Brother_Angelus Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Yesterday I attended the first of 5 events in a BFG campaign being run by Dono1979 and played my first games of BFG in around 14 years. Needless to say I was very rusty and faced fleets i'd never encountered back in the day, but I had three great games which reminded me how good BFG is. The outline and player pack are here for those interested; http://aus40k.com/wiki/index.php?title=Savage%3A_Battlefleet_Gothic_Campaign_2015 . Now I will introduce the Blood Angel task force. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20150302_182538_zpsnes94hxo.jpg As per the campaign rules, 1985pts of ships on the registry. Seditio Opprimere, venerable battlebarge - 450 4 x Strike Cruisers, extra shield - 640 4 x Strike Cruisers, extra shield, trade bays for bombardment - 640 3 x Hunter destroyers - 120 3 x Gladius frigates - 135 Game one I faced Orks, in a 750pt raid scenario Escalating Engagement. I started with a carrier cruiser on the table and he had a battleship. Not a great start. I veered to the right of a planet and towards an asteroid field in the hope of hiding until help arrived. As I approached the field a heavy Ork cruiser arrived immediately ahead and swarmed the ship with assault boats. No reinforcements arrived for my side and the cruiser was quickly crippled, and then hulked. My next turn a pair of bombardment cruisers, the hunter squadron and the gladius squadron all turned up reducing the ork cruiser to a hulk in one round of shooting! I proceeded to loop around behind the battleship and pick hit points off little by little, losing escorts and hull points in return. Another turn of hits back and forth, I chose to disengage before taking any more damage. A loss, but a tight fight. Game two was against Chaos, using 1250 points in Escalating Engagement again. I started with the battlebarge on the board and 5 cruisers in reserve. My opponent started with a Devastation class cruiser. I lumbered up the middle towards him, between a planet and a nebula. He veered past the nebula at extreme range while dropping attack craft and poking Seditio with lances. Over the next few turns very little happened, our ordinance mutually destroyed each other and the long range fire had little effect, while I couldn't even get into range. Over the next few turns almost all of our reserves arrived from my table edge, initially my bombardment cruiser squadron which dealt some damage to the devastation, forcing it to disengage. Then his Carnage class arrived behind me, and after a brief exchange with my cruisers, disengaged too. Meanwhile Seditio was lumbering around some asteroids near his edge trying to turn back towards the fight. His battleship arrived on his table edge, took some thunderhawk strafing runs and quickly found itself surrounded by closing strike cruisers. Meanwhile a single strike cruiser was jumped by a Hades carrier and a Carnage cruiser on my right side, forcing it to 'All ahead full' in the opposite direction to safety. Once my cruisers had looped around the central nebula, to bear down on the battleship and remaining Hades/Carnage squadron, my opponent mass disengaged his fleet rather than turning into my guns and risking a lot of damage. A campaign decision. I won but little damage caused and nothing wrecked either side. Game three against Eldar, defending a planet with 1000pts. 5 cruisers and a gladius squadron deployed, with 3 carrier strike cruisers 'on alert' and the other 2 squadrons in orbit. Poor deployment put the carriers near to a table edge allowing them to get jumped by a voidstalker, cruiser and escort squadron. They were quickly smashed by lances and attack craft, limping towards a short table edge, followed closely by the eldar group. 2 hulked quickly, and the third followed. Meanwhile on the other table edge, two bombardment strike cruisers were alerted, hooked around the planet and came face to face with another eldar cruiser and an escort squadron. After smashing the escorts they 'locked on' and pounded the cruiser into a hulk. Having dealt with my three carriers and escort squadron his battleship group came around the planet to face my bombardment cruisers. We spent several turns shooting and when I finally had the voidstalker in an exposed position right infront of me, I forgot to 'lock on'. Horrible rolls to hit ensued, and the next turn I was swamped by bombers and lost my forth cruiser. By this point the idea of preserving the fleet for the campaign had gone out the window and I just wanted blood. The cruiser drifted for a turn before being ripped apart by a plasma implosion which miraculously missed all of the tightly clustered eldar and dealt the final point of damage to my fifth strike cruiser. Whole fleet lost, a raft of renown points to the Eldar for recovering several hulks, but they were in rough shape when things were said and done. At the end of the day I had a lot of fun, despite only remembering half the rules and making several tactical cock ups. I've got a much better idea of the turn sequence and overall tactics now. I've even been reading around the net for some little tricks to use on certain opponents which I hadn't even thought of during the day. Looking forward to the next round of games in 3 weeks, hopefully with a little more success this time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RADU LYKAN Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Now I will introduce the Blood Angel task force. