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

[flybywire-E2C]

Hi Sig! OMG, you are posting comments and questions far faster than I can possibly respond to it all! Multiple play-tests and projects in work are complicating this a bit, not to mention I have a day job! Sorry if I miss a few comments, questions, etc.…

Ok, so I've done the naming and fluff post, so that's out of the way. I'd like to comment on the actual profiles now. Ok, first off, I do prefer this Hecate profile to the previous one, but taken in conjunction with the "Inferno" and the rest of the fleet there are still some problems.

If you were to take a Styx over a Hecate you would be dropping 6WB@45cmL+R broadsides to pick up 2AC. For this you pay an extra 30 pts. Very very pricey. Now, compare the "Inferno" to a Carnage. If you were to take the Inferno over the Carnage you would be giving up 6WB@45cmL+R, same as in the previous comparison, but this time you would gain 4 AC (twice as much) and only be paying +10 pts (one third the increase) and you'd be getting an extra turret as well.

I have always played the Hecate (I have one) as 245 points because until now it has always been a house ship, and I always tend to overprice house vessels, a far more forgivable oversight than under-pricing one. All the ships in the Powers of Chaos 2 document in general are overpriced on purpose for the first draft because I specifically expected to be butchered over this, during which time the prices would dial down to something more akin to their true worth.

The Styx pays a premium for more than just how it carries more AC than any other 8HP ship in the game. It can do the fleet-carrier trick while staying strictly abeam- ALL of it’s weapons are L/F/R and 60cm, a very handy characteristic for a fleet carrier. In this regard, giving the Hecate the same general quality gives this ship a set of characteristics in actual gameplay worth far more than using the Smotherman formula to calculate point values would suggest. Because it’s a heave cruiser I don’t have too much heartburn with this, but we have to be careful with how cheap we make this ship for exactly the reasons I just outlined. I get more into why when discussing your points against the Inferno, which in sum are quite accurate.

Sure, the Styx pays a premium for being able to have more than 4 AC, but paying 3 times as much for half the bonus AC is surely a bit much, not to mention the extra turret on top. Ok, some of that is surely that the Styx is overpriced. However, I also think that the current Inferno is probably a touch strong too.

I liked Lastspartacus's original profile better. So instead of being at Carnage level technology it's reduced to Murder level tech. So bring all the guns down from 60cm range to 45cm range. Drop its turrets value down to 2 as well. Bring it down to 180 pts. So then, compared to a Carnage it loses 10WB in the 60cm range band and 6WBs at 45cm or less in exchange for its 4 AC. A much better trade, keeping both viable.

The Inferno actually has a couple of over-power problems, only a few of which you outlined. Taken in sum, the Inferno profile as listed in the current draft is broken and needs to be changed (a bit ironic, since I’m the one that tweaked the profile in the first place!). Here’s what all the problems are.

1. By intention from the original designers, the Devastation at 190 points is the bottom price for a Chaos carrier. Justifying the price is why the Devastation has the clunky 2x60cm lance broadside. I own 4 and have already learned how to play with as well as against it so the profile doesn’t bother me, but I HATE modeling it: I use the metal Vengeance Chaos lance bits and use two turrets each side to make it very distinctive form the Slaughter, which also nicely fits the fluff since it’s supposed to be a later (circa M35) cruiser design. I don’t want to change the 190-point price floor as a fundamental tenet of the Chaos fleet so whatever we do to the Inferno, it can’t be cheaper than 190 points. THIS means we can’t simply make it a Murder-carrier, because the end result will be either overpriced as a model at 190 points or too cheap for the Chaos fleet as a whole if valued below 190 points.

2. My attempt at making the Inferno a Carnage variant to keep the price at 190 broke the profile, and here’s why. When first proposing the Inferno, I had it run the Gauntlet against Imperials and Orks, the former because it would be its most common opponent, and the latter because they are so weak against ordnance. A fleet I did NOT try this ship against was Eldar, and that’s where the problem cropped up. Chaos has lots of long-range gunnery, and with their AC and their beam-on aspect they make a strong opponent for the Eldar. However, Eldar ordnance is very potent, which means if Chaos wants to counter their ordnance, their choices have always been either the very expensive Styx or the Devastation, which is cheap but gives up big guns for useless lances when going broadside against the pointy-ears. Now we create the Inferno, which is Eldar poison because it is beam-perfect against Eldar AND can give Chaos easy ordnance parity. The Hecate does the same thing to an extent, but as an HC woth 45cm broadsides, this isn’t too much of a burden. However, a cruiser with no restrictions, 60cm guns and relatively cheap AC is a bad idea for Chaos. It’s easy to say the pointy-ears deserve it, they need to develop tactics and just suck it up and besides the whole fleet is broken anyway, but that’s not the way to design ships. More on this after your next comments…

Compared to a Dev this profile would be a little weak. The Dev has roughly equivalent firepower at 45cm and slightly more at 30cm and an extra turret. If this was all it got then I'd be happy with the 10 pts difference. However, the Dev can reach out to 60cm, which makes it clearly superior. It should be remembered though that the Dev is an overpowered ship, and new ship classes shouldn't be made overpowered just to compete with it. In fact, I think that a great balance for the Dev would be to drop its broadside lances down to 45cm range, which would make the profile LS proposed competitive, balance the Dev a good deal and make the broadside lances of the Acheron less "sucky".

