If you could make a Chaos ship legal, which one(s) would it be?

[horizon]

I quit on this discussion. lol
The Acheron has a perfect role: medium range lance support to a Carnage.
IT HAS THE BEST CHAOS GUNNERY AT 45cm!!!
IT HAS THE BEST CHAOS GUNNERY AT 45cm!!!
IT HAS THE BEST CHAOS GUNNERY AT 45cm!!!
IT HAS THE BEST CHAOS GUNNERY AT 45cm!!!
IT HAS THE BEST CHAOS GUNNERY AT 45cm!!!

[Mazila]

The best role for Acheron, as i see it, is solo escort killing - it's "best" firepower is easily overcome by hades if you fire from prow and a broadside at the same time.

[horizon]

Perhaps true, but the Hades is +10pts so should have something better, right? But given fleet selection most of the times
you'll be only having one firing arc.

Hades on even split fire:
prow 4 lances @ 60cm (12)
port 10 batteries @ 45cm (10)
starboard 10 batteries @ 45cm (10)

Hades on maximum focus:
Port or Starboard 2 lances + 10 batteries @ 45cm (6 + 10 = 16)
offside remaining: 10 batteries @45cm and 2 lances @ 60cm prow

Acheron
prow 6 batteries @ 45cm (6)
port 3 lances @ 45cm (9)
starboard 3 lances @45cm (9)

Acheron on maximum focus:
Port or Starboard 4 lances + 6 batteries @ 45cm (12 + 6 = 18)
offside remaining 2 lances @ 60cm 

Hades bit more diverse, Acheron stronger focus.

[Mazila]

yes, maths may work, but you are forgetting, that you are rolling only 1 5+ dice and 4 4+ dice  which grants you with about 2-3 hits on average.

[horizon]

So...?

[Sigoroth]

The Acheron is a contentious design. As someone who has taken up both sides of the love/hate relationship I can understand all the arguments for and against it. Let me break it down.

The Acheron is a well balanced ship for its cost. As Horizon points out it has got the most focusable firepower at 45cm range of any Chaos cruiser or heavy cruiser. In fact, it puts out as much fire as the considerably more expensive Armageddon class battlecruiser. So it's cheap, fast (Chaos), has a lot of focus and is reasonably resilient for a 5+ armoured ship (has 3 turrets and goes abeam to bring its firepower to bear). For these reasons the Acheron is balanced.

On the other hand, the Acheron breaks a number of design precedents. Firstly, its dorsal weaponry is rather short ranged. The Mars, Overlord, Armageddon, Hades and Styx all have 60cm range, strength 2, LFR dorsal lances. This discrepancy for the Acheron is inexplicable beyond that it's already an odd duck. It also has 3 turrets. This is odd for a gunship, though not overwhelmingly so. No, the most inexplicable thing is that its broadside armament accomplishes the same thing as a Devastation, without the benefit of having AC. In essence, the Acheron is a Devastion with 45cm dorsal lances added and prow weaponry range extended. Instead of increased cost the AC is dropped.

So we have a balanced ship (what you get for what you pay) and yet it is definitely out of place. How I rationalise this is simply by saying that the Acheron is a knock-off. A cheap and nasty ship that was put together however it could be with little thought to maximising potential or efficiency. In other words, it's substandard. That's why it only costs 190 pts. It's easy to build.

This rationalisation might not quite cover it all, since one might expect that as Chaos can make 60cm lances so easily for the Dev that the Acheron would be as easily capable of at least installing some AC, even if it hasn't the power reserves for more guns. Well to an extent this is true. An argument against this is that it's a lot of bother to resupply AC. Still, this falls short, and as such I can understand the concept of the Acheron leaving a bad taste in many peoples mouths.

I feel that this effect could be diminished somewhat by dropping the range on the Devs broadsides down to 45cm. This would accomplish 2 things. Firstly, it would help to balance the Dev somewhat. People (rightly) think that it's too strong for both its cost and compared to the IN analogue (Dictator). So it helps on that front. Secondly it would allow the Acheron's lack of broadside weaponry to become a little more explicable, as the only cruiser in the fleet capable of it. Similarly it lessens the Devs competition with other long range gun ships, like the Carnage and Murder. Another bonus to the change would be that you could model a Hecate on the Dev without making it overpowered.

