Welcome to the first of a series of articles looking at my BFG Emperors Children fleet in more detail.
I managed to pick ups. boxed game of BFG, minus some of the ships, a number of years ago from eBay. The box was a little tatty, but inside were all of the counters. Brother Handro came to the rescue with some plastic cruisers, some more fleet roster cards, and some weapon sprues, and before long we had ourselves our starting fleets.
Back in those days (Brother Handro: "did you really just say that...") you could buy ships from GW still, albeit from a limited range. Having just started work, and desperately trying to clear an overdraft, I didn't dive in with as much as I (in hind sight) should have done (Der H: "look at how much fleets used to cost" [shows picture of BFG magazine sales page] Brother Handro: {quiet sobbing}).
To start off, lets look at some basic ships from my fleet...
The eagle eyed/keen/interested of you might recognise this as a dictator class cruiser. This is the Gloria Tertio. She is the first cruiser I fielded in a battle, and has seen multiple combats since. Ordinance mixed with weapons batteries make her a good all-rounder, but occasionally lacking the heavy hitting of a pure line ship.
The background for the dictator lists the ship as being originally based on the versatile Luna pattern cruiser, with lance bays replaced with launch bays. This modification was later used more frequently to produce the Dictator class which, unlike the Luna, tended to operate as a fleet support vessel.
The Gloria Tertio acted in this way to support the strike cruisers in her first engagement in our Grandia campaign, and her ordinance proved invaluable. One of the things I enjoy in BFG is the ship upgrades system. Following her first engagement Gloria Tertio rolled well and was refitted with a reinforced hull. This increased her hit points by 25%, from 8 to 10, and reduced her speed by 5cm. She now operates as a slightly slower, but formidable fleet support cruiser, pumping out torpedoes, attack craft and supporting the rest of the fleet.
This ship, a standard Tyrant class cruiser has, to date, not seen battle. A pretty standard stat line, but in addition to the 6 strength 30cm weapons battery, she also carries a 4 strength 45cm weapons battery. At close range I hope she will be able too pack a serious punch and provide support and protection for the Dictator class.
This ship, also untested, is strictly speaking a Hades class heavy cruiser (denoted by the dorsal lance batteries. She can be used as such, or can represent either a Murder or a Carnage class cruiser. The joy of the chaos fleet is the flexibility they can provide. Whilst they struggle with charging head long into battle, they excel at manouvreability, long range fire and speed. The Murder and Carnage differ only in the arrangement of their guns. The Murder packing 45cm strength 10 weapons batteries with some prow lances, and the Carnage 45cm strength 6 and 60cm strength 4, giving a longer arm, but less punch at that distance. Of course, closing to 45cm gives you that punch back, and coupled with a prow Front/left/right strength 6 weapons battery which can reach to 60cm also, if anything it can out gun the Murder and even the Hades in terms of Weapons battery output. A well positioned Carnage class can easily spell doom for most ships it encounters.
Next time we'll go through my escorts, and hint at my favourite prow!
Der H