Sig, I agree with EVERYTHING here. Ideally the Dev should have always had 45cm broadside lances for no price change, which actually fixes not just the Dev profile itself but how the Dev plays in the Chaos fleet and how the Chaos fleet as a whole behaves. However, we’re trying to get the products complete and stapled shut before we address changing any of the existing profiles. Having said this, tweaking the Dev is one of the most needed changes. The problem is up-creep, something you, Horizon and several others have remarked upon at length here on the SG forum. Fans are really quick to complain that a profile is overpriced or not strong enough, but OMG let one of the HA’s even SUGGEST a profile might be a tad too strong or underpriced, and the sulfurous, twisted gates of hades itself blow wide open…

Then I would drop the broadside firepower of the Hecate down to 4WBs, to reflect it being a refitted Inferno (Annihilation!). So, compared to the Anni, er, Inferno, it'd get +15cm prow range, +1 turret and +dorsal lances. It'd still be costly at +60pts (+50 should be the maximum for all this) but at least it makes the Styx slightly better in that it only gives up 4WB@45cmL+R for 2AC at +30pts rather than giving up 6WB@45cmL+R.

We can adjust the Hecate the way you suggest without tying it to the Inferno at all. This gives us a chance to start from scratch with the Inferno, or just get rid of it entirely if we can’t make it right. Chaos isn’t really supposed to have a large assortment of ship classes to start with, but I am averse to creating two new HC classes without creating a new cruiser to leaven the mix.

Right, that's them done. Now the Cerberus (great name choice, where'd you come up with that?  ). Ok profile, though if it were up to me I'd drop all ranges to 30cm. Just that bit of extra character. In this case the Slaughter would be simply redirecting energy from engines to power the dorsal lances. A simple upgrade that would require very little in the way of refitting to accomplish. Of course, that's the route you've taken in the fluff too, just that this ship gets a lot of range and firepower for the loss of speed. I don't know, this trade-off might be viable, I just think that the speed for 30cm dorsal lances would definitely be viable.

Giving this 30cm dorsals makes this fit better as a Repulsive precursor, and it also justifies why it is labeled a “failed”  HC.The Repulsive mom is also why I think it should keep the 45cm batteries, and DEFINITELY why it needs to NOT have any kind of speed boost over other cruiser classes. If you compare its firepower against other ships (say a Hades for example), its firepower is far stronger.  As it is currently, it has just in each broadside almost the same firepower as a Hades, PLUS 2x30cm lances, and that doesn’t count the prow or dorsal weapons as well. It pays for its weapons upgrade by being slowed down a lot. +1D6 when AAF is not NEARLY the game changer an additional 2 dorsal lances are. Simply removing its +1D6 when AAF is not nearly a significant enough speed reduction for the weapons upgrade it gets, and making everything 30cm weapons to justify a speed boost doesn’t really justify why this ship would have even been created in the first place.

I thought process for the 2x45cm dorsal lances is that it comes off as odd like the Acheron, and it gives the ship two layers of complimentary weaponry: 8x45cm batteries and 2x45cm dorsal lances, then 6x30cm prow L/F/R batteries to go with 2x30cm broadside lances. It’s a nice set of mixes that leaves the ship feeling odd compared to other HC’s, which would explain why the IN at the time would have been uncomfortable with this vessel despite all the firepower it brings to bear.

Regardless of whether or not range gets dropped, there is a massive problem with this ship. Its cost. Would you take 2 Cerberus or 3 Slaughter? At 245 pts it would cost 490 pts for 2 Cerberus vs 495 pts for 3 Slaughter. So that's 8 extra hit points, 2 more shields, +5cm speed, +1d6cm on AAF, +8WB focusable fire at 30cm and +22WB total fire at 30cm. On the other hand the 2 Cerberus get +15cm range on half their guns and cost 5 points less. I know which combination I'd take.

If you start with a Slaughter (165 pts), add dorsal lances (30 pts + 5 pts fudge), and upgrade the broadside weapon batteries ranges (+10 pts +5 pts fudge) you come to 215 pts at absolute maximum. That is fudging twice AND ignoring the loss of speed AND ignoring that the dorsal lances are only 45cm range instead of 60cm. This ship is way way waaaaaaaaaaaay too expensive. Way.

Absolutely right- the Cerberus is too expensive. That’s on purpose, and we will dial down the price once the fans play with this thing and find out if its broken one way or the other, kind of like the Inferno right now. That being said, 215 is probably a bit too cheap for this. The combinations of firepower this ship is capable of delivering, meaning how it behaves when massed or in a fleet setting, is far more valuable than the Smotherman values of its weapons would suggest. Regardless of the formula, it’s carrying a LOT of firepower for a single cruiser hull, most vividly illustrated by the Slaughter itself. Slaughters are cheap more because of how odd they are compared to the rest of the Chaos fleet as opposed to the range of firepower they deliver. Getting close to a Slaughter, especially more than one, is bad news for anybody, and its cheap cost and fast speed make these one of the best bargains in the entire game.

So, a summary of recommended changes:

Inferno: Name changed to Annihilation(!). Ranges dropped to 45cm, turrets dropped to 2, price dropped to 180 pts.

We need to fix this ship before anything else. Secondly, if we change the name from Inferno, I would prefer it to be a name favored by the fan that created the profile as long as it fits the Chaos theme (meaning Pillager is still out!). For reasons I stated before, this ship will be no less than 190 points.

Devastation: lance range dropped to 45cm. (Not a part of this document, but I feel it's necessary and at the very least ships should be balanced against a 45cm broadside Dev rather than against a 60cm one, so it should be kept in mind when considering costs and capabilities of other ships.)

You already know my thoughts on this. Agreed to an extent, but there are much bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Hecate: broadside WBs dropped to str 4. Fluff restored to Chaos upgrade (refitted Annihilation).

The Hecate profile adjustment is easy, and I don’t have an objection to a dumbed-down Chaos HC that ends up being a bit cheaper in the process. The fluff however isn’t going to change. Chaos can’t design cruisers, nor can they refit them so heavily that they create entirely new classes in the process. If it’s one thing made abundantly clear in fluff, it’s that the Eye of Terror is exceedingly resource-poor, and on top of that Chaos relies almost entirely on slave labor for everything they do (demons are great with blight swords but do rather poorly with spanners, spin-lathes and the like). A Warmaster with the wherewithal to bend what few resources he has at his disposal to this kind of an endeavor would for far less expense sortie out on a raid on one of the many reserve depots scattered around the EOT to board, re-activate and abscond off with another decommissioned warship, the same way Chaos gathered the vast majority of the capital ships they own currently.