So, like Horizon, I think the Acheron is a balanced ship but as a "cheap knock-off" or "experimental design" it shouldn't be used to determine the maximum capabilities of other ships. In other words, I'd not like to see a limit on other CBs firepower based upon what the Acheron can put out. Perhaps a limit on broadside 60cm weaponry without some sort of exceptional justification, but that's about it.

[flybywire-E2C]

So, like Horizon, I think the Acheron is a balanced ship but as a "cheap knock-off" or "experimental design" it shouldn't be used to determine the maximum capabilities of other ships. In other words, I'd not like to see a limit on other CBs firepower based upon what the Acheron can put out. Perhaps a limit on broadside 60cm weaponry without some sort of exceptional justification, but that's about it.

Sigoroth, you and Horizon hit this one right on the head. The Acheron is a "broken" ship on purpose. It's a one-off vessel constructed using xenotech (think AdMech vessel circa M33-34) that should by no means be used as a benchmark for what Chaos ships in gereral and HC's in particular should be. It was always supposed to be a cheap, one-off "character" vessel. Only later was fluff grafted to it that copies were constructed at Baji IV, and that was only because fans wanted to have more than one. If fans dictated we needed to justify way to have more of them, that tells me that despite being broken, it works well enough that it doesn't need fixing, and it certainly doesn't need to be used as justification to "fix" any of the other current Chaos cruisers in the game.

Disclaimer: I have two, but I didn't build the second until Andy C said Chaos players could have more than one (yeah, I know- I'm a damn purist). One is the actual Acheron which I built to resemble a Desolator but smaller using metal Desolator turrets, Vengeance dorsal turrets and Repulsive sensor "wings" to make it look really distinctive compared to the rest of my Chaos ships. My second is by my intent a Baji knock-off built pretty standard using all plastic turrets and no distinctive metal bits.

- Nate

[flybywire-E2C]

Rampage sounds like an Ork name to me. Apostate is an escort name too. For the heavy Slaughter I really recommend Cerberus, even though it isn't my personal favourite (Thanatos and Charon are my favourites, followed by most of the others before Cerberus). The reason I recommend it is because Cerberus was THE hellhound. Nasty big doggy. Since the Slaughter is an up close mauler with all the subtly and finesse of a half-brick to the head and this ship is a heavy version of it (I'd keep the broadside ranges low too) then the name seems to fit. I'll just keep the rest of the proposed names as individual ship names instead (for Imperial ships).

As for the "Pillager" I think that d'Artagnan gave some really good names. I prefer the sound of an Annihilation class cruiser best.

Unless I'm mistaken, these are the three ships under consideration.  I believe the Hecate is being included completely as is.  The Hellfire might be getting tweaked a bit and is getting renamed (my vote is for Charon).  The Pillager is being tested, is probably losing the improved thrusters, might be tweaked further, and is being renamed (my vote is still for Havoc and I'm the one who made the ship up in the first place).

Hecate Class Heavy Cruiser
240 Points
Cruiser/8, Speed: 25cm, 45 Degrees, Armor: 5+, Shields: 2, Turrets: 3
Port Launch Bays: 2
SB Launch Bays: 2
Port WBatts: 6 @ 45cm Left
SB WBatts: 6 @ 45cm Right
Prow Lances: 2 @ 60cm Front
Dorsal Lances: 2 @ 60cm L/F/R

Ah, thank you for posting this, I remember it now. This is the terribad stat-line I referred to earlier. This profile should not not not become official. This is a Hades with 4WBs replaced with launch bays and an extra turret for 40 pts. This is terribad for 3 reasons. Firstly, a carrier shouldn't be encouraged to go prow on like this ship and a carrier that was designed to operate without the support of a fleet should certainly not be closing with the enemy. The point of this ship would be to stay away from the enemy.

Secondly, the picture supplied for the Hecate (supplied long before the stats) is that of a Devastation with added dorsal weaponry. Not only is this a more natural base profile for a carrier, particularly one expected to operate alone, but it also makes more sense to refit a Dev rather than a Hades when looking for a "carrier that was capable of defending itself against a modest fleet without the need of supporting vessels". Think about it. If you had a carrier already, but had determined that it was not strong enough to operate alone, would you try to convert a gunship to a carrier or would you try to fit more guns to your current carrier? I think that the latter case is much more sensible.

