Discuss: Gloriana's, The Eternal Crusader and fluff discrepancies.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

Okay, so in trying to Incorporate the Eternal Crusader into the ASC 2.0, I am having to use my knowledge of BFG and Fluff that unfortunately it seems Black Library Authors and some Artists have a disregard for. Now I know I am not the "keeper of the fluff", but most BL authors don't bother to do their due diligence. Hell, there is even a HH book where Sanguinius had Black Hair! So expecting them to have any concept of things like the Gareox Perogative or just the evolution of ship design is a lost cause (unless it is Gordon Rennie).

So the issue is The Iron Blood. A few things:
1- It says it was built by Pertarabo himself over Olympia as the first of the class, even though there were only 20 Glorianas made, all by Mars.
2- It is obviously an enlarged Space Marine Battle Barge. However, no other Gloriana has ever appeared to be similar AND the Space Marine Battlebarge design is a consequence of the Horus Heresy, as it is designed with Planetary Assault in mind rather than naval conflict, since the space marines were forbidden from having a true navy in the wake of the heresy (so the Infidous Imperator in Macragge's Honour is an impossibility, since battlebarges of that sytle did not exist yet).
3- Every other Gloriana appears to be much more stylistically similar to Imperial Navy Battleships.

Next was the Eternal Crusader, which is floating around on a bunch of sites and scale diagrams. However, this design (though by a good digital artist) is
1- REALLY WEIRD
2- Does not match the rules or fluff as released by game workshop in Fanatic Magazine. http://www.specialist-arms.com/fanatic/90btf.pdf
3- Is actually a tragedy of scale, as the artist herself claims the weird "Kuato" ship on the underside is supposedly the first 2 kilometers of an Emperor Battleship. However that would make the Battle barge truly MASSIVE which comparatively it is not.

So my solution- Reject the design of the Iron Blood as a Gloriana. It just doesn't fit the established fluff, and it was pictured next to that weird "Tribune" thing too. Basically it is a "Sangunius had Black Hair" moment as done by a good, yet wrong digital artist. Just like the Eternal Crusader. Whose design I am also going to reject. HOWEVER the Iron Blood is PERFECT for the Eternal Crusader, as it matches fluff and rules so long as we assume the vessel pictured is not 20 KM (which it isn't since the cobra show for scale is 800m, and that vessel is not 25 times longer) , and as such shall take its place.

As for what a Gloriana should look like, best representation would be the Graphic Novel Macragges honour, even though they have a SM BB in there for the Word Bearers...

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

other pictures attached

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

another actual gloriana

[timdp]

Endurance


Stalwart

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

Would this be a RETCON as well though since the Endurance is the name of his Gloriana, of which the Stalwart card appears to be and the Endurance does not, especially given it is just a "Captial Ship" to the "Battlebarge" the Stalwart card is

[Malika]

Gloriana is a class of ship, there are various patterns/marks for it. Also, there are more than 20 of them. The Word Bearers at a certain point had at least 9 of them.

[timdp]

Would this be a RETCON as well though since the Endurance is the name of his Gloriana, of which the Stalwart card appears to be and the Endurance does not, especially given it is just a "Captial Ship" to the "Battlebarge" the Stalwart card is

I will assume that the Death Guard and by extension Mortarian received at least one Gloriana.
Do we know that Mortarian used it as his flagship?
Is it possible that he did not want a totally pimped out new ride like many of his more ego driven brothers and was happy with his previous flagship?
We have no definitive knowledge of what a "Gloriana" looks like, if indeed all the Glorianas are even similar in design.
There may well be a larger version of a Vengeance style grand cruiser (perhaps another type of Gloriana) that we do not know about yet. I'm going with the ship names on the cards until we have good evidence that there was an error. Will probably build my Endurance as a considerably larger version of a grand cruiser.

Tim

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

Gloriana is a class of ship, there are various patterns/marks for it. Also, there are more than 20 of them. The Word Bearers at a certain point had at least 9 of them.

Where is this, because I have only ever seen the 20 number thrown about.

The Furious Abyss is not a Gloriana, nor its sister ships. THey are something more.

[Malika]

Read Forge World's HH books for more on that. And no, I'm not mixing up the Gloriana with the Furious Abyss (and its two sister ships)

[timdp]

Do we know that Mortarian used it as his flagship?

Interesting quote from Flight of the Eisenstein p12 referencing Endurance's exit from the warp:

"Behind her came more of her kind ranging in class and size both larger and smaller:"


What ships are larger than Glorianas? My suspicion is that Mortarian is NOT using a Gloriana as his flagship.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

We do know it was his flagship. I think Eisenstein. May have been written before the first mention of a Gloriana, or at least before they were well established. So it is possible there is an inconsistency.  I will have to check my copy later

[timdp]

We do know it was his flagship. I think Eisenstein. May have been written before the first mention of a Gloriana, or at least before they were well established. So it is possible there is an inconsistency.  I will have to check my copy later

Definitely possible that it was written before any mention of Glorianas. Copyright is 2007. This does not resolve the problem however. If Endurance is a Gloriana, then are are at least one and probably multiple ships in Motartian's fleet that are larger than Glorianas. Terminus Est perhaps, but other ships larger than Glorianas?

[timdp]

2- It is obviously an enlarged Space Marine Battle Barge. However, no other Gloriana has ever appeared to be similar AND the Space Marine Battlebarge design is a consequence of the Horus Heresy, as it is designed with Planetary Assault in mind rather than naval conflict, since the space marines were forbidden from having a true navy in the wake of the heresy

Found another bit of text in Extermination just above the ship list. I guess the bit in bold clarifies that  M41 style battle barges did exist during the Heresy.

"Battleships or Battle Barges
Battleships are the principal/capital class of warship in the Armada Imperialis
Range 8-12 km in length, though some were constructed far larger.
Battle Barges are any variant or retrofit of Battleship class hulls modified and optimized for use by the Legiones Astartes specifically for Space Marine planetary assault and ship-to-ship boarding actions.
Purpose-built Battle Barges have also been constructed, particularly in the Great Crusade’s later years.
In common parlance, any capital class vessel used by the Legiones Astartes exclusively is often referred to as a Battle Barge regardless of the technical truth of the matter."

[Malika]

Over at The First Expedition we've been discussing 30k ships and our discussion has kinda turned on the Gloriana class ships. Read about it from this post onwards, it does leave us with some food for thought.

[Jimmy Zimms]

In common parlance, any capital class vessel used by the Legiones Astartes exclusively is often referred to as a Battle Barge regardless of the technical truth of the matter."

THANK YOU. I can't tell you how many times I've had to remind people over the years that a "Battle Barge" is what it does, not what it is. The limitations of profit and costs resign GW to making a single model versus a whole set of thematically similar yet distinct ones. Well that, and the rule of cool (which let's be honest, the Marine craft are just downright awesome looking).

Interesting quote from Flight of the Eisenstein p12 referencing Endurance's exit from the warp:

"Behind her came more of her kind ranging in class and size both larger and smaller:"


What ships are larger than Glorianas? My suspicion is that Mortarian is NOT using a Gloriana as his flagship.

Just to note that it doesn't say all those are capital ships. For instance the Imperial Mass Conveyors are some of the largest startships EVER constructed and used to move insane numbers of troops into a warzone. Food for thought...