vessels, which tend to mean (in RT) that they function less well in either role.

- I'd probably end up comparing them to the Rak'Gol Bloodflayer crafts, to the point of using the same stats and rules, with a speed of only 5 or 6 VU. This also takes into account the superior fighting capabilities of marines (as they are close to the same as those of the Rak'Gol), while the higher Command score of the marine would take care of the rest of their superiority.

Seems fair enough. I totally wasn't thinking of "recovering" some Thunderhawks for a show of force or anything.

My natural instincts are going to get me killed or excommunicated, aren't they?

My natural instincts are going to get me killed or excommunicated, aren't they?

Probably, but those are the instincts that make an excellent Rogue Trader.

I thought Thunderhawks were always designed for atmosphere combat, even though they're listed under "Spacecraft", thus it sort of makes sense that it wouldn't have a VU speed

Nope. They only have an AU speed listed because it's a DW book. Sadly even that little nod to compatibility is not provided.

Well, looks like both the Astropath and Navigator want an Observation Dome. Instead of taking another Poor component, the GM agreed to reduce our PF. Which is somehow at 23, leaving me a little confused.

To get into the swing of things, I'm told our first foray will be at a place called Damaris to fulfill some obligations and deliver some supplies. I'm told this is in one of the books that I don't have, so hooray. After we get familiar with the systems, we're off on our own.

My personal wishlist for this gaming year:

- Establish my own personal Cadia: a world that's moderately self-sufficient with its entire population drafted into an army. I'm totally going to need those troops. Perhaps if I set it up near the Undred-Undred Teef the Orks would be kind enough to provide motivation and target practice sessions for my men.

- Establish a forge world, or a route from one, to a nice distribution centre.

- Engage in at least one boarding action per month.

- Set up a fleet base somewhere central. Hidden or difficult enough to get to unless you know the way (which is, of course, mined).

- Find out if Calligos WInterscale's some sorta mutant. I don't know why, but this guy screams "psyker" to me. You didn't hear it from me, of course. But his men seem a little too devoted if you catch my meaning. (Will be seeding that lie via the NPC Senechal, we'll see what comes of it.)

- See a Space Marine! Hopefully, alive and loyal to the Emperor.

- Shoot an Eldar in the face! I've always wanted to.

I've also nailed down the remnants of the dynasty fleet. The GM's agreed on several points, like allowing the Manufactorum to be installed on Transports. So there's that.

Oh, and finally, the Explorator's going to be providing some extra attack craft with even more obligations. We're looking at 6 squadrons to start with that we "own". There are 2 temporary squadrons for ground support for the fanatics on board, and they're not void capable. So I'm thinking 2 Fighter and 4 Bomber squadrons. That way, I can launch two flights of 1F/2B and have a somewhat okay chance of critting.

Thoughts? (And yes, we prefer detailed methods whenever it'll lead to some horrific oversight later, biting us all in the butts.)

A lot of your dreams are not screaming "We are an incredibly poor Dynasty" to me. I'm surprised your GM is allowing you to have other Transports. I would have given you guys a trade contract with a Merchant's Guild who is rapidly becoming fed up with your diminishing credit rating. You're getting quite a bit of slack for having set up the traditional high SP/low PF build yet still had access to a bunch of resources that you shouldn't be able to support

With a really low Profit Factor your first step needs to be "How can I make money really quickly, really fast". Founding your own personal World of anything first requires finding a world, and then requires founding a colony. Colonies are also expensive, and (should) take a long time to get up to the size before you have something that can be comparable to anything in the backstory.

I really like how you're dreaming big, which quite frankly a Rogue Trader should be, but with your Profit Factor you'd need a lot of money to grow before you can throw the kind of resources around that you need to meet a lot of those goals.

Just shoot Eldar in the face until you feel better. That's what my group does.

Yeah, I'm gonna need money, money, money fast. I don't think we'll get the transports in play, some are damaged, the rest are running routes to pay the bills. But I'm designing them now, even the damaged ones, so that there's some nice potential hooks there.

Small Update:

- Poor quality Voidsman Quarters upgraded to Common quality for free by Damaris' Bulwark. Before installation and refit, was able to wrangle up a Best quality component instead. My crew did, after all, counter-board the Bulwark to retake it.

