ASC 2.0 Space Marines Vote

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

Here are the rules:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dqk34679tgv9719/XxTc6yU3mm/ASC%202.0

For those of you who don't know, ASC 2.0 is for use with BFG:R

[Talos]

Before we go ahead and finalize some of this, can we at least change the flavor of some of those to non-SW? Like say make one DA, one BA, one RG, etc...

That way at least we can claim to represent multiple chapters, because right now its looking mightily SW circlejerk-y. No offense.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

There is going to be a SW specific list when I get to the fleet list part of asc 2.0. Of all chapters sw have the most unique organization of forces so they don't really fall into the current sm lists. Thus all the SW love. Plus all these ships are well established in the fluff, where most other chapters dont really have any fluffy special ships. Just sm sc or bb.

[Talos]

@ Gothmog That's a fair point, but there are a few others that are well documented in other chapters:

1) Rapturous Rex, Fire Hawks Battle...thing?Station?Fortress? Even has stats in IA 11.

2) Eternal Crusader, Black Templar Battlebarge. It's as having twice the carrying capacity of a regular battlebarge, significantly increased launch bay capacity and the ability to have escorts dock with it. The ASC 2.0 could certainly include a BB with less firepower and more LB, IMO.

3) Inquisition Kill-Ships: Escort Sized Vessels capable of exterminatus, mounting very little conventional firepower but plenty of sophisticated sensors and stealth suites, alongside Deathwatch kill-teams. I suppose this one should probably have been mentioned in the IN section, but I will bring it up because DEATHWATCH.

4) [Name Unknown]: The white Scars have a escort in the Damocles Gulf Crusade armed with bombardment cannons only. I could see the design issue with allowing this escort, but still its cool. I will find out the name as soon as I can.

I will keep on digging up stuff just to be a pest.

[Vaaish]

Just curious, but how is there really much difference in chapters at the level BFG represents? I know Space Wolves have a few IN vessels at their disposal from pre-heresy/ heresy times but certainly not in quantities that would warrant more than VBB inclusion which, incidentally, all of these ships fall under except the fist of russ (which should also be a VBB slot since the wolves don't have more than one on hand) thereby limiting you to one of these ships in your list. That makes them really no different list wise than any other marine chapter in BFG.

Second of all, where are the stats for these coming from? In particular, why is an emperor BB getting a 5cm speed boost? To my knowledge, these ships weren't retrofitted from their IN configurations outside of replacing IN attack craft with marine thunderhawks. If that is the case, what is the point of "adding" most of these new ships in this way versus just following the standard VBB rules from FAQ2010 marines? Are they just being used as a means to pull in the custom commanders attached to the ships?

[Talos]

@Vaaish And I thought my comment had aggressive undertones...

There is not much difference in crew or such between chapters at the BFG:R level, I will agree, but that does not mean we can't include a few unique named vessels with some alternative stat lines. Of course you do bring forth a valid point about these not being mass produced examples...

As for the aforementioned stat lines, i'm dredging my brain for info on the SW series right now. Will get back to you on that.

@Gothmog Not sure how many loyalists have access to surviving ships from that era, but the Covenant of Blood (a Night Lords strike cruiser) is, according to the novels, very typical of the strike cruisers of the time and does not have bombardment cannons, instead having dorsal/prow lances and torpedoes alongside launchbays. It is also listed as being larger than the current strike cruisers, being only slightly smaller than a regular IN cruiser but more dangerous.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

@ Gothmog That's a fair point, but there are a few others that are well documented in other chapters:

1) Rapturous Rex, Fire Hawks Battle...thing?Station?Fortress? Even has stats in IA 11.

2) Eternal Crusader, Black Templar Battlebarge. It's as having twice the carrying capacity of a regular battlebarge, significantly increased launch bay capacity and the ability to have escorts dock with it. The ASC 2.0 could certainly include a BB with less firepower and more LB, IMO.

