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Author Topic: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion  (Read 12738 times)

Offline timdp

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Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« on: August 09, 2013, 12:09:48 AM »
Has anyone done an analysis of the size of a Heresy era Space Marine fleet in terms of transporting 100,000 Marines? Word Bearers had 100,000 Marines in the attack on the Ultramarines' home system.

Strike frigates/escorts carry a squad or two?
Strike cruiser carries a company?
Battlebarge: Saw a reference somewhere that a battlebarge could drop (pods and T'hawks) three companies at once, so perhaps a 1000 man chapter per battle barge?

Just to throw some numbers out there for discussion...

Possible fleet proportions
Group 1:
1 battlebarge (1000 Marines) to 3 strike cruisers (300 Marines) to 6 strike frigates (mixed one and two squads per ship = approx 100 Marines) carries 1400 Marines. Would need 71.5 of these groups to carry 100K Marines: 71.5 battlebarges, 215 strike cruisers and 429 strike frigates.

Group 2:
1 battlebarge (1000 Marines) to 6 strike cruisers (600 Marines) to 12 strike frigates (mixed one and two squads per ship = approx 200 Marines) carries 1800 Marines. Would need 55.5 of these groups to carry 100K Marines: 55.5 battlebarges, 333 strike cruisers and 666 strike frigates. Hmmm, 666 frigates, perhaps this is a Chaos legion configuration... ;-)

Its possible that the proportions of battlebarges to strike cruisers and strike frigates was higher than my possible configurations in which case less ships would be needed.

Thoughts?



Side note on total numbers of battlebarges
Heresy era
Group 1: 71.5 battlebarges times 20 Legions equals 1430 total battlebarges.

Group 2: 55.5 battlebarges times 20 Legions equals 1110 total battlebarges.

In M41, each chapter has 2-3 battlebarges, so 1000 chapters have approximately 2500 battlebarges.

Offline Jimmy Zimms

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2013, 01:15:09 AM »
Don't forget that the legions had direct control and use of what is now considered an Imperial Naval asset (Cruisers/Grand Cruisers/Battleships)
This may affect your calculations above.
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Offline timdp

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2013, 01:39:37 AM »
Don't forget that the legions had direct control and use of what is now considered an Imperial Naval asset (Cruisers/Grand Cruisers/Battleships)
This may affect your calculations above.

I assuming that any Grand Cruisers/Battleships with Marines onboard would be equipped with launch bays and would therefore be considered battlebarges.

Have not seen much on what the state of the IN was during the HH and have seen very little evidence of regular cruisers in use in that era. Can you direct me to any good sources?

Offline Armiger84

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2013, 01:57:47 AM »
There's a lot to think about here.

1) "Battle Barges" and "Strike Cruisers" such as they're fielded in the M41 fleets are the product of a reorganization of the Space Marine military forces from a fleet-based conquest oriented force (apply the maximum available force to a planetary target, eliminate resistance, move on), to a brushfire war/defensive force (respond to crisis, fight through potentially hostile orbital environment, deploy troops to the surface immediately, and either stay in low orbit to provide fire support if orbital supremacy is obtain(ed/able), or pull out and play cat & mouse until the Imperial Navy arrives to establish orbital supremacy).  As a consequence, we have light cruisers and battleships that are stripped down to their absolute minimum in terms of conventional armaments before being bulked up with extra armor, hangar space, and engines.
2) My assumption is that a modern strike cruiser can comfortably fit more than 100 space marines, probably closer to 200 if they're willing to get cramped, in order to fit auxiliary forces (scouts, terminators, air & ground vehicle crew, chapter fleet staff).
3) I've read the same thing about battle barges somewhere, that they can deploy up to 3 companies simultaneously, which pretty reliably sets their carrying capacity to at least 300 marines, if not more like 400-500 if we're factoring in additional room for auxiliary forces and support staff beyond chapter serfs.
4) I'd assume you could comfortably billet 10-20 marines on a frigate somewhere, mostly because they're really just taking up some minor cargo hold space while being transported to a warzone on what is a higher-tech, lower crew requirement vessel.  You could probably fit a Storm Eagle or a Storm Raven into a ship's cargo lighter bay, and there's your surface transport for a small strike force.