- This gives the Blessed Enterprise 6/2 in Power/Space (the above has the Emergency Field which was taken out before play). As much as I want a Trophy Room and Luxury Quarters, there has to be something else useful.

- Oh, and for reasons that totally didn't have my GM facepalm and drink, we also have... acquired an Eldar Rune Caster. It can be installed or traded away, I'm wary about it biting us in the butt.

Any suggestions would be nice to have from the more experienced crews out there. The team wants a Laboratorium so we can start making our fortunes in recovering archeotech--and manufacturing some rarer stuff. Possibly a good time to install a Temple Shrine.

- Oh, and for reasons that totally didn't have my GM facepalm and drink, we also have... acquired an Eldar Rune Caster. It can be installed or traded away, I'm wary about it biting us in the butt.

I'm sure that we can all agree that relying on anything from the Eldar is completely safe, and will never be cause for regret in the future.

An important point is that for this to have any reasonable use you should have to convince your Navigator to use it, which is also known as "Giving their Navis Nobilite House blackmail material to use against your Dynasty later". I also had my players find an Eldar Runecaster, which was met with a firm statement by the PC Navigator that if they didn't throw it into the nearby star he and his entire family would stop navigating with the Dynasty.

So the Rogue Trader smiled, lied, and hid it in the cargo bay along with all the rest of his heretical spoils.

Absolutely! Which is why I took the precaution of allowing the Mechanicus to strip the vessel and take anything of value they wanted in exchange for several, to be named, favours (mostly with the mining of the three inner worlds). Our xenos-loving Explorator didn't like that much, but the Mechanicus did offer the Rune Caster to us... for disposal.

I think I can cram a Rune Caster in my stowage bays. But the Navigator's actually all eager to try it. The Blessed Enterprise does already have a Miloslav warp engine, so travel rates are already halved. With a Rune Caster...

We're leaning towards shipping it to some Inquisitors instead.

Not that I'm under any impression that this action won't bite us in the butt in the future. We killed an Eldar crew of an Aconite Frigate, tore that wreck apart, donated their bodies to science, and kept not a single shred of it except for promises. There'll be a reckoning...

I can't wait!

Recovered from the haphazard Ork warfleet that invaded the Forsellis system, the Aesperanza was considered lost with all hands thirteen months ago. The crew of the Blessed Enterprise discovered why. The Sword class frigate belonged to the now defunct Tarupli rogue trader dynasty and their Warrant holder's last few moments were unfortunately recorded by the ship's main cogitator. The Warrant itself was sold off to the Tarupli's creditors amidst allegations of piracy and reavement. An appropriate Writ of Claim has already been filed.

The ship itself used common components which were either left alone or "upgraded" to Ork standards, resulting in a very patched together vessel. The Bulwark, a massive shipyard/defense moon in orbit around Damaris, is the Aesperanza 's home and will remain so for several years as it undergoes a purging of the now-nonfunctional xenotech. Thankfully, the Strelov warp engine was untouched as the Bulwark lacks the facilities to repair or even maintain these rare pieces of equipment.

In roughly two years' time, the Sword frigate will be available for the Strom dynasty's use unless the Writ of Claim is somehow denied, in which case it will be pressed into service instead. Legalities aside, officers of the Blessed Enterprise have already requested several additions to the Aesperanza that will extend its time in the shipyard by at least another year.

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This will be available in roughly 3 years' game time, keeping in mind we're already 6 months into those 3 years. For the most part, it'll be shepherding convoys and the like. It's the only one our GM let us keep as, thanks to my duplicitous nature, I managed to secure both the Starweaver and Ordained Destiny . Intact, I might add.

It was pointed out to us that we didn't have any legal claim to either vessel nor could our piddly PF support another cruiser and a second frigate. We exchanged them for more PF, so we're sitting at roughly 32 right now after investing a lot more into Damaris and the other planets.

The game has been enjoyable, though the PF rewards are a little all over the place. The starter adventure awarded +10 PF while saving an entire system only gave +3 PF or so (apart from other investments).

Hopefully, the Aesperanza will let us pull off some stealthy actions as a Dictator is anything but subtle.

Any suggestions as to components? Can't change the Machine Spirit or Past History.