Cerberus: Cost dropped massively. No more than 215 pts, more like 210 pts. And that's still a conservative estimate.

Yep! I don't know about 210-215 (yet), but the price will certainly come down from what it is now, especially if we end up tweaking the profile.

I’m not done commenting on all the replies by the way, but there are a LOT of replies so give me some time to get it all sorted. Thanks…

-   Nate

[Sigoroth]

Nate:

There are 3 points I think that keep us talking at cross purposes. One is the floor price for a carrier. Apparently a designer originally came up with 190 as a minimum for a Chaos carrier. I don't think that this is a relevant argument. I again put forth my standard counter argument "who cares what a nerdy pom thought over a decade ago?". The Inferno needs to be balanced to be viable and also needs to be different enough from a Dev in order for it to add to the Chaos fleet. This latter point also increases a ship's viability by virtue of disguising any imbalances. Two ships that are near identical are easier to compare. Therefore imbalances become easy to detect. So, if we're going to hobble this ship due to some random thought some pom had years ago which was made under a different set of circumstances, then there's no point in even bothering to include it at all.

The second point is one of Chaos capabilities. You seem to think that they're completely incapable of doing anything. Even if you subscribe to the idea that they cannot scratch-build a ship from the hull up (which I don't necessarily) then there's still no reason to suggest that they can't refit their ships. Hell, they have a refit table, so it's implied that they can. They can repair ships as well, this must happen somewhere. Creating heavy cruisers doesn't even seem that daunting a task. For example, if you took one Slaughter, grabbed some operational long range lances (such as from a salvaged Hades, etc) and added them together, then we have a refit ship that becomes a new class. Voilà. Energy drawn engines to power the lances. Easy. To do something similar to a Dev to make a Hecate would be harder, but not so hard that it's impossible.

This is the minimum ability of Chaos. You could make the argument that it's not impossible for them to scratch-build ships, though this would probably not be a common occurrence. They must have some sort of dockyards to repair and refit ships, and they did make the Planet Killer after all. I would also argue that the less control they have over being able to scratch-build whatever ship class they desire then the more they would try to refit their ships. Also, being Chaos, one would expect a higher than usual number of refits anyway.

The last point where we seem to be at odds is one of balance. This is in reference to Cerberus costs. Just a note, I don't use the Smotherman formula. I think it fails to account for a number of things. OK, let's start by looking at the Slaughter, Carnage and Murder. All balanced ships yes? I don't see people taking all of one type often, and when they do they're not all that effective, or at least not any more effective than a mixed fleet. I myself like Slaughters, but prefer Carnages to Murders. Others prefer Murders. Now, is the Hades overpowered? I don't think so. Point for point they've got the greatest weight of fire at 60cm of any Chaos cruiser and yet people don't even max out on them. I've seen many a fleet full of just cruisers.

A Hades is simply a Murder with +2L@60cmLFR dorsal and given CB status for 30 pts. So, if you agree that the Murder, Carnage and Slaughter are not OP, and agree that a Hades is likewise not overpowered then you must agree that a heavy cruiser variant of either the Carnage or Slaughter given identical modifications would also not be overpowered.

So, a Slaughter variant CB with just the dorsal lances added would cost 195 pts. Now, you want to pump up the range on the WBs by 15cm and drop the range on the dorsal lances by 15cm. This is a practically identical trade-off value. At great than 30cm range those 2 lances are worth more than the 8WBs, but the extra range on the WBs gain some (very) limited utility due to the offside increase. So, at worst, that's +5 pts, putting us at 200 pts. Now, what else are you doing to it? Oh, yes, that's right, dropping its speed by 5cm and 1D6 when on AAF (so 5cm normal and 8.5cm off total AAF on average). That's got to be worth at least 5 pts. At the very least. So 195 pts is a conservative estimate. So when I said that 210 pts cost was being conservative I was being really conservative. Perhaps I should not ever be conservative, since people tend to cost things more than what I list it as being worth just on some sort of general principle. Cost creep.

[Sigoroth]

Oh, and a note on the Inferno against Eldar. You mention that this ship has the benefit of going abeam. Firstly, both the competing alternatives against an Eldar fleet (Carnage/Dev) also go abeam. Secondly, and more importantly, going abeam grants no extra defence against an Eldar fleet. Eldar always count their targets as closing. Lastly, I think reducing the weapon ranges back down to 45cm would help limit any "brokeness".

[Sigoroth]

Oh, and on the modelling side of things, it is this variance between players which stems from a misrepresented picture (I hold that the Slaughter is the wrong one, others hold that the Dev is the wrong one) that makes me think that you shouldn't do a triple "Slaughter" broadside. For example, if I were to try to model it I would be using 2 WB decks and 1 lance deck. In this case that lance deck would be worth 3 lances ...

[lastspartacus]

Lets talk about the Slaughter based heavy cruisers and their speed...

[horizon]

Hi Nate,

1. By intention from the original designers, the Devastation at 190 points is the bottom price for a Chaos carrier. Justifying the price is why the Devastation has the clunky 2x60cm lance broadside. I own 4 and have already learned how to play with as well as against it so the profile doesn’t bother me, but I HATE modeling it: I use the metal Vengeance Chaos lance bits and use two turrets each side to make it very distinctive form the Slaughter, which also nicely fits the fluff since it’s supposed to be a later (circa M35) cruiser design. I don’t want to change the 190-point price floor as a fundamental tenet of the Chaos fleet so whatever we do to the Inferno, it can’t be cheaper than 190 points. THIS means we can’t simply make it a Murder-carrier, because the end result will be either overpriced as a model at 190 points or too cheap for the Chaos fleet as a whole if valued below 190 points.