Now, the Great Crusade era is a whole different matter.
1) Imperial High Command pretty much went like this:  Emperor/Malcador > Primarchs > Legion Praetors > Legion Captains > unaugmented human officers (navy/army).  Under these circumstances, Space Marines were posted on Imperial naval warships ranging from frigates to battleships (and stuff that probably exceeded that scale classification too).
2) From as far back as the Realm of Chaos book and 1st Ed. Space Marine the Eisenstein was a Crusade-era frigate, on which Capts. Garro and Grulgor each had roughly a company's worth of men aboard.  That right there throws our manageable billeting dimensions right out the window.
3) We presumably have marines billeted on light cruisers, cruisers, heavy cruisers, grand cruisers, and battleships throughout the Crusade fleet, anywhere space can be made to billet a company or more of marines on a ship that has the capacity to deploy them (presumably in company strength, but not necessarily, especially if it's a reserve company on a dedicated gunboat).
4) In the stories, the Vengeful Spirit not only billeted an unknown number of Sons of Horus, but it also had room and deployment facilities for at least two Emperor-class Titans, and the Conqueror has facilities for an entire Titan Legion of Warhounds, so based on that lore information, and lacking anything to contradict it, we can safely assume that the 2010FAQ rules for those two ships are underpowered, and the technical displacement characteristics of a Gloriana-class Battleship are "fucking massive" by "dear god, how does this thing turn without tearing itself in two?"  I'd venture that Crusade Fleet flagships, if they're Gloriana-class (and we can probably assume there were at least 20 of these, at least one for each Legion), can probably hold at least one if not more Chapters' worth of Legionaries, not to mention support vehicles, Imperial Army auxiliaries and a Titan battlegroup of some size.  I'm just going to ignore Abyss-class ships for now.
5) In terms of deployment, a ship's ability to deploy whatever Marines are onboard will have less to do with the number of Marines present, and more to do with how large the launch bay and drop pod facilities are.  I figure it's pretty safe to decouple marine carrying capacity from simultaneous deployment capacity regardless of whether we're talking Crusade-era or M41-era, especially since we are dealing with kilometers-long warships (even if they are 25-33% engineering and thrust).

So I guess the question is, what assumptions do you/we want to work with?

If we take the Eisenstein as an example, we have more than enough room for 140-200 marines to have a running gun battle across several decks while in warp transit, with the crew largely uninvolved in the process (aside from the poor saps on the gun deck where Garro and company really laid into each other).
Based on that, we can extrapolate that a light cruiser (strike cruiser or otherwise) could easily fit 200 marines, probably closer to double that amount, and anything from there (standard cruiser hulls, grand cruisers, battleships, super-battleships/dreadnoughts/warships the size of small moons) gets really out of whack.
I guess a related consideration would be how much of the Imperial Army was carried on dedicated troopships, and how much of it was also carried on active duty warships?  To my knowledge (and brief dive through the novels), there's no real estimate anywhere.  As another example of flexible billeting space, we have the Raven Guard cruiser Avenger, which carried a company of Raven Guard, a regiment of the Therion Cohorts, and the 3,000 Raven Guard evacuees from Isstvan V.  In this case we can probably assume that things were severely cramped on board the ship on the return trip, but it was managed.  We also don't know what "size" cruiser the Avenger was (light, cruiser/heavy, grand).

So... where to start?

I figure:
1) We can either accept or reject the Black Library soldier-to-ship ratios.
2) We can accept the Epic: Armageddon deployment numbers (100 & 300 respectively) as billeting numbers, or not.  (I'm inclined to decouple deployment and billeting for the reasons stated above, and also because Epic tends to streamline things for balance purposes too.  See:  Thunderbolt Fighter)
3) If we accept the ratios, we may need to do so flexibly (make the Avenger a grand cruiser, for example).
4) If we reject the ratios... we're back to square one, with no real idea beyond anecdotal evidence in some of the lore as to how many Marines a modern strike cruiser or battle barge can deploy, taking into consideration that the Crusade-era fleet probably didn't have/use such ships, or had some vessels specialized for that purpose within larger fleets containing a full spectrum of craft controlled by each Legion.

