BFG FAQ 2010 General Rules Questions

[Plaxor]

Didn't said something against this. I argued against RT's working with CHAOS.
An alliance with xenos is a crime, but can be forgiven or, as you said, "overlooked" if the goal justifies it.
But an alliance with the forces of chaos, nope, this is something that can't be overlooked nor can it be forgiven...

Yep, and yet the Official RT document says that an RT would have to be a pirate to work with orks but not with chaos  

I consider novels as non-canonical. As long as Black Library allows Guys like Goto to write 40k novels I can't even take them serious.
Ergo: as long as it doesn't appear in a Rulebook/Codex/WD or a dedicated "sourcebook" it doesn't exist

Into the storm isn't a novel, it's a sourcebook for the Rogue Trader RPG by fantasy flight games. Although your argument still stands.... a lot of the stuff from novels is just.... well crap. They should be taken less seriously, but not ignored outright.

Eldar are THE main opponent to Chaos. Fullstop. Source: any Codex since 2nd Edition. OK, maybe it is possible to "trick" them into an alliance, if the eldar don't know that this chem pan sey are working for chaos, but this is such an unlikly case.... than you could also allow alliances with the tyranids arguing there is some device that locally kills of the hivemind. WhatI mean: alliances should express the "average relation" and not some special case.

I didn't say that the Eldar would work with chaos, I said they would work with Renegades however, like the Soul Drinkers. The 40k Chaos codex is supposed to incorporate those as well, as it was made to be more of a renegade book rather than a legion book. GW often changes fluff.

RTs working for chaos fleets... well it could be justified from a count-as perspective, as well as the fact that the Chaos fleet also incorporates renegades, so something such as in the age of apostasy or the nova terra interregnum. Most Imperial citizens don't even know that chaos exists.

Also there is the fact that an RT may have gone renegade and joined up with a chaos warfleet himself, some RTs go pirate or otherwise, hiding behind their warrant for as long as possible.

Read more background and less bad novels  

What? Yes... the Ultramarines are supposed to be the most Codex chapter, yet they break so many rules in novels....

[Eldanesh]

Sorry was a reflex: Coven of Isha -> Goto ->   (And i confused it with sorm of iron)

But, no, I don't think that 3rd party developers have to be taken seriously in any way: Black Library is even part of GW and they publish rubbish bull**** (did I mention Goto? ), why should be a 3rd party better. The RT roleplay is a bit like the Trading Card Game or better fan fiction: as long as there are no other sources it is relevant, but if there is only the smallest conflict with better sources you don't have to take it to serious/can ignore it.

I said they would work with Renegades however, like the Soul Drinkers

Philosophical question: IMO on the long run there are no "neutral" renegadesm they'll all end up as slaves to chaos even if they don't know it (ahriman is a prominent example: he still believes that he controls the Powers of chaos, but is a marionette to Tzeentsh). Betray the emperor and you'll become chaos. This is as sure as playing russian roulette will always kill you if you try long enough. Soul Drinkers are good example: they belive they are "free", but hell they killed the loyal halfof the chapter, Sarpedon has spider legs (clear sign of chaos) and had a talk with a demonprince of Tzeentch... they serve tzeentch, even if they don't know.

yet they break so many rules in novels

As I said: read less bad novels. and yes, everything from Goto and the Ultramarine novels count as bad. (it seems that McNeill desperatly wanted "cool" Ulras and killed the whole background of the chapter for this)

[horizon]

Sorry was a reflex: Coven of Isha -> Goto ->  (And i confused it with sorm of iron)

But, no, I don't think that 3rd party developers have to be taken seriously in any way: Black Library is even part of GW and they publish rubbish bull**** (did I mention Goto? ), why should be a 3rd party better. The RT roleplay is a bit like the Trading Card Game or better fan fiction: as long as there are no other sources it is relevant, but if there is only the smallest conflict with better sources you don't have to take it to serious/can ignore it.

I said they would work with Renegades however, like the Soul Drinkers

Philosophical question: IMO on the long run there are no "neutral" renegadesm they'll all end up as slaves to chaos even if they don't know it (ahriman is a prominent example: he still believes that he controls the Powers of chaos, but is a marionette to Tzeentsh). Betray the emperor and you'll become chaos. This is as sure as playing russian roulette will always kill you if you try long enough. Soul Drinkers are good example: they belive they are "free", but hell they killed the loyal halfof the chapter, Sarpedon has spider legs (clear sign of chaos) and had a talk with a demonprince of Tzeentch... they serve tzeentch, even if they don't know.

yet they break so many rules in novels

As I said: read less bad novels. and yes, everything from Goto and the Ultramarine novels count as bad. (it seems that McNeill desperatly wanted "cool" Ulras and killed the whole background of the chapter for this)

Yeah, for novels I can understand this. But all stuff from Fantasy Flight Games regarding is the new official Canon for 40k. It counts, it is the 'truth' and it shall be read as such by us. Even if we do not like it. haha!

[Eldanesh]

But all stuff from Fantasy Flight Games regarding is the new official Canon for 40k

How so you come to this conclusion?