Devestation modelling: actually the problem would be fixed if the lances were directly plugged into the hull like the Acheron. The deck is more of a battery/lance combination really (see Slaughter).

2. My attempt at making the Inferno a <<<zip>>>  your next comments…

Odd philosophy. We are not trying to fill gaps in fleets are we?

Having said this, tweaking the Dev is one of the most needed changes. The problem is up-creep, something you, Horizon and several others have remarked upon at length here on the SG forum. Fans are really quick to complain that a profile is overpriced or not strong enough, but OMG let one of the HA’s even SUGGEST a profile might be a tad too strong or underpriced, and the sulfurous, twisted gates of hades itself blow wide open…

In case of the Devestation I think there will be a general acceptance to lowering the lance range.

Devastation: lance range dropped to 45cm. (Not a part of this document, but I feel it's necessary and at the very least ships should be balanced against a 45cm broadside Dev rather than against a 60cm one, so it should be kept in mind when considering costs and capabilities of other ships.)

You already know my thoughts on this. Agreed to an extent, but there are much bigger fish to fry at the moment.

To be honest I think it is a bigger fish to fry the Devestation then add new classes to Chaos. More means more to think about when balancing fleets. And to be honest: Chaos is not in need of new ships. Yes, it is fun to have more but not needed by a longshot.

I am still advocating a change of Powers of Chaos pt2:

* Adding Barges/Battleships for the major Chaos powers (Adding Black Legion is okay).
* Adding specific God powers in addition to Nurgle.

No new heavy cruisers, cruisers or alike.

Sorry about your hard work.... but keep that stuff for other pdf's, or add them (well tested) into an update of Armada/rulebook.
Add new profiles through Warp Rift or so.

[lastspartacus]

I have mixed feelings about chaos cruisers, say, the Devastation.

Chaos' whole thing, as we all know, is cheap and powerful ships, with no bells and whistles like Imperials have.
Chaos seems super OP compared to imperials, but all the little factors involved combine in fleet actions to make it pretty even.  I'm actually pretty scared of my friend's imperials.

So I have mixed feelings about the Devastation.  The whole point of it is to of course be super cheap for what it does.  But too cheap?  Thats the question.  Even for chaos, as much as I hate to admit it, it may come close.

[Sigoroth]

Devestation modelling: actually the problem would be fixed if the lances were directly plugged into the hull like the Acheron. The deck is more of a battery/lance combination really (see Slaughter).

A couple of problems here. The Acheron and Desolator both have their lances plugged directly in to the deck and they are understrengthed. So doing this with the Dev makes the Dev an odd duck. If you leave it as pictured and yet still consider its lance deck to be a combined deck as per the Slaughter picture then it would be also be an odd duck. So if you change it or leave it the same it's odd. On the other hand, if you consider the Slaughter to be the one pictured incorrectly (instead of the Dev) then you could simply call the 'combined' deck a lance deck. Then the Acheron and Desolator fall into their own category and a Slaughter would be made by using a WB deck and a lance deck. As for the lance deck having only one 'lance' and lots of smaller guns, well lances are actually described as lance batteries, so they could just as easily be batteries of smaller lance type weaponry. They look different to the WB guns anyway.

There is also the problem of looks. The Slaughter as pictured looks crap. However, giving it a lance deck and a WB deck looks good. The Dev with a lance deck and launch bays looks good. The Dev with guns plugged in to the hull and launch bays looks crap. Also, if you go by the combined deck idea then if you had a WB deck and a combined deck you'd have a very weird profile. 6WB@45cmL+R, 4WB@30cmL+R & 1L@30cmL+R. Very odd. The Dev as pictured would be 4AC+4WB@30cmL+R+1L@30cmL+R. Odd.

[horizon]

So.... you you're saying they did not work together on layout & profile.

[Sigoroth]

So.... you you're saying they did not work together on layout & profile.

Right and it's confusing as hell. I think that my rationalisation is the one with the least discrepancies, and the result looks the best but different people could easily rationalise differently. Therefore I'm uneasy with the triple lance deck equalling 1.5 times a Slaughter. If there were 4 hardpoints and it were really just a double Slaughter broadside then for those that construct them differently like me they could just have 2 WB and 2 Lance hardpoints and it wouldn't really matter. But this odd number stuffs it up.

[flybywire-E2C]

Oh, and a note on the Inferno against Eldar. You mention that this ship has the benefit of going abeam. Firstly, both the competing alternatives against an Eldar fleet (Carnage/Dev) also go abeam. Secondly, and more importantly, going abeam grants no extra defence against an Eldar fleet. Eldar always count their targets as closing. Lastly, I think reducing the weapon ranges back down to 45cm would help limit any "brokeness".

Hi Sig! This didn't refer to Eldar shooting, this referred to Eldar BEING shot at with 60cm guns! The genius of the Devastation is that it has launch bays, 60cm lances and 30cm guns, making it hideously cheap for the power it brings against any other fleet but junk against Eldar. the Carnage is the exact opposite: for 180 points you get a no-limit cruiser fat with 60cm batteries, the perfect Eldar poison. How does Eldar compensate? Brilliant ordnance. Now Chaos has a choice: take only Carnages at the expense of being spanked by Eldar bombers, or take Devastations to counter their ordnance even though Devastations are otherwise junk against Eldar. A smart Chaos player is forced to take a mix of ships, and hence we get balance! Yin and yang is preserved, and we get a vivid example of how fleet balance is a much larger and more subtle issue than individual ship balance, point values for weapon fit, etc. A REALLY smart Chaos player may elect an even subtler mix of ships, but you get my point.

The tweaks I applied to the Pillager broke this balance. Now a Chaos player can take Caranges and Pillagers against an Eldar fleet, giving a fleet lots of ordnance AND a bunch of 60cm guns. This is diametrically opposed to the design intent of the current Chaos fleet list, which is why the Pillager is no good as I tweaked it. 45cm guns is a good fix for this. Making it a Murder-cruiser is a better fix, because once again it turns this into a cruiser that is good for lots of things but not necessarily against Eldar. Incidentally, this would make the Pillager a good carrier to take against an all-NC fleet, a task Devastations don't do too well. Leaving it with 3 turrets would also make it easy to stay 190 points, but I will expound on this separately.