Based on the Black Library novels, each Legion was either broken up into smaller fighting forces and scattered across numerous Crusade Fleets (anything from chapter to company size), or kept together and wielded like a massive sledgehammer (Death Guard, a significant portion of the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus).  Granted, my example of the Sons of Horus really revolves around the fact that we spend most of the novels in the command battlegroup, following the Vengeful Spirit and its attendant fleet.

I would assume that a Crusade Fleet task force probably consisted of 1-2 battleships,1-2 squadrons of cruisers, and a suitable number of escorts (a.k.a., a 1500-2000 point BFG fleet).  It would make logical sense to build exploration fleets around a battleship, 3-6 cruisers, and their attendant escorts, and then where necessary combine these task forces into larger fleets where serious opposition was found.  The Legion command fleets probably consisted of the Legion's flagship (a Gloriana-class), several attendant battleships, and proportionate numbers of cruisers and escorts, serving as a vanguard fleet when entering a new sector, or as a roving reserve that could apply a sledgehammer to a particularly recalcitrant nail where necessary.  Back to my suggestion of a standardized task force building block for the Crusade Fleets.  Assuming a battleship and half a dozen cruisers, I would figure the Legions would be billeted on the battleship and any dedicated carriers (i.e., the vessels with sufficient launch bay and lighter bay capacity to deploy marines in company strength or greater simultaneously).  Imperial Army forces would probably be billeted on the remaining cruisers, or/as well as on dedicated troop ships attached to the task forces.

If I were Dorn or Guilliman, I would probably assign a Chapter to each task force, to be distributed across the vessels capable of landing the Legionnaires in company strength.  This is probably way below maximum carrying capacity, but the fleets in the novel are depicted as truly massive, so I figure it's probably not unreasonable to have 1000 marines plus an unknown number of Imperial Army regiments (and possibly Titan support, although with notable exceptions these were probably based separately on Mechanicus vessels and/or roving Mechanicus reserve fleets, reponding to requests for reinforcement as needed) assigned battleship/grand cruiser and attendant cruisers.  That would put a 100,000 strong Legion at roughly 100 battleships, 600 cruisers or so, and let's not think about the number of frigates and destroyers.  This seems a little extreme, but the depictions of the naval battle at Phall discusses dozens of ships tearing each other apart between the Imperial Fist and Iron Warriors fleets, and there's no indication that Pollux took the majority of the Imperial Fist fleet with him, just as massive a fleet as could be spared for a reprisal force, whatever that is quantitatively.

I know I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but since that's about all we can do, feel free to question/challenge them.  This is just my first pass at guestimating based on the lore I've absorbed along the way.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2013, 02:02:48 AM by Armiger84 »
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Offline radu lykan

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2013, 04:07:47 PM »
remember these ships are x km's long, a strike cruiser could easily carry more than a hundred marines, it just depends on how many you need to get the job done and also if you need to deploy them all at the same time in a single drop.
a cobra could carry a hundred marines, just flush some regular crew out of the air lock :) the cobra just doesnt have the capacity to launch all of those marines in thunderhawks/ drop pods along with all their vehicles etc in a speedy and reliable manner

Offline timdp

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2013, 05:57:30 AM »
There's a lot to think about here.

1) "Battle Barges" and "Strike Cruisers" such as they're fielded in the M41 fleets are the product of a reorganization of the Space Marine military forces from a fleet-based conquest oriented force...

Agreed, but the the current M41 battlebarges and strike cruisers also existed at the time of the Heresy, probably as recently developed ships, at least according to HHCV. Will be posting a related thread on Heresy era battlebarge configurations in a day or two.

 And for reference, here is the three companies quote from Armada:
"As might be expected, a battle barge, is configured for close support of planetary landings and carries   numerous bombardment turrets and torpedo tubes. A considerable amount of hull space is given over to launch bays for intra-system craft and drop pods, observations indicating that up to three companies can deploy simultaneously."

Have read in the Heresy novels that occasionally they could not drop everyone in a single drop, so this suggests that multiple waves could put a complete chapter on the ground from a single battlebarge, although I sure have not read anything about recovering drop pods from a planet. Maybe the Thunderhawk transporters bring pods back up on their return trips...

