Illustrations

Battlefleet Gothic

— Digital Remaster —

Spaceship Battles in the 41st Millenium

Many thanks to the original designers who worked on this game.

You created something wonderful.

Game Design and Developement

Andy Chambers, Gavin Thorpe, Jervis Johnson, Matt Keefe, Andy Hall

Original Art

John Blanche, Alex Boyd, Wayne England, Des Hanley, Neil Hodgson, Nuala Kennedy, Paul Smith, John Wigley

The 2010 Compendium

Bob Henderson, Ray Bell, Nate Montes

From

Remastered Battlefleet Gothic

by

Simon Saier

THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL GAMES WORKSHOP PUBLICATION

The creator of this document is in no way affiliated with Games Workshop and it is 100% unofficial.

The content within is a fan project and made for personal use only.

Created by Simon Saier

The goal of this project was to compile the 2004 digital rulebook and the 2010 Compendium into one document with updated layout and artwork, and without altering any rules. Additionally, it contains the campaigns from Battlefleet Gothic: Armada; but NOT any ships, as this would have doubled the page count, and Would have caused constant page flipping from the rules to the ship profiles and back. Most of the art and all rules phrasing has been sourced from Games Workshop PLC and remains copyrighted by Games Workshop PLC.

Additional art was sourced from the video games Battlefleet Gothic: Armada and Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II, either as artwork or screenshots and remains copyrighted by Tindalos Interactive SARL and/or Focus Home Interactive SA.

Please get in touch if I have used anything you would like to be removed.

This document formatted and arranged by Rory Hinnen.

Introduction

Welcome to Battlefleet Gothic, the game of spaceship combat set during the Gothic War in the 41st millennium: a grim time when the lmperium of Mankind battles for survival in a hostile galaxy. Battlefield Gothic allows you to command fleets of warships in deadly combat among the stars, though whether as Mankind’s saviour or its destroyer remains to be seen.

The Battlefleet Gothic book is divided into four sections:

The Galaxy of the 41st Millennium gives you a rough overview of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, mainly centred around the spaceships. After that, it goes into detail describing the name-giving conflict in the Gothic sector, that lasted 20 years.

The Rules give you rules for staging your own battles using miniatures and dice. Types of ships, leadership, special orders, movement, shooting, weaponry and damage are all covered.

The Scenarios Section contains ten mission scenarios for you to fight and sub-plots to add extra spice to your games.

The Campaign Rules tell you how to run an ongoing series of battles through the Gothic War, with rules for crews gaining experience, commanders winning (and losing) renown, repairs, refits, upgrades and capturing star systems. It also features two large campaigns in the Warhammer 40,000 universe for you to battle through; the Third Armageddon War and Abaddon’s 13th Black Crusade.

The Galaxy of the 41st Millenium

For ten thousand years the lmperium of Man has endured, under the rule and guidance of the Immortal Emperor of Terra. Humanity populates over a million worlds stretched across the entire galaxy, fighting for survival against hideous nether-entities, hostile aliens and rebellion from within. To live in the Age of the lmperium is to live in troubled times; wars are commonplace and millions die each day, as the Emperor’s faithful servants lay down their lives for the future of Humanity.

The Imperium is so vast as to be beyond mortal comprehension. It is spread over tens of thousands of light years, its armies alone numbering many billions of soldiers. The mighty bureaucracy of the Adeptus Terra, known by many as the Priesthood, attempts to make sense of a seething mass of information from this gargantuan empire — reports of wars and battles, tithes from distant star systems, men and materials being shipped to far flung stars — but to try to truly understand such a massive realm is to invite insanity.

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This document doesn't include all of the lore that was present in the original Remastered Rules. If you're looking for lore, please get the Remastered PDF!

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The Rules

This section of Battlefleet Gothic details the rules of the game — the nuts ’n’ bolts of how different ships move and fight in space. You will learn how to move your ships, shoot all your weapons with devastating effect and how to navigate through the environmental dangers of space.

You don’t really need to have learned all of the rules to start playing; in fact, if you try to learn everything at once, you may end up getting a bit confused. Very few games, especially if you’re just starting out as a Battlefleet Gothic player, will involve all of the rules detailed over the entire book. Our advice is to have a quick look through the rules once. You don’t have to read every word, just get an idea of what’s going on and where different rules can be found. After that, the best idea is to get stuck in and play a few games! As you come across situations that you’re not sure how to deal with, look up the relevant section and read the rules as you are playing.

In particular, the sections on Unit Types, Leadership Tests, The Turn, The Movement Phase, The Shooting Phase, The Ordnance Phase and The End Phase contain all the core rules you need to play and it is there you will find most of the information you’ll need. If you start in this way you will find that you pick up the basic rules in a few games and will be able to play for much of the time using just the information on the playsheets. As you introduce other elements into your games, such as squadrons and lumbering battleships, read through the appropriate rules to refresh your memory and refer to them during play.

The very first part of the rules, the bit you’re reading now, is given over to discussing common conventions used in Battlefleet Gothic, model scale, what you will need to play and so on. Even if you are familiar with wargaming in general you may find it useful to read over this section before going on to the rest of the book.

What you will need

As well as the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook, there are a number of other things you’ll require to be able to play. For a start, you will need two or more players, with models to represent their ships. You will also need a battlefield to fight over. Any firm, level surface will do, such as a tabletop or an area of floor — most kitchen tables will do fine! It’s a good idea to use an old sheet or blanket to protect the table from scratches and chips. Some players make a special gaming board from chipboard or other similar material, which they can place on top of a table to extend their playing area. Onto this surface, you can then place the celestial objects around which the battle is fought, such as planets, moons, asteroid fields and dust clouds. You can find out more about fleets and the battlefield later on.

As well as players, ships and a battlefield there are a few other things you will need. At least one measuring device marked in centimetres (such as a retractable tape measure or ruler). All distances in this book are given in centimetres. You will also need some ordinary six-sided dice and a pen and some paper for noting down damage to ships and other details.

First Principals

At this early stage in the book it’s worth establishing some initial principles about the Battlefleet Gothic game.

Scale

First of all — space is big! Very, very big. Take your conception of a long way (i.e. down to the shops when it’s raining hard) and multiply it by a million, then by another million ... and then by another million and you’re still not even close to how far apart things are in space. In order to include interesting and exciting features such as planets and moons on the battlefield and have ship models which are not the size of molecules, Battlefleet Gothic takes some liberties with scale. In short, the ship models are designed to look good and be nice to paint, but they are not intended to be in scale with planets. To prevent this becoming a problem in the game it is assumed that the ships actually occupy the point in space shown by the stem of their base.

In keeping with this principle, movement distances are measured from the stem on the ship’s base and distances for firing are measured from the stem of the ship’s base to the stem of the target model.

The actual base of a ship model represents very close range around the ship, no more than a few thousand kilometres. At this distance all kinds of dangers can affect the ship itself such as torpedoes, deep space bomber squadrons, other ships exploding or asteroids striking. Hence, for the purposes of the game, if something affects an area of the battlefield, like the markers used to represent torpedo salvoes or the boundaries of an asteroid field, a ship is affected if its base is touched, or if a ship moves so that its base comes into contact with the hazard.

3D or not 3d?

As well as being very big, space is also infinitely wide, high, deep etc. Despite this, Battlefleet Gothic is played on a flat tabletop. To allow for the vagaries of three dimensions and the vast distances involved, ships can move and fire past each other without any risks. It’s easy to imagine that individual ships are just a few hundred kilometres higher or lower than each other and so have plenty of clear space to manoeuvre in. The reason for the lack of 3D movement is twofold.

Firstly, making the game work in three dimensions would add little to the tactics of it, because unlike aircraft combat, where the force of gravity means whoever is highest has an advantage, combat in the zero gravity of space would turn fighting in three dimensions into little more than a range modifier. Secondly, for the practical mechanics of the game, working in 3D would complicate the rules immensely.

Dice Rolls

There are lots of occasions in a battle when you have to roll dice to see how a ship’s actions turn out — how effective shooting is, what damage is done to an enemy ship, how well captains and their crews react to the stress of battle and so on.

All dice rolls in Battlefleet Gothic use a standard six-sided dice (usually shortened to D6). Sometimes you will need to modify the result of the dice roll. This is noted as D6 plus or minus a number, such as D6+1 or D6-2. Roll the dice and add or subtract the number indicated to get the final result.

For example, D6+ 2 means roll a dice and add 2 to the score, giving a total between 3 and 8.

You may also be told to roll a number of dice together, which is written as 2D6, 3D6 and so on. Roll the indicated number of dice and add the scores together, so that with a 2D6 roll, two dice are rolled and added together for a score between 2-12, 3D6 adds together the scores of three dice for a total between 3 and 18 and so on.

For example, a 2D6 roll of a 5 and a 3 are added together to score 8.

Another method used is to multiply a dice by a certain amount. Thus, D6×5 means the result of a D6 roll multiplied by 5, giving a total between 5 and 30. Sometimes a combination of these methods may be used, such as 2D6+5 giving a score between 7 and 17, or 3D6-3 which will total 0-15.

In a few rare circumstances you may be told to roll a D3. Since there’s no such thing as a three-sided dice, use the following method for determining a score between 1 and 3. Roll a D6 and halve the score, rounding up. Thus a 1 or 2 equals 1, a 3 or 4 equals 2 and a 5 or 6 equals 3.

Re-rolls

In some situations the rules allow you a re-roll of the dice. This is exactly as it sounds — pick up the dice you wish to re-roll and roll it/them again. The second score counts with a re-roll, even if it means a worse result than the first. No single Special Order or other leadership test can be re-rolled more than once, regardless of the source of the re-roll.

The Bearing Compass

A vital instrument in the game is the bearing compass, a circular card template with a hole punched through the middle. It is used for two purposes. Firstly to check the fire arcs of your own ships to see which weapons they can bring to bear against the enemy. Doing so is simple: place the template over your ship so that the hole in the centre is above the centre of the flying stand and the two arrows are pointing along the length of the ship: This places the 90° quadrants so that one is in front, one is behind and one is to each side of the ship. Fire arcs and ship’s gunnery are explained in more detail in the Shooting Phase section.

Secondly, it is used to find out what aspect a target is presenting to a ship firing at it. In this case the bearing compass is placed over the target in the same way as described above. The aspect of the target is shown by which quadrant faces the firer.

Set-Up

Definition of Game Turns:

A game turn is both player turns, so a game that lasts eight turns has sixteen player turns.

Pre-measurement:

You may pre-measure movement and range unless all players agree not to. Note: To aid in pre-measuring, use a couple of empty flying bases with bearing compasses dropped over the stems.

Secrecy of Fleet Lists:

Fleet lists are not normally secret. However, to add a degree of subtlety to a campaign, fleet lists may be kept secret until the end of the game (or campaign) if both players agree. However, it must be written down, complete with all refits and point totals. If at any time your opponent wishes to see your fleet list, both players must then immediately reveal their fleet lists to each other.

Secrecy of Sub-plots:

Sub-plots are normally rolled for in front of both players at the beginning of the game. However, sub-plots may be kept secret in the same manner as described previously for fleet lists if both players agree. However, they must be written down at the beginning of the game, and if at any time your opponent wishes to see your sub-plot(s), both players must then immediately reveal them to each other. If kept secret, they must nonetheless be revealed at the end of the game.

