List of flawed ships

[Plaxor]

If you buy a mark on a ship with chaos space marines then every ship with chaos space marines must have this mark. Not all capital ships.

Ships in a squadron with chaos lords may choose a different mark, even if they are equipped with CSMs, but all the ships in the squadron must have the same mark.

So if you had a fleet like this:

Despoiler
Warmaster +CSMs +MoN

Styx
Chaos lord + MoK

Devestation +CSMs


Then the Devestation would have to have the MoN unless it was squadroned with the Styx, in which case it would have to have the mark of khorne.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

A battle barges role is to cut its way to a planet and land the astartes inside.  Thats why it has to be an attack carrier and why it has to be useful foe breaking a defensive line.  Please refer to the Powers of Chaos document to see some examples.

Don't need speed for that. Heavy Cruisers and Cruisers break the defenses. Despoiler and the like follow up and land Astartes.

[Plaxor]

Pthisis, you have to understand that the ship was designed before the codex, when the philosophy of SM ships became 'punch through to the planet and deploy SMs as quickly as possible'

Before that SM fleets were actually warfleets, designed to fight extended engagements.

The Powers of Chaos document is... well... rubbish.... The powers are better suited for a more supernatural fleet like Daemons (which is how they are applied here).

Notice how the hull pattern actually affects the speed of the vessels, the Terminus Est is still 20cm speed, ships which have the Desolator pattern hull have 25cm.

With that there is reason to add a fast carrier. I didn't put in a Wage of Sin type ship, but I think there is fair enough demand to put it in. RC likes the idea (I think?), and this would give you your battlebarge.

[Phthisis]

Gotcha.  Sounds good to me.

I'm going to take a stab at recosting marks and CSM just to create a starting point.

I think the CSM pricing is worse than the marks.  35pts for a +1 to boarding and H&R seems excess.  What do you think about 10 or 15 points for CSM?

MoN seems the most useful.  30pts?
MoK for 15pts?
MoS for 20pts?
MoT for 20pts?

The pre-heresy battle barge was the Despoiler.  The Despoiler, before you changed it, was a line breaking attack carrier.  So where are you getting that battle barges werent line breaking attack carriers?

[Plaxor]

What? the only difference between this profile and the previous incarnation is a loss of prow lances, and some more side firepower.

You're forgetting about the most important factor in CSMs, the +1 LD and increasing the max ld to 10. That's more valuable than the other effects.

Most people find the MoS and the MoK to be the most useful, but only on one or two ships. MoN is useful, but not that much.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

The pre-heresy battle barge was the Despoiler.  The Despoiler, before you changed it, was a line breaking attack carrier.  So where are you getting that battle barges werent line breaking attack carriers?

Pre-Heresy battle barge was one of the ships in the proposed Powers of Chaos, esp the Vengeful Spirit. Despoilers came into being in M.36 waaaaay after the Heresy happened.

[Plaxor]

So here it is:

Desecrator class battleship; (I know I'm changing the fluff.)

The Desecrator is an older design of Imperial battleship. Commonly seen as the flagship of Space Marine legions before the Heresy, many of these ships went traitor during the incident. Due to the paranoia of the Inquisition, the remainder of these ships were mostly destroyed, or otherwise disassembled and components were used elsewhere, although a few space marine chapters still use the ship as a battlebarge  today.

Type/Hits        Speed/Turns   Shields    Turrets
Battleship/12     25cm/45'          4           5

Port/Starboard Launch bays  2
Port/Stbd Lances    4@45cm
Dorsal Weapons batteries   9@60cm
Prow Torpedoes    9

Probably looking at 350-375 points. Will think more about it later.

[Phthisis]

Fluff wise, the Despoiler was rediscovered when special dispensation was granted for an explorator team to land on Barbarus, the Death Guard homeworld, and sift through the ruins for lost tech.  That happened in M36, but the ship design is pre-heresy.  Thats why venerable battle barges and the Vengeful Spirit are all very similar to the Despoiler. That dispensation was a part of the Gaerox Perogative, which was a vast exploration program in an attempt to find STC and lost tech.  This is approved cannon.  Am I the only one who knows this?

I did forget about the ld bonus.  Wht would you cost them at?

I like the Desecrator!  Get it published so I can field it!

Small profile changes can have a big effect on how a ship is used.  Before I could charge in with 7 lances front.  Now its firepower is on the side so I have to run abeam. 

[Plaxor]

Hmmm... probably all 15, maybe 20 on the MoN.

Sure, I'll publish it right now. Editing PDFs are much easier than fixing them.... now what other changes was I doing (looks back previously in the thread).

