Inquisition DRAFT v1.5 (HA)

[Gron]

I'm both surprised and disappointed in the general hatred against this new project. It seems to be everyone's consensus that this great game will eventually share the same fate as the other games published by SG. Personally I applause the very effort of adding something new and official to this game. The fluff is excellent work. The only thing I really missed is the lack of GK terminators (didn't see them at all). Fluffwise they are the very essence of the Grey Knights as GK-power armour (those I hate) didn't even exist before the Daemonhunter codex was introduced a few years ago. I would be more than happy to cough up +50pts on a GK strike cruiser to have a terminator boarding party on it.

[RCgothic]

It's not that we don't want Inquisition vessels, it's that we think it could be done better.

Inquisitors commandeer the ships they require, they don't have dedicated vessels. I agree that black ships don't strike awe because of their offensive power, but because of what they represent. I don't see why they would need Torpedoes though. A moderate weapons battery for defense, yes. Lances and torps no.

[BaronIveagh]

It doesn't seem very fluffy.  Inquisitors usually requisition IN, they don't keep huge fleets of thier own. 

[fracas]

one ship hardly constitute a huge fleet


i see them as needing mobile bases to do their work

[RCgothic]

Which will more often than not be a modified civilian vessel. You don't need a fleet to hunt heretics and xenos sympathisers in the underhive. The closest inquisitors come to a permanent warship is an alliance with a rogue trader.

Inquisitors as characters you can take for your ship I'm all for. Black Ships would also make a nice appearance. But they are well-defended superheavy transports, not warships, feared more for the threat of being taken by them than the vessel itself.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Why would they need mobile bases and why wouldn't a black ship be enough?

[fracas]

that's what the HA did
took an IN ship, modified it for more defensive and less offensive

they just happened to mistakenly called it a black ship and now everyone is in a tizzie

[lastspartacus]

I'll admit, I've warmed up to the idea this fourth read-through.  There are white blood cells on this forum that attack foreign invaders blindly, I can be one of them

I do find it flavorful to have an option of an inquisition requisitioned task force, as they can sometimes lead whole crusades.
And yes, they will have their own, rare, ships.

Just a few tweaks I think need to be made is all.  One actually is 6+ all around for the black ship.  More to come.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Rare ships yes. Rare Escort sized, definitely. Rare light cruisers, I can see that. Rare cruiser sized, probably the best it can get. Rare battleships (and really, the Black Ship is a battleship no matter how Nate says it is not), I don't think so. The IN needs all the battleship sized and armed vessels it needs. Even though the proposed Black Ship  has less weapons than a Retribution, it has enough survivability that it could go toe to toe with just about any common battleship available in the game. No one would just want to board it since it has +2 Boarding Modifier and 12 HP and 5 turrets. Because of the turrets, ABs or Bombers would have a tough time against it. Even torp attacks might be questionable. Shields can take a lot of punishment as well. The Black Ship can just charge headlong into enemy fire with ships trailing behind it and give the opponent a hard choice of what to take out first.

For what it provides, I might even just take it over the Retribution. It doesn't have to worry about cruiser requirements as I can just take it in any list. It's a battleship which takes the slot of a battlecruiser so I guess I can use it to get another battleship if I understand correctly. So Dauntless (110)+Dauntless (110)+Black Ship (350)+Emperor (365)= 935 points. 50 points for Fleet Admiral since I don't need an Inquisitor Lord comes out to 985 points. Becomes even more flexible at 1,500 points.

Isn't this quite over? While I'm an IN player, I do think IN getting quite a lot of goodies is already getting to be too much. If the HA really wants to make this official, hey I won't mind. I still have a leftover Retribution battleship hull which I can use to make into the Black Ship.

[Sigoroth]

When it comes to Inquisitors and black ships I would much rather see an article detailing the types of nefarious plots that Inquisitors get up to and how this might impact space (ie, huge political impact, very very minimal game impact). This article could include some various escort sized Inquisitor boats (requisitioned civilian ships) and some sub-plots and/or scenarios.