Ship Types

Battlefleet Gothic allows you to fight space battles amidst the cold, bright stars of the Gothic Sector during the period of raging war and unbridled destruction heralded by the ninth Black Crusade of Abaddon early in the 41st millennium. At this time Imperial, Chaos, Ork and Eldar ships of all sizes clashed in deadly conflict. Massive beweaponed battlecruisers joust with lances of fusion fire, lumbering battleships duel with coruscating salvoes of destruction while their agile escort ships dart through the fray to slash at the battling leviathans.

The Citadel miniatures used to play Battlefleet Gothic are referred to as ships (or sometimes vessels) in the rules that follow. Each ship is an individual playing piece with its own capabilities. Different ships can have very different capabilities, so they are separated into the following types: battleships, cruisers and escorts.

Battleships are the largest fighting ships in space. They can absorb a tremendous amount of damage and mount weapon batteries capable of laying waste to entire continents. These vessels are so huge that they are comparatively slow and ponderous to manoeuvre, so they need support from other vessels to bring the enemy to battle.

Cruisers are the workhorses of any fleet. They are manoeuvrable, well-armed ships, capable of operating away from a base for extended periods. This means that cruisers are used for extended patrols, blockades and raiding deep into enemy held space. In a major battle, cruisers screen the approach of the fleet in support of the escorts and form the gun line once battle begins.

Escort Ships are the commonest warships in any fleet. They are fast, lightly armed and capable of running rings around heavier ships, which they accompany to protect them against torpedo attacks and to fight off enemy escorts. They are also used for independent actions such as scouting, raiding, protecting transport ships, and chasing pirates.

Note that for reasons of brevity, battleships and cruisers are often grouped together under the general heading of capital ships, a term which applies to all ships of both types.

Ship Data Sheets

Name: Agrippa | Class: Lunar | Leadership: 7

Type/Hits | Speed | Turns | Shields | Armour | Turrets
Cruiser/8 | 20 cm | 45° | 2 | 6+ front / 5+ | 2

Armament | Range/ Speed | Firepower/ Str | Fire Arc
Port lance battery | 30 cm | 2 | Left
Starboard lance battery | 30 cm | 2 | Right
Port weapons battery | 30 cm | 6 | Left
Starboard weapons battery | 30 cm | 6 | Right
Prow torpedoes | 30 cm | 6 | Front

Name: Unclean | Class: Murder | Leadership: 7

Type/Hits | Speed | Turns | Shields | Armour | Turrets
Cruiser/8 | 25 cm | 45° | 2 | 5+ | 2

Armament | Range/Speed | Firepower/Str | Fire Arc
Port weapons battery | 45 cm | 10 | Left
Starboard weapons battery | 45 cm | 10 | Right
Prow lance battery | 60 cm | 2 | Front

Each vessel available in Battlefleet Gothic has a complete set of characteristics. These characteristics will tell you how fast, manoeuvrable, well-armoured and hideously armed they are. The table to the right represents the characteristics for an Imperial Lunar class cruiser and a Murder class Chaos cruiser.

Name:

All ships deserve a name! Well, except escorts maybe. Ship entries often have a list of some of the most famous ships that fought in the Gothic War, so feel free to use those or make up your own.

Class:

Ships are not all the same, so they are listed as belonging to a particular class. Different classes may be approximately the same in terms of size and weight but vary a lot in details. What is basically the same hull may carry different weapons, bigger engines, more or less armour, etc. Ships may even be converted from one class to another in the course of a major refit. The two ships shown on the previous page are a Lunar class Imperial cruiser and a Murder class Chaos cruiser. You will notice that while they are the same type their actual characteristics are different.

Leadership:

A ship’s Leadership value indicates how experienced and well trained its crew are and/or how clever and decisive its captain is in combat. In a one-off game of Battlefleet Gothic the Leadership value of ships is randomly generated. If the ship fights in an ongoing campaign its Leadership can improve or worsen depending on how well the ship performs.

Type/Hits:

A ship’s Type tells you if it is a battleship, cruiser or escort. Its number of Hits indicates how big and strongly built its hull is and how large a crew it has. In Battlefleet Gothic, a ship’s Hits represents how many times it can be hit and damaged before it is reduced to a floating wreck (note that Hits are also referred to as damage points: don’t be confused — both mean the same thing). Both cruisers in our example have 8 Hits, which is average for a cruiser.

Speed:

The Speed characteristic tells you how far a ship moves in one turn. Vessels can potentially move faster than this but the additional power output needed will divert energy from weapon systems. The Chaos cruiser has a slight edge over the Imperial one in terms of speed, which gives it an important advantage in combat.

Turns:

Ships can usually turn just once during their move. This characteristic shows how sharply it can turn. In this case both ships can turn up to 45°, which is again about average for cruisers. Shields: Nearly all ships are protected by powerful force field generators that can absorb or shunt aside incoming hits. Shields are rated according to how many hits they can absorb in a turn before they temporarily collapse. Both the ships shown have shields capable of absorbing two hits.

Armour:

The ship’s Armour rating shows how well protected it is and/or how difficult it is to damage. When the ship is fired upon, the attacker needs to roll equal to or over its Armour rating on a D6 in order to score a hit. The Chaos cruiser has Armour of 5+ all round, but the Imperial cruiser has a heavily armoured prow which makes its Armour 6+ against shots from its front.

Turrets:

In addition to their main armament, most ships carry numerous small, quick-firing turrets. These are mounted over the length of their hull to shoot down incoming torpedoes and fighters. Both cruisers mount enough of these lighter weapons to have a Turrets value of 2.

Armament:

This section lists the ship’s main armament and its location.

Range/Speed:

The maximum range of weapons is shown in centimetres. In the case of ordnance weapons which move towards their target, such as torpedoes or fighters, the speed of the weapon is shown rather than its maximum range. As you can see, the Lunar class cruiser mounts more weapon systems than the Murder class but they all have a shorter range.

Firepower/Strength:

This number represents how effective a weapons system is when it shoots — the higher the number the better. Special weapons systems like torpedoes and lances have a Strength rating instead of a Firepower value. In this case the greater firepower of the Murder class cruiser is counter-balanced by the lances and torpedoes of the Imperial ship.

Fire Arc:

Weapon systems may only fire in particular directions depending on where they are mounted on the ship. Both the cruisers shown mount most of their weaponry in broadsides on either side of the ship. Few vessels mount any rear facing weapons — their engines are too massive and the thermal ‘backwash’ they create makes targeting almost impossible.

Base Size

There are two base sizes: small (32 mm diameter) and large (60 mm diameter). Any ship or defence with either 3 or more shields OR greater than 10 Hits must use a large size base. However, any capital ship can elect to use a large base and is considered to have Tractor Fields for free. Tractor fields have no effect except making it easier for the ship to ram and/or board due to its larger base size, in exchange for being a larger ordnance target.

Leadership

Even the smallest stellar craft is a marvel of engineering, packed with machinery and technology of the highest sophistication. The truly massive stellar warships are almost impossible to comprehend in their complexity, with thousands of crew members performing millions of tasks to keep the whole vessel in working order. It is said that no single man could fully understand all of the machinery and systems that work together to make such a vessel function. Nonetheless, it is ultimately the captain and crew who will determine how well a ship performs in combat. A ship under the command of an inspiring captain with a dedicated, well-trained crew can consistently outrun or outgun enemy vessels.

In Battlefleet Gothic, the expertise of a captain and his crew is shown by the ship’s Leadership value: the higher it is, the better the captain and crew. Leadership is very important, because ships must test against it if they wish to use special orders.

Starting Leadership Values

D6 Roll | Leadership
1 | Untried (Ld 6)
2-3 | Experienced (Ld 7)
4-5 | Veteran (Ld 8)
6 | Crack (Ld 9)

As mentioned earlier, in one-off games you roll a D6 to determine each ship’s Leadership value before the start of the game. Look up the result of the dice roll on the table below to see what Leadership value the ship has. Escorts roll once per squadron, with the whole squadron sharing the leadership value rolled. Each capital ship rolls individually for leadership, even if it is in a squadron. Squadrons are explained fully later in the rules.

Special Order

There are six different special orders and each one allows a vessel to perform better at something, such as gunnery or navigation, during its turn. A ship or squadron can only ever be on one special order at a time.

Special orders are declared during the Movement Phase by choosing a vessel or squadron, declaring the order and rolling leadership, then moving it.

All Ahead Full | [picture]
A ship going All Ahead Full directs more power to its engines to produce an extra burst of speed.
Effect: | Increased speed, but must move the full movement distance. Requirement for attempting to ram.
Speed: | Cruising speed +4D6 cm (make one roll for the whole squadron).
Turns: | None
Armament: | Half effect. No Nova Cannon.
Ordnance: | Full effect.

Come to New Heading | [picture]
The ship sacrifices opportunities to fire its weapons in order to turn more sharply.
Effect: | Extra turn. All the normal restrictions for turning apply to the second turn. This means a cruiser that moves 10 cm before turning must move at least 10 cm more before turning again.
Speed: | Half to full cruising speed.
Turns: | Up to two.
Armament: | Half effect. No Nova Cannon.
Ordnance: | Full effect.

Burn Retros | [picture]
The ship directs additional energy to its retro thrusters in order to kill some of its forward momentum and hold position.
Effect: | Decreased speed. Can make a single turn without having to move forward first.
Speed: | Zero to half cruising speed.
Turns: | Up to one.
Armament: | Half effect. No Nova Cannon.
Ordnance: | Full effect.

Lock On | [picture]
The ship maintains a steady course and draws additional energy from its engines to fire its armament in multiple salvoes.
Effect: | Re-roll hit rolls for lances and weapon batteries during the Shooting Phase.
Speed: | Half to full cruising speed.
Turns: | None.
Armament: | Full effect.
Ordnance: | Full effect.

Reload Ordnance | [picture]
Ships start the game with their ordnance, such as torpedoes and attack craft, fully loaded and armed. However, once the ordnance has been fired or launched the vessel must reload before it can use its ordnance again.
Effect: | All ordnance is reloaded.
Speed: | Half to full cruising speed.
Turns: | Up to one.
Armament: | Full effect.
Ordnance: | Full effect.

Brace For Impact! | [picture]

The captain of the vessel orders his crew to brace for impact; power is redirected to the shields, blast doors are slammed shut and the crew hang onto something secure. Brace For Impact special orders can be undertaken ANY time a ship faces taking damage before the actual to-hit result is rolled, including when ramming or being rammed or against damage from asteroid fields.

Effect: | The ship gains a saving throw of 4+ on a D6 against any damage. Can’t use any special orders at all in its next turn.
Speed: | Half to full cruising speed.
Turns: | Up to one.
Armament: | Half effect. No Nova Cannon.
Ordnance: | Half effect.

If a ship fails to take Brace For Impact! orders, it cannot attempt to take them again until the ship, squadron or ordnance wave currently attacking has completed its attacks.

Taking Command Checks

In the midst of battle a captain may order his ships to perform special manoeuvres or direct more of his ship’s power to weapons or engines. However, in order to do this the ship undertaking special orders must first pass a Command check. To make a Command check, roll 2D6 and compare it to the ship’s Leadership value (Ld). If the roll is equal to or under the ship’s Ld value it has passed the check and goes onto special orders. Then move the ship or squadron as appropriate before moving on to place your next special order. Place a special order dice next to the model with the appropriate symbol face uppermost as a reminder. A ship or defence can never be on more than one special order at a time unless specifically described otherwise in its special rules, such as a Ramilies Star Fort.