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2) My assumption is that a modern strike cruiser can comfortably fit more than 100 space marines, probably closer to 200 if they're willing to get cramped, in order to fit auxiliary forces (scouts, terminators, air & ground vehicle crew, chapter fleet staff).

Yes, a company should be around 200 people including command, vehicles and support, so agreed, 200 Marines in a strike cruiser.

And the strike cruiser quote for Armada:
"Strike cruisers appear to carry approximately one full company of Space Marines (including support vehicles) and have been observed to deploy them within twenty minutes of arrival in orbit."

"STRIKE CRUISERS
Like battlebarges, strike cruisers do not represent a single class of vessel, or specific configurations of weapons and systems, but rather represent a broad range of different Space Marine vessels used for largely similar tasks. Strike cruisers, first and foremost, need to be swift vessels, with a substantial transport capacity and various means of delivering those troops (be that a mixture of teleporters, drop pods or launch bays equipped with Thunderhawks). Within these parameters, strike cruisers can, and do, take a variety of forms."

A number of the strike craft in HHCV appear to be Dauntless light cruisers and frigates which do not appear to have externaly visible launch bays, I'm not sure how that works. Going to have to read Eisenstein again for frigate launch bay info....  Working on a prototype WB/LB module for the Dauntlesses though...


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Now, the Great Crusade era is a whole different matter.
1) Imperial High Command pretty much went like this:  Emperor/Malcador > Primarchs > Legion Praetors > Legion Captains > unaugmented human officers (navy/army).  Under these circumstances, Space Marines were posted on Imperial naval warships ranging from frigates to battleships (and stuff that probably exceeded that scale classification too).

3) We presumably have marines billeted on light cruisers, cruisers, heavy cruisers, grand cruisers, and battleships throughout the Crusade fleet, anywhere space can be made to billet a company or more of marines on a ship that has the capacity to deploy them (presumably in company strength, but not necessarily, especially if it's a reserve company on a dedicated gunboat).

Not sure if I buy Marines being billeted on IN ships at all. Marine fleets were MUCH larger at the time. I suspect overall that the Imperial Navy was considerably smaller relative to the IN in M41. Primary strike forces were the Marines with the Imperial Guard being more for mop up and occupation while the Marines headed out to the next objective. Billeting Marines in IN ships would not support this mission.

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2) From as far back as the Realm of Chaos book and 1st Ed. Space Marine the Eisenstein was a Crusade-era frigate, on which Capts. Garro and Grulgor each had roughly a company's worth of men aboard.  That right there throws our manageable billeting dimensions right out the window.

Going to have to read Eisenstein again, but weren't the two companies ordered onto the Eisenstein for a very short time deployment? I don't think they were billeted on the ship...?

Oops, out of time. Reply to be continued...

Tim

Offline Armiger84

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Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2013, 05:49:36 PM »
Yeah, I guess my big point is that there's a difference between "are" and "can be."  Most of the GW stuff about carrying marines uses "are" language, mostly because vagueness about maximum capacity keeps them from falling into rules/lore lawyer traps.

As for "marines on imperial navy ships" my understanding is that at the time of the Great Crusade, those are artificial distinctions.  My understanding is that there were Crusade Fleets, consisting of numerous ships of varying classes and purposes, and that they incorporated ground forces without any real divisions in the hierarchy of command.  Part of the reason the Imperial Army was eventually broken down into "Space Marine Chapters, Imperial Navy, and Imperial Guard" forces with separate command structures and strict rules over how forces interact, mostly as an attempt to keep things like Horus' (and Lugft Huron's) rebellions from happening.

As such, you might have the 123rd Expeditionary Fleet, containing 3 line ships originally part of the Saturnine Navy, 1 battleship recently launched from the Jovian orbital docks tasked straight to the fleet, and 2-3 planetary assault-optimized cruisers (light or otherwise), plus attendant escorts, troopships, and tenders.  You might have a chapter or more of Xth Legion marines deployed to that fleet along with a dozen regiments of Imperial Army from a handful of different worlds or Terran provinces.