As I was down and out of it this past weekend, the group had a game without their RT. The rascals were barely a month out of Damaris and attacked a Stryxis "caravan ship" that was messing about with the relays.

We lost 7 Crew Population... which is insane. A Dictator has 85,000 + 15,000. I was carrying an additional 1000 for the Manufactorum and Small Craft Repair Deck each, plus the 10,000 extra in the Barracks.

That's 7840 dead crew, at least. In the entire Damaris campaign we lost maybe 500 crew (and a lot of the soldiers on the ground, of course).

I now hate Stryxis vessels and their damned crew-killer weapons. The officers will be suitably chastened this weekend for failing to ambush something that should've died in one salvo.

In any case, the silly astropathic relays are done and the ship's heading back to Damaris for repairs and replenishment, and the Astropathic Choir-Chambers will be fitted into the the Blessed Enterprise for the next few months. We're now almost done one year in game time.

I suppose I should be happy that they managed to salvage (a lot) from the Caravan Ship. There's a transport and a Cobra destroyer that can be pressed to service, but I'd rather not worry about what those Xenos hid in those two, so we're selling them off. Big haul in xenotech as well, which the Mechanicus on Damaris should appreciate. I know I'm pouting over some imaginary crewmen when the entire endeavour seemed to be very beneficial, but dagnabbit, I like keeping my boys and girls alive.

Oh, the Stryxis aetheric weapons are fun ... to inflict on my players. Muahahahahahaha!!! Your attitude, Marwynn, appears to be quite common amongst voidmen in the Expanse. The only other thing that gets as much hate are disruption weapons. Funny how crippling weapons can be more feared by players than ones that simply do damage.

Cheers,

- V.

Good to know I'm in good company then.

After being presented with the specs of both ships, we've decided to keep the transport and sell the Cobra... to some people that sound like Frodo Zeroes, if you catch my drift. We're getting paid in PF, woohoo, and more importantly, contacts and favours.

Since our group is surprisingly large (we're 9 now) so we're splitting into two groups to make it more manageable. They're not hardcore RPGers. for most this is their first game, so we're keeping the dice rolling light and making it much more of a narrative game.

The second group will command the Aesperanza 's and along with the Fair Trade will work as a sort of rear-guard, keeping our shipping safe (and making others' unsafe). The group is made up of those who want swashbuckling fun, lots of action and pirate intrigue, and I'll be their GM. Which works out since I'm the RT of the other group and I can pass along my character's orders for them to ignore.

Our current GM will stay with our campaign aboard the Blessed Enterprise to continue our mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to crush and exploit them in the name of a Corpse God. Ahem.

So, we've arrived at Vaporious and accidentally killed a Priest-King and usurped his throne. Mind you, I was aiming for Naduesh, but we made the most of it. How were we supposed to know a gift of megatons of ice (water) would be seen as an insult?

There's some sort of pro-Imperial revolution happening and we, as a group, have decided that we're going to "discover" a relic on Vaporious as well. One, it'll fulfill our requirements to the Ecclesiarchy and get them off our backs. Two, I'm going to have to ship water and food in to this place in exchange for their trinkets which should fetch a good price: I can ship in pilgrims and ice, somehow spin it to get these pilgrims to hack away at ice for the fee... too cynical?

Our GM was actually quite proud. He somehow ascertained that the Priest-King would face an untimely end and is fashioning quite the story of intrigue about it. We weren't railroaded in either, our Navigator rolled horridly and this was a pretty okay outcome. I mean, any warp journey where your soul isn't feasted upon is a good warp journey, right?

EDIT:

Question - Are there any reliable shipyards in the Koronus Expanse that can handle modifying a Cruiser to become a Battlecruiser? I'm totally asking for a friend.

Question - Are there any reliable shipyards in the Koronus Expanse that can handle modifying a Cruiser to become a Battlecruiser? I'm totally asking for a friend.

There are shipyards in the Rubycon II system - which is where Port Wander is. Whether they are capable of handling the construction/modification of such a large vessel isn't clear, to my knowledge. So, perhaps that should be left to the GM to decide.

If you want my 2 cents, I'd say no. It's one thing to repair a large ship after sustaining "normal" combat damage. Converting (read: constructing) something as large as a Battlecruiser should generally be restricted to Forge Worlds - of which there are none in the expanse.