With all of the orders except Brace For Impact! you must make the check in the Movement Phase before moving the ship. Each ship or squadron may make a Special Order until all are under Special Orders or a Command Check fails.

If the roll is higher than the ship’s Ld value, it fails the test and may not go onto special orders. Furthermore, once you have failed a Command check for one ship in your fleet you may not make any further Command checks to use special orders in the same turn. It can be imagined that the delays and confusion in trying to get that particular ship to perform special orders means that the opportunity has passed for any further special orders to be issued.

When rolling special orders, a decision to use free command checks (such as with an Elite Command Crew or when Orks use All Ahead Full special orders) must be taken before a special order is failed. Once special orders are failed, no more special orders can be declared except Brace For Impact! Only one re-roll can be spent on a vessel or squadron per leadership check. In other words, if a vessel or squadron fails a leadership check and then fails a re-roll, another re-roll cannot be expended on it for the same leadership check or special orders on that vessel, even if more re-rolls are available.

Command check modifiers

Some circumstances will make it easier or harder for a vessel to use special orders. To represent this, there are two modifiers that can apply to Command checks, one positive and one negative. Under no circumstance can a ship’s Leadership be modified higher than Leadership 10. A leadership check roll of 11 or 12 always fails unless SPECIFICALLY stated otherwise.

Under Fire -1

If a ship has Blast Markers in contact with its base, it is under fire and suffers a -1 modifier to its Leadership. Blast Markers are described more fully in the Shooting section of the rules. For now it’s simply worth knowing that they represent weapon impacts, debris clouds, and other impediments to calm and orderly ship operation.

Enemy Contacts + 1

Enemy ships on special orders create anomalous energy emissions which make it much easier for the ship to detect them and react quickly. For this reason the ship gains a +1 modifier to its Leadership value if any enemy ships are on special orders.

For example, the Imperial cruiser Agrippa (Leadership 7) wants to use All Ahead Full orders to catch up with the Chaos cruiser Unclean. The Chaos cruiser used Lock On orders last turn so the Agrippa gets a +1 modifier to its Leadership value. Rolling 2D6 the Imperial player gets a 2 and 6 for a total of 8 and passes its Command check by equalling its modified Leadership value.

Other Leadership Tests

Sometimes a ship will have to test against its Leadership value for something other than using special orders. In these cases the test is for the captain and his crew to pull off a courageous or difficult undertaking.

For example, a successful test against Leadership is required for a ship to ram an enemy, safely navigate an asteroid field or target a specific vessel. These tests are taken like Command checks by rolling a number of dice and comparing the total score to the ship’s Leadership value. If the score is equal to or less than the ship’s Leadership, the test is passed.

Leadership tests can be undertaken even if a Command check for special orders has been failed earlier in the turn. No modifiers apply to leadership tests — such modifiers are unique to command checks for special orders.

The Turn

A game of Battlefleet Gothic is unlike many other games such as chess or draughts where you only move one piece at a time. A tremendous amount of action takes place in a real battle: ships manoeuvre and fire at each other, fighters and bombers are launched in vast waves and torpedoes scream towards their targets.

In a real battle, this all happens at once amidst the chaos of combat. A Battlefleet Gothic game represents the ebb and flow of battle, but in order for us to decide its outcome players alternate taking turns moving and fighting with their ships. So in a battle, player A will move and fight with his ships first, then player B will move and fight and then player A will move and fight again, etc. In his turn a player can move and fight with all of his ships.

For convenience, moving and shooting are dealt with one after the other. This means that you move all your ships first and then all your ships, that are able to, fire. This helps everyone keep track of what’s going on and makes it easier to know when each player’s actions are finished.

In a turn the player performs his actions in the appropriate phases — the move, shoot and Ordnance Phases to be precise. Exactly what happens in each phase is described in The Turn Sequence later.

Who Gets the First Turn

Which player gets the first turn of the game can be determined in a number of different ways. Normally both players roll a D6 and the player with the highest score can decide to move either first or second.

Sometimes the kind of game you are fighting will decide it for you. For example, in an ambush the attacking side will always get the first turn.

Fighting all sorts of different battles is covered in more detail in the Scenarios section later.

Ending the Battle

A battle can end in a number of different ways. Most commonly in Battlefleet Gothic fighting continues until either one side surrenders, or has no ships remaining on the tabletop. However, in certain kinds of battles, players might be able to win a “sudden death” victory which ends the game immediately — eg, if they destroy the enemy flagship.

Alternatively you might decide to end a battle at a preset time if you only have a limited amount of time to play in. Different ways of ending the battle are discussed in more detail in the Scenarios section.

Exceptions

There are times when a player will perform certain actions when it is not their turn, such as Brace for Impact! for example. It may also be convenient to interrupt a player’s turn because of some event occurring, such as an enemy ship being detected. The thing to remember is that the turn sequence will always continue after the interruption as normal.

Turn Sequence

The Movement Phase

This is when a player moves his ships. The player begins by removing any special order dice he placed last turn (except for ships on Brace for Impact! orders. They are stuck with them for this turn).

Next, the player moves his ships and squadrons one at a time. In this phase he may also take Command checks to institute special orders before moving a ship or squadron. If any Command check is failed no further checks may be made in the same turn. Note that ships must always move at least half their speed unless they wish to use the Burn Retros special order in order to hold position. See the Movement rules for more details about how to move your ships.

The Shooting Phase

Players may fire at each other’s vessels during this part of the turn. The player can shoot with any of his ships that are within range of enemy vessels. See the Shooting rules for more details about how to resolve shooting.

The Ordnance Phase

Both players may move any Ordnance markers (such as torpedoes or fighter squadrons) which are still on the tabletop, having been launched in a previous turn. See the Ordnance rules for more details.

The End Phase

Both players may attempt to repair critical damage which has been inflicted on their ships: D6 Blast Markers are also removed by the player whose turn it is. See the End Phase rules for more about repairs and removing Blast Markers.

The Movement Phase

During the Movement Phase, vessels manoeuvre into position to begin battle. Moving your battlefleet into the right position to rain destruction upon your opponent is vital — some ships need to keep their distance while others need to come to grips at close quarters.

The Movement Phase is filled with opportunities. By moving your ships you can surround a target and destroy it, smash through the heart of an opposing fleet, lurk behind planets and moons, flee from powerful enemies, even set traps to lure unwary foes to their destruction. A wise admiral can achieve all this and more in the Movement Phase.

Basic Moves

A player may move each ship up to its standard move distance each turn. Once one ship has completed its movement, the player selects another and moves that one and so on until he has moved all the ships he wishes to move.

This can be summarised as:

Choose a ship to move.

Move the ship up to its maximum move distance.

Choose another ship to move.

Note that a player has to move his ships unless they use the Burn Retros special order to remain stationary. A ship has to move at least 5 cm to not count as defences against the Gunnery Table.

Move Distance

Ships are pushed through the firmament by the most powerful engines anywhere in the galaxy. In space combat, the thrust available to a vessel can mean the difference between survival and destruction.

All ships can move at up to their normal speed. Speed varies from one ship to another, but by way of example, an Imperial Lunar class cruiser has a speed of 20 cm.

A ship’s normal move may be increased by using the All Ahead Full special order that follows. A vessel’s move can also be decreased in some circumstances during a battle. Damage to the ship may inhibit the efficiency of its engines and reduce its top speed, and a ship which moves through Blast Markers will be slowed slightly by the shockwaves and explosions.

Minimum Move Distance

Ships moving under engines retain enormous amounts of momentum. If a vessel slows down without the correct preparations, it is so big that there is a very real chance that its structure will be damaged because the whole of its vast length isn’t moving at the same speed. Because of this, ships must always move at least half of their speed unless they use the Burn Retros special order, detailed below. Ships who are unable to move half their speed (due to damage, Blast Markers, etc.) must move the maximum possible distance instead.

Turning

The bigger a ship, the slower it will turn. While light escort ships are quite agile, larger cruisers are ponderous beasts. The time lag between a cruiser applying thrust and turning is considerable. Battleships take even longer to manoeuvre.

When ships move they have to travel in a straight line, directly ahead. However, ships may make one turn

as part of their movement unless they are using special orders which prevent them from doing so.

A ship can turn by a maximum of either 45° or 90°, how sharp a turn it can make is included in the ship’s characteristics. A ship can only count forward movement made in the current Movement Phase as part of its minimum movement before turning. By way of example, the Imperial Lunar class cruiser is able to make turns of up to 45°.

Large ships have to move a certain distance before they are allowed to make a turn. The distance they must travel depends on their type:

A battleship must move 15 cm before it can execute a turn.

A cruiser must move 10 cm before it can execute a turn.

An escort ship can execute a turn at any point in its move.

Special Order:

All Ahead Full

A ship can move faster than its basic cruising speed by using the All Ahead Full special order. Using All Ahead Full orders means that a ship cannot turn and its firing ability is less effective, as explained in the Shooting rules. All Ahead Full orders are most useful for closing in on a distant foe or escaping from a deadly situation.

Special Order:

Burn Retros

A ship can move slower than half its basic cruising speed by using the Burn Retros special order, or even remain stationary (hold station). A ship can make a single turn without having to move forward first but its firing is less effective. Burn Retros orders are handy for holding back, when moving at full speed would bring you within range of an enemy’s guns, or would cause a ship to crash into asteroids.

Special Order:

Come To New Heading

A ship can turn more sharply by using the Come To New Heading special order. It may make an extra turn during its movement. Using Come To New Heading means that a ship is less effective in the Shooting Phase as explained in the Shooting rules. Come To New Heading orders are best used either for turning to get a more favourable attack angle on an enemy as it attempts to escape, or to outmanoeuvre a larger enemy ship

All Ahead Full — Ramming Speed!

A ship moving at All Ahead Full may attempt to ram an enemy vessel. As Battlefleet Gothic is a 2D representation of 3D space, a ship cannot attempt to ram more than one ship per Movement Phase, even if multiple enemy vessels are in its range of movement.

When the All Ahead Full command check is passed, the owning player must declare which ship it is attempting to ram and make the appropriate leadership test to do so before rolling the number of additional D6 cm it will move All Ahead Full. This choice cannot be changed if the ramming ship ends its movement in base contact with more than one vessel or does not reach the intended vessel. The number of ships it “moves through” or ends in contact with does not change or alter this.

Take a Leadership test for the ramming ship: if the test is passed, the captain skillfully manoeuvres his ship into a ramming position. If the test is failed, the would-be rammer misses the target and continues its move.

Obviously, it’s easier for an escort to ram a battleship than the other way round.

There are four sizes concerning the separate leadership check to ram. From biggest to smallest:

Defence > Battleship > Cruiser > Escort

If the target vessel is of a smaller type than the ramming one, the Leadership test is taken on 3D6.

If the target vessel is of the same type than the ramming one, the Leadership test is taken on 2D6.

If the target vessel is of a larger type than the ramming one, the Leadership test is taken on 1D6.

A ship cannot attempt to ram more than one ship per Movement Phase, even if multiple enemy vessels are in its range of movement.

A ship does not have to make a separate leadership check to ignore closer targets to ram one further away. When ramming, a ship must move its FULL distance, including any extra distance moved for being All Ahead Full. For example, the Imperial Lunar class cruiser Agrippa would take a Leadership test on 2D6 to ram another cruiser, on 3D6 to ram an escort or 1D6 to ram a battleship.

