The few Cardinals still in active service are crewed by experienced voidmen who have seen past the ship's reputation and endeavour to prove their mettle. Admirals are torn about this attitude: on the one hand, it's exactly what the Imperial Navy wants in its crews; just not on untrustworthy ships. The unofficial solution to this seems to be a continued drawdown and abandonment of the heavy cruiser class itself. Unsurprisingly, Rogue Traders have snapped up the vessel, drawn to its ill reputation for the sense of danger it brings to their fleets, and to its rather low maintenance requirements.

Heavy Cruiser: The Cardinal uses Cruiser components. It may only make a turn at the end of its move.

Durable: The Cardinal has expansive stowage which is usually packed to the brim with spares and rations. Time in the void increased by an additional 6 months.

Bad Name: All Social tests made by those aboard a Cardinal with Imperial authorities suffer a -10 penalty. Against human outlaws (Xenos don't care), gain a +10 bonus instead.

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Nothing truly crazy, I slowed it down compared to other Cruisers and limited its turning. In exchange, you get... well, 1 slot less than a standard Cruiser. There's some bits about extending time in the void to set it apart, and of course a bad rep.

You say 1 less slot than a Standard Cruiser, but by giving it a Dorsal weapon you actually get more versatility. Since the forward firing arc is larger than the port/starboard ones, it's not that big a loss. Speed 4 is a little bad, but it's the turning that really kills Cruisers so the speed isn't as important.

Really you've made this thing more powerful than Battlecruisers, whereas I think of Heavy Cruisers as being slightly less well-armed than a Cruiser, but heavier armour to make it more of an obvious linebreaker.

I would remove the dorsal weapon as this thing is so heavily armoured it shouldn't be able to have a "rotateable" weapon like a Dorsal, add a limitation that it cannot increase its armour (otherwise we will see a lot of Wrested from a Space Hulk Excess Void Armoured versions of these) and crank down its manoeuverability.

It's an actual BFG design, or rather it was in a magazine for BFG. So it has those slots. In fact, it may actually have twin broadside slots and is faster than BCs.

It is meant to be an equivalent to Battlecruisers as it at least fills that same role in Chaos fleets. So I slowed it down and gave it maneuverability instead.

It is meant to be an equivalent to Battlecruisers as it at least fills that same role in Chaos fleets. So I slowed it down and gave it maneuverability instead.

..which helps it with the aforementioned turning