3) Inquisition Kill-Ships: Escort Sized Vessels capable of exterminatus, mounting very little conventional firepower but plenty of sophisticated sensors and stealth suites, alongside Deathwatch kill-teams. I suppose this one should probably have been mentioned in the IN section, but I will bring it up because DEATHWATCH.

4) [Name Unknown]: The white Scars have a escort in the Damocles Gulf Crusade armed with bombardment cannons only. I could see the design issue with allowing this escort, but still its cool. I will find out the name as soon as I can.

I will keep on digging up stuff just to be a pest.

1- Can't touch it. Unfortunate I know. I had it in the main ASC 2.0 development thread, but FW won't let us publically host the BFG rules/fluff from the IA books. We were able to do everything else with ASC 2.0 and BFG:R because all the rules are free and available on the internet

2- The Ragnarok Assault BB (not SW only btw) is pretty much all LB.

3- Not for the SM fleets. That would be something appropriate for the INQ fleets. Yes DW are SM, but so are Grey Knights, and they are INQ. Plus, BFG:R INQ has rules for DW

4- That does sound cool. Find the fluff and we will try to include it.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

Just curious, but how is there really much difference in chapters at the level BFG represents? I know Space Wolves have a few IN vessels at their disposal from pre-heresy/ heresy times but certainly not in quantities that would warrant more than VBB inclusion which, incidentally, all of these ships fall under except the fist of russ (which should also be a VBB slot since the wolves don't have more than one on hand) thereby limiting you to one of these ships in your list. That makes them really no different list wise than any other marine chapter in BFG.

Second of all, where are the stats for these coming from? In particular, why is an emperor BB getting a 5cm speed boost? To my knowledge, these ships weren't retrofitted from their IN configurations outside of replacing IN attack craft with marine thunderhawks. If that is the case, what is the point of "adding" most of these new ships in this way versus just following the standard VBB rules from FAQ2010 marines? Are they just being used as a means to pull in the custom commanders attached to the ships?

SW have more than just VBB, plus the list I plan to build them (for discussion when we get to that) will have 2 VBB slots. You'll see. The thing is the SW use alot of ships they capture and have alot of ancient ships as well. And they are the largest remaining chapter in existance. Not quite legion size, but well over 1000 marines (they only ever had 1 second founding chapter and rejected the Codex Astartes otherwise, so they are still massive).

The stats are due to and intended to do a few things
1- The SW Techmarines would very likely do alot to any ship they got a hold of. Techmarines are much more independent thinkers than the average ommnisiah devotee.
2- The commander characters were something I wanted to work in
3- the baseline for almost all of them was Warp Rift. Check out the main ASC 2.0 thread and the ASC 2.0 SM thread for more details on that.

[Vaaish]

Having more than one VBB doesn't mean they pop up in every fleet action. If SW are as massive as you say (which doesn't necessarily directly translate to fleet size) these ships are still fairly rare to the point that you might see one of them. Unless they are defending Fenris directly I don't think that you'd see these all of the time. IIRC the IN still isn't happy with them having the Empy but they can't really do anything about it.

1. What source are you pulling that from? Tinkering with their personal armor, repairing damaged vehicles and having some basic engineering skill doesn't translate into lets refit a warship.

2. Don't you think that it might be better to not use ASC to put in attached commanders? It sort of limits what folks can do with their list if it already includes FC who has some options they may not want.

3. I see some information here but not a whole lot. From what I do see the ragnarock should return to just the assault BB, the ironwolf should be dropped in favor of the generic vindictive CG with each ship listing famous vessels. In this case, list the ironwolf and call one of the assault BB Ragnarock. This follows the pattern in BFG and reduces the focus on just SW stuff.