Beyond that, overall command would probably rest with the Chapter Master/Praetor, and he'd deploy his marines across the fleet in whatever manner was most efficient.  In which case, yeah, they probably put a few companies on the ships optimized as strike cruisers, and so forth.  At least, with GW's lack of concreteness (for now; I'm betting the Imperial Fists vs. Iron Warriors @ Phall Heresy supplement will probably add concrete details to this discussion - HINT! If you're reading this, Mr. Bligh), we have room to create our own logical explanations of how this works.

TL;DR - Crusade Fleets didn't distinguish between "Legion" vessels and "Navy" vessels.

Edit:  yeah, you're right, I need to go back and reread that.  The Eisenstein probably wasn't a permanent posting.  I'm probably also using "billeted" a little too liberally too, for lack of a better term.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2013, 05:52:26 PM by Armiger84 »
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Offline Malika

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Offline timdp

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2013, 05:16:33 AM »
Reply continued...


4) In the stories, the Vengeful Spirit not only billeted an unknown number of Sons of Horus, but it also had room and deployment facilities for at least two Emperor-class Titans, and the Conqueror has facilities for an entire Titan Legion of Warhounds, so based on that lore information, and lacking anything to contradict it, we can safely assume that the 2010FAQ rules for those two ships are underpowered, and the technical displacement characteristics of a Gloriana-class Battleship are "fucking massive" by "dear god, how does this thing turn without tearing itself in two?"  I'd venture that Crusade Fleet flagships, if they're Gloriana-class (and we can probably assume there were at least 20 of these, at least one for each Legion), can probably hold at least one if not more Chapters' worth of Legionaries, not to mention support vehicles, Imperial Army auxiliaries and a Titan battlegroup of some size.

Agree to all statements.
This brings up the ever popular question: How are Titans landed on a planet? Titan landing ships are not going to fit through 80m tall by 100m wide Imperial launch bay ports, which implies that any ships carrying Titans are not yet depicted in BFG and will probably be larger than BFG battleships.

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5) In terms of deployment, a ship's ability to deploy whatever Marines are onboard will have less to do with the number of Marines present, and more to do with how large the launch bay and drop pod facilities are.  I figure it's pretty safe to decouple marine carrying capacity from simultaneous deployment capacity regardless of whether we're talking Crusade-era or M41-era, especially since we are dealing with kilometers-long warships (even if they are 25-33% engineering and thrust).

I'm avoiding that question by assuming that any ship carrying Marines HAS substantial launch bay and drop pod facilities, even if the ship can't deploy its complete Marine payload in one drop. Also, any battleships or grand cruisers carrying Marines with substantial launch bay and drop pod facilities and carrying Marines are no longer considered battleships or grand cruisers, but are considered battlebarges.

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So... where to start?

I figure:
1) We can either accept or reject the Black Library soldier-to-ship ratios.
2) We can accept the Epic: Armageddon deployment numbers (100 & 300 respectively) as billeting numbers, or not.
 

Epic: Armageddon? The 100/300 quotes I posted were from BFG Armada.


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3) If we accept the ratios, we may need to do so flexibly (make the Avenger a grand cruiser, for example).

I know I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but since that's about all we can do, feel free to question/challenge them.  This is just my first pass at guestimating based on the lore I've absorbed along the way.

Yes, I think flexibility is necessary here as we do not really have enough info to make definitive calls. Heresy era BFG will necessarily be a work in progress and will need to be modified as we get more info on the Heresy from Black Library and Forge World's Heresy books.

Tim

Offline Jimmy Zimms

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2013, 05:35:52 PM »
This brings up the ever popular question: How are Titans landed on a planet? Titan landing ships are not going to fit through 80m tall by 100m wide Imperial launch bay ports, which implies that any ships carrying Titans are not yet depicted in BFG and will probably be larger than BFG battleships.
Actually there's plenty of old heresy fluff and little "box stories" and even artwork that showed titan drop ships. It's pretty clear how they get there. It's debatable as to if they're specialty ships and even if they were it would be abstracted in BFG as in the Assault Points already. Basically it has no bearing on BFG game play due to the scale difference on all of this (a Cobra destroyer is noted by GW as being a model 15 meters in E:A scale). I apologize for lack of references but I am at work and don't have time to attribute everything but the point is that it's not needed in BFG scale discussion (e.g. Fleet scale). Let's simply say that with vessels 10km long, somewhere in the fleet someone is goin g to have the ability to carry and launch titan assaults. =D

I'm avoiding that question by assuming that any ship carrying Marines HAS substantial launch bay and drop pod facilities, even if the ship can't deploy its complete Marine payload in one drop. Also, any battleships or grand cruisers carrying Marines with substantial launch bay and drop pod facilities and carrying Marines are no longer considered battleships or grand cruisers, but are considered battlebarges.
Well as that's what a Battlebarge is so fair enough and a super good point of clarification :). A Battlebarge is what a capital ship DOES, not what IT IS.