At all there have been a lot of 3rd Party developers working with gw stuff, nothing has ever be considered official: be it the old whfb roleplay, any video game or the mentioned trading card game...
Sure there are always influences (e.g the events of a novel make it into the 'dex, if the author of the Codex like them), but that's it.

[horizon]

Every single word FFG writes gets a GW stamp. The RT book is started with a letter from Alan Merrit (sp?), the GW IP caretaking boss. (Heck he even writes that the first game they wanted to start many years ago was a spaceship game, before they even thought about Warhammer 40k!).

It is official. dot com.

[BaronIveagh]

Which gives some of us a headache, because FFG occasionally overturns existing fluff, like the size of cruisers.  So, god knows, any random book might throw out the ongoing fluff arguments around here.

[Plaxor]

Jeez, how off were they?

[horizon]

Not much,

Before FFG, GW never gave sizes & dimensions. However through various things the size was estimated as follow:

Imperial Navy
escorts : 800-1200metres
cruisers: 2500-3000 metres
battleships: 4500-5000 metres

Alas, even back then various claims about 5km flew around for cruisers. Sizes also being used on Merzo, sadly they didn't change it.

With FFG Rogue Trader we got dimensions (lenght, width, mass, accell, speed, crew, etc pretty cool tbh) for spaceships in an official publication. And I know for fact that FFG got these sizes/have them specifically approved by GW.

So, well, that's that.

[BaronIveagh]

Not much,

Before FFG, GW never gave sizes & dimensions. However through various things the size was estimated as follow:

Imperial Navy
escorts : 800-1200metres
cruisers: 2500-3000 metres
battleships: 4500-5000 metres

Alas, even back then various claims about 5km flew around for cruisers. Sizes also being used on Merzo, sadly they didn't change it.

With FFG Rogue Trader we got dimensions (lenght, width, mass, accell, speed, crew, etc pretty cool tbh) for spaceships in an official publication. And I know for fact that FFG got these sizes/have them specifically approved by GW.

So, well, that's that.

FFG blew them up to 5km for cruisers.

You left out how big the crew sizes got.  We went from Chambers 1k per hull point to 95,000 people to run a Lunar class.

[Plaxor]

For some reason I thought I saw a cruiser having a crew of 80,000 listed somewhere else. As well I thought the hull point thing was just a guess that people just kinda said. Naturally something with an internal space of about 1km cubed would be 750 times the volume of the empire state building. Considering that, each person would have around 17,000 square feet of space. However it is a space ship, so probably less than half isn't occupied by machinery, and a lot of this is hallways/work areas etc. Presumably a person would have less than 200 square feet of personal space.

[flybywire-E2C]

Hi all! BIG changes here! I'll re-post this in all the pertinent places.

First of all, the FAQ/Errata is DONE!!! A LOT of work went into this, an dit will remain in draft form for another week jusnt in case there's a few more kinks to work out that all of us missed, but this is essentially what the FAQ will look like. Sorry it took so long to get right, and sorry we pushed it so close to 2011!! Barring any unforeseen problems, we should be able to stamp this FINAL sometime around December 27th. SPECIAL THANKS to Horizon and Masque- I've decided to give them every dime I make from this effort!  

Rogue Traders DRAFT v3.5: Like the FAQ, the Rogue Traders saw a lot of back and forth so the version number is quite different. VERY SPECIAL THANKS to Sam Shepherd, the creative design lead from Fantasy Flight Games that took the time to square our Rogue Traders with their Rogue Traders! How cool is that?  

Powers of Chaos DRAFT v2.8: A few changes and tweaks here, specifically to the Hecate, Inferno and fleet lists. We're getting very close to what the final product will look like. Chaos is already a pretty solid fleet so most of the changes here were to correct balancing issues as opposed to anything else.

Inquisition DRAFT v1.4: A few formatting changes and minor tweaks, but nothing really different here.

Well, that's it! The link for it all is in my signature. I'll be leaving town for a week and will try to stay in touch. Keep your smiles on, game on and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

- Nate

[Vaaish]

nate, this is purely and utterly impractical gameplay wise and game breaking for torpedo heavy races like the IN:

A torpedo salvo (regardless of strength) is now
represented with a Strength 3, (2.5cm) marker with
one or more D6 indicating the actual salvo strength.

I can never accept this as a valid rule in BFG or even a well thought out one as noted by my pictures of the rule in effect.

[RCgothic]

nate, this is purely and utterly impractical gameplay wise and game breaking for torpedo heavy races like the IN:

A torpedo salvo (regardless of strength) is now
represented with a Strength 3, (2.5cm) marker with
one or more D6 indicating the actual salvo strength.

I can never accept this as a valid rule in BFG or even a well thought out one as noted by my pictures of the rule in effect.

+1.

I only got part way through reading it (was at work), but I think the section on blast markers may need re-wordsmithing also. For a clarification, I don't find it particularly clear.

[horizon]

I agree with Vaaish & RcG.
I told them.

[commander]

House rule!