What I'm getting at here is that entries for new ships should be generic so any marine fleet can use them. Hence, the only ships that should be here are the Vindictive, Charybdis, and Assault BB. They should only be ships too, not package deals with added FC and other SR that turn folks off to using them. Marine fleets are more sensitive to cost, especially when dealing with VBB than other fleets. Making really pricey ships with minimal differences to existing ships or putting in named ships of a particular class over the class itself just reduces the appeal of using the ships.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

1- From every BL book with a techmarine character in it. They usually have more than "basic" engineering skills as well. Plus, SM, especially when they have a good deal of resources at their command, often refit things to suit their own needs. Look how many "unsanctioned" variants of the Land Raider there are. And given time and a need, which SM always have both of, refitting star ships isn't that far fetched. Prime example- The Silver Skulls Strike Cruiser Dread Argent, which I now kinda want to add.

2- Since you can already take each class of those ships and/or any neccessary refits to make them, and they are unnofficial anyways, I see no reason NOT to do attached commanders. They are fluffy and fun and allow you to play in new ways, not limit what you can do.

3- I added the name Ragnarok because plain "Assault Battle Barge" just sounded lame. It is for use with any and all SM fleets. The fluff will likely just be that it was first developed by the SW. It is kinda like the SO. What was originally just ultramarines is now widespread.

4- As for making it generic, that is not the Point of ASC. The point is to present as many options to the player as possible to make their games as diverse as they want, and since none of the classes of vessels are SW specific (only the character ships), there is no reason that they can't be included IMO

[Vaaish]

As for making it generic, that is not the Point of ASC. The point is to present as many options to the player as possible to make their games as diverse as they want, and since none of the classes of vessels are SW specific (only the character ships), there is no reason that they can't be included IMO

See, that's the problem. Outside of three ships in the document, they are ALL space wolf character ships. It's extremely rare to buy a ship and get a commander with it in BFG. You can have special characters (abaddon, Rath) that function as FC or unlock ships. Outside of the Ark Mechanicus, which most people detest due to the required archmagos, I can't think of any other examples of this. It's just generally a good idea not to do it and you've done it on probably half  of the ships in the list. It's your thing, so do what you want, but I just don't see there being a wide appeal to use the ships as they are right now.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

As for making it generic, that is not the Point of ASC. The point is to present as many options to the player as possible to make their games as diverse as they want, and since none of the classes of vessels are SW specific (only the character ships), there is no reason that they can't be included IMO

See, that's the problem. Outside of three ships in the document, they are ALL space wolf character ships. It's extremely rare to buy a ship and get a commander with it in BFG. You can have special characters (abaddon, Rath) that function as FC or unlock ships. Outside of the Ark Mechanicus, which most people detest due to the required archmagos, I can't think of any other examples of this. It's just generally a good idea not to do it and you've done it on probably half  of the ships in the list. It's your thing, so do what you want, but I just don't see there being a wide appeal to use the ships as they are right now.

As I said though, there is no reason to have to take them, as a normal VBB can fill the spot instead. None of the Character ones are the only one of their class.

I will agree more ships would be nice and I would be more than willing to work on SM more, but what ships? The only one I can think of is another Character ship (The Dread Argent. It isn't character in the same sense of having a commander, but it is unique) and the Phalanx, which in the main thread we decided to pretty much leave alone as a normal star fort handles it, or you can use the IA rules for the Raptorus Rex.

Do you know of any other ships in the fluff? Pretty much every author I know of just says "Strike Cruiser" or "Battlebarge" and calls it a day.

[Talos]

Probably better suited for the Chaos ASC, but the Covenant of Blood is a Night Lords strike cruiser from the HH that is according to the series very widespread at the time. It is larger than a current strike cruiser, being somewhere in between IN light cruiser/cruisers and features torpedo tubes, launch bays and a powerful lance armament located on its dorsal slots and underslung. This fits in well with the existing fluff since this a similar lance array to the Terminus Est, only smaller.

We could make it a chaos unique SC for their lists OR we could have it as an alternate SC pattern.

[connahr]

it does seem a bit space wolf heavy

maybe some unique ships from other chapters?

[ehlijen]

Is the 'Retribution' a named ship in the background?

Otherwise I'd highly recommend renaming it to avoid confusion.