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20150302_182538_zpsnes94hxo.jpg that looks a bit bigger than a task force to my eyes, you could fit the whole chapter into that fleet! sounds like a lot of fun was had, let us know how the next round goes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Awesome write up, and glad you enjoyed the day!Looking forward to the reincarnation of the Battlegroup in a few weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 A few reinforcements painted up this week, giving some more flexibility if needed. Also have 5 Nova escorts on the way to give me the full range. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/IMG_20150306_185251_zpskfsveucy.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/IMG_20150306_185348_zpslstggy9p.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/IMG_20150306_194405_zps5vtpm06r.jpg Awesome write up, and glad you enjoyed the day! Looking forward to the reincarnation of the Battlegroup in a few weeks. Cheers, it was a good day. I'm hoping for a bit better showing next time around, and sticking with it for the rest of the campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spafe Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 Can't wait to hear how this progressed! Keep us up to date with the next phases. Any chance of some pics of the campaign map? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daemon2027 Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 Awesome. I have always been interested in BFG, looks like a lot fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Campaign Map: http://aus40k.com/wiki/index.php?title=Phonicas_Sub-Sector:_Battlefleet_Gothic_Campaign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebris Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Very interesting. Would you not mind to post an example of a Chaos fleet list. I am buying some models here and there and I would really like to know what I need to play a regular game. So far I have: 1x Desolator-Class Battleship 1x Repulsive-Class Battlecruiser 1x Idolator-Class Escort Squadron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewChristlieb Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 You just need some cruisers (at least 3 of any basic cruiser or 1 heavy and two basic cruisers) to make your list valid since Chaos can take a battleship and a grandcruiser per 3 regular or heavy cruisers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Really smooth painting by the way Brother Angelus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted March 10, 2015 Author Share Posted March 10, 2015 Very interesting. Would you not mind to post an example of a Chaos fleet list. I am buying some models here and there and I would really like to know what I need to play a regular game. So far I have: 1x Desolator-Class Battleship 1x Repulsive-Class Battlecruiser 1x Idolator-Class Escort Squadron You just need some cruisers (at least 3 of any basic cruiser or 1 heavy and two basic cruisers) to make your list valid since Chaos can take a battleship and a grandcruiser per 3 regular or heavy cruisers.As andrew says, you'll need a few cruisers/heavy cruisers to make the list 'legal'. Chaos seem to benefit from a lot of longer range (45cm & 60cm) batteries and lances, compared to most other races, so you're probably be looking to skirt around at range popping away. Its usually about balancing guns, lances and ordnance output across the fleet so you can deal with a variety of opponents. I have a real soft spot for dedicated carriers, so i'd go with a Styx, and then your backbone will be Murder or Carnage class gunboats. Mixing in some lances from the Desolator and Iconoclasts gives you some flexibility too. They will be especially helpful against marines and imperial prow armour of 6+. Oh, and the Devastation is a nice supplementary cruiser that tops up the lance/ordnance role if you come up short. Edit; the Marines don't have a huge amount of variety, so the concept of 'balancing the fleet' doesn't apply so much. You just cram in as many cruisers as possible and try to figure out how many bombardment cannons you can take! However, from what i've gathered the conventional fleets of imperial, chaos and orks have enough options to be very flexible and should be prepared for most things. I'm tempted to kick off a tau carrier based fleet or a tyranid fleet next, for some variety. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted March 22, 2015 Author Share Posted March 22, 2015 Round two today, and a fresh fleet. After being roughly handled by the Eldar in the last game I decided to start over, but as I was happy enough with how it played, kept the same list. There were a few tweaks to the scenarios, after some feedback from the players, and most importantly a single roll for points/scenario which all players used for their games, rather than rolling separately by table. Game one, 1500pts and surprise attack were rolled. I decided to attack the Chaos fleet I encountered last event, and try to have a proper scrap this time around. I took Seahawk's "Adepticon Special" list of Seditio Opprimere, 3 strike cruisers, and 3 bombardment strike cruisers. My opponent took a Styx carrier, two apocalypse lance cruisers, a Despoiler grand cruiser, a idolator escort squadron and some kind of special super carrier flagship. Attacker and defender were dictated by the campaign map, as I attacked his system, I attacked in the scenario. First turn looked like this; http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/VS%20Chaos%2022-03-15_zpsgv0ls6xx.jpg Chaos fleet clustered around the planet, and mine arriving (bombard squadron to the left of the barge, carrier squadron right). First turn consisted of all of my ships locking on and letting lose with their cannons on the unfortunately Styx. He braced for impact and managed to ignore practically all of my shooting despite dozens of hits. This is the look you get when locked-on strength 32 bombardment cannons fail to effect a cruiser; http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/VS%20Chaos%202%2022-03-15_zpsfhlhedmj.jpg His ships all began moving towards me, or turning to make their approach. My carrier squadron took the worst of the shooting from the two apocalypse class cruisers, while everyone else remained largely unscathed. The Styx tried to limp away, but was caught with cannons before it was able to make its escape. The escorts darted into my centre, but caught battery fire from the carriers, bombardment from the battle barge, and finally a torpedo spread to finish them off. His carrier eventually turned to face my fleet and closed into extremely short range, firing 7 lances but failing to make much of an impression. In return I replied with all 24 bombardment cannons of the strike cruiser squadron, locked on, and 16 from the battle barge. This onslaught was too much for even a battleship, which dissolved under the weight of fire and was hulked. Meanwhile on the right side my carriers were jostling with the two apocalypse and the grand cruiser, loosing one of their number to repeated lance fire. Luckily the bombardment cruisers were finished with the battleship in time to swing across the planet and swoop in behind the grand cruiser, while my carriers braced for impact and maneouvred toward the planet to get away from the lances. At this point my opponent tried to disengage, but the grand cruiser had received a smashed bridge critical and was unable to make its command check to disengage. In the next turn I was unable to do much more damage and he was then able to break off. A considerable win, with some 1200 VP and 15 renown. While I couldn't help but enjoy such a sweeping victory, I felt equally bad that my opponent decided to scrap and restart his fleet as a result of losing so many capital ships. The second scenario was a 750pt cruiser class against Imperials. My deployment was as such; http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/VS%20Imperials%2022-03-15_zpslailj8cx.jpg A squadron of 3 bombardment cruisers and a single carrier, versus a dictator carrier cruiser, 3 dauntless light cruisers with lances, and a gothic lance cruiser. I pushed the bombardment cruisers all ahead full towards the lone dauntless to the left of the asteroid field, and trailed them with the carrier cruiser in support. I tried to gang up on the dauntless, but it survived the first volley and moved away parallel to the board edge. All of my opponents ships turned and began moving towards my fleet. Next turn my cruisers were able to hulk the injured dauntless and fire upon the carrier with enough venom to force it to brace for impact. After a few turns of frantically turning left and right, firing at whatever target presented itself, my cruisers were very worse for wear. One was obliterated by a plasma core overload, further damaging its squadron mates. My opponent's carrier cruiser was crippled, as was another dauntless, but one dauntless was untouched and his gothic lance cruiser was unscratched and closing on me from behind. To saving losing any more ships I disengaged my remaining cruisers. A lose, and one destroyed cruiser. Another was severely damaged and was returned to the shipyards for repair, missing the next game. Final game of the day was a data collection mission at 500pts against Eldar. I picked 3 standard carrier strike cruisers and my opponent selected 2 squadrons of 5 hemlock lance escorts. We closed on each of pretty directly, and I lost a cruiser to the combine fire of both squadrons almost immediately. At this point I let off a few volleys of fire, and most importantly launched thunderhawk annihilators. These little fighter bombers were the bane of the Eldar, with no turrets and no shields even their holofields couldn't save them from multiple bomb hits. The escorts started to drop to these sorties, and more were lost when passing through blast markers of their lost comrades. The Eldar retreated to the opposite end of the board, darting back and forth around a planet to poke my cruisers, but failing to cause any damage. After taking further bombing runs in the following turns, and running out of board to hide in, my opponent decided he wouldn't be able to make any impression on my cruisers, and disengaged his remaining ships. A win with a few less xenos to plague the system. A couple of renown earned to compensate for the last game, and for the lost cruiser. Overall it was a more successful