Caestus Assault Ram

[Zelnik]

I will be honest.. I am not a huge fan of the games, mostly because I know who writes them.

so consider me biased.

[BaronIveagh]

Well, Andy Chambers wrote the parts I was referring to, so...

[horizon]

Funny enough even Andy Chambers can change his mind as well. lol.

[Zhukov]

Ok, so it's have to launch from a launch bay, is resiliant, but counts as a boarding torp for purposes of turret defense?  Would work well combined with Thawks, turrets could only shoot at one or the other but not both.

I wasn't thinking of having it count as boarding torps, but I can see that happening. No adding to the number of Launch Bays of a ship as I would assume the larger number of Cauestus's per squadron would make up for the fewer, but larger T'Hawks. And of course combining them in the same wave would be foolish in some ways since the T'Hawks go much slower. I don't think a wave of a few Caestus in this way would be overpowering at all. And it would add an interesting item to the game.

How about we don't make new rules that give an already good faction, even better stuff.

This ain't for serious FAQ level of discussion. This is just a discussion on house rules for a model that came out. That's all. I thought most people said SM's suck in everything but planetary invasion or exterminatus? I've never had that many problems with them in Deep Space.

-Zhukov

P.S. You guys read into the fluff WAY too much. These guys REALLY aren't putting that much thought into the science of this. They just hand out numbers to make something sound more official. To start arguments on "well this says they're 100 ft long" is just silly to me.

[RCgothic]

Either way, the Caestus isn't armed with anything that isn't dwarfed by the weaponry on a starhawk bomber, and there must logically be similar weapons on boarding torpedoes.

They're an assault boat, nothing more. I think:

"You may launch two Caestus squadrons for each point of Launch Bay strength"

covers it well enough. You gain numbers and speed, but lose fighters and resiliency.

[BaronIveagh]

Either way, the Caestus isn't armed with anything that isn't dwarfed by the weaponry on a starhawk bomber, and there must logically be similar weapons on boarding torpedoes.

Nope, looked it up, a boarding torp powers through on kinetic energy alone (hence it's terminal penetration being lower then other torps in BFK).

"A heavy, short ranged area-effect heat cannon, the magna-melta is designed to turn a large cubic volume of star ship hull-plating to liquid slag, and its effects on less durable targets such as battle-tanks and living matter are unsurprisingly catastrophic." rules for the assault ram's magnamelta

An aboat, according to fluff, anchors to the exterior of the hull, and drills through.  This thing blows a hole big enough for it to fly into the target.

[Zhukov]

A Starhawks payload would also make short work of any ground tank, so that's a moot point. And furthermore, in terms of this gun, it's still only shooting ONE shot, that it eventually rams into. So it's not making anywhere near the damage saturation a Starhawk can produce.

In game terms, the Caestus operates almost exactly like a boarding torp, ramming into the opponent and off-loading a small team of armed Marines that cause havoc inside a defensless ship. From everything I've seen, the Caestus looks about this size of a Fury Intercepter, which from what I understand should be smaller than a standard boarding torpedo, so therefore would have the same overall effectiveness. The Shark (or T'Hawk) lodges onto a ship, and off-loads 3-4 times the amount of Marines. So the Shark loses the element of surprise, but has the numbers to make up for it.


The Caestus is an A-boat that should attack ships like boarding torps. If you want to go crazy, you can give them 2 Caestus for every point of Launch Bay, or give it 35-40cm speed, or give it resiliency. But that's all this little guy is going to get.

-Zhukov

[Sigoroth]

Anyone else think that only Eldar should have boarding torps? Torps are much faster than ships, and when they run out of fuel then they'll be unable to turn. So those guys stuck aboard the torps are SOL if they miss their target. Hell they're SOL even if they hit, unless it's an escort, where they've got a chance of winning the boarding attempt. Eldar would be able to put gateways inside their torps to offload their men and provide escape routes. Hell, Eldar could probably instigate full scale boarding actions if enough hit.

[RCgothic]

I don't buy that boarding torps are simply kinetic penetrators. The armour on starships would make pancakes not just of the boarding torp, but its contents as well. Even drop pods have retarding engines to prevent the marines inside being crushed, whereas a kinetic penetrator would have to hit at full speed and in the majority of cases isn't carrying power armoured marines.

Similarly, though not shown in game, boarding torps must be capable of return flight (even if at lower speed), as even in 40k it makes no sense to send combat troops with valuable ship-ship skills to certain death.

[RayB HA]

Hmm, interesting...

What if they 'acted like' torp bombers but had boarding torps instead?
That way you could get a decent number through, maintain their AC movement and still behave like a Torpedo against turrets.

Also, you guys are really getting into the background of this- careful it's written by mad people so expect madness! 

Cheers,

RayB HA