Epic: Armageddon? The 100/300 quotes I posted were from BFG Armada.
They share the same data points respectively so it's a good indicator of fluff agreement and of effective assault capacity of a vessel of roughly that displacement. The limiting factor is less the ability of the ship to billet the forces as opposed to the capacity to "drop" a force together at one time. In a pinch they probably can (and maybe even do) carry larger numbers but the time involved in prepping between drops would mean separate landing zones and deployments or a more peaceful disembarkation to an established beachhead from the earlier drop. Think WW2 D-Day where the guys that arrived on the 2nd day to push further inland, not the first assault waves. Again in this discussion it's inconsequential for game mechanics or effective combat abilities.

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3) If we accept the ratios, we may need to do so flexibly (make the Avenger a grand cruiser, for example).

I know I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but since that's about all we can do, feel free to question/challenge them.  This is just my first pass at guestimating based on the lore I've absorbed along the way.
I think you're on the right path and relative ratios just that gunships and heavy hitters need further accounting.

What a great thing if someone put together a crusade fleet! :D
« Last Edit: August 12, 2013, 05:38:34 PM by Jimmy Zimms »
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Offline intercepta

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Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2013, 05:37:28 PM »
The 'new' style BFG Battlebarges are not what they used per-heresy, they're a new design. SMs used to use more traditional ships for example the BAs still have a Mars class cruiser in its ranks.

Another example was that the emperor class battleship we all know and 'love' was going to be the Battlebarge, see extra frontal sensors as part of the bombardment cannon and (now I get vague) hasn't the dauntless or one of the less standard cruisers have a skulls head on its prow rather then a eagle? This was going to be the strike cruiser :)

Lastly ships now have lots of space given over to worshipping the emperor and for statues, something the Big E wouldn't of allowed pre him getting beaten up :p

Offline Islacrusez

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2013, 06:42:39 PM »
Don't know about the cruisers but the Sword-class frigate, armed with laser batteries, has a skull. The Firestorm-class frigate, armed with lances, has the conventional eagle.
Quite crucial to be able to tell minefields and rally points apart...

Offline AndrewChristlieb

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2013, 01:16:12 AM »
I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down.

Offline timdp

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Re: Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #13 on: September 15, 2013, 07:33:38 AM »
The 'new' style BFG Battlebarges are not what they used per-heresy, they're a new design.

Others have said this but I have not seen any source for the info. There are illustrations of M41 style battle barges and at least one M41 style strike cruiser in HHCV with indicates that the designs existed during the Heresy. Perhaps they were a new design and pretty rare, but they seem to have existed.

Tim

PS. VERY pretty Dauntlesses BTW
« Last Edit: January 24, 2014, 05:37:04 AM by timdp »

Offline intercepta

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Space Marine Legion fleet size discussion
« Reply #14 on: September 15, 2013, 06:55:47 PM »
Ok so page 20 of (I think armada, it's a PDF I have called BFG Imperial fleets from 2011) It says (I'm paraphrasing) the discussion about SM fleets post Heresy, including Gulliman and Corax, reached a compromise which limited the space marines to vessels whose primary role was that of transport, delivery and suppression designed to facilitate planetary assault.

I thought it said that they designed a new craft to fulfil this role so ill make you right :)

Also u found a draft on my laptop of the SM rules and it shows a std strike cruiser, a GK strike cruiser and (basically) the strike cruiser eternal defiance (exorcists chapter) which is a dauntless

More on topic it also says the Corax was complaining that he didn't have a fleet which is why his legion was almost completely destroyed on istavan so maybe the legions didn't have a fleet they just had a mass of imperial navy ships placed under there control :)
« Last Edit: September 15, 2013, 07:46:20 PM by intercepta »