Ramming is determined by base-to-base contact. If any part of the ramming ship’s base contacts any part of the rammed ship’s base in the course of its movement, the ram is considered to be successful. If the ramming ship hits, roll 1D6 for each point of its starting damage capacity (not the damage capacity it has left). Any dice that equal or beat the target’s armour value score a point of damage on it. Damage from rams is not deflected by shields. The ramming ship may well suffer damage too, so the vessel being rammed rolls a number of D6 equal to half its starting damage. Any dice which equal or beat the ramming ship’s front armour rating score a point of damage. If the vessels are hitting head on (i.e. front to front) the rammed or defence vessel rolls a number of dice equal to its full starting damage capacity. Once the ram attempt is resolved, the ramming ship continues its movement.

Ramming example: The Agrippa, a Lunar class cruiser, rams the Unclean, a Murder class Chaos cruiser in the starboard side. The Agrippa had a starting damage capacity of 8 so it rolls 8D6 to damage the Unclean (which has Armour 5), rolling 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 and scoring 3 points of damage. By way of return the Unclean (with a starting damage capacity of 8) rolls 4D6 to damage the Agrippa (which has armour 6 on the front thanks to its armoured prow) rolling 3, 3, 5, 6 and scoring 1 point of damage.

If either ship is destroyed and explodes due to ramming, the explosion (and any subsequent hits) is resolved at that moment. The ramming and rammed ship will both always be in the explosion. If it was the rammed ship that exploded it is easier to finish the ramming ships movement as normal, but unless it has special rules to navigate Blast Markers it will be slowed by Blast Markers from the explosion.

While a ramming vessel may later attempt to board or shoot, it may only attempt to board a vessel if it ends up in base contact with one at the end of its full movement. This does not necessarily have to be the same vessel it just rammed.

When ramming defences, they always roll their full number of starting damage capacity to damage the ramming ship as if prow-on, as defences are more solidly built than ships are.

Ramming Summary

Ramming ship:

Roll a number of D6 equal to its starting damage.

Rammed ship hit from the side or rear:

Roll a number of D6 equal to half its starting damage.

Rammed ship hit from the front or Defence:

Roll a number of D6 equal to its starting damage.

Disengaging From Combat

Sometimes it’s better to run away and fight another day. A ship may be crippled with no hope of defeating its attackers, or just outnumbered so heavily that its captain decides that it’s hopeless to fight on. The classic approach to disengaging is to make a sudden course alteration and then cut all power so that the ship cannot be detected by its energy emissions. With luck the vessel will simply drift out of the immediate battle area and can set course for home once it’s clear of the fighting. Sometimes it even works ...

Circumstance | Modifier
Each Blast Marker within 5 cm | +1
Any celestial phenomena within 15 cm | +3*
Each enemy ship or Ordnance marker within 15 cm | -1

* This is for a tabletop feature such as an asteroid field or planet. If a tabletop effect such as a radiation burst or solar flare is taking place this bonus applies anywhere on the tabletop.

A vessel that moves off of the table edge during play for any reason counts as being disengaged. Or, in order to disengage, a ship or escort squadron must pass a Leadership test at the end of its Movement Phase with the following modifiers:

All positive and negative modifiers must be added together before determining the leadership check, even though check rolls of 11 or 12 still automatically fail.

For instance, a ship or escort squadron with Ld9 attempts to disengage after moving within 5 cm of three Blast Markers and an asteroid field (+4Ld) with no enemy ships or ordnance markers within 15 cm (no negative modifier). Even though the effective leadership to disengage is now Ld13 because these must all be added together BEFORE the roll, the player must still roll no higher than 10 to not fail the check. If the test is passed, the disengaging ship is removed from the tabletop and may not return during the game. If the test is failed the ship remains in play but may not fire, launch ordnance or attempt to use special orders (except Brace for Impact!) during the turn.

Any ship or squadron that, through a combination of effects, is reduced to Leadership 1 or less must attempt to disengage or move toward the closest table edge.

A vessel not hulked that moves off of the table edge during play for any reason counts as being disengaged.

An escort squadron that successfully disengages only counts as being 10% destroyed against the full value of all the escorts in the squadron. It counts as 25% destroyed if the squadron was crippled before disengaging, as in if at least half the escorts in the squadron were destroyed (rounding down) before the squadron disengaged. If any single ship in an escort squadron disengages, the whole escort squadron must then immediately and in subsequent turns attempt to disengage following normal rules. This prevents an escort squadron from disengaging one or two vessels to keep leadership or victory point benefits, then pushing the rest of them in a suicide run at the enemy.

Capital ships in a squadron may disengage separately, relying on their individual base leadership to do so, not the highest leadership in the squadron. If it attempts to disengage and fails, it falls out of the squadron and may not attempt to re-join it. This is in addition to all other effects for ships that fail to disengage when attempting to do so. A ship that disengages successfully counts as 10% of its point value for the enemy, or 25% if it is crippled before it disengages. This is NOT in addition to the 25% victory point value if it remains on the table at the end of the game but is crippled.

Flying Bases Overlapping

As ships can overlap by flying over/under one another it is possible to stack ships. When ships overlap it is common practice to remove the models from their flying bases. To keep things clear, it is usually best to have a few stemless flying bases around with a straight line draw from the central hole to the bases edge to indicate direction. If desired, numbered contact markers can be used for this as well. The drastic weakening of their shield strength usually discourages this as described in the section on Blast Markers, but it is completely legal.

Stacking Ships and Escort Squadrons

Cruisers and escorts can be stacked to follow the movement of battleships and other models that use a large base. If the models do not physically fit where they should be located, a contact marker or similar can be used for this purpose. As a rule, ships should only be stacked or overlap as an unavoidable consequence of movement or to attain a particular shooting solution and should not be used solely because it is allowed. When a ship is forced to stand still, it counts as being targeted as Defences. Minimum move distance to not count as defences is at least 5 cm. At no time do ships count as moving simultaneously (even if in a squadron) and must always be moved one at a time, in any order desired by the owning player.

The Shooting Phase

In the Shooting Phase, your ships get to unleash their weaponry against the enemy. The attacks that ships make are divided into two sorts: direct firing and ordnance attacks. Direct fire attacks include weapons such as lasers, fusion beams and plasma launchers which when fired hit almost immediately, even across tens of thousands of kilometres. Ordnance attacks include torpedoes and fighters, which are launched during the Shooting Phase but are not resolved until they hit their target in a subsequent Ordnance Phase.

Direct Fire

Direct firing uses a ship’s weapons batteries, lances and nova cannon. A player can make direct fire attacks with each of his ships during his turn.

In order to make direct fire attacks, the firing ship must have at least some weapons within range and fire arc of the enemy. Once one ship has done all its firing, the player selects another and fires that one and so on until the player has fired all of the ships he wants to.

This can be summarised as:

Choose a ship to fire.

Check the ship has targets within range.

Check the ship has weapons within fire arc of the target.

Resolve firing.

Choose another ship to fire.

Range

Measure the range from the firing ship to the target vessel. Then look up the range of the firing ship’s weapons on its characteristics: any weapons which are out of range may not fire. Because ships vary immensely in size and shape, we use the stems of the models’ bases as a pair of convenient centre points for checking range.

In the example above the Unclean is firing on the Agrippa. The Unclean is 34 cm away so its weapons batteries (range 45 cm) are within range.

Fire Arcs

Weapons have a limited field of fire depending on where they are mounted on the vessel. The different fire arcs are: front, left, right and rear.

A weapons system must have a target ship within its fire arc in order to fire.

The Unclean has the Agrippa in its right fire arc, so it may fire at it with any of its weapons which can be brought to bear in that arc.

Some weapon systems can shoot into more than one fire arc. For example, many cruisers have weaponry in a dorsal mount (i.e. along the top of the vessel) and dorsal mounts can fire left, front or right. Some weapons can even fire all round. Some special weapon systems are area-effect weapons that do not aim nor are directed at a particular target. These weapons or effects always affect all around the firing vessel.

Target Priority

Enemies at close range pose a much greater threat than those thousands of kilometres away, so a ship will normally target the nearest enemy ship or squadron. However, a ship can always fire at whatever targets you like if it takes and passes a Leadership test on 2D6 first.

Multiple Targets

Normally a ship will be in a position where only some of its weapon systems can be brought to bear against the closest enemy. Unengaged weapons may still be fired at other targets, providing that the closest enemy is shot at as a matter of priority.

In the example above the Unclean may fire its left arc weaponry against the Iron Duke and its right arc weaponry against the Agrippa.

Lances

Lances are incredibly high-powered energy weapons that are capable of burning straight through an armoured hull or cutting an escort ship in two. On Imperial and Chaos ships, lances are usually mounted in huge turrets with quad or triple energy projectors that focus into a concentrated beam of destruction.

Lance Rules

If a lance weapon system is within range and fire arc of the target simply roll 1D6 per point of lance Strength. Any dice which score a 4, 5 or 6 hit the target regardless of the target’s Armour value and cause 1 damage point. Ships with multiple lances in a given fire arc may split their weapon strength between targets but must still make a leadership check to fire on any target besides the closest.

For example, the Agrippa has lances that have a Strength of 2. If the vessel were to fire them, it would roll 2D6 and score one hit for each dice which rolled a 4 or more.

A target’s orientation depends upon which fire arc the firing vessel is in, as shown in the diagram. Match this with the target’s type to find out which column of the Gunnery table to use.

The Unclean opens fire with its starboard (right) weapons batteries. The weapons have a firepower of 10 and the Agrippa is a closing capital ship which on the Gunnery table means that the Unclean rolls 7D6. The Agrippa’s front armour rating is 6 so the Unclean needs to roll 6s to hit.

Direct Firing: Weapons Batteries

Weapons batteries form the main armament for most warships, ensuring that much of their hull is pock-marked by gun ports and weapon housings. Each battery consists of rank upon rank of weapons: plasma projectors, laser cannons, missile launchers, rail guns, fusion beamers and graviton pulsars. Weapons batteries fire by salvoes, using a coordinated pattern of shots to catch the target in the middle of a maelstrom of destruction.

Weapons Battery Rules

If a ship’s weapons battery is within range and fire arc of the target, look up the battery’s firepower on the ship’s data sheet. Then look up the target’s type and orientation on the Gunnery table that follows.

If a ship or squadron is firing multiple weapons that rely on the gunnery, they may be fired simultaneously. Calculate the dice on the gunnery table separately for each type of gunnery weapon. This means you do not suffer gunnery shifts due to Blast Markers caused by other members of the same squadron in the same Shooting Phase. The order in which these weapons hit is up to the shooting player, so Bombardment Cannons can hit after weapons batteries have taken down shields for instance, or vice versa if desired.

Find your total firepower on the column on the left of the table. Next look across the top of the table to find the target type you are shooting at.

The target’s orientation is worked out by tracing the line of fire to its base and using the bearing compass to see which aspect is facing the firer.

Which way the target is travelling is important for gunnery purposes as it is much harder to hit a target moving across your sights (i.e. abeam) than one closing or moving away from you.

By cross referencing the total firepower of the attack with the target type and orientation you will find out how many dice to roll to hit. Each dice roll which equals or beats the target’s Armour value scores a hit and inflicts 1 point of damage.

Any battery weapon that always counts targets as closing on the gunnery table still uses the far left column when targeting defences, applying any modifiers as applicable.

