Its a Glorious day....

Some time ago, Der H started work on a Gloriana class for BFG. The project went on a bit, was very large and (Brother Handro: “…as is tradition…”) didn’t get finished….

…until today.

This is my take WIP on the Gloriana class from 30k lore. I’ve made two hull versions, two engine versions, and a range of prows - some specific to certain legions, others are generic.

Weapon systems are all currently imperial; Batteries, cannons, launch bays and lances.

I do have a WIP of a hull with launch bays along its dorsal ridge.

I chose the armaments based on the rules available on Facebook by J Mckenzie - a really nice ruleset for the Gloriana class.

This is very much a beta for these models - lots of conversion so lots of opportunity for mesh errors - please comment and leave feedback!

Hull VS and Prow VS are for the Vengeful spirit and fit better together! Engines should work for both - please let me know if there are alignment issues!

Thanks to MK Hand and Italian moose for parts as always, and please do give feedback - it will help make this into a fully fledged model.

Thingiverse files

Cults3D files

What would people like to see:

• Chaos weapon systems?

• Mechanicum prows/parts?

• Cargo parts - mass conveyor style?

• Custom prows?

Digital Kitbashing, AKA Procrastination with 3D Builder

A big part of Hobby Butterflies 3D (Brother Handro “Buy now to avoid disappointment”) is digital kitbashing. Ive used this term before, but today I’ll show my latest examples, what it is useful for, and things it isn’t useful for…I’ll even go through the process…

For this round I will use a recent request from Alpharius Omegon (on instagram) he has recently printed a 300% version of the Karnath Class Grand Cruiser (Brother Handro “wait…3up BFG is a thing?!”). He writes:

The three in question have no models on cults 3D or Thingiverse at present, so why not! The process starts with finding similar design features on other files available - in this case, there are a range of excellent STL files from Kybynn, Mkhand and Italian Moose - FYI the latter are generally the best source of STL files for BFG, as their stuff is well designed, and prints beautifully.

The files I used were the Idolator Raider, Infidel Raider, Chaos destroyer and the Chaos raiding ships; the latter provided the majority of parts!

The end result is quite effective. Clearly the angle of the prow isn’t perfect, but my skills don’t lie in creating curved shapes. These files are up for download on either Cults 3D or Thingiverse, and the individual links can be found below:

How to do it!

Of course…I forgot to use any of them for a worked example…so I figured I’d make something completely new - a chaos transport ship!

The Idolator serves as a very nice base for the model. The split tool is nearly always the first step!

The Split tool starts with a 0 degree angle in each dimension, meaning it cuts horizontally. A quick 90 degree turn will let us cut out the middle section…in default “keep top” or “keep bottom” mode we’d lose half the model. Instead, we move to keep both…

Positioning is key, usually this can be by eye, but we can adjust it by mm (and fractions of!) if needed, as we shall see later.

Often after cutting a part will become invalid - 3D builder is pretty good at repairs!

One more snip and we have removed the gun decks!

One of my favourite files is a Transport builder - it isn’t really a builder, but it is a repository of parts for escort-sized transport ships. I love it because I can build any transport combination i want pretty quickly, export and print to my desires! It also includes my re-imagining of the old OOP Forgeworld Imperial Transports (Der H: “See…I do make some of my own stuff!”)

Whilst lining up I spot a fault with my cutting…no matter. Using the split tool again, we can drag it to the rear most part of that single part (The prow in this case!). This gives us how many mm from the middle of that part…

Here the subtle adjustment from 9.14mm from centre to 9.1mm is enough to cut the residual piece off.

The first draft

Here we have the first draft. Its a good opportunity to take a look at the model and see what looks good, and what doesn’t!

For me, the cargo portion is too tall, and the towers too tall and too even. Many Chaos ships have alternating high/low antennae…two easy fixes. First the underside, and the return of the split tool!

The lower part can now be re-scaled - without maintaining aspect ratio - to squash it down (up?)

Next is the antennae. They now look even taller! This uses the split tool, then the ungroup tool. The upper portion that is split counts as one part. Ungrouping allows manipulation of just the 2nd and 4th spire.

At this point a group and merge of the parts that make up the cargo section is vital - this section is now 6 parts, with internal surfaces!

The Second Draft

I still wasn’t happy - the even number of spires meant it didn’t sit right to my eye! No matter! I quick duplication and cut (I know, I just merged the central section!) allowed the addition of an additional short tower section to the front.

A quick movement, ensuring the front snaps to alignment, allows an overlap of the parts to give a nice clean finish…

The finished article

After I’m happy, we select all, hit merge and save the STL for uploading/testing. This ship was knocked together pretty quickly, so isn’t built from anything…just my imagination! It is available here, and might get some friends if I feel so inclined!

Next up I want to make some terrain, perhaps minefields, stations, gun batteries, and perhaps a set of system ships! Watch this space!

HB-3D: Escort madness!

Der H: “An hour to kill on a Saturday….guess Ill make some escorts!”

There was a comment on one of the BFG facebook groups recently about the lack of Chaos transports…This can not continue!

honestly, anything that's cool/modular but not a ship itself - or even the smaller system ships/ships we rarely see. Lots and lots of escorts and Cruisers have already been built/rebuilt. What we need are chaotic system ships, chaotic fireships, Eldar mines, Eldar transports, etc. Less of the "Standards".

My Transport Builder has been online for a little while now, and it gives a range of parts for various ships, but I hadn’t realised the Q-Ships, Armed Freighters, escort carriers and similar did not yet have dedicated models. Eldar transport have two beautiful option here and here.