- Nate

[flybywire-E2C]

Nate:

There are 3 points I think that keep us talking at cross purposes. One is the floor price for a carrier. Apparently a designer originally came up with 190 as a minimum for a Chaos carrier. I don't think that this is a relevant argument. I again put forth my standard counter argument "who cares what a nerdy pom thought over a decade ago?". The Inferno needs to be balanced to be viable and also needs to be different enough from a Dev in order for it to add to the Chaos fleet. This latter point also increases a ship's viability by virtue of disguising any imbalances. Two ships that are near identical are easier to compare. Therefore imbalances become easy to detect. So, if we're going to hobble this ship due to some random thought some pom had years ago which was made under a different set of circumstances, then there's no point in even bothering to include it at all.

I care what they think because their reasoning involves more than an arbitrary number. It was decided long ago that only Orks will have a full carrier for 185 points. That’s why the Tau Hero at 180 points only has 2 launch bays, why the Defiant only has 2 launch bays, and why the Devastation has a quirky weapons fit but is 190 points. 185 points was the arbitrary limit placed on point values for several scenarios to make sure only Orks could bring a real carrier to those scenarios. While it may not be very many, changing this “floor” point value would affect purpose-driven scenario point limits, it would affect point costs assigned to a number of cruisers (Lunar, Gothic, Carnage, Hero, etc. are all cost-assigned based on not having to face off against a real carrier in scenario-driven duels).  In other words, a Chaos carrier will NEVER cost less than 190 points.

The second point is one of Chaos capabilities. You seem to think that they're completely incapable of doing anything. Even if you subscribe to the idea that they cannot scratch-build a ship from the hull up (which I don't necessarily) then there's still no reason to suggest that they can't refit their ships. Hell, they have a refit table, so it's implied that they can. They can repair ships as well, this must happen somewhere. Creating heavy cruisers doesn't even seem that daunting a task. For example, if you took one Slaughter, grabbed some operational long range lances (such as from a salvaged Hades, etc) and added them together, then we have a refit ship that becomes a new class. Voilà. Energy drawn engines to power the lances. Easy. To do something similar to a Dev to make a Hecate would be harder, but not so hard that it's impossible.

Chaos is most certainly capable of building stuff- they made the Planet Killer! They also are most certainly capable of refitting ships and actually are quite better at it than Imperials are, precisely because their dark Mechanicus hereteks don’t have anywhere near the reverence for technology (and correspondingly slower build and modification times) the AM does. They have plenty of hulks to salvage from, and they are happy to steal technology from xenos ships and decommissioned warships they board during their forays out the Eye, something the AM will only do reluctantly or under the duress of war because many older ship designs are considered tainted.

 How is this accounted for in Battlefleet Gothic? Simple. Any given Imperial Navy fleet has at its disposal dozens of forge worlds, whereas Chaos has exactly two- Baji IV near the Eye and Ghalmek in the Maelstrom. With only these two forge worlds and vastly inferior resources, Chaos manages to earn as many refits in a given campaign as their Imperial counterparts.

Creating heavy cruisers out of cruisers is certainly not terribly daunting, especially for Chaos, as they have all the parts they need from the cruisers they have, hulks they salvage, etc. Of course, making these kinds of changes is not simply a matter of bolting on huge turrets, plugging them up to the grid and finding more cultists to make it work. Every ship has an energy budget, and cruisers have a smaller energy budget than heavy cruisers do (Carnages were notorious for problems keeping all their 60cm batteries up and running). A ship with lots of weapons has to find space for the crew, the ammo and the power for it all. More guns actually means more guns, more crew and more ammo/power. It’s a lot of holes to cut into the hull besides simply bolting turrets to where the antenna masts used to go.

Can it be done and justified with fluff? Yes. Making these official canon in BFG is another matter entirely. I am not averse to the idea, as the Cerberus and Hecate indicate, but the HA’s aren’t going to go carte-blanche and say “yeah, sure” because the last thing we want is for a whole slew of semi-official Chaos HC’s out there based on misquoted intentions by the HA’s. It’s a lot easier to simply say they were stolen vessels, which makes perfect sense- most of the ships Chaos has at its disposal were ships either boarded and taken during various forays or just went renegade outright. Does this mean Chaos can’t use house ships? Of course not- The Nemesis fleet list is full of fun Chaos super-battleships, light cruisers, etc. However, we’re not making them official, and we’re not altering fluff to open the door for it.

This is the minimum ability of Chaos. You could make the argument that it's not impossible for them to scratch-build ships, though this would probably not be a common occurrence. They must have some sort of dockyards to repair and refit ships, and they did make the Planet Killer after all. I would also argue that the less control they have over being able to scratch-build whatever ship class they desire then the more they would try to refit their ships. Also, being Chaos, one would expect a higher than usual number of refits anyway.

Agreed, for all the reasons I indicated before. With just two forge worlds, Chaos can keep up with all the Imperium, though granted Chaos as a whole has far less ships than the Imperium does. They can even duplicate hulls, which is why Acherons are no longer treated as one-off ships. For all the reasons I said, the HA’s are not making this door any wider than it already is. House rules and vessels opponents allow to be fielded is an entirely different story from what the HA’s deem official. That’s why we have to be so careful making sure these ships are exactly right before we give them the nod. In the end, if we can’t get the Pillager and the other ships balanced out just right, they will just go away instead.