A scenario involving a black ship could be on the cards too. I still believe that black ships would only be transports however. Sure, it might be a treasure ship, but just how many psykers do you expect would be on board at any one time? 10,000? Well a heavy transport would be able to accommodate that many. A blackship the size of a battleship I'd expect to transport a more like 100,000 at least. Why so many on the one ship? The travel time collecting so many psykers would be 10 times as long as if you just had 10 heavy transports each going off on their own routes.

Also, the more psykers the greater the chance that Chaos can find and destroy them (from within or without) also the greater the risk of losing the ship in the warp. With a 10 times longer route this seems more likely. Doesn't seem terribly efficient to me. These ships aren't designed to run the gauntlet or survive an enemy ambush. They're cargo haulers.

[BaronIveagh]

When it comes to Inquisitors and black ships I would much rather see an article detailing the types of nefarious plots that Inquisitors get up to and how this might impact space (ie, huge political impact, very very minimal game impact). This article could include some various escort sized Inquisitor boats (requisitioned civilian ships) and some sub-plots and/or scenarios.

A scenario involving a black ship could be on the cards too. I still believe that black ships would only be transports however. Sure, it might be a treasure ship, but just how many psykers do you expect would be on board at any one time? 10,000? Well a heavy transport would be able to accommodate that many. A blackship the size of a battleship I'd expect to transport a more like 100,000 at least. Why so many on the one ship? The travel time collecting so many psykers would be 10 times as long as if you just had 10 heavy transports each going off on their own routes.

Also, the more psykers the greater the chance that Chaos can find and destroy them (from within or without) also the greater the risk of losing the ship in the warp. With a 10 times longer route this seems more likely. Doesn't seem terribly efficient to me. These ships aren't designed to run the gauntlet or survive an enemy ambush. They're cargo haulers.

I'll give you a really good reason that a black ship is not a battleship.  What happens when something goes wrong and those 100,000 psykers escape?  Would you really want them to have a battleship, on top everything else?  Besides, that black ship that was in the SoB story from BL was a lot smaller then this...

[lastspartacus]

I can see why its battleship sized.  Maybe there are only 10,000 psykers on board.  But I suspect we are talking about alot of high level psykers, and we know the Imperium's outlook towards them.  I suspect whole segments of deck could be taken up by one holding facility of a high level psyker.
Lots of hull mass being dedicated to isolation, seperation, sororitas barracks, checkpoints, dampening fields, etc.  A super prison, with all dedicated to keeping those that are in, in, and keeping those that are out, out.
If there are only a handful of these in the galaxy, I can see them existing.  As to risking warp loss, it would be a tragedy to lose it, but from the fluff it seems these things are practically bombarded with holy wards and obviously a super gellar field they won't enter warp without.

Its supposed to be a fortress.  Ok.  But I'm thinking, isnt a normal battleship brimming with as much defenses as can be had?
Well you can say, there are only a handful of these ships, and yes, they are entirely impractical for cost/benefit but they have a very special purpose.
Alright, but I do have issue then with them spending power on battleship range weapons.  Their escort fleet should do most of the heavy lifting.

I say, keep the defensive stats as is, even make it 6+ all around.  But no more than cruiser level firepower, battlecruiser at the MOST.
And nothing above 30cm.  That would be a highly specialized ship I could get behind.

[Zelnik]

Allow me to put foreword a suggestion

Replace the stats of the blackship with that of a grand cruiser. I suggest using the governor's stats for such a vessel, and increase armor to 6.

currently.. yeah sorry nate... If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and orders exterminatus like a duck, it's still a battleship, even if it's weapons are weak.

Battleship status is not a matter of weapon strength, it's a matter of stats, specifically, the 10-12 hits, 3-4 shields and turrets, cannot CTNH. 

[lastspartacus]

Totally not true.  If it doesnt have battleship weapons capability, it doesnt fulfill the role of a battleship.

But it kinda does.  So I completely advocate total 6+ armor, and not sure if it deserves a 5th shield.  But either way, no 60cm weaponry, and not quite as much.  Make an impregnable fortress, sure.  But it punches too hard right now.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Yup, looks like a battleship (12 hp, 6+/5+ armor, 20 cm speed, 5 shields, 5 turrets), quacks like a battleship (total FP16@60 cm WBs, Str 2 lances, Str 6 torps) and so it really is a battleship.