Brazen Hoplites Khorne fleet

[Cyk0]

How bad would it be in battle?
Options about the fluff?

BFG:R Chaos Khorne
Desecrator battleship      365
   Space marines                 25
   Mark of Khorne                15
   Warmaster                       50
   one reroll                         25
   Terminators                     10
Nephilim grand cruiser     250
   Torpedoes                        25
   Space marines                 25
   Mark of Khorne                15
   Terminators                     10
Nephilim grand cruiser     250
   Torpedoes                        25
   Space marines                 25
   Mark of Khorne                 15
   Terminators                     10
6x schismaic cruisers   750
   6x Mark of Khorne            90

                           Total     1980

Background:
The Golden Hoplites were a 21th founding Ultramarine successor chapter. At its founding it was created with the goal of defending a small but important corridor out of the Maelstorm. That corridor was selected because it was serving as a staging point for the constant whaaags erupting from the ork empires within the Maelstorm.

As with many other chapters of the cursed founding a certain amount of genetic experimentation was part of their creation, so in an attempt to create a chapter that was better at recuperating losses the Golden Hoplites geneseed had been modified to produce quickly maturing Progenoid Glands. (The effect that these changes would come to have on the mentality of the Hoplites did not start to show until a later part of the chapters history)

Initially chapter was famed for its structured close order fighting style and the strictly organized militarized society it established on its new home world and the surrounding planets. The small empires heavy militarization was considered a boon by the segmentum high command as it proved a formidable bulwark to the constant ork aggression.

This important but specialized role served by the Hoplites, meant that concerned voices were ignored as the chapters organization started deviating from the codex astartes. The constant and brutal close combat fighting took a heavy toll on the chapter. The geneseed allowed them to implant the large number of initiates brought in form the surrounding worlds to cover the losses, but this still meant that soon over half the chapters fighting strength was made up of marines in training fighting and dying as a vanguard around a hard core more and more close combat focused veterans. But this focus on close combat did not change the chapter mentality, order and discipline was still strictly maintained in the Hoplite ranks. Tight melee formations of marines centered around terminators from the first company formed the anvil that the orks were broken against.

But with time, as an alarming number chapters of the cursed founding were falling away from the emperors light, the inquisition started turning its stern eyes towards the chapter. During this time it was also uncovered that the populace of the surrounding worlds worlds were subjected to a rule considered cruel even by imperial standards. This alone would not be enough to spur the the imperium into action, if it weren't for the fact that further inquisitorial approaches were harshly rebuked. This resulted in a call to arms from surrounding space marine chapters, a task force was to be assembled and dispatched to bring the chapter in line with the codex and make them submit to a thorough investigation by the inquisition. Delays followed after protests from a prominent ultramarine successor about the collection of chapters. As a result it was decided that the force would be made up of solely the children of Guilliman. But when the task force was finally assembled and arrived at what used to be the Golden Hoplites area of operation, all they found was depopulated scorched worlds with traces of the populace having been forced aboard hastily constructed cryo barges brought like cattle with the warp trails leading straight into the Maelstorm.

Attempts were made to follow the path the exodus fleet had carved as it blitzed straight through the unsuspecting ork empires, but with the orks now roused by the passing of their hated foes they made good with the marines close at hand, and the large numbers of ork fleets closing in on the pursuing chapters forced them to break of their chase.

The chapter was presumed lost to the ork hordes by the imperium until two millennium later when the Khorne dedicated Brazen hoplites started doing raids in imperial space...

Brazen Hoplites fleet:
With the 21 founding being the second largest founding in the history of the imperium, the resources of the forge worlds were strained providing the chapters with barges and strike cruisers. Due to the intended defensive role of the Hoplites their fleet was given a low priority. As strike cruisers they were equipped with slightly modified variants of a light cruiser being built at the time. The flagship was a previously mothballed Desecrator battleship brought to battle barge standards and for the two remaining battle barges they had to make do with grand cruisers altered to fire boarding torpedoes and launch thunderhawks.

(Notes the schismatic design dates from the 36m when the cursed founding happened and grand cruisers where still being used back then, the desecrator class is way older but it was often used as a BB during the great crusade so its not a strange choice for a flagship Barge)

[Bessemer]

Your fluff is well worked out! All I normally here is "There are successor of x" and nothing else.