The last point where we seem to be at odds is one of balance. This is in reference to Cerberus costs. Just a note, I don't use the Smotherman formula. I think it fails to account for a number of things. OK, let's start by looking at the Slaughter, Carnage and Murder. All balanced ships yes? I don't see people taking all of one type often, and when they do they're not all that effective, or at least not any more effective than a mixed fleet. I myself like Slaughters, but prefer Carnages to Murders. Others prefer Murders. Now, is the Hades overpowered? I don't think so. Point for point they've got the greatest weight of fire at 60cm of any Chaos cruiser and yet people don't even max out on them. I've seen many a fleet full of just cruisers.

Who says we disagree on the Cerberus cost? I KNOW it’s overpriced in the draft. I just believe 210 is too cheap for it- this ship has FAR more firepower over a Hades for just +10 points, regardless of whether or not it doesn’t have 60cm weapons.

A Hades is simply a Murder with +2L@60cmLFR dorsal and given CB status for 30 pts. So, if you agree that the Murder, Carnage and Slaughter are not OP, and agree that a Hades is likewise not overpowered then you must agree that a heavy cruiser variant of either the Carnage or Slaughter given identical modifications would also not be overpowered.

Not exactly. The Murder is a reasonable cruiser so the Hades is a logical evolution. The Carnage and Slaughter are opposite extreme ends of the pendulum. The Carnage is the ONLY cruiser (not BC. HC, etc.) in the game with 60cm batteries, and its own fluff states how problematic these weapons were. For fluff, trying to graft dorsal lances on this boat would make an already difficult situation worse. From solely a rules standpoint, the HC Carnage becomes a 60cm monstrosity that in terms of 60cm firepower is almost as good as a Retribution battleship! The Slaughter is the exact opposite: no range at all, but up close this ship has absolutely brutal firepower, and its speed means it can get that firepower wherever it wants to. The excuse for this is the Scartix Coil, which is fine, but there aren’t “better” Scartix Coils out there so if we graft dorsal weapons/more crew onto a ship already cramped with its unusually dense weapon fit, it pays for it by shifting available power from its engines to its improved weapons.

So, a Slaughter variant CB with just the dorsal lances added would cost 195 pts. Now, you want to pump up the range on the WBs by 15cm and drop the range on the dorsal lances by 15cm. This is a practically identical trade-off value. At great than 30cm range those 2 lances are worth more than the 8WBs, but the extra range on the WBs gain some (very) limited utility due to the offside increase. So, at worst, that's +5 pts, putting us at 200 pts. Now, what else are you doing to it? Oh, yes, that's right, dropping its speed by 5cm and 1D6 when on AAF (so 5cm normal and 8.5cm off total AAF on average). That's got to be worth at least 5 pts. At the very least. So 195 pts is a conservative estimate. So when I said that 210 pts cost was being conservative I was being really conservative. Perhaps I should not ever be conservative, since people tend to cost things more than what I list it as being worth just on some sort of general principle. Cost creep.

Cost creep is a far more forgivable offense than profile creep, which is a much bigger problem today. Forget about what this or that weapon is worth and look at how this ship behaves in play-test. At your proposed cost, for five extra points I have a ship that would smash an Acheron flat. This is why I hate the Smotherman formula. 60cm weapons shouldn't have a given point cost because 60cm weapons mean different things to different fleets. Chaos plays best as a beam-on fleet using maneuverability to hold open the range so an all-30cm ship should be cheap because it doesn't play to this. Conversely, a 60cm-battery Imperial cruiser should be much more expensive tha a corresponding Chaos cruiser because it gives the Imperials a sniper ability their fleet isn't really supposed to have. This is why the Overlord (and to a lesser extent the Tyrant) has a price outsize with the actual firepower it can deliver, which is why so many people consider it overpriced junk. It's all a matter of tactics and what a given player prefers.

Where am I going with all this? Remember that when the game was created, the Smotherman formula simply didn’t exist. Point costs were based not just on ship weapon fits but how the ship behaved in the fleet, and how the fleet behaves when using the ships in it. Keeping this in mind, assume for a second that a Slaughter is purposely underpriced because it doesn’t behave well with the rest of a Chaos fleet and work your point costs from there.

-   Nate

[lastspartacus]

Slaughter HC not 30cm...Slaughter HC not 30cm...

[Sigoroth]

I care what they think because their reasoning involves more than an arbitrary number. It was decided long ago that only Orks will have a full carrier for 185 points. That’s why the Tau Hero at 180 points only has 2 launch bays, why the Defiant only has 2 launch bays, and why the Devastation has a quirky weapons fit but is 190 points. 185 points was the arbitrary limit placed on point values for several scenarios to make sure only Orks could bring a real carrier to those scenarios. While it may not be very many, changing this “floor” point value would affect purpose-driven scenario point limits, it would affect point costs assigned to a number of cruisers (Lunar, Gothic, Carnage, Hero, etc. are all cost-assigned based on not having to face off against a real carrier in scenario-driven duels).  In other words, a Chaos carrier will NEVER cost less than 190 points.

Gah! You're using a arbitrary value that is only used in 1 scenario which is so basic that most people don't even bother playing it and when they do they don't even care about the 185 pt limitation! I know I certainly couldn't give a rats arse about it. Hell, if you're really worried about it simply change the scenario to include no ships with 4 or more AC. Sorted. Screw artificial points limitations based on 1 very iffy scenario that could be worded differently!

Can it be done and justified with fluff? Yes. Making these official canon in BFG is another matter entirely. I am not averse to the idea, as the Cerberus and Hecate indicate, but the HA’s aren’t going to go carte-blanche and say “yeah, sure” because the last thing we want is for a whole slew of semi-official Chaos HC’s out there based on misquoted intentions by the HA’s. It’s a lot easier to simply say they were stolen vessels, which makes perfect sense- most of the ships Chaos has at its disposal were ships either boarded and taken during various forays or just went renegade outright. Does this mean Chaos can’t use house ships? Of course not- The Nemesis fleet list is full of fun Chaos super-battleships, light cruisers, etc. However, we’re not making them official, and we’re not altering fluff to open the door for it.

