Vengeful Spirit and Venerable BB models - advice sought!

[timdp]

Would the large bay doors of the despoiler prow not be a necessary piece of a large battle barge, especially of that era?

At the time of the Heresy, Terminus Est was a unique ship. Despoiler design did not go into production until M36 and then only 15 ships. Its possible that the prow design was used on other Heresy era ships, but it seems kind of unlikely. Regular launch bays certainly are large enough to launch Thunderhawks, so the large BB front launch bays are not absolutely necessary.

The regular Space Marine battle barge existed then, so seems to me that the Marine battle barge prow would be a more likely prospect for a transplant than the Despoiler prow.

[Islacrusez]

Could've sworn that the battlebarges as we know them only came about as a result of the heresy... Or am I going crazy?

[timdp]

Could've sworn that the battlebarges as we know them only came about as a result of the heresy... Or am I going crazy?

There are multiple images of the battle barge and at least one image of the strike cruiser in HHCV. Unless you can find evidence of them only coming later, the evidence says they existed during the Heresy. If you do find evidence that they did not exist then, then we just have conflicting evidence and no decision can be made...

[Armiger84]

I figure the fleets of the Great Crusade employed a variety of ships ranging from line cruisers and battleships to dedicated planetary assault ships.  For that matter, there's more than enough evidence that if it was/is capital-ship scale, and capable of deploying large numbers of Legionaries/Marines at once, then it often picked up the appellation "Battle Barge" in reference to its dual role as a warship and troop ship.

For that matter, we've got floating cannon ships in "The Battle for the Fang" Space Marine battles book, which Magnus uses to force the (Scouring/immediately post-Scouring era) Space Wolves to keep their void shields up over the Fang and keep any aircraft grounded, so there's evidence for a whole additional sub-class of floating battery monitors there too (whether custom-built or brought along for particular use, although I can't imagine many Legions using such a thing on a regular basis, other than perhaps the Iron Warriors and the Death Guard).

[Jimmy Zimms]

Correct. Battlebarge is what it does, not what it is. They're not a class but a reason to be. The whole deal with having a marine BB model is the intersection of The Rule of Cool and Playability.

[timdp]

I figure the fleets of the Great Crusade employed a variety of ships ranging from line cruisers and battleships to dedicated planetary assault ships. 

Just read somewhere that most numerous ships during the Heresy era were grand cruisers as opposed to M41's preponderance of regular cruisers.

Going to have to find the quote again though...

[Gorlak]

Thank you for all the great input, it is much appreciated! I didn't think the VS would be very straight forward, so discussing it here to get a reasoned consensus helps a great deal. I've been thinking about this a lot the last few days, with all the various parts spread out on my desk.

That is similar to my current thinking on the VS: Chaos Battleship upper hull extended to four bays long, with an Imperial battleship lower hull and Desolator prow. This will make a very large and imposing (intimidating) ship, but won't be a simple build. See top and side mockups below. After comparing the Desolator and Repulsive prows I prefer the Desolator for this application. Its quite a bit longer than the Repulsive prow and fits the HH novel descriptions (broad spearpoint) better IMHO.

Version 1

timdp - I think you post above is very much in line with what I was thinking for the VS. Your thoughts on the prow (Desolater vs Repulsive) in particular are very interesting. As I said before, getting hold of a Repulsive prow (or ship) will likely be very difficult now, so I was coming to the conclusion it would actually be easier to model it in CAD (Rhino or Sketchup) and have it 3D printed. Its depressing when that is the 'easier' option!  However, this does open up the opportunity  to alter the Repulsive prow slightly. I can model it as the Repulsive prow, but scale it appropriately to be more along the size/proportions of the Desolator prow. This should then fit more as a model and also refers back to the image in the HH board game.

Given the above, would anyone with a Repulsive prow be so kind to provide some measurements for it? This would probably be easiest and most useful as photos alongside a ruler, if at all possible. I had a quick look on Google Image search, but no joy. The closest was our very own Armiger84's blog, but that didn't have quite the right dimensions needed. It would be very much appreciated if anyone has such info!

[Cneo]

Can´t wait to see it assembled!

[horizon]

Could've sworn that the battlebarges as we know them only came about as a result of the heresy... Or am I going crazy?

There are multiple images of the battle barge and at least one image of the strike cruiser in HHCV. Unless you can find evidence of them only coming later, the evidence says they existed during the Heresy. If you do find evidence that they did not exist then, then we just have conflicting evidence and no decision can be made...

Actually, they were build after the heresy. But then GW / horus nonsense messed up history.

[timdp]

Actually, they were build after the heresy. But then GW / horus nonsense messed up history.

Hi Horizon,

Which source material talks about this? I'm new at this so must have missed it.

thanks.

tim

[horizon]

iirc a White Dwarf article.

But also if you read the fluff entry in Armada about Space Marines it is written from a point that the IN does not know the exact specifications of Barges. From that on one can read that they have no historical info on them.

[Malika]

I guess that Battle Barges before the Horus Heresy could have been many different kinds of ships, as we've seen in the old cardgame artwork. However, the introduction of the Codex Astartes and the separation of powers meant the Astartes weren't allowed to have certain types of ships anymore. It's possible that from that moment the type of ship we now know as the Battle Barge was the single type of ship that was allowed to fulfill that role for the newly formed Chapters.

It might also explain why some first and second founding chapters might have some different classes of ships around, kind of as relics from the Crusade/Heresy.

[Malika]

Psst, look at this: http://blogfleetgothic.blogspot.nl/2010/05/vaisseau-noir-super-lourd-de.html

[Islacrusez]

That's actually pretty awesome looking... Damn.

The sex pop-under ad was not so nice though >.>

[horizon]

Well then I am glad I have an add blocker in all browsers I use (opera and next and Firefox before).