So:

Addition of Desecrator @360 points
Despoiler to 390pts
Writing in that they have boarding torps.
Changing Ordinance to Ordnance (yes... spelling...)
American English to UK English... where I can find it. Anyone see any mistakes? I imagine there are a lot of Armor/Armour mistakes.
Removal of references to Minelayers and Torp Bombers
Addition of various special rules including:
Massive, Improved Thrusters, Terminators, Elite Cadre (basically a race change, but these will be listed in the main rules. It's the part of marines that gives them boarding mod +2, and -1/+1 to hit and run attacks).

Should be it.....

[Plaxor]

MoN----> No longer says 'no boarding' instead they will be subject to the 'Hostile Environment' special rule. Meaning during a boarding action the other ship rolls 2d6 and chooses the lowest result. Ships which already roll 2d6 and choose the highest ignore this rule (such as tyranids).

[Plaxor]

Just added Traitor Fleets 1.2 to my documents.

I kinda got lazy towards the end, so I didn't fix some of the visual issues, but everything else should be good (rules wise)

Notes on special rules:

This is the first document I've begun inserting special rules into. For the time being this is what each means (that are mentioned in there)

Hostile Environment: During a boarding action the opponent rolls 2d6 and chooses the lowest for his boarding result. Ships which roll 2d6 and choose the highest (will receive a SR name later) ignore this.

Agressive: this is the name for the +1 racial boarding mod that Orks, Chaos, Dark Eldar etc receive.

Elite Cadre: this is the name for half of the Chaos space marine rules. It replaces agressive. The vessel receives +2 to its boarding modifier, and subtracts one from enemies H&R attacks while adding 1 to its own.

Accurate: Ships with this rule never suffer right shifts for range

Innaccurate: Ships with this rule never suffer left shifts for range

Improved Augers: Adds +1 to its leadership characteristic.

Improved Thrusters: +d6cm on AAF

Frenzied: Doubles boarding value.

Massive: Can't come to new heading

Terminators: Roll 2d6 on H&R attacks originating from the vessel and pick which counts.


I think that's all of them for chaos.

[Sigoroth]

@Sigroth  There are a lot of forward facing lances in the Chaos fleet.  For around 1500 points I can get 22 lances on the advance using the old despoiler stats.  15 of those are 60cm and the rest are 30cm.  There's a fair amount of side weaponry too.  Pretty good for a line breaking list, especiall if there's no need to turn and you can lock-on untill you pass through.

Yeah, you could take that list. Of course, you'd get eaten alive by any proper Chaos fleet. But if you want that you can still convert a model to maintain the old stats, like I did.

A battle barges role is to cut its way to a planet and land the astartes inside.  Thats why it has to be an attack carrier and why it has to be useful foe breaking a defensive line.  Please refer to the Powers of Chaos document to see some examples.

I refer you to the same document for an example of a piece of shit that should never see the light of day.

I'm glad you brought the upgrades and commanders up.  They always seemed pricey yo me but I took them because I wanted a fluffy list.

This is no doubt this is where the vast majority of your points are being wasted, not in the ship itself.

[Plaxor]

Well his ship just lost 45 points from its cost.

MoN is now 25pts (changed way that the boarding worked)
Despoiler 390
Warmaster (+2ld) is 75 points

[Sigoroth]

Well his ship just lost 45 points from its cost.

MoN is now 25pts (changed way that the boarding worked)
Despoiler 390
Warmaster (+2ld) is 75 points

Given that Chaos has the CSM upgrade they really need a 50 pt Warmaster option. The Gothic Chaos list came with one, so I don't see why the CSM list couldn't too. Also, just to note, I stil think the MoN is too expensive. Would you pay 100 pts to get +4 hits? No, of course not. Let's assume the boarding rule is worth 5 pts (it's not, but oh well). Would you pay 80 pts for +4 hits? No, I should think not. +1 hit is worth no more than 10-15 pts. Given that you can't abuse it by taking it multiple times on the one ship then I'm more inclined to lean towards 10 pts. This is ratified by the fact that you have pay for some sort of other upgrade before you can take it, whether that is a WM, CL, CSM crew or even making it a Daemonship.

Let's say that it was only 15 pts for the MoN. If you purchased it for every cap ship in your list at that price, would it be worth it? In a 2k pt list, would you rather +1 hit to each of 11 cruisers or an extra Slaughter? If you think that's a bit of a toss up then surely it's balanced at that price given that you don't have the option to spam it like this. It requires another option be purchased first.

[Plaxor]

Boarding on MoN is now: opponent rolls 2d6 and picks the lowest.... pretty worthwhile IMO... but you are right about the dual upgrade thing.

All other marks are 15 points.