day. I remembered to make bombing runs on Eldar to partially mitigate their holofields, use the planets to perform my turns, allowing me more turns with a 'lock on' in place, really making the mass bombardment cannons count. Bracing at the necessary moments is still something I need to figure out and trying to rotate damaged ships around the squadrons. The stand out performers, as usual, were the bombardment cannon armed strike cruisers, dealing obscene damage when allowed to get in range quickly and lock on. I finished the day on 9 renown points, with one carrier cruiser down, and one bombardment cruiser down overall. After my next game it will probably be necessary to buy back those cruisers, and perhaps some Nova escorts (five of which has just arrive from eBay) for flexibility. Other than that I now have 2 more cruisers, and a third battle barge at my disposal, but the likelihood of needing them is fairly remote... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spu00sed Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Looks really nice. And some fun games I haven't played BFG for ages, is swapping launch bays for bombards in the rules of is it an extra from somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Armada and FAQ 2010 gave the Marines a lot more flexibility, there are now an assortment of Strike Cruiser Variants, which allow you to swap the Launch bay and front weapons out for different combinations, but you're list cannot contain more Variants than standard (at the start anyway) and likewise you cannot buy in more Variants than you currently have standard cruisers. On top of that all of the Strike Cruisers have the generic option of upgrading to a second shield for 15pts, which is almost mandatory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 Yep, the second shield is a must take for a 6 hit light cruiser. I'm contemplating picking up a torpedo variant or two to try out later in the campaign, but they will cut into my bombardment allowance, and I do love my bombardment cruisers . Also looking at options for adding in some Imperials, since i'm running a dominion fleet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 I read the reports, and I smile and nod at your comments. Good work, marine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted April 20, 2015 Author Share Posted April 20, 2015 Round three of the campaign was played yesterday, win, loss, win for the day. First against eldar with 3 cruisers and both escort squadrons at 750pts. We drew on primary victory conditions (data modules collected) and I won by a good margin on points. This was largely down to mass bombing runs leaving dozens and dozens of blast markers for the unshielded eldar to fly through and blow up. I lost both escort squadrons and had some damage to my cruisers, but earned 5 or so renown which was immediately spent to buy back ships. Next was a loss to another eldar fleet. Two eclipse cruisers completely nullified my bombers and the cruisers were too slow to keep up with the eldar double moves. Lost a cruiser and disengaged quickly when it became apparent I couldn't do anything in return. Got out with 1 lost cruiser and a score of zero renown overall (he had higher points and higher renown, I lost a ship and lost the game - cancelled each other out) Third game was against tyranids with a variety of stuff. Opponent forgot his lances ignored shields for a portion of the game, which would have made quite a difference, we both got the boarding rules wrong. His cruiser attempted to board mine, I won by enough to destroy him. We then rolled on the catastrophic damage table (in error, should have just been hulked), which resulted in an explosion that killed his other cruiser and a number of his escorts while doing no damage to mine. I went on to cripple his hive ship and destroy most of his escorts with teleporter and thunderhawk attacks. Earned a chunk of renown for no casualties, although I had two cruisers 1 point from death so withdrew them for a game to repair. I also kick off a new fleet (sort of) in the form of 4 imperial battleships and 6 cruisers. I have an emperor class on route from ebay, bringing the battleship tally to 5; Emperor, Retribution, Oberon, Vanquisher & Nemesis. Battleships broken up ready for a dettol strip bath; http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20150420_113126_zps4gunvtza.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RADU LYKAN Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 do you have many more imperial ships? with 5 battleships your fleet will always look impressive but massed cruisers/escorts always looks good as well what sort of scheme are you going for? like popping into this thread, it keeps making me want to do a bit more of bfg :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted April 20, 2015 Author Share Posted April 20, 2015 Just six plastic cruisers in various configurations at the moment, though they need stripping too. The battleships will be for the sake of options and variety rather than fielding together, each one requires 3 cruiser choices minimum, so that's another limitation on top of their high points. Plus the Nemesis is from a specific fleet list which I need to track down before using, but the concept is too cool not to build (all launch bays!). Colour