If a combination of ships in a squadron has a firepower value greater than 20, look up 20 and the remaining firepower values separately and add them together. For example, a squadron of two Carnages can have up to firepower 32 in one broadside, or firepower (20+12).

Gunnery Modifiers

Sometimes conditions will affect how difficult a target is to hit. Ships at very long range will be hard to hit and at close range they will be easy to hit. Debris, radiation, etc., can obscure a target and are represented by Blast Markers. These are described in more detail later, but for now it’s worth knowing that they can make a target harder to hit. Even weapon batteries that always count as closing can be affected by these modifiers.

Modifiers are applied in the form of column shifts. A good modifier (such as being at close range) means that you move across the Gunnery table one column to the left when you work out how many Hit dice to roll. A bad modifier (such as being at long range) means you move across one column to the right. No target aspect or modifier can adjust shooting beyond the far left or right columns on the gunnery table. The gunnery modifiers are summarised as follows:

Modifiers:

Target within 15 cm — shift one column left

Target more than 30 cm away — shift one column right

Target behind intervening Blast Markers — shift one column right

For example, as shown earlier, the Unclean firing at the Agrippa rolls 7D6. If the Agrippa were within 15 cm you would shift one column left on the Gunnery table and the Unclean would roll 9D6 instead. If the Agrippa was over 30 cm away the column shift to the right would mean the Unclean rolled 5D6 instead.

Gunnery Table
Closing |  | Capital Ships | Escorts |  |
Moving Away |  |  | Capital Ships | Escorts |
Abeam |  |  |  | Capital Ships | Escorts
Special | Defences |  |  |  | Ordnance

F
i
r
e
p
o
w
e
r
1
1
1
1
0
0

2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0
3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1
4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1
5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1
6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1
7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1
8 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2
9 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2
10 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 2
11 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 2
12 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 2
13 | 12 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 3
14 | 13 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 3
15 | 14 | 11 | 8 | 5 | 3
16 | 14 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 3
17 | 15 | 12 | 9 | 6 | 3
18 | 16 | 13 | 9 | 6 | 4
19 | 17 | 13 | 10 | 7 | 4
20 | 18 | 14 | 10 | 7 | 4

Notes: To save space, both cruisers and battleships are referred to as capital ships on the Gunnery table. If a squadron has a firepower value greater than 20, look up 20 and the remaining value separately and add them together. For example, a squadron of two Carnage cruisers can have up to firepower 32 in one broadside, or firepower (20+12).

*Defences (for example ground based defences and satellites) and ordnance targets are not affected by orientation. A ship must move at least 5 cm to not be targeted as defences

Splitting Fire

A ship can elect to split the firepower of its weapon batteries or lances between several enemy vessels, but only after halving the effect of the weaponry as a result of special orders, crippling damage and so on.

You cannot split weapons battery or lance fire of any type at a single target!

Ships with multiple weapons in a given fire arc may split their weapon strength between two or more targets but must still make a leadership check to fire on any target besides the closest.

Special Order:

Lock On

A ship can increase the accuracy of its firing by using the Lock On special order. The ship may re-roll any dice to hit for lances and weapons batteries, during the Shooting Phase. Any dice which missed are simply picked up and rolled again. A ship using Lock On orders may not turn during its Movement Phase because it must maintain a steady course and direct additional power to its weapon systems. Lock On orders are really useful when an enemy vessel is within range and no course changes will be needed to bring weapons to bear.

Nova Cannon

A nova cannon is a huge weapon, normally mounted in the prow of a ship so that the recoil it generates can be compensated for by the vessel’s engines. It fires a projectile at incredible velocity, using graviometric impellers to accelerate it to close to light speed. The projectile implodes at a preset distance after firing, unleashing a force more potent than a dozen plasma bombs.

Nova Cannon Rules

The correct dimensions of the Nova Cannon template are a 5 cm outer diameter with the hole’s diameter at 1.2 cm. The Nova Cannon template’s dimensions can be found on Games Workshop’s small green blast template where the perimeter is marked with a 2; this does not include the width of the line. Use the larger hole in the centre of the template if there are two sizes.

When firing, the template is placed anywhere desired so that its edge is between 30-150 cm from the firing vessel in its specified firing arc.

It does not have to be centred on a single enemy vessel and can be placed so that it touches more than one ship.

When the template is placed, check the range. If placed within 45 cm, roll a scatter die and 1D6. Roll 2D6 if the range is between 45 cm to 60 cm, and 3D6 if the range is beyond 60 cm. Move the template a number of cm rolled by the dice in the direction of the scatter die roll. If the scatter die rolls a “hit”, the template remains where placed.

After the attacking player designates which target is being fired on, the defending player must decide whether or not to brace ships or squadrons BEFORE the weapon is fired. This includes targets the weapon may hit due to miss distance or scatter.

Any target that is in base contact of the template after it is moved takes one hit. Any target in base contact of the centre hole of the template takes D6 hits, regardless of its Armour value. Any ordnance touching the template is automatically removed. Replace the template with a single Blast Marker if it does not contact a target after being moved.

In the diagram above the Steadfast, a Dominator class cruiser, fires its nova cannon at the Abominator, at a range of 48 cm. The hole in the nova cannon template partially covers the Abominator’s base, inflicting D6 hits on it. The nearby Doombringer is also caught in the blast and suffers one automatic hit.

Important Note:

The Nova Cannon is a line of sight weapon and cannot fire through obstacles or celestial phenomena that act as normal line of sight obstructions, such as planets, moons, asteroid fields, etc. If desired however, these can nonetheless be fired upon. If a direct hit is scored on the scatter dice, place D6 Blast Markers in contact with the planet or asteroid field edge.

Nova Cannon are unaffected in any way by Lock On or Reload Ordnance special orders.

Nova Cannon vs. Holofield

Holofields and similar systems save against the shell hit, not the subsequent damage rolls. For example, if an Eldar vessel is hit by a Nova Cannon round and fails to save, it must immediately take as many hits as the damage roll allocates unless it successfully braced beforehand.

Holofield saves are taken against a direct hit from a Nova Cannon where the hole is over the base as well as against the single automatic hit for coming in base contact with the blast template. If this save is successful the effect of the Nova Cannon is negated, and a Blast Marker is placed normally for the save. Being braced saves against any damage taken normally.

Area Effects and Special Weapons

Some weapon systems such as the Necron Nightmare Field and Star Pulse Generator are area-effect weapons that do not aim nor are directed at a particular target. Such weapons or effects are not blocked by line of sight obstructions such as hulks, minefields or celestial phenomena, nor can they be saved against by holofields. See pg. 70 for more on catastrophic damage and exploding ships.

Chaos Marks that affect nearby ships based on area as well as catastrophic events such as Warp Drive implosions, Solar Flares, etc. are also not affected by celestial phenomena and other such line-of-sight obstructions. See pg. 110 concerning asteroid fields.

Exterminatus vessels used in scenarios that require them normally replace their standard prow weapon with an Exterminatus one. Vessels that do not normally have prow weapons (such as Vengeance grand cruisers) cannot be used as Exterminatus vessels.

Armageddon Gun and Holofields: Holofield saves are taken against a direct hit from the Armageddon Gun where the hole is over the base as well as against the single automatic hit for coming in base contact with the blast template. If this save is successful the effect of the Armageddon Gun is negated, and a Blast Marker is placed normally for the save. Being braced saves against any damage taken normally.

Special Order:

All Ahead Full / Burn Retros / Come to New Heading

A ship using All Ahead Full, Burn Retros or Come to New Heading special orders sacrifices firing opportunities in order to squeeze more performance out of its engines. In the Shooting Phase, ships on these orders halve their weapons batteries’ Firepower and lance Strength, rounding up. Nova cannon may not be fired at all. Ordnance is unaffected.

Damage

The weapons carried by some ships are powerful enough to reduce whole cities to plains of radioactive glass. Ships are armoured and shielded in order to resist their savage caress, hulls are heavily reinforced so that they can survive the horrific pounding of gigawatts of energy. But within every ship is a crew all too vulnerable to the fires of battle and the deadly cold of the void. Ships are often crippled by crew casualties long before hulls crack or drives explode.

Taking Hits

When a ship is damaged, note the number of hits it has taken on your fleet roster.

Once a ship has lost half its damage points it is crippled. When a ship has lost all its hits, it is out of action and a roll needs to be made on the Catastrophic Damage table to see if it explodes in a spectacular fashion or simply drifts helplessly.

Crippled Ships

A ship which loses half its damage points is crippled.

Being crippled halves shields, turrets, ordnance, all weapons and affects boarding. This effect is cumulative if the ship is braced, meaning if a ship is both braced and crippled, its weapons and ordnance are halved (rounding up) again! Crippled ships also reduce their move by 5 cm and will not be able to fire their nova cannon.

For example, a standard Lunar class cruiser has 8 hits and is therefore crippled when it has suffered 4 points of damage.

Special Order: Brace For Impact!

Brace For Impact special orders can be undertaken ANY time a ship faces taking damage before the actual to-hit result is rolled, including when ramming or being rammed or against damage from asteroid fields but NOT any damage from boarding actions.

A ship is placed on Brace For Impact order until the end of its next turn, replacing any other special order it may be on currently. A ship using Brace For Impact orders gains a saving throw against each hit it suffers (but not against hits on the shields). A ship which uses this special order may not use special orders at all in its next turn and its Firepower, ordnance and armament Strength is halved, while Nova Cannons may not be fired at all. Turrets and shields are unaffected. A ship that successfully reloaded ordnance is still reloaded. Brace For Impact only comes into effect against attacks whose Hit rolls are made after the special order has been declared. In other words, you cannot wait to see how accurate a salvo is before declaring Brace For Impact or Nova Cannon shot.

If a ship fails to take Brace For. Impact orders, it cannot attempt to take them again until the ship, squadron or ordnance wave currently attacking has completed its attacks.

Critical Hits

The weapons used in space are so destructive that when a ship is hit there is a chance that a vital location will be critically damaged. Critical hits can temporarily knock out a ship’s weapons and engines, start fires or even breach its hull.

Roll a D6 for each hit scored on a ship (but not against its shields). On a roll of 1-5 the hit causes no extra effects. On a roll of 6 the hit causes critical damage. Roll 2D6 on the table below to see what effect it has. Note that you do not roll for further critical hits for any damage caused by a critical hit.

Critical Hits on Escorts

Escort ships which suffer a critical hit for any reason, such as during a boarding action, are automatically destroyed.

Note: Whenever ships are damaged, there’s a good chance that it will be serious. Therefore a check for critical damage is made for every point of damage scored on a ship, no matter what its source is.

Critical hits that can be repaired are cumulative; meaning ships that take a multiple number of the same critical damage must repair all incidences of that critical damage before the system is fully operational. A ship’s speed is only affected once by multiple Thrusters Damaged criticals. However, the number of times it takes effect are still cumulative, and all Thrusters Damaged criticals must be repaired for the ship to regain its normal speed.

Damage from multiple fire criticals is cumulative.

Example: if a ship had 3 fire criticals and failed to repair any of them in the End Phase, it would suffer 3 points of damage and all three fires would keep burning.

If a critical hit is rolled which cannot be applied, or multiple criticals are rolled for a location that cannot be repaired (such as Shields Collapse), apply the next highest critical hit instead. For example a ship with no prow weapons gets a Prow Armament Damaged critical hit. In this case the ship would suffer engine room damage.

