Hi All,
I'm working on a BFG Chaos conversion for FT and I had a question.
Do you think it's better to make them as near to the BFG stats as possible or
go with a "look and feel" that seems right?
The ships in the background and the minis are HUGE. A cruiser in Gothic is
~3km long in the background AFAICT. I did a version them as "accurately" as
possible according to the Gothic stats for this round. I may do a more "look
and feel" version later.
I used a modified version of Dean's spreadsheet (modified by me to add the
publicly available playtest weapons, but only the LRPTs were used
(for the 45-60cm lances, though a short range pulse torpedo would kind
of make sense for the 30cm lances)) and the ships range from Mass 50
Iconoclast Escorts (169 points each) to Mass 600 Despoiler Battleships (2102
points each). It's not finely tuned, but I didn't "optimize" any of them, I
just tried to make the ship have stats that would closely mirror the ship
stats from the BFG rulebook.
I do realize that these ships are MONSTROUSLY huge compared to Fleet book
designs, but doing them mcuh smaller seemed to require more "judgement" on my
side and I wanted to keep it as straightforward as possible.
http://www.specialist-games.com/battlefleetgothic/assets/lrb/5BFGshipsof
gothic.pdf at
http://www.specialist-games.com/battlefleetgothic/rulebook.asp
has the data on the ships in BFG terms.
(And just want to add that Mike's game at Valhallas he mentioned here for
April was a blast!)
> On May 8, 2007, at 8:50 PM, Ryan Fisk wrote:
> I'm working on a BFG Chaos conversion for FT and I had a question.
I say make them "feel" right -- huge lumbering beasts with loads of
foward only weapons with a few to port and starboard.
D.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI would go with
look/feel over trying to do the stats directly. Use the word
'abstract' to fold multiple weapons into fewer batteries when possible. I did
this long ago with some of my Superior Wars ships (many of which are literally
*bristling* with weapons! so much that when I tried to do a
one-for-one, or even a two-for-one, cruisers were coming out larger than
FT dreadnoughts).
Mk
> On 5/8/07, Ryan Fisk <ryan.fisk@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.specialist-games.com/battlefleetgothic/assets/lrb/5BFGshipsof
gothic.pdf
> at
I recall Jon Davis and I had done a BFG-FT conversion for ECC games many
years ago. We definitely went with 'abstract feel'.
I think the Lunar Cruiser was:
- a F arc P torp
- 4 Beam-2s (FP, AP)
- 4 Beam-2s (FS, AS)
- 2 'lance like' class-2s (FP, AP) (K-guns?)
- 2 'lance like' class-2s (FS, AS)
- 2 PDS
- 3 Fire cons
- 2 BFG screens
- Thrust 4 and FTL, with LD 0, -1 and -2 notes for thresholds of the
damage track
- 24 hull boxes, 5 crew
- prow 6+, hull 5+ to hit
The tiny Sword frigate was:
- 3 Beam-2s (AP, FP, F, FS, AS)
- 2 PDS
- 2 Fire cons
- 1 BFG screen
- 5 hull, 1 crew
- FTL and thrust 5
- hull 5+ to hit
Here's some notes from Jon Davis and I trying to make a conversion.
Note that the lance's are a bit like Phalon pulsers (same number of dice
through the whole range) but do 3 damage, not 1 or 2, on a hit.
Gothic Thrust Notes
Gothic Thrust uses Full Thrust rules (circa Fleet Book 2) as a core for
playing battles set in GW's dark Millenium and using GW's models. While the
resulting designs are not fully compatible with Full Thrust, they should
retain their relative strengths.
If one is willing to abandon more of the Gothic flavour, a version compatible
with Full Thrust could be designed.
Movement
Imperial, Chaos and Orks
Ships will move using Full Thrust's cinematic movement. This means all
ships will have a facing and / or heading from the previous turn, and a
velocity from the previous turn. They may use their rating in thrust points to
turn, accelerate or decelerate. Note that battleships, regardless of thrust
rating, may only use 1 point to turn, cruisers may only use 2 points to turn,
and escorts may only use 4 points to turn. Any points not spent turning may be
used to accelerate or decelerate. Each point spent turning will yield a 30
degree course change (one clock facing).
Ships turn half their course change (rounded down) at the start of their turn,
then move half their velocity, then the remainder of their turn, then the
remainder of their velocity.
Ships thrust rating is one fifth of their top Gothic speed.