On Monday ill be posting a blog post to describe the process of 3D Kitbashing, but for now take a look at the range of new creations for BFG on Cults3d or Thingiverse.

Of particular note are the Chaos transports: there are two versions of each of standard and fuel Transport and Heavy transport, Troop & Heavy Troop and armed freighter.

In addition there is a Q-Ship, a Fireship, an escort carrier and an armed freighter!

I plan on working on some mines, some Chaos Fireships, a Chaos escort carrier - different from the Insanity Class - and perhaps some small system ships….but lets see what happens…

…oh….and this is a thing….

Battlefleet Gothic - Emperors Children - Summary

It dawns on me that, some time ago, I started chatting about BFG ships! Behold! My glorious IIIrd Legion fleet in all its glory!

This is my complete (for now...) fleet. As you can tell, I quite like this fleet! It comes together nicely, has a good range of ships, and feels mixed and exciting. There are a few, fluff wise, older designs to fit with the heresy era, as well as several of the armoured prow sporting ships that, although initially post-heresy designs, have now been re-conned into the heresy era canon.

I hope the few BFG posts I managed to pump out last year have given you some inspiration for BFG. It is a game we both really enjoy and which has stood the test of time. You never know, it might even get a re-boot!

Stay tuned over the next few months to see my Eldar fleet progress, my Alpha Legion fleet appear, and to see more of Brother Handro's Imperial fleet close up!

Battlefleet Gothic - Emperors Children Escorts

Time to look at some Emperors Children Escorts (Der H: "no, not like that...")

Escorts get mixed reviews in the BFG community. Some people love them, some thing they're a waste of points vs cruisers and ordinance. I like them a lot, not necessarily in game terms where they can be quite weak and ineffective if not properly supported/deployed en masse , but in terms of imagery and to build a cohesive looking fleet.

You might be able to tell that I really quite like firestorms! I had an eBay binge several years ago and got hold of loads of firestorms, some sword class escorts, and some cobra class destroyers. The Swords and the Cobras ended up supporting Brother Handro's fleet, but the Firestorms, they're mine!

Firestorms have a prow lance and a front/left/right strength 2 weapon battery. On their own...quite weak, but when massed together in a squadron they really pack a punch. 9 together can put strength 18 weapon battery salvos and 9 lance shots into a target and that really helps on that pesky gunnery table. The issue, of course, is that fewer swords can put out a lot more WB hurt than these guys, and I am notorious for failing to do anything with lances....this is a problem later.....

My next group of escorts gives away my secret love - the Voss pattern prow! These little guys were snapped up with their bigger brother shortly before G'dubs stole away their BFG line for good. The Falchions are a nice little escort, 3 front/left/right weapons batteries a piece and a prow torpedo to boot. Another example of good en masse, but three torpedoes doesn't strike much fear, and the swords can often mop them up in similar numbers. More on these little fella's another time.

Brother Handro will show off his Cobra and Sword escorts in due course, but for now, watch this space for an overview of my favourite prow, the Voss pattern!

Der H

Battlefleet Gothic - Emperors Children - Cruisers

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

Battlefleet Gothic - How we started!

(Der H: "You know what?.....I love Battlefleet Gothic!")

(Brother Handro: "That's right...you tell me most days....")

(Der H: "No, but like....really LOVE it!")

This month, we will be running a series of articles on Battlefleet Gothic!

It is true...whilst I claim to have been tempted back to war gaming by the lure of Space hulk (Brother Handro: "Did you actually ever FINISH any of that box you bought.....?") I rapidly bought into the idea of playing BFG.

A quick Ebay search gave me my starter box, an of course Brother Handro's magic cupboard of doom yielded more and more goodies. Back in 2012, GDubs still sold some BFG, albeit limited, and I caved in and bought some of my favourite ships (Wait for my Voss Pattern blog post in a few weeks!). We cobbled together a narrative to link in with our narrative campaign, The Siege of Grandia (we'll get to that one day honest!), and we got to work building our fleets!

Our first battle was slow, to put it bluntly. Never having played before It did take some time to get our heads around it. We're both fans of the Age of Sail, and the idea that a broadside to broadside was less accurate than shooting at a closing ship (i.e. narrower target) was a little jarring at first. (Brother Handro: "And forgetting to brace....don't forget that!").

Our first game placed my Strike Cruiser, Dictator class cruiser, Enforcer and 6 Falchions against Brother Handro's Imperial fleet. We played a good old convoy assault style mission.

I deployed in a line, because why not! Brother Handro is sporting a number of converted ship designs (Der H: "They might just feature in an upcoming blog post!") and, currently, trying to make transports go faster than the Imperial fleet ships!

Here you can see a number of paint schemes, with two converted heavy transports on the right, three Armed freighters/escort carriers/Q-Ships (Grey) and four standard freighters.

Handro's escorts sweep in to intercept. We really enjoy the movement system, and the role of ordnance (Der H: "especially with no Tau players....<Stares at Handro>") with its area denial role is really something.

The satisfaction when you can really hit some escorts hard...

...and the pain when one of your ships gets hit again, and again, and again....but more on the fateful Milunia later....

I've kept Brother Handro's ships out of this post for now....that will come later!

Keep your eyes peeled for more coverage of our experience of BFG over the coming weeks including articles on:

- My Emperors Children fleet

- Brother Handro's Imperial fleet

- My scratch builds

- My Eldar fleet

- My, as yet, unfinished ships (CLANG!)

- Coverage of some of the old Warp Rift and BFG magazine articles

- BFG Terrain

- Some how-to's for conversions

Der H