Critical Hits Table
2D6 Roll | Extra damage | Result
2 | +0 | Dorsal Armament Damaged: The ship’s dorsal armament is badly damaged by the hit – power lines are severed, traverse mechanisms crippled and many gunners are killed. The ship’s dorsal armament may not fire until it has been repaired.
3 | +0 | Starboard Armament Damaged: The starboard armament is taken off line by the hit. The ship’s starboard armament (right) may not fire until it has been repaired.
4 | +0 | Port Armament Damaged: Heavy damage silences the port side weaponry. The ship’s port armament (left) may not fire until it has been repaired.
5 | +0 | Prow Armament Damaged: The ship’s prow is ripped open. Its prow armament may not fire until it has been repaired.
6 | +1 | Engine Room Damaged: The engine room is rocked by explosions, forcing all hands to tend to the reactors. The ship may not make any turns until the damage is repaired.
7 | +0 | Fire! Oxygen lines are broken, leading to fires in many compartments. Roll to repair (extinguish) the fire in the End Phase, if it is not put out it causes one point of extra damage and keeps burning.
8 | +1 | Thrusters Damaged: The ship’s thruster assembly is disabled. Reduce the ship’s speed by 10 cm until the damage is repaired.
9 | +0 | Bridge Smashed: The armoured fortress around the ship’s captain and his officers is smashed. The ship’s Leadership is reduced by 3. This damage may not be repaired.
10 | +0 | Shields Collapse: The shield generators overload and burn out, leaving the ship virtually defenceless. The ship’s shield Strength is reduced to zero. This damage may not be repaired.
11 | +D3 | Hull Breach: A huge gash is torn in the ship’s hull, causing carnage among the crew.
12 | +D6 | Bulkhead Collapse: Internal pillars buckle and twist, whole compartments crumple with a scream of tortured metal. Just pray that some of the ship holds together!

Blast Markers

When ships are fired on, some of the results are shown by Blast Markers. Blast Markers represent all kinds of events – huge explosions, expanding shockwaves, intense radiation clouds, tumbling debris, unexploded warheads, plasma bursts, etc.

Placing Blast Markers

Blast Markers are shown on the tabletop by placing counters where the event occurs. They remain in play until they are removed in a subsequent End Phase. Most Blast Markers are placed to show the hits taken on a vessel’s shields as described later, but exploding ships and especially apocalyptic weapons can also cause Blast Markers to be placed. Blast Markers are placed in the following circumstances: • For each hit absorbed by a ship’s shields.

For ships which are reduced to 0 damage as specified on the Catastrophic Damage table.

For each missed nova cannon attack.

Blast Markers that are caused by shield impacts, the first Blast Marker is placed directly in the line of fire from the shooting vessel, with subsequent Blast Markers fanning out around it. Blast Markers cannot be stacked unless there is physically no more room to place Blast Markers around a target’s base.

When a ship has multiple bases in contact when taking fire, the Blast Marker is placed between the base of the ship taking fire and the ship closest in the line of fire to the ship taking fire. In other words, a single round of shooting from a ship or squadron cannot place Blast Markers in base contact with more than one other vessel besides the vessel it is shooting at (for two in total) except in the following cases:

A ship with multiple shields (like a battleship) takes three or four Blast Markers that when fanned out normally contact more than one vessel in actual base contact (as opposed to “close to but not actually touching”). In other words, if a ship in base contact with the ship under fire comes in contact with Blast Markers being normally fanned around the base of the ship taking fire, then it comes in contact with a Blast Marker as well. When merely in base contact with the ship fired upon, the Blast Marker must physically touch the bases of the ships it is affecting in this manner.

Any and all ships with bases that are actually stacked or are in any way overlap on the base of a ship in contact with Blast Markers, which is different from mere base contact and is explained separately.

A ship in base contact with a Blast Marker means the whole base is affected. It counts as being in contact all around it and in every arc for purposes of leadership, movement, shooting, ordnance attacks, being boarded, or every other respect where Blast Markers have an effect. This includes if it ended its movement in contact with a Blast Marker for any reason. A vessel is considered to be moving through Blast Markers even if it is moving away from Blast Markers it is in contact with at the beginning of the Movement Phase, such as Blast Markers in its rear arc or in base contact due to a previous round of shooting. When ships have stacked or overlapping bases, there is no limitation to the number of ship’s shields a Blast Marker can take down if one of them is in contact with Blast Markers. A ship overlapping a ship in contact with a Blast Marker also counts as being in contact with it. However, in situations where multiple ships are overlapping each other, this does not cascade to other vessels.

For example, Ship #2 overlaps on Ship #1, which has a Blast Marker in contact with it. Ship #3 overlaps on Ship #2 but not on Ship #1. Ship #2 counts as having a Blast Marker on it, but as long as the Blast Marker does not physically touch Ship #3, it does not count as being in contact with a Blast Marker.

Blast Markers placed in base contact with a ship that took fire do not affect ships near to but not actually in base contact with that ship. Place Blast Markers so they do not touch the bases of ships nearby but not actually in base contact. This is not a “counts as” rule; one cannot declare a ship is actually not in base contact if it is making physical contact.

If a ship moves into base contact with another ship that already has a Blast Marker but the blast maker does not touch its own base, it does not count as having a Blast Marker in contact as well. In other words, a ship in contact with a Blast Marker does not in and of itself count as being a Blast Marker for purposes of being in base contact with other ships.

Note that Blast Markers do not move once they have been placed on the tabletop. They show an area of tumultuous, strife-torn space and temporarily become part of the battlefield once they are in play.

In the example below, two Imperial cruisers are firing on a Chaos cruiser. Each Imperial ship scores one hit, so a Blast Marker is placed in contact with the edge of the Chaos cruiser’s base facing each of the Imperial ships.

Blast Marker Effects

Movement: If a ship moves through any Blast Markers, it reduces its speed that phase by 5 cm regardless of the number of markers actually moved through. This affects each separate Movement Phase for Eldar vessels.

A vessel is considered to be moving through Blast Markers even if it is moving away from Blast Markers it is in contact with at the beginning of the Movement Phase.

A ship with a Shield strength of 0 (i.e. Eldar or ships suffering the Shields Collapse critical) which moves through any Blast Markers also suffers a point of damage on a D6 roll of 6. This test only needs to be made once, regardless of how many Blast Markers they encounter in their movement. An Ordnance marker such as a torpedo salvo or bomber squadron is removed on a D6 roll of 6 if it moves over a Blast Marker.

If a ship cannot elect to slow down (such as when on All Ahead Full special orders) and comes into contact with a Blast Marker within the last 5 cm of its movement, it must instead stop no farther than the point it comes in contact with the Blast Marker (and not before).

Shooting: Blast Markers interfere with gunnery, as mentioned earlier, disrupting firing and causing plenty of ‘ghost’ images on the firing ship’s sensors. Hence if a ship’s line of fire passes through any Blast Markers (including those in contact with a ship’s base) or it or its targets are in base contact with Blast Markers, it suffers a column shift to the right on the Gunnery table. Lances and nova cannon are unaffected. Note that Blast Markers come into effect immediately and so can affect subsequent shooting in the same turn in which they are placed.

Shields: If a ship’s base is in contact with any Blast Markers when it is fired upon, its shield Strength is reduced by -1 per Blast Marker.

Shields

Ships are protected by powerful energy shields, so that they can survive travelling through space. The shields form a wavering band of energy around the vessel, a teardrop of invisible force that can absorb or deflect the worst excesses of stellar radiation and meteor showers or a series of weapons hits. The amount of damage shields are able to absorb is limited and they will be overwhelmed by a sustained attack, forcing a temporary shutdown while the shield generators vent off the excess energy.

Each shield will block one point of damage from hitting the ship in a single Shooting Phase. A Blast Marker is placed touching the ship’s base for each hit blocked by the shields, to show how much energy has been absorbed.

Once the number of Blast Markers in contact with a ship’s base is equal to its number of shields, no further damage may be absorbed by the shields that turn. Any further hits will inflict damage on the ship itself. Once they have been overloaded the shields may not be raised again until the ship escapes the storm of energy blasts and shock waves represented by the Blast Markers. The shields remain down until the ship moves away from the Blast Markers in a subsequent Movement Phase.

Shields are only effective against lances, weapons batteries and nova cannon. Attacks made by ramming, bombers and torpedoes get inside a ship’s shields, so they provide no protection.

In the example above the Iron Duke (which has two shields) is fired on by the Unclean and receives three hits. Two hits are absorbed by the Iron Duke’s shields so two Blast Markers are placed in contact with its base to show that it has already stopped two hits with its shields this turn. The third hit scores one point of damage on the ship itself. Any further hits against the Iron Duke this turn will score damage on the ship itself because its shields are down.

Catastrophic Damage

A ship with no hits left is effectively out of action. There may be some crew left alive, trapped in compartments which have not been breached yet, there may even be power available in some sections of the ship, but the ship can no longer fight.

When an escort is destroyed replace it with a Blast Marker placed as centrally as possible to where the escort was, to represent the expanding cloud of debris left by their passing. As a Blast Marker is smaller than a small flying base, the only way it is possible to take down a ship’s shield with this Blast Marker is if their bases actually overlapped.

With a mighty capital ship, there is a chance that the vessel will be destroyed by catastrophic damage as its plasma drive overloads or its warpdrive triggers. Such titanic explosions are area effects not blocked by line of sight obstructions such as hulks, minefields or celestial phenomena. Roll 2D6 on the Catastrophic Damage table to see what happens.

Catastrophic Damage Table
2D6 | Extra Blast Markers | Result
2-6 | 1 | Drifting Hulk: The ship is reduced to a shattered hulk drifting in space. The wreck moves 4D6 cm forward in each of its subsequent Movement Phases. Place a Blast Marker in contact with the wreck’s base after each move.

7-8
1
Blazing Hulk: The ship is reduced to a burning wreck with uncontrolled fires blazing on every deck. In time the fires will either burn out or trigger a cataclysmic explosion. The wreck moves 4D6 cm forward in each of its subsequent Movement Phases. Place a Blast Marker in contact with the wreck's base and roll on the Catastrophic Damage table again after its move.

9-11
Special
Plasma Drive Overload: The ship’s plasma coils overload and explode in a blazing inferno of white hot plasma. Remove the ship from play, leaving behind a number of Blast Markers equal to half its starting number of hits. Every ship within 3D6 cm of the imploding wreck is struck by lance shots with a Strength equal to half the ship’s starting Damage capacity. Roll to hit as normal.

12
Special
Warp Drive Implosion: The ship’s warp drive implodes, ripping a hole in real space that tears at nearby vessels with horrific force. Remove the ship from play, leaving behind a number of Blast Markers equal to its starting number of hits. Every ship within 3D6 cm of the imploding wreck is struck by lance shots with a Strength equal to the wreck’s starting Damage capacity. Roll to hit as normal.

Ships that are reduced to zero hits and become hulks no longer have shields, holofields or any other similar mechanism.

The turret value of a hulk is reduced to zero, and turrets have no effect. Bombers do not subtract the hulk’s turret strength from their attack runs.

Hulks cannot be fired upon or boarded by friendly vessels or ordnance in an attempt to deny victory points to the enemy or induce catastrophic damage. Torpedoes that hit a friendly hulk still inflict hits normally, but torpedoes cannot be deliberately aimed at friendly hulks.