Eldar
At the start of the game, nominate a direction as 12 o'clock (sunward). Each
turn the Eldar write two pairs of directions and distances (example: 8
o'clock, 8 units, 2 o'clock, 12 units). Turn the ship to the indicated heading
and move it the indicated distance. From the ship, in the indicated direction
and at the indicated distance, put a counter with the ship's ID. The Eldar
will fire from where their ship is, and be targeted at the point where the
counter is. After firing, move the Eldar ship to the counter's position.
The Eldar may move 0 to 8 units in direction 12, 0 to 16 units in direction 6,
or 0 to 24 units along any other heading.
Shooting
Gothic weapons like lances, batteries, gunz, and pulsars have a rated range
and fire arcs.
For batteries, gunz, and heavy gunz, each weapon in arc and range of the
target will contribute a number of dice. Roll them all together, and the
results of each die are found by comparing the roll to the level of armour on
the hull.
Armour 4+ 4's and 5's do 1 damage and 6's do 2 plus a reroll
Armour 5+ 5's do 1 damage and 6's do 2 damage plus a reroll
Armour 6+ 6's do 2 damage plus a reroll
Rerolls ignore any surviving shield points (see below), hitting armour
or hull, and count the hull as armour 4+.
Batteries and gunz which are within range contribute 3 dice if the target is
within 12 units, 2 dice within 24 units, or 1 die otherwise. Heavy gunz within
range contribute 2 dice.
To convert Imperial or Chaos batteries from Gothic, halve the firepower and
install that many batteries with the appropriate range and arcs (F 60, or
broadside 120) on the ship. For gunz, calculate the average
firepower and convert as Imperial batteries. For the Eldar, take 2/3
the firepower.
Lances and pulsers which are in arc and range roll a single die each, and on a
4, 5, or 6, do 3 damage. Pulsers also may roll again after a hit, scoring up
to 3 hits in total.
To convert lances and pulsers from Gothic, for each point of lance or pulser
strength install one lance or pulser with the correct range and arcs.
The nova cannon is a special weapon. To fire the nova cannon, after orders are
written but before ships have moved, place the template where you expect the
enemy to end his movement (in arc and range). All ships under the template
will be attacked by the weapon, which does 2D6 damage, bypassing shields. They
may try to defend themselves by firing turrets at it; each 6 reduces the
damage done by the nova cannon to all targets by D6 (two 6's eliminate the
nova cannon).
Hull and Shields
Each capital ship gets 3 hull boxes for each hit in Gothic. Arrange them in 4
even rows. As each row is completed, the ship takes a threshold check. At the
end of the first row, on 6'', then 5'', 4'', and at the end of the fourth row
the ship is destroyed.
A few ships have armour, which will take hits before the hull. There is no
threshold check at the end of a row of armour.
Each shield generates 3 diamonds of armour each turn (while the shield
generator is not destroyed by a threshold check). It is best to put these in a
column or table by turns. These diamonds absorb damage from lances and
batteries, protecting the ship. They do not protect against nova cannon or
fighter damage.
Eldar have holofields rather than shields. This gives them an effect 5+
armoured hull against batteries, gunz, etc., and a 2+ save against
anything else.
Fighters
For every 2 strength of fighter ordnance a Gothic ship can launch, give them a
single fighter bay. On a turn the ship exerts no thrust, any and all fighters
on board can launch, or up to half can be recovered.
Each fighter group is 6 fighters with 6 combat endurance and the following
abilities:
Imperial and Chaos bombers - FT attack fighters
Imperial and Chaos interceptors - FT fighters but cannot attack ships
Imperial and Chaos assault boats - dogfight like attack fighters and
attack by hit and run (see below)
Eldar bombers and interceptors - As Imperial, but with the Heavy
advantage
Ork fighta-bombas - FT fighters
Ships attacked by fighters can try to repel them using turrets. Each turret is
an FT PDS. If a group is escorting another group, they may take the hits for
their charges. Most fighter groups lose 1 member on a 4 or 5, and 2 on a 6,
with a reroll. Eldar lose 1 on a 5, 2 on a 6, and a reroll.
Torpedoes
For each point of torpedo strength, give the ship a single expendable missile.
These missiles, when launched, move in a straight line out the F arc of the
ship 24 units a turn. Each time a ship is within 6 units to the left or right
of the torpedo (even during its movement), roll a D6 versus the hull armour.
If it fails, try a second time (and a third time if Eldar). If it succeeds,
the torpedo attacks the ship. Turrets may be used against the torpedo, but
need 6 to hit (2 dice needing both to be 5 or 6 for Eldar). If the torpedo
survives, it does 3D6 damage to the ship (ignoring shields) and is destroyed.