Thirdly, with this ship I see too much overlap with the Hades. It's not as if people take the Hades for their broadside weaponry. They take them for their forward lances. Sure there is an advantage for not having to reload, therefore being able to LO or whatever, but this basically combines two ships in one. For example, consider a fleet that contains 2 Hades and 2 Devs amongst other things. Now simply replace the 2 Hades with 2 Hecate, losing nothing from your main guns and giving you the 8 AC of the Devs. This frees you up to drop the 2 Devs, giving you 300 points to spend elsewhere.

I would instead suggest making it a Dev with dorsal lances. Prow weaponry possibly extended to 45cm, broadsides dropped to 45cm (which is probably what should happen to the Dev too). Leave it at 240.

See, this is where your Christmas list makes my life hard.     Remember that we as HA’s have several things to balance here, and while it is more important than anything else to create a vessel that meshes well with the rest of the fleet WITHOUT neatly plugging holes in the fleet that were originally put there on purpose, a more subtle goal is to keep whatever new vessel we create true to the current fluff timeline.

In the timeline spanning from late M32 to the time around M37 when Cypra Mundi-pattern vessel designs were abandoned entirely for Mars-type ship hulls, the technology to build and maintain weapon batteries degraded and became more difficult to maintain, whereas the ability of long-range lances remained relatively steady and continued to improve since their introduction. That’s why older vessels like the Carnage and Styx with 60cm batteries were supplanted by M33-M35 with ships like the Murder and Devastation with 60cm lances but shorter-range batteries. It was the pursuit of regaining the technology to easily reproduce 60cm batteries that resulted in the failure that was the Acheron, which was an experimental vessel platform for a variety of technologies. While the Acheron itself was considered a failure, progress developed in this ship was later applied to the Vengeance GC, and those successes were applied later to the Retribution BB and the Overlord BC, the last two of which are relatively recent developments.

So where do we plug our latest creations? The Slaughter HC is a no-brainer; the Scartix Coil and its single-source from the Sethelan forge world makes this easy to explain. The Hecate however is a little more problematic. As Sigoroth points out, the original profile makes it a lot like a carrier-Hades, which meshes nicely if we want to make this a late-era bridge between the Styx and the Mars, though it is not nearly as effective a beam-on fleet vessel as it would be with prow batteries and thus leaves something to be desired. However, giving it a Styx prow and a Hades hull pushes this vessel farther in the past. It’s still not as far back as a Styx so this can be justified, but it does eliminate what I was hoping to be a very neat “missing link” between the Styx and Mars, which is what I was hoping to create. If I give it a 45cm battery prow, this puts it in the league of the Acheron, which only has a 45cm prow because it is “failed,” and 30cm prow batteries are only for cruisers and relatively recent ones (>M35) at that. As for making it an HC-Devastation, that is the least elegant solution of several choices we have for this ship. The weapons mix would have to be so skewered to make it work, it would essentially be an entirely new ship as opposed to merely an up-gunned Devastation, and not an entirely good one at that. To both keep it balanced and make it work with the rest of the fleet, it would have to fit either very early in the Imperial timeline (pre-Styx) or much later (post-Murder), and the end result wouldn’t be elegant at all. In the end, it’s not a big deal and I can make it work with a Styx prow, but the simple elegance of making it a missing link between the Styx and Mars using a Hades prow appealed to the purist in me.

Last but not least we have the Pillager. This is a very cool ship, but there’s a few minor tweaks we need to do to it. First off, the +5D6 when AAF is out. It was always the intention that the +5D6/AAF special ability was going to be unique to the Slaughter, and it was REALLY contentious giving it to the Retaliator as well, which is the main reason it ended up being so expensive. Before we fret, let’s think about where a gun-heavy carrier-cruiser bests fits in the cruiser development timeline. Lances were (and still are) the shiny new toy for the Imperial Navy so such a ship would have to be pre-Devastation. This isn’t bad because pre-Devastation implies pre-Murder and harkens back to the time of the Styx when 60cm lances were still rare and relegated to CH’s only. What was the main cruiser around when the Styx was king? That’s right, the Carnage. How’s this for a profile?

Pillager (yech): 190 points
Cruiser/8HP, Turns=45d, Speed=25cm, Armor=5+, Shields=2, Turrets=3
Prow WB’s: 6x60cm L/F/R
Port Launch bays: 2
Stbd Launch bays: 2
Port WB’s: 4x60cm
Stbd WB’s: 4x60cm

In sum, it’s the same defensive capabilities as a Devastation, slightly less firepower overall, but better, longer-ranged firepower over certain aspects. Oh, and to use Horizon’s(?) term, it’s more focusable! 