While enemy ships can choose to fire on a hulk, they do not have to pass a leadership check to ignore one if it is the closest target. A player can fire on an enemy hulk if it is not the closest target, but it must make a leadership check normally.

When shooting at hulked ships, use the destroyed ship’s Armour value to roll for hits. Roll once on the catastrophic damage table each time hits are inflicted by shooting or ordnance from a given ship, squadron or ordnance wave (regardless of the number of hits inflicted), not once for each additional hit inflicted.

Exploding ships count as an area effect and cannot be saved against by holofields, though shields still work normally.

When placing an exploding ship’s Blast Markers, place a single Blast Marker exactly where the ship was, and then place as many Blast Markers from the explosion as possible fanning around and in contact with it until the total number Blast Markers are placed without overlapping any Blast Markers.

The Ordnance Phase

All ordnance attacks are represented by markers that are moved across the tabletop during each Ordnance Phase. If an Ordnance marker comes into contact with a ship or another Ordnance marker it will make an attack.

Launching Ordnance

Ships armed with torpedoes and/ or launch bays can use ordnance. Ordnance is declared, placed on the table and launched at the end of the Shooting Phase from the ship’s stem.

Launching ordnance of any amount expends ordnance for that turn and must be reloaded to launch again. For example, a carrier with four launch bays that due to ordnance limits cannot launch more than two attack craft cannot “save” the other two markers and must reload ordnance again before it can launch more attack craft. This same concept applies to torpedoes, though there are no launch limits for torpedoes. Launching only torpedoes does not affect launching attack craft later, and vice versa.

If a ship equipped with both torpedoes and attack craft launches only one or the other, it may still launch the other before having to reload again. For example, if an Imperial Dictator launches its attack craft but not its torpedoes in a turn and in the subsequent turn fails to Reload Ordnance, it may still launch its torpedoes in that turn.

Any ship that has either never launched ordnance or has successfully reloaded ordnance is considered to have its ordnance reloaded for as many turns as it does not launch, regardless of what subsequent special orders it takes. Keep in mind that being crippled and/or braced still affect torpedo launchers and attack craft bays normally.

Fleet Ordnance Limits

No more attack craft markers can be put in play than the number of available launch bays, even if it has successfully reloaded. Any model or fleet described as not able to run out of ordnance (such as Ork Space Hulks, the Tyranid fleet, etc.) may launch up to twice this number and provide double their number of launch bays to the total amount of markers the fleet may have in play. This total limit applies to the fleet as a whole and not to individual ships in the fleet. Any individual carrier may launch attack craft if they have successfully reloaded (even a partial amount) as long as the total amount of attack craft in play does not exceed the number of available launch bays. This total must take into account reductions caused by ships being crippled or lost in battle.

If more attack craft remain in play than there are available launch bays, the owning player may not launch any ordnance that turn. However, ordnance in play may be “recalled” by immediately removing it from play in order to launch new markers from the ship’s stem, if it has successfully reloaded ordnance. Attack craft recalled in this manner must be removed immediately and not expended on other targets, including enemy ordnance. This prevents a carrier from attacking a target to expend its attack craft in play and then launching a new attack craft wave in a single turn. This rule does not apply to torpedoes, which do not run out and do not have launch limits.

Special Order: Reload Ordnance

Ordnance needs to be loaded and armed in order to be launched. Ships are considered to start the game with torpedoes in tubes and attack craft fuelled and ready to go.

However, once the ship has launched its ordnance it must use the Reload Ordnance special order before it can launch ordnance again. If the ordnance is successfully reloaded and it may launch ordnance in the Shooting Phase, or keep the ordnance ready for launch in a later turn. Use the fleet roster to keep track of which vessels have ordnance loaded.

Moving Ordnance

In the Ordnance Phase players move and attack with any ordnance they have launched on previous turns. Sometimes both players will have to move ordnance so it’s important to know who moves first. In this case the player whose turn it is moves all their ordnance first.

All ordnance has a speed value that dictates how far it moves during each Ordnance Phase. Ordnance attacks are represented by markers which are moved on the tabletop. Ordnance markers in a wave or salvo must be spread in contact with each other and cannot be stacked.

Blast Markers

Ordnance weapons are not shielded like larger ships, so they may be destroyed if they pass through Blast Markers. If an Ordnance marker passes through Blast Markers during its movement, roll a D6. The Ordnance marker is removed from play on a roll of 6.

Ordnance attacking ships with Blast Markers in base contact must also pass this test, as the ship’s base is under the effect of the Blast Marker touching its base (as described earlier).

Only one roll is made regardless of the number of Blast Markers passed through. Ordnance waves or salvoes only need to make this test once per movement, regardless of the number of Blast Markers moved through.

Shooting at Ordnance

Ordnance may be fired at in the Shooting Phase with direct fire weapons. A ship firing at ordnance does not have to make a leadership check to ignore closer targets, nor does it have to make a leadership check to ignore enemy ordnance if it is the closest target. It must still make a leadership check to split its fire between ordnance targets, just as it would have to split fire normally. It also must make a leadership check to fire on an enemy ordnance marker, wave or salvo if it is not the closest enemy ordnance marker in range.

Weapon batteries firing at ordnance use the Ordnance column on the Gunnery table. This is because ordnance targets are relatively small and fast moving. Target aspects are not taken into account, but column shifts for range and Blast Markers do apply. Lances and weapons batteries both need 6s to hit ordnance because they are such difficult targets. If an Ordnance marker is hit it is removed from play. Any Ordnance markers caught in a nova cannon detonation are also removed from play.

Ordnance Attacks

Ordnance attacks are always resolved immediately, including in the Movement Phase when a ship moves into enemy ordnance. This also allows small torpedo salvoes from escorts to be used to clear the way of enemy fighters in the Ordnance Phase so that larger salvoes can get through, etc. This includes Hit-and-Run attacks caused by ordnance (instead of in the End Phase), such as by assault boats and boarding torpedoes.

Ordnance markers must always attack the first ordnance or vessels they come in contact with (when applicable). For example, a fighter squadron marker may not ignore a small torpedo salvo it is actually in contact with to attack a larger one nearby, or an attack craft wave may not ignore an escort it is in contact with to attack a nearby cruiser.

If two ships with the same base size are so aligned that they for all intents and purposes are occupying the same 2D position on the table when they are attacked by ordnance, the attacking player can pick which ship he or she is attacking. Put simply, if there is no way to visually identify which of two stacked or overlapping ships is actually closer to attacking ordnance, the attacker decides which target is being attacked.

Types of Ordnance

Torpedoes

The term ‘torpedo’ has always been used to describe any long-range missile carried by a spaceship. A typical anti-ship torpedo is over 200 feet long and powered by a plasma reactor, which also acts as a sizeable portion of its warhead, turning it into a devastating plasma bomb. The area of a ship given over to the torpedo tubes is a massive space criss-crossed by lifts, hoists and gantry cranes for moving the huge missiles from the armoured magazine silos where they are stored to the launch tubes.

Once a torpedo is launched, the plasma drive propels the torpedo forward at high speed, whilst beginning an energy build-up which will culminate in its detonation. Torpedoes have a limited ability to detect a target and will alter course to intercept if they pass within a few thousand kilometres of a vessel.

Torpedo Rules

Torpedoes may be launched by a ship with torpedo tubes. These are normally fitted to the prow of a ship. In Battlefleet Gothic, torpedo salvoes have a Strength value and a Speed value, which are shown on the ship’s characteristics. The higher the Strength, the more torpedoes there are in a salvo. The higher the speed, the faster the torpedoes travel.

A torpedo salvo (regardless of strength) is represented with a the original Strength 3 marker with one or more D6 indicating the actual salvo strength. For specific dimensions, this marker should be no more than 2.5 cm wide.

Place the torpedo marker at the end of its movement in the turn of launch so that it is completely within the correct fire arc. Now retrace the markers movement, reducing its strength and conducting ordnance interactions as appropriate to prevent targeting vessels out of fire arc due to proximity, etc.

Standard torpedoes move in a straight line once they have been launched, travelling a distance equal to their speed each Ordnance Phase until they have detonated or leave the playing area. Unlike ships, torpedoes may not vary their speed and must make their full move in each Ordnance Phase.

If the Torpedo marker contacts a ship’s base (friend or foe) it attacks. Roll a D6 for every point of Strength in the torpedo salvo. Each dice which equals or beats the ship’s Armour value scores one point of damage. Torpedoes will pass through shields before they impact, so ignore any shields when applying damage. The torpedo salvo continues moving after the attack but its Strength is reduced by 1 for every hit it inflicted. Replace the marker with a smaller one as necessary. Torpedoes that can re-roll misses must do so, even if the target is already destroyed.

In the diagram above, a Strength 6 torpedo salvo moves in the Ordnance Phase and hits a ship. 6D6 are rolled to attack and three dice score hits on the target. The salvo is reduced to Strength 3 and continues moving up to its full move of 30 cm. If any other ships were in its path they would also be attacked.

Premature detonation

An entire salvo of torpedoes can be triggered prematurely by the following circumstances:

On a D6 roll of 6 if it moves through any Blast Markers.

If the salvo is fired on by direct fire weapons and any hits are scored.

If it hits another Torpedo marker.

If a Torpedo marker is prematurely detonated it is removed from play.

Splitting Torpedo Salvoes

Single ships capable of launching six or less torpedoes cannot split torpedo salvoes at all. Single ships capable of launching salvoes larger than six may split their salvoes in two, representing them with two separate strength-3 markers. If this option is taken, the salvoes must go in different directions (no double-attacks on the same target or in the same direction), and no single salvo can contain less than three torpedoes. Squadrons of capital ships or escorts are not obligated to fire their torpedoes in a single salvo.

No torpedo marker can attack a target more than once per full turn, even if they are already in contact with it at the start of the Movement or Ordnance Phase. For example, a torpedo marker is launched toward a battleship with a large base, ending its movement just inside base contact with the battleship. The attack is resolved immediately, with turrets rolled and hits allocated. While any surviving markers remain in play, they do not once again attack the same ship at the beginning of that ship’s Movement Phase, and that ship is allowed to assume the torpedoes have flown off behind it and move off the torpedo marker. The marker will however immediately attack any other ship that comes in contact with it, even if the other ship is moved before the ship that was attacked originally.

When launching torpedoes, the torpedo marker will technically be in all arcs and may be in multiple arcs until its final position this movement, especially when targeting ships in close proximity. However, it may not interact with anything out of the torpedoes’ actual firing arc, no matter how close the target vessel is to the shooting vessel.

When moving a torpedo salvo the centre must always be in the same point along the line of fire.

When launched, torpedoes do not normally ignore any targets in front of them, including friendly units! However, a ship that is actually in base contact with another friendly vessel may “shoot through” the friendly ship’s base, even if they are not in a squadron. Ships not in a squadron cannot use this effect to combine torpedo salvoes in any way and must always launch torpedoes separately. Torpedoes that have an automatic re-roll to hit MUST use their re-roll to hit a target, even if that target was already destroyed by other hits generated in the same salvo.

Turning Torpedoes:

When turning torpedoes (that are allowed to do so), turn from the centre of the marker at the beginning of the Ordnance Phase. Under no circumstances can torpedoes turn in the same Ordnance Phase they were launched. This means they can only be launched in the same arc normal torpedoes would be. If a salvo turns, it must be turned so that no edge moves more than the salvo’s maximum speed in any way. This also means the side facing the inside edge of the turn may end up moving less than the maximum allowed distance.