Multiple torpedoes can be launched together and interceptors may intercept
torpedoes, each fighter needing a 6 to destroy a torpedo.
Hit And Run Attacks
Boarding torpedoes and assault boats can trigger hit and run attacks. Roll a
D6 for each hit and run attack.
Criticals Orks, Imperial, Chaos Eldar 1
No effect
No effect 2
Half of all starboard guns go off-line
5 pt turn limit 3
Half of all port guns go offline Keel armament 4
Half of all prow guns or ordnance go offline Prow armament 5
Half of all dorsal armament go offline 3 pt turn limit 6
+D6 damage. Thrust damaged.
-4 units movement
Boarding Actions
A ship within 6 units of another may attempt a boarding action, putting both
ships at risk. Each side rolls a D6 and adds the appropriate modifiers. If
tied, both take D6 damage (no shields or armour for any of this damage).
Otherwise, loser takes D6 damage for each point he lost by. Both sides have a
chance to suffer as from hit and run attacks above.
One modifier is based upon "boarding value". For the attacker, this is
remaining crew factors; for the defender it is crew factors plus PDS's.
Modifiers
Enemy ship has taken threshold
+1
Enemy ship has taken second threshold
+2
Orks, Chaos
+1
Space Marines
+2
Boarding value higher
+1
Twice opponents
+2
Three times
+3
4 or more times
+4
Results
Crit Crit Difference
Loser Winner 0 Continue
1 D6 damage to loser
5+
5+
2 2D6
4+
5+
3 3D6
3+
6+
4 4D6
2+
6+
5 or more xD6
auto none
I made a few attempts, though I made a few different decisions than you.
For me, I used the torpedos for the batteries (better odds to hit up close
than far away) and beams for the lance turrets. As well, I abstrated to a
certian degree, where each model's battery counted as a single weapon (IE on a
Lunar there was a portside beam turret and a portside torpedo).
> Ryan Fisk wrote:
> Hi All,
http://www.specialist-games.com/battlefleetgothic/assets/lrb/5BFGshipsof
gothic.pdf
> at
GW isn't the only Space Opera universe to have huge ships.
You can scale the ships however you want. If 50 tonnes is how you have chosen
to represent an escort then scaling to 20 times for a dreadnought sounds fine.
You could simplify the games by scaling down the ships bu then you end up with
the cruiser class carriers having 2 suadrons of fighters and a couple of beam
batteries.
If you want to make a short range pulse torpedo with 4" range bands just halve
the mass of a normal torpedo.
When designing the ships you want to make the ships ponderous so
Imperial Cruisers would probably only have thrust 3-4 at most, abd
battleships maybe only 2-3. IIRC about 1 point of thrust per 5cm of GW
movement sounds about right.
Imperial and chaos ships have most of their weapons bearing broadside and only
limited amounts of weapons bearing frontally.
Firstly, thanks to everyone for the comments!
> On 5/9/07, McCarthy, Tom (xwave) <Tom.McCarthy@xwave.com> wrote:
That's not a bad idea.
> Gothic Thrust Notes
While
> the resulting designs are not fully compatible with Full Thrust, they
This is my main goal. I want to keep as much FT in the game play and systems,
but have the ships feel as close as possible to BFG within that constraint. I
haven't done the "look and feel" conversions yet, but when I get them all done
I'll post them somewhere.
You could make the battlefleet Gothic ships out of FT rules and use existing
FT systems.
You would need to decide what restrictions to place on each race in their ship
designs. Imperial ships would be low thrust and would have a torpedo system
covering the forward arc and weapon batteries and lances covering the
starboard arc.
I'd probably convert on the basis of 20 mass equals one hull box in BFG. I'd
be a bit more liberal with the escorts and let them go up to 50 mass.
None human races would have different percentages of their mass as hull so
their capital ships would be the same mass as imperials but with more% devoted
to drives and less to hull.
I'd probably represent weapon batteries with beams and lances with torpedos.
Plasma torpedoes for humans an chaos and K Guns for Eldar and Necrons.
Depending on how you want to depict some of the ships capabilities but you may
want to include some technolgies found on the net like holofields and
regerative armour and or make use of the technologies in some of the lists
like UN, islamic federations and israel. These would give you missiles,
stealth and grazers.
You also need to restrict the ship designs to the canon of that race to keep
the flavour. e.g Eldar only have short range weapons in the front arc,
imperial ships only have limited weapons that bear forwards.
If you let players amke their own designs with any available technology you
could get Eldar ships armed with few long range weapns that skirmish at long
range and with their speed and stealth can't effectively be targetted in
return.