As your fleet relies on Ordnance, you're leaving yourself open to failing SO checks. Even if you maxed out on re-rolls, sooner or later you will fail a Reload Ordnance check sooner or later. And a couple of turns in a row will leave you wide open.
I take it your going to use your Nephilim to soften the target and follow up with Schismatics? This will only work if you can get the Nephilims to 30 cm in order to get the best out of the WB's. Your going to take some damage to your Nephilims doing this, possibly being crippled and reducing effectiveness.
Relying on lances to do most of your damage is chancy at best, It's much better to have a greater mix of WB's and lances.

Still, if your luck holds out, you've got a powerful fleet!...Except against Eldar. Against them you Will suffer.

[Stormwind]

LOVE the fluff!

[Cyk0]

Thanks for the aproval of the fluff 

As to the tactics, I was planning on squadron the light cruisers in pairs of two to decrease the risk of getting a low LD. And the other ships benefit a bit from the LD

My not to well thought through battle plan was simply, charge the 3 big well shielded ships plowing straight into the enemy, clearing ordinance with thunder hawks. All the while trying to break up the enemy with torpedoes from the main push and the flanking light cruisers. Then as the fleets meet up its boarding time with even the light cruisers joining in on targets of opportunity.

Yea the large amount of lances on the light cruisers are a bit of a bummer, but then again they are highly maneuverable and they can launch boarding torpedoes in a huge arc so normal escorts should be a breeze. And for well shielded targets there is always the option ob boarding with a pair. 24 in boarding value and a +1 for being chaos combined and the option of using the berzerker tide fleet ability to roll a d3 extra crits on the boarding, they should be a bit scary to bigger targets to.

But yea, Edar will be a bad experience...

[Cyk0]

Feel free to tear into my idea about the tactics though, i have never played or faced a force like that, so I have no idea how it would work... I guess Orks would be the closest approximate?

[Atlan]

First, I think it's a very nice fleet, fitting very well to your storry.
To the tactic: Relaying on boarding is not so easy and a bit risky. So I think boarding is good, but its enough to plan boarding with a few vessels.
Depending of your opponent you could also consider not flying into his fleet but passing it on the side.
You are not the IN with armored prow, but have nice range and a lot of fighters. (and torps in the side-arc)

ok, so far to the given fleet, but if this is not fixed:
 
I'm not a fan of light cruisers.
They are good to fill up remaining points, get a cheap ship to have enough cruisers for some fleet restrictions (3 per battleship nand so on).
But in the battle you have to be very careful with them. They simply do not endure very much damage. Especially those wiht only 5+ armor at the front.
So, if I were your enemy, I would ignore your big shipps and concentrate my fire on the light cruisers. They will probably not stand the enemy fire very long.
So, if changig some ships is an option, i would reduce the light cruisers, and replace them with hm, Slaughter (if you still plan to go direktly into the enemy) or some long ranged ships (Inferno, Carange etc...)

[Cyk0]

Well I certainly see the risks with the light cruisers, the problem is that I need six cruiser to pick my "core" with the two grand cruisers.

Slaughters would definitely be nice and still fit the Khorne theme, but it would break my already tight bank even if I would drop the mark of Khorne  (horrible thought, imagine what the blood good would do to me) I would also have to come up with another explanation for their origins, since they wouldn't be very credible strike cruisers. (Were as a schismatic light cruiser built for boarding and boarding torpedo attacks, would actually work well for a space marine chapter that due to its role does not have to make planet landings, but rather uses them in fleet actions around controlled planets)

One possible solution would be to first go abeam with the fleet (with the lights behind the bigger ships) and use waves of thunderhawks and steerable boarding torpedoes combined with the long range firepower of the bigger ships to try to reduce the enemy fleet effectiveness before the upcoming engagement. And then as they draw closer i turn in towards them and unleash regular torpedoes and go in for boarding! Blood for the blood god!

If I were to do this I would almost like to use a despoiler refitted with torpedoes, but I am yet again blocked by the cost. (And as Bessemer pointed out, I am already hurting for re-rolls)

[Blindhorizon]

Fluff is well thought out i love it. You don't need to break your fluff to explain a slaughter or any other cruiser, your a boarding fleet and hand to hand mostly. You take from your enemies and rivals.., you no doubt captured it/them.

[Atlan]

Yea, I know your point. And there are clearly 2 "levels" of discussing a fleet+tactics:

1: Workout the best tactic for the given fleet.

2: Work also on the fleet.

As I said, I like your fleet+fluff combination, realy do not say you must change it. These are only some ideas.