All this, and play-testing to boot. I should have a semi-clean Chaos document to show everyone by the end of the weekend, but with everything there is to do I may not be posting much until then. When this is done, it will have surprises for everyone!

-   Nate

[lastspartacus]

Does this document contain chaos god specific stuff?

Pillager, bleh.  Slayer I like.

I spose I can just tack 20 points on the Acheron and call it something else with str4 batteries.

[fracas]

All of the chaos cruiser names describe the aftermath of a battle: the carnage, the devastation, the slaughter, the murder
Thus I propose that the 5th cruiser be called "massacre"

[Masque]

Last but not least we have the Pillager. This is a very cool ship, but there’s a few minor tweaks we need to do to it. First off, the +5D6 when AAF is out. It was always the intention that the +5D6/AAF special ability was going to be unique to the Slaughter, and it was REALLY contentious giving it to the Retaliator as well, which is the main reason it ended up being so expensive. Before we fret, let’s think about where a gun-heavy carrier-cruiser bests fits in the cruiser development timeline. Lances were (and still are) the shiny new toy for the Imperial Navy so such a ship would have to be pre-Devastation. This isn’t bad because pre-Devastation implies pre-Murder and harkens back to the time of the Styx when 60cm lances were still rare and relegated to CH’s only. What was the main cruiser around when the Styx was king? That’s right, the Carnage. How’s this for a profile?

Pillager (yech): 190 points
Cruiser/8HP, Turns=45d, Speed=25cm, Armor=5+, Shields=2, Turrets=3
Prow WB’s: 6x60cm L/F/R
Port Launch bays: 2
Stbd Launch bays: 2
Port WB’s: 4x60cm
Stbd WB’s: 4x60cm

In sum, it’s the same defensive capabilities as a Devastation, slightly less firepower overall, but better, longer-ranged firepower over certain aspects. Oh, and to use Horizon’s(?) term, it’s more focusable! 

I'm glad you like my design but I'm a little confused as to what exactly it is you like about it.  My Pillager build was intentionally slightly less powerful than the Devastation.  It was missing a turret and had less firepower both under 30cm and over 45cm.  It only outgunned a Devastation between 30cm and 45cm.  I gave it the extra D6 on AAF to help keep it in that sweet spot.  I normally place basically zero value on this upgrade since you'ld almost always rather do some other special order, especially on a carrier.  Your build seems to have more similarities with the Devastation than it does with my Pillager.  It has the same turrets and movement capabilities as the Devastation with a bit more guns over 30cm and a bit less under 30cm.  One of my design goals was to make a cruiser level carrier that cost a different amount than the Devastation.  I didn't really care if it was more or less just that it was different enough that you'ld actually need to build a different fleet to fit them in rather than simply swapping with the Devastation one for one.  I'm not sure how we can come together on a design here.  Anyone else, please chime in on this one way or another.

As far as the name goes...  I'm told Havoc and Apostate are taken.  (I found the reference to the Havoc, but where is the Apostate from?)  People seem to think Rampage is more Orky than Chaosy.  Someone mentioned Inferno, which I think is so-so but I visited my thesaurus and came across another idea.  (Beware of the terrible, terrible joke that's coming up here.)  I'm not sure if the word is kosher though.  A synonym for Inferno is Holocaust.  I actually think it's a pretty great name and goes quite well with Carnage, Slaughter, Murder, and Devastation.  I still prefer the name Havoc if ignoring the Rogue Trader RPG is OK.  I think Horizon's head might explode though; Sigoroth's too, maybe.

Have you actually gone through all the various ship descriptions and such and pieced together a ship class and technology timeline?  If so, I'd love to see you post it or point me at where it's already online.  This kind of brings me what I know is a taboo subject.  What stops Chaos from having light cruisers?  Is it because they are generally too new for many of them to have fallen into Chaos hands?  Assuming that is the fluff reasoning behind this design decision I can quickly prove it wrong if necessary.

Also, I like the Hades style prow on the Hecate.  Generally I'm very happy with it being a carrier that wants to go prow on.  This makes it play differently than other Chaos carriers.  It does make it very much like the Mars which seems to be somewhat your goal so I say you declare victory and then make sure it is costed right.  I think it's somewhere around 5 to 10 points too expensive.

[lastspartacus]

Ohhh Massacre.  Ding ding, winner.

