Battlefleet Gothic Fleet and campaign

Its been some time since my last post. Life and a lack of game playing getting in the way as usual. That being said I have found time to complete my BFG fleet and start a campaign with my friend Kenny. His is running a Slannesh Chaos fleet while I am using my Imperial Navy fleet.

Being highly unorigional I have based my fleet on the British High Seas Fleet of WW1, specifically when it was involved in the Battle of Jutland. My Admiral is Jon Jellicoe and he is of course housed in the Iron Duke.

Thus far we have played 2 games of the campaign. Game 1 was a massive 2000 point battle. We decided to start off with this big game as we both wanted to field all of our new fleets. That ended in a solid win for me.

Game 2 was a Raid battle. During this game I managed to do almost 0 damage to my opponent and disengaged my whole fleet like a whipped dog. Resounding victory for the forces of chaos.

It has been an interesting experience as we have both found out and learned a whole bunch, especially when it comes to rules that we both misread or interpreted. Still, thats the whole point. To learn.

Anywho, getting back to my fleet since I am sure people want to see the pretty pictures. I have based my fleet off the Battlefleet Bakka fleet from the 2010 FAQ and compendium. Its a fleet based heavily on big guns and very very few carriers which I felt matched the whole WW1 aesthetic. I do have some flight decks in there but not many.

The whole fleet.

 

My escorts and light cruisers

 

Battlecruisers: The one in the front is a Jovian and its an almost pure carrier. Its specific to Battlefleet Bakka and according to fluff only 1 exists. Which is why I decided to use a different bridge on it to make it look more unique as well as more carrier-ish.

 

My cruisers. 2 Luna and 2 Gothics

 

And of course the big boy. The Iron Duke herself

 

I also decided to paint up some planets. I did an inhabited world and a gas giant.

As you can see I decided to paint them with a night and day side. That way its always easy to see which is the sunward side of the table.

 

 



Battlefleet Gothic fun times

My friend Kenny and I have stared to play Battlefleet Gothic and I have to say that this game rocks. It baffles the mind to think that GW do not support it anymore. Its fun and easy to play. The learning curve is fairly gentle and the rules are simple and easy compared to games like Heavy Gear and Flames of War.

All in all we are having a blast and are now doing our utmost to get other people to play.

We have played 4 games thus far. All have been between my Imperial Navy and his Word Bearers Fleet. The first 2 of them are recorded for prosperity over on Kennys blog "The Lead Cotillion". Sadly, the third game went unrecorded as it was a brutal thrashing and victory for Chaos.

For the fourth game I actually remembered to pull my thumb out and bring my camera. Got so caught up in the game I didnt take that many pictures but did get some.

Scenario was "Suprise Attack" played at 650 points. I was the defender. All but one of my ships was caught napping with only the "Neptune", my Lunar Class on alert.

The Warmasters fleet bears down on an unsuspecting world.

My orbital defences were the minefield (represented by the red tokens), an orbital laser battery (the orange token) and 2 orbital mines (the blue tokens). The Neptune is the green ship. Kenny chose to bring his whole fleet in from the side of the board.

The first turn did not go well for me. He brought his ships into range and crippled the "Superb", my Gothic cruiser as well as destroyed its thrusters so it could not turn. On my turn the Superb and the escort squadron woke up and started to manouver. The Superb headed off in a straight line and was not in range of any of the enemy. The Neptune fired its Nova cannon but missed.

Kenny's second turn started where his first left off. He destroyed the Gothic, turning it into a burning hulk. and landed hits on the still stationary "Scylla", my Dominator Cruiser. He also moved his fleet up.

My next turn was a good one. The "Scylla" activated and started to manouver. The Neptune reloaded his Nova Cannon and once again the escorts manouvered for position. The burning Gothic also drifted quite nicely almost into the center of his fleet where it exploded, taking out one of his escorts. The Nova Cannons on the Lunar and the Scylla opened up, crippling his carrier.

On Kenny's next turn he opted to disengage the carrier and move his forces closer. However at this range he was not able to turn enough to bring his full broadsides to bear and inflicted no damage to me.

The Chaos Dogs get a taste of Imperial steel.

My turn saw me manouver for affect getting in behind his forces with the Lunar and the escorts. My orbital mines also managed to close the distance. Punishing fire saw his one cruiser destroyed and his other crippled.

On Kennys last turn he chose to disengage his last crusier and sacrifice his last escort, moving it in close to my fleet to distract my gun captains. My turn saw his escort gutted by the Orbital Laser battery. A convincing win for me.

The aftermath of Victory

What I like about this game is that nothing is certain. After the first 2 rounds I was fairly sure I was going to utterly spanked but some lucky dice rolls turned it all around. This is in direct contrast to some games where if you dont get the first turn you may as well pack up and go home. A really excellent game system and I cant wait to get me some more models and play some bigger games.

The Fleet expands

A loooong time ago I posted some pictures of 2 Battlefleet gothic cruisers that I had painted up. That sadly never lead anywhere since there was noone in the area to play and I wasnt prepared to spend money on a game that I would never play.

Fast forward almost 2 years. I am in a new country with new gaming buddies who play a variety of different systems. One being BFG.

With that being in the case I have come into possession of a Lunar Class Cruiser and 3 sword class frigates.

The cruiser was part painted in a green scheme which I decided to leave intact as stripping it down would have been too much of a pain. I did however complete the painting of the bow in my fleet colours as well as repair the ram thingie that had broken off. Used a random bit that looked a match. I also painted in the ornamentation along the sides.

The frigates were unpained which allowed me to go wild. I decided that I wasnt going to paint them in my capial ship colours but something different to contrast. A quick perusal of the interwebs gave me this picture.

I set about painting it tem as close as I could though I substituted a dull bronze for the gold to tie in with the test of the fleet.

All in all I am quite proud of how my little fleet is coming along and hopefully I shall get a game in the next few weeks.

The Fleet Launches

The first 2 ships of my Battlefleet Gothic Imperial Navy fleet have come out of the construction dock. I was really happy with how easy these were to put together and to paint.

I used a really simple scheme of drybrushing through various shades of grey up to white. Dwarf Bronze for the ornamentation and a black wash over that. Enchaned Blue was used for the Prow.

Unnamed Dominator Class Cruiser

Unnamed Gothic Class Cruiser

In the pipeline

It is possible that I am going to have another interest very soon. And this interest is....

I have always been keen to try the game but have been put off by the lack of players. I only know 2 people who play the game and neither of them lives close enough to me to play.

However, that changed this week as I got a sudden urge to buy some ships and paint them up as display pieces. So I duely ordered the pack that comes with 2 cruisers in it which should arrive tomorrow.

The thing is, once I had bought them I got to thinking. What is the use in having models you do not use? So I downloaded the rules and have been poring over the internet for good fleet lists etc.

I will be going for an Imperial Navy fleet which will be painted to fit into my Ultramar forces. I think I will paint them in pale tones. Light grays and whites with burnished gold. I really am quite excited about it.

Next on the agenda is the new Venerable Dreadnought. I have placed my pre-order for it which means I will have it next weekend. I got to have a look at a completed one and the sprues at my local GW and it really is a lovely model. Very well done.

I have not painted or done anything 40k related for the last 2 weeks apart from order my dreadnought as I have been immersed in the world of Mass Effect 2. What an outstanding game. I havent been sucked in like this by a game for years. In fact the last time it happened was with Mass Effect 1. I was hooked so bad that I gave up the chance to get a game in at my store. Ok, the torrential rain didnt help but I dont think I would gave left the house even had it been sunny. I should finish it this weekend though so should get back to a decent 40k schedule.