scheme I'm thinking blue with white and gold prows. I like the classic paint scheme, but its so overdone. It'll also make a good red vs blue thing if i'm showing new players the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RADU LYKAN Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 i have the book of nemesis pdf if you havent found it already? my brother in laws nemesis hasnt seen game time yet but it is a cool looking ship if the ships arent for fielding all at once then may i recommend magnets rather than ebay prices for more ship variants? :) all of my ships were bought when specialist games were still a thing, if i was starting a new fleet, especially chaos or imperial then magnets would be one of my first purchases regarding the "classic scheme" do you mean the green hull with white prows or the white hulls with red prows from the box art? my own fleet is the white hulls with red prows, sometimes i think i might have preferred a different scheme and so i have created a squadron of ships from other sector fleets to scratch the different scheme itch, i did a blue with white and gold prow cruiser a little while ago, first blue model i ever painted, looked pretty good imo were there any pics of your recent campaign game against nids? am currently scratch building a test nid ship and although the design is pretty much finished am always after inspiration and because my post isnt long enough already :) gothicomp 2015 isnt too far away................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Something Brother Angelus neglected to mention was that his Strike Force ended the Campaign Round in possession of Savage, the primary System of the Sub-Sector which allows him to launch orbital bombardments on the subsequent Apocalypse games played in the Savage system, he has broken the Xenos strangle hold on the System! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted April 22, 2015 Author Share Posted April 22, 2015 i have the book of nemesis pdf if you havent found it already? my brother in laws nemesis hasnt seen game time yet but it is a cool looking ship if the ships arent for fielding all at once then may i recommend magnets rather than ebay prices for more ship variants? all of my ships were bought when specialist games were still a thing, if i was starting a new fleet, especially chaos or imperial then magnets would be one of my first purchases regarding the "classic scheme" do you mean the green hull with white prows or the white hulls with red prows from the box art? my own fleet is the white hulls with red prows, sometimes i think i might have preferred a different scheme and so i have created a squadron of ships from other sector fleets to scratch the different scheme itch, i did a blue with white and gold prow cruiser a little while ago, first blue model i ever painted, looked pretty good imo were there any pics of your recent campaign game against nids? am currently scratch building a test nid ship and although the design is pretty much finished am always after inspiration and because my post isnt long enough already gothicomp 2015 isnt too far away................... I don't have it, no. Was thinking of grabbing a copy of Planet Killer #1 from ebay, but if you have a PDF i'd be happy to have it. The individual ship boxart is what i'm referring to, green/white/gold. Its a nice palette but my original imperial fleet was painted that way and I feel like some variety this time around. And unfortunately no pictures from this round's games (taken by me anyway). The nids are a motley collection of 40k weapons and claws modeled together. Something Brother Angelus neglected to mention was that his Strike Force ended the Campaign Round in possession of Savage, the primary System of the Sub-Sector which allows him to launch orbital bombardments on the subsequent Apocalypse games played in the Savage system, he has broken the Xenos strangle hold on the System!Oh yeah, I did that too. Can't let the filthy xenos go junking up an imperial system. The issue I have now, is that you're enabling my hobby addiction by giving me incentives to get 5000pts done and re-learn 40k... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 The issue I have now, is that you're enabling my hobby addiction by giving me incentives to get 5000pts done and re-learn 40k... I get accused of that a LOT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RADU LYKAN Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I don't have it, no. Was thinking of grabbing a copy of Planet Killer #1 from ebay, but if you have a PDF i'd be happy to have it. oops, the book of nemesis doesnt contain the nemesis strangely enough, it does have the reprisal and terra classes though the additional ship compendium is probably where the nemesis rules are, just pm me your email address if you still want either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother_Angelus Posted May 2, 2015 Author Share Posted May 2, 2015 Legit start to an imperial fleet. Or not. Whatever, I like them. Especially the all launch, all the time, Nemesis. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/AvengingAngel/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20150502_125413_zpsprixpvpc.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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