Well as far as I'm concerned that particular cat is already out of the bag with the advent of the PK. We have already established that Chaos has the inclination to create new ship classes and the ability. As for house rules, sure, people are going to make their own ships for casual play either which way, that's part of the attraction of BFG. However, it is ridiculous to suggest that all ships have to have some sort of IN fluff background. The Hecate in particular should really come from a Chaos background. The original fluff for the ship was not only apt but also sensible. It makes sense that Chaos Warmasters and Captains would want a carrier that could run without support for extended periods. This ship is the most warranted of all Chaos potential upgrades. It had good fluff, it fit, it made sense, it satisfies a need in fluff for Chaos to do something off their own bat and it makes sense as a refit Dev or Inferno (or Massacre or whatever it's going to be called).

Who says we disagree on the Cerberus cost? I KNOW it’s overpriced in the draft. I just believe 210 is too cheap for it- this ship has FAR more firepower over a Hades for just +10 points, regardless of whether or not it doesn’t have 60cm weapons.

"Who says?" Er, you do. I say it's worth 195 pts, you say that's too cheap. The Slaughter has far more firepower than a Murder and costs 5 pts less. Yet the Murder isn't considered underpowered (by the general community).

Not exactly. The Murder is a reasonable cruiser so the Hades is a logical evolution. The Carnage and Slaughter are opposite extreme ends of the pendulum. The Carnage is the ONLY cruiser (not BC. HC, etc.) in the game with 60cm batteries, and its own fluff states how problematic these weapons were. For fluff, trying to graft dorsal lances on this boat would make an already difficult situation worse. From solely a rules standpoint, the HC Carnage becomes a 60cm monstrosity that in terms of 60cm firepower is almost as good as a Retribution battleship! The Slaughter is the exact opposite: no range at all, but up close this ship has absolutely brutal firepower, and its speed means it can get that firepower wherever it wants to. The excuse for this is the Scartix Coil, which is fine, but there aren’t “better” Scartix Coils out there so if we graft dorsal weapons/more crew onto a ship already cramped with its unusually dense weapon fit, it pays for it by shifting available power from its engines to its improved weapons.

If you want to use fluff justifications to not produce a Carnage CB then that's up to you. I posited one earlier that was actually weaker than a normal CB, because it only had 6WB at 60cm added to the dorsal instead of 2 lances. Still kept its cost at 210 pts, same as what it would be with the lances (this was the Charon class). I don't think that's OP, I don't see any real reason why Chaos couldn't have it (it comparing favourably to a Retribution isn't a reason not to allow it btw), but fine, we're not doing a CB Carnage due to fluff. OK.

Now the Cerberus is supposed to be simply a Slaughter with the fluff justification of redirecting power from engines to power the extra weaponry, etc. Fine. I won't even question why the Murder is able to upgrade to the Hades without compromise. However, since people currently have the option to purchase the Slaughter at 5 pts less than a Murder, and yet they still buy the Murder, then I do not see for one moment why the exact same would not be true regarding a CB Slaughter and a Hades. If you just added 60cm dorsal lances to a Slaughter, whacked a CB badge on the front and increased it to 195 pts it would be an identical dilemma as we currently have. Hades vs Cerberus, Murder vs Slaughter. Identical. If one comparison is not imba, then why is the other?

As it stands however, we're not just chucking some 60cm lances on the Slaughter and whacking a CB badge on the front. We're using only 45cm lances, which decreases fleet support capability, so therefore is an actual significant loss, and increasing broadside WB ranges to 45cm. This is a reasonable gain, though not as much as the lance range is a loss unless you can engage the off-side firepower also in that same range band (30-45cm), which is unlikely. But let's call it parity. Hell, let's fudge upwards 5 pts. After all, 5 pts won't break the ship. So it's the same price as the Hades. Now we're losing the speed. Well that is the whole lynchpin of the Slaughter. Without the 30cm range it would suck right royally. Not so debilitating in this ship, since it can engage at 45cm (for which an Acheron does better mind you, and with extra defence against AC) but still debilitating enough, since half its guns are at 30cm range.

But let's call this loss just another "oh well" and chalk it up to yet more fudge factor. After all, don't want to make broken ships now do we? So we're left with 200 pts. Same as a Hades. Slightly more total firepower (2 broadside 30cm lances instead of 2 broadside 45cm WBs) and more focus (prow weaponry can combine with side). However, it loses 15cm range on its dorsal guns and 30cm range on its prow guns. Surely this is not OP at 200 pts!? And you think that it might be too cheap at 210?

Cost creep is a far more forgivable offense than profile creep, which is a much bigger problem today.

I could not disagree more. It is beyond words just how wrong this is. Cost creep contributes to the destruction of the game. Cost creep contributes to the disparity between good ships and poor ships, such that eventually the poor ships are just not taken at all, limiting the true selection of players fleets to those few balanced ships. Mind you, they were originally balanced, but as more and more ships enter play with greater and greater cost creep these ships are likely to be considered cheesy instead. Worse, since cost creep does not stop people from using those ships as precedents they tend to value other ships by those standards and add yet more fudge factors and therefore spiral cost creep upwards further and faster to such a point that a new fleet will likely consist of nothing but overpriced junk and end up crap against original ships from original fleets. Cost creep has to be avoided.

On the other hand there is a hard limit to what we can see with profile creep. The most we will see on any ship is 6WB or 2L per hardpoint with 3L dorsal and 6WB prow, all at 60cm. This is because this is simply the best precedent we have for any of those hardpoints at the moment. So if you took the best of everything you'd have a BB with 6L@60cmL+R, 3L@60cmLFR and 6WB@60cmLFR. That's as good as it gets. Since most people that proposed such a monstrosity would be quickly shouted down, we don't really need to worry about profile creep.