[Sigoroth]

Nate:

While I admire your attention to the timeline I do feel that there is something that you've overlooked. This may be deliberate, but you've neglected the original fluff for the Hecate, as written way back in BFG Mag #1(2?). The Hecate was not made by the Imperium. It was made by Chaos Warmasters. Not an Imperial ship at all. Therefore it does not have to bridge the Styx/Mars divide. Mind you, I think that any such bridge would be pointless, since the current IN style cruiser is a radical paradigm shift away from their previous approaches. That is, 6+ prows, torpedoes, slow speed and NC. Not to mention the radically different hull design. The only bridge between the older and newer IN ships that I can see are the Vengeance series CGs.

Therefore I see no implicit reason to give it a Hades statline and, if we accept the original Hecate fluff and accompanying picture I actually see explicit reason to reject the Hades statline. It would be much easier to up-gun a Dev than refit a Hades.

On the topic of the Blech class ship, I agree with LS. I much prefer the cheaper ship with the lowered ranges. I even like that it doesn't even have 3 turrets. As for a timeline rationalisation, I don't see why it couldn't be around the same time as the Murder, after the Carnage but as a precursor to the Dev. However I disagree with him on the name. Obviously LS doesn't know his arse from his elbow when it comes to names.   Annihilation class all the way.

[flybywire-E2C]

Nate:

While I admire your attention to the timeline I do feel that there is something that you've overlooked. This may be deliberate, but you've neglected the original fluff for the Hecate, as written way back in BFG Mag #1(2?). The Hecate was not made by the Imperium. It was made by Chaos Warmasters. Not an Imperial ship at all. Therefore it does not have to bridge the Styx/Mars divide. Mind you, I think that any such bridge would be pointless, since the current IN style cruiser is a radical paradigm shift away from their previous approaches. That is, 6+ prows, torpedoes, slow speed and NC. Not to mention the radically different hull design. The only bridge between the older and newer IN ships that I can see are the Vengeance series CGs.

Yes, it was purposely ignored. Chaos Warmasters do NOT have the ability to scratchbuild ships, though admittedly they are more likely to be rolling around with extremely rare, one-off pre-heresy (and even pre-Imperial!) vessels than the Imperium is. That being said, I think we came up with a pretty cool explanation for the Hecate.

The Vengeance GC’s are by design the “bridge” model between the old and new ships. It’s a bit clunky in that they ramped upward with larger hulls and then ramped back down to cruiser sized, but that can be chalked up to experimenting with increasing a hull’s survivability, starting with making it larger and ending with the cheaper expedient of giving it better prow armor.

 Therefore I see no implicit reason to give it a Hades statline and, if we except the original Hecate fluff and accompanying picture I actually see explicit reason to reject the Hades statline. It would be much easier to up-gun a Dev than refit a Hades.

Agreed, the Hecate is pre-Murder/Hades  as written. I disagree completely on up-gunning a Devastation as a solution set, but what we did instead makes sense and actually effects only small but significant changes from the current Hecate profile to reflect its Styx lineage rather than a Hades knock-off.

 On the topic of the Blech class ship, I agree with LS. I much prefer the cheaper ship with the lowered ranges. I even like that it doesn't even have 3 turrets. As for a timeline rationalisation, I don't see why it couldn't be around the same time as the Murder, after the Carnage but as a precursor to the Dev. However I disagree with him on the name. Obviously LS doesn't know his arse from his elbow when it comes to names.  Annihilation class all the way.

Be nice, Sig. Just because I don’t know my arse from my elbow doesn’t mean I want someone to spout off to everyone about it! That being said, I like Massacre over Annihilation only because it doesn’t fill the mouth as much to say it. In the end, neither of these were selected for the first draft, which can be seen here:

http://tinyurl.com/23nul8q

Enjoy!

-   Nate

[flybywire-E2C]

All,

The Powers of Chaos 2 DRAFT has hit the street and can be seen here:

http://tinyurl.com/23nul8q

Keep in mind this does NOT have any Chaos Powers-specific info in it, nor does it contain the Terminus Est, only because this document is formatted to be a Part 2 to that already existing document. The final document will likely loop all of that material into this one just for the sake of simplicity, though for now we are focusing on adding material that didn't get completed before Specialist was unplugged as opposed to replacing any of the material currently on GW's BFG Resources page.

Let me know what you think. Smile, game on and enjoy!

- Nate