The idea with the Despoiler is probably good. Basicly you get ~2 launchbays for 35 Pt. Not a bad deal.
I personaly think, that the Slaughter is the most "strikecruiser-like" vessel Chaos has: fast with striking short range power.

[Cyk0]

Okay, how am I going to fit stuff point wise then. There are plenty of things on the wishlist...

Despoiler, re-rolls and bigger cruisers, where would you cut fat? Marks for the light cruisers are probably closest at hand.(despite risking khornes wrath)  But then they do loose a bit of flexibility and flavor. If they end up in a bad spot with no reloaded torps I can't jut board and pray to khorne. (though with 30 move and 90 they are not only good at getting into boarding positions, they can get out of dodge to. (the option to use steerable boarding torpedoes and the ability to fire to the sides should allow relatively good options when it comes to ship manueving)

[Atlan]

Yes, the ability to fire toprs to the side combined with the maneuverability of the light cruisers makes them very flexible.

hm, lets see,  basically I would say, in the End you have to let go one ship.
ok lets start some calcualtions:

despoiler                      390 
   Torpedos                        10
   Space marines              25
   Mark of Khorne               15
   Chaos Lord (Ld8)           50
   two additional RRs         25

Retaliator                           275
Torpedoes                          25
   Space marines               25
   Mark of Khorne                15       

4x Slaughter                     660
    4x Space marines         100
    4x Mark of Khorne          60

2x Shismatic                      250
 2x Space marines             50

So, that would be my first try.
Taking the Despoiler with toprs (if you want, i wouldn't) and the Retaliator istead of the Nephilim gives you the same number of LBs as before. If I get the BFG:R rules right (I play FAQ2010) you should use the standard fighters/bombers on the Retaliator to avoid rounding down. At the Despoiler you can change to Thunderhawks if you want.

Assumint you really want MArines and Khorn on all your ships I let this as far as possible.
There were not enough points (assuming 2k Pts there are 5 missing) to give both of the light cruisers the Mark of Khorne so  I used the points for another RR.
I just let go the Terminators to save points. In my personal experiance 5telepot attaks happen just to seldom.

By the way what i somehow realized (and ignored) is this: only in the BFG:R Berzerkerfleet (and of cours the other Chaos god specific fleets)  the Marines are listet with 25 Pt. But there the Mark is listet with 35 Pt!!!!!
As I said, I ignored this. (Maybe I hav youst an old version of the BFG:R rules).

So back to the fleet, a short chek of the firepower:

                       "old"                                                "new"               

LBs:                 12                                                       12
Torps               45                                                       23

@60cm:            33 WB                                                10 WB
                           -                                                         3  Lances

@45cm:              -                                                         6 WB
                         4 Lances                                              2 Lances

@30cm:              -                                                         56 WB
                          12 Lances                                          12 Lances

The new version now seems a weeke on range, and stronger at short range.
Less torps, but I'm shure it can take much more fire.
You can give it a try.

[Cyk0]

Nice, yea that could work.

The reason for the torps on the grand cruisers was primarily to make them more battle barge worthy

Loosing one GC hurts the estetic of a nice wedge of heavy shielded ships out for blood, but the freed points ad considerable weight to the rest of the fleet. One risk with that fleet is that it will be split up, with the slaughters heading straight in from the get go. They can really hang back lobbing torpedoes waiting for the engagement to happen Like the Shismatic can.

Yea I know about the Mark cost, most likely its a copy pasta error from the plague fleet template used for all the dedicated fleets. (old mark of nurgle was 35p and the Khorne battle ships has the cost of the Nurgle one to)

iirc the 25p mark cost is intentional in the more restricted dedicated fleets (as to not gimp them to hard for spamming them out on loads of ships)

[Atlan]

Yea, of course. The  3 big ships would look good.
But now, so I think, the Slaughter cruisers are the ones that are flying direktly to the enemy. The battleship and the grand crusier are mostly LB and long range support. Thelight cruiser should still be kept at a relativle save position. Mayby hunting down some split up enhemy escorts/ light cruisers.

The fleet I suggested is only an option you can work with an personalize id.
I'm also not sure if it's really better than your first fleet. That depends also on your enemy. What fleet he plays/what tactics he likes and so on.
As I said it's based on my experience, that light cruisers are often the first target and die to fast giving the enemy cheap victory points.

I think you should test both variants and see what happens.