Forget about what this or that weapon is worth and look at how this ship behaves in play-test. At your proposed cost, for five extra points I have a ship that would smash an Acheron flat. This is why I hate the Smotherman formula. 60cm weapons shouldn't have a given point cost because 60cm weapons mean different things to different fleets. Chaos plays best as a beam-on fleet using maneuverability to hold open the range so an all-30cm ship should be cheap because it doesn't play to this. Conversely, a 60cm-battery Imperial cruiser should be much more expensive tha a corresponding Chaos cruiser because it gives the Imperials a sniper ability their fleet isn't really supposed to have. This is why the Overlord (and to a lesser extent the Tyrant) has a price outsize with the actual firepower it can deliver, which is why so many people consider it overpriced junk. It's all a matter of tactics and what a given player prefers.

Um, in the 30cm range band the Slaughter squashes the Acheron flat, and yet it's faster and cheaper. In the 45cm range band the Acheron still beats out the Cerberus, despite the Cerberus having the most weaponry of any Chaos cruiser or heavy cruiser. And it's cheaper and has better protection against AC (and the same speed).

Also, please remember I don't use the Smotherman formula. I am going by relativistic worth, not some formula. You may find its application similar to that of a formula, but that's just because this is a very simplistic problem. There's really not that many ways to apply it.

Where am I going with all this? Remember that when the game was created, the Smotherman formula simply didn’t exist. Point costs were based not just on ship weapon fits but how the ship behaved in the fleet, and how the fleet behaves when using the ships in it. Keeping this in mind, assume for a second that a Slaughter is purposely underpriced because it doesn’t behave well with the rest of a Chaos fleet and work your point costs from there.

Alright, how about trying this on for size. Let's take an example of a CB Slaughter that has simply got 2 60cm lances added to the dorsal for no other alteration whatsoever. Would you price that ship at 195 pts (165+30)? I have a suspicion that you would not, due to ideas you hold about how much weaponry a ship can have, etc.

Let's say you price it at 210 pts. I'm making an assumption here, but let's let it run for now. In this scenario, when I talk about the Cerberus I'm talking about the 210 pt Slaughter CB with 2 dorsal 60cm LFR lances and no other changes. OK, so now here I go, as a reasonable Chaos commander, putting together my fleet. Now, I take a Dev, I take a Carnage, I take a Murder and I take .... a Cerberus! OK? With me so far? Just a selection of ships, neither being too beardy nor munchkinish. Now, on another occasion I decide to take a Dev, a Carnage, a Slaughter and a Hades. Also not beardy or munchkinish. Hmm. Wait on. This fleet has exactly the same firepower, hits and speed as my last one, and plays in an identical manner and yet costs 15 pts more! Why is this? If I really had to choose between the two fleets I'd say the Hades fleet was stronger, since the Cerberus suffers from eggs in one basket syndrome, making it a prime target. And yet the Hades fleet is 15 pts cheaper.

The reason why this comparison is so easy to make is because, for the most part, it doesn't matter upon which ship in the fleet the extra 2 lances are attached. This is because lances are not effected by aspect, range modifiers or BMs. They simply add to the overall weight of fire of the fleet linearly. So yes, adding 2 lances to a Murder and calling it a CB is identical to adding 2 lances to a Slaughter and calling it a CB, etc.


This is a slight generalisation of course. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of it you could say that those lances are less valuable on a carrier, as it's more likely to RO than LO and also because it might decide to stay completely out of range while launching its ordnance where the fleets gunships might close (not a terribly bright stratagem, but hey). By the same token, those lances would not be so fantastic on a ship which might have to AAF to get into range, such as the Slaughter.

So, if you've followed my reasoning so far the inescapable conclusion is that a Slaughter CB with just the dorsal lance modification would have to be worth no more than 195 pts. Otherwise you could simply upgrade your Murders to Hades instead of upgrading your Slaughters. Therefore if you still think that the Cerberus profile you've listed is worth even 210 pts then you must be of the opinion that the extra 15cm range on the 8 broadside weapon batteries is worth significantly more than the loss of base and AAF speed as well as the loss of 15cm range on the dorsal lances. In which case I'd like to know how you come to this conclusion.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Haven't read the entirety of the thread on the proposed ships and just awhile ago did I finally manage to study the Chaos cruisers. I used Smotherman formula to see if the ships approximated their points and here's what I noticed:

1. Cerebrus is way overpriced. By 45 points if we go by Smotherman without fudging. Lower the price as Sigoroth says.
2. Hecate is undercosted by 7 so I guess some fudging in there. Probably just add 5-10 more points.
3. Inferno is way underpriced by 31 points. I was rather surprised at this and went to have a look at the Devastation and I found out it was underpriced by 29. I haden't checked the numbers before. The Murder, Carnage and Slaughter (if I add 5 points for AAF enhancement) are within 5 points so I do believe the formula works. So I agree the Dev needs to have the price recalibrated or the weapons fixed as with the Inferno.
4. Of the Chaos battleships, Vengeful Spirit is overpriced by 21. Needs to be lowered.
5. Conqueror are overpriced 19.5 points. Here I added the cost of the Chaos Lord, CSM crew, Terminators and Mark of Khorne. Needs to be lowered or add better weapons.
6. Wages of Sin is underpriced by 14.5. Here I added the cost of the Chaos Lord, CSM crew, Terminators and Mark of Slaanesh. Price needs to be upped.
7. City of Light within 5 points of the cost. Here I added the cost of the Chaos Lord, Terminators and Mark of Khorne. Surprisingly no CSM crew.
8. Terminus Est are within 5 points of the cost so I they're ok. Here I added the cost of the Mark of Nurgle. No Chaos Lord, CSM crew or Terminator though the rules allow one to add them.

Now Smotherman is not an official formula nor can it be said to be perfect but it is useable and the points do come to within 5 points in most cases except when there are glaring over or underpointing.

The ship that jumped out at me was the Inferno though. Almost Retribution broadside firepower on a mere cruiser. Definitely wins out vs the Overlord. Ha!