Torpedoes do not normally ignore hulks in their line of movement. Boarding torpedoes may do so if desired, and guided torpedoes may be steered away from them but will still attack if they make contact.

Boarding Torpedoes

Boarding torpedoes are designed to punch through the outer hull of an enemy vessel and plunge a squad of heavily armed troops inside to sabotage the target ship’s systems.

Boarding torpedoes are launched like ordinary torpedoes and ships that can carry them are noted in the fleet lists. It is not possible to launch ordinary torpedoes and boarding torpedoes from a ship in the same turn. Unlike ordinary torpedoes, boarding torpedoes can make a single 45° turn at the start of every Ordnance Phase, measured from the centre of the marker.

They cannot turn 45° in the same turn they are launched. They may elect to ignore hulks. If boarding torpedoes move into contact with a ship’s base, they attack just like ordinary torpedoes (roll for turrets and to hit). Each one that hits makes a Hit-and-Run attack in the Ordnance Phase rather than inflicting a point of damage. Hit-and-Run attacks are discussed in the End Phase section.

When boarding torpedoes come in contact with any other torpedoes except other friendly boarding torpedoes, they will be removed as normal.

Boarding torpedoes do not attack friendly ships (including hulks) they come in contact with, nor are they removed by friendly fighters in contact.

Attack Craft

Attack craft are launched from a ship’s launch bays and may include any mix of fighters, bombers or assault boats. In combat, they are launched to assist their mother ship or make long range strikes against the enemy.

Attack craft vary in size from sleek one-man fighters to lumbering heavy bombers. Attack craft make difficult targets for warships: their small size and high speed enables them to evade the worst fire. However, all attack craft have an extremely limited endurance and can only operate away from their mothership for a short time before they must return to rearm and refuel.

Attack craft are represented by 20 mm square markers.

Attack Craft Rules

Attack craft are launched from a ship’s launch bays and may include fighters, bombers or assault boats. Launch bays are rated by the number of squadrons they can launch at once, for example a Dictator class cruiser with four bays can launch four squadrons. Each squadron is represented by a single marker.

At the time of launch, the player may select which attack craft to use from amongst those available to his ship. The launch could include fighters and bombers, or be made exclusively of one type. Each type is represented by a different marker.

Unlike torpedoes, attack craft can turn freely and move in any direction, up to the distance indicated by their speed on the ship’s profile.

Any attack craft that come into contact with Ordnance markers or ships must attack as explained in their relevant sections that follow. They are assumed to be able to avoid or ignore closer targets or obstructions unless the course of their movement unavoidably brings them in contact, such as Blast Markers, other ordnance or celestial phenomena. Attack craft can ignore any targets they are not actually in contact with, but they cannot “fly through” enemy ship bases to attack a desired target behind them. However, attack craft can select to target vessels with small bases “hiding” inside the footprint of a large ship base as long as the attack craft actually have the range to reach the smaller base (this is the only manner in which attack craft may ignore the first ship’s base they come in contact with). Torpedoes still behave normally and cannot select targets in this manner (this includes boarding torpedoes or any other “special” torpedo type). Ships with bases stacked in this manner may mass turrets against ordnance as described in the relevant section.

When attacking ships, an assault boat or bomber wave that destroys a ship expends the entire wave to do so and is removed, even if individual markers have not yet rolled their attacks.

Turrets

Ordnance Defences

Most fighting ships mount numerous weapon systems and turrets for shooting down torpedoes and attack craft during their final attack run. A ship’s main armament is simply too huge and slow to track ordnance at such close ranges. However turrets will fire immediately when Ordnance touches the ship’s base.

Vs Torpedo salvoes:

Roll a D6 for each turret: each dice that scores a 4, 5 or 6 reduces the salvo’s strength by 1.

Vs Attack craft squadrons:

Roll a D6 for each turret: each dice that scores a 4, 5 or 6 destroys one squadron.

A ship’s turrets can fire against every torpedo salvo that attacks it in an Ordnance Phase. Alternatively the turrets may fire at every attack craft wave that attacks it in an Ordnance Phase. Note that turrets can be used to defend against torpedoes or attack craft but not both in the same phase. This makes it possible to overwhelm a target with combined attacks.

Massing turrets

Ships in base contact may mass turrets together, each increasing the turret strength of a ship under attack by 1. Regardless of how many ships are in base contact with each other, no single ship can mass turrets with more than three others, providing a maximum of +3 dice when rolling turrets. The ships that mass turrets with a ship under attack take on the same ordnance restrictions as the ship under attack, such as using turrets to defend against either attack craft or torpedoes (not both) in a given Ordnance Phase. Only the ship actually being attacked can apply its own turret value as a negative modifier to bomber attack dice rolls. Ships that are braced can mass turrets and have turrets from other ships massed to defend it. Ships that are crippled cannot mass turrets but can have turrets from other ships massed to defend it.

A ship with 0 turret strength (such as Eldar or hulked vessels) cannot offer a bonus to massed turrets, but may itself benefit from massed turrets from a ship with turret strength 1 or more. This applies both to ships desiring to defend a friendly hulk or a fleet defending an allied Eldar vessel.

No more than one ship can be moved at a time for any reason; ships will only be able to benefit from massed turrets after or before the Movement Phase is complete but not during. This does not affect how and in what order ships escorted by CAP are moved. An extremely unusual circumstance may occur where a ship extremely near to but not actually touching an enemy ordnance marker has a friendly ship move in base contact with it while it simultaneously contacts the ordnance marker. In this and ONLY this case can it then mass turrets while moving!

Launching Waves of Attack Craft

When a ship launches its attack craft squadrons it can despatch them as individual squadrons or combine them into waves of squadrons. To show a wave place the Attack Craft markers so they’re touching (they cannot be stacked) and keep them together as they move. If a wave contains attack craft moving at different speeds, they move at the speed of the slowest.

Attack craft waves must be assembled into the smallest circumference possible, such as a block of four, two rows of three, etc. For example, a single wave of eight ordnance markers cannot be stretched out into a single-file line eight markers long.

If enemy fighters/turrets attack a wave they must remove any fighter squadrons before moving onto the bigger ships. You can use this rule to put your wave together so that it contains fighters who will defend the vulnerable bombers or assault boats, sacrificing themselves to save the bigger vessels.

Waves of attack craft can split up during their move if you wish. However, once squadrons have split up they may not recombine into waves. A wave may only be formed when the craft are launched from their mother ship.

The greatest benefit of attacking in a wave is that a defending ship’s turrets only fire once at the whole wave, so there is a better chance of the ships in the wave surviving the defences than individual squadrons have. On the downside, if a wave of attack craft is hit by long-range gunnery or lances, the whole wave is destroyed. Likewise, if the wave rolls a 6 while moving through Blast Markers, the entire wave is removed. An entire wave is removed after attacking a ship, even if the target is destroyed before all ordnance markers complete their attacks.

Fighters

Fighters are small, fast and extremely agile. They are only armed with weapons suitable for destroying ordnance, including other attack craft. In combat, the fighter’s job is to intercept enemy ordnance and protect the vulnerable bombers and assault craft on their way to and from their target.

Fighter Rules

Fighter attacks have the following effects when they come into contact:

Vs Ordnance Markers:

The defenders are scattered or destroyed in the fighting. The victorious fighters return to their mother ship for rearming and refuelling. Remove both the defending and attacking markers from play. Fighters must always interact with ordnance they come in contact with for any reason. This includes attack craft that behave as fighters but fulfil other roles, such as Space Marine Thunderhawks or Ork fighta-bommas.

Vs Ships.

The fighter squadron’s puny weapons make no impression on the ship at all, but they steer clear of the ship’s turret defences. Leave the Squadron marker in play. Fighters in base contact with friendly ships may move with them to screen against enemy ordnance. If they do so, they go on Combat Air Patrol.

Combat Air Patrol (CAP)

One or more fighter markers on CAP may elect to move with its ship in the Movement Phase (thus remaining in base contact) to intercept ordnance that may be in its way, but if it does so it may NOT then move in the Ordnance Phase. In other words, no double moves. Fighters on CAP then stay on CAP for that turn unless removed. If when doing so they move farther than the attack craft can move normally in a single Ordnance Phase (such as 20 cm Thunderhawks escorting a Cobra that moves 30 cm), they then cannot move in the opposing player’s Ordnance Phase as well, though they are still capable of defending the ship they are in base contact with normally.

An ordnance marker or wave is considered to move with the ship it is escorting and will protect the ship against enemy ordnance it encounters even in the midst of the ship’s movement.

Multiple fighters on CAP in base contact with a single ship function as independent markers in all respects and are not a wave. When encountering Blast Markers, roll once per squadron marker. This includes if the ship is subsequently destroyed, at which time the fighter markers roll separately against the effects of the explosion. Any markers that survive subsequently act as separate ordnance markers and may move again in the subsequent Ordnance Phase.

Only fighters and ordnance markers that behave as fighters can be used as CAP. Bombers and attack craft cannot be used as CAP to protect against ramming or Hit-and-Run attacks by other ships the escorted ship encounters in its own Movement Phase. For example, a bomber can’t be placed on CAP to escort a cruiser so that it immediately makes attacks upon an enemy ship the cruiser moves in base contact with. This includes resilient bombers such as Mantas.

Multi-role ordnance markers that can still act as fighters on CAP are capable of attacking ships (such as Fighta-Bommas and Thunderhawks) can only attack ships during the Ordnance Phase unless an attacking ship moves into contact with them during the enemy’s Movement Phase. They may not otherwise attack a ship until they leave CAP first. See the following two examples:

An Ork Terror Ship with two fighta-bommas in base contact serving as CAP rams and/or boards an Imperial cruiser. The fighta-bommas it dragged along in the course of its movement do not automatically attack the Imperial cruiser as well but must wait until the Ordnance Phase, and even then may only do so if the attacking ship ends its movement in base contact with the target vessel because attack craft that escort a ship in the Movement Phase cannot also move in the Ordnance Phase. If engaged in a boarding action and the Terror Ship ends its movement in base contact with the Imperial cruiser, the fighta-bommas may attack it in the Ordnance Phase before the boarding action takes place in the End Phase. An Imperial cruiser rams and/or boards an Ork Terror Ship that has two fighta-bommas in base contact serving as CAP. In this case the Imperial cruiser must follow all rules for moving in contact with enemy ordnance. After resolving the ram attack (if successful), the fighta-bommas immediately attack the Imperial cruiser and are removed. If engaged in a boarding action and the Imperial cruiser ends its movement in base contact with the Terror Ship, the fighta-bommas still resolve their attack immediately, before the boarding action takes place in the End Phase.

Note: The same example would apply for other multi-role attack craft that behave as fighters on CAP, such as Thunderhawks. Note that because the markers are not in a wave, if a ship is destroyed by markers in CAP, no further markers are lost to attacking the destroyed ship.

Fighters and attack craft that behave as fighters can, at any time in their normal movement, be placed on a friendly ship as CAP. However, only these types of attack craft can behave as CAP. Fighter-type attack craft must be split from attack craft in a mixed wave of ordnance that don’t have the fighter rule before they can subsequently serve as CAP.

There are only two situations where fighters can leave CAP excluding their destruction.

At the beginning of the owning player’s Movement Phase.

During the owning player’s part of their opponent’s Ordnance Phase.

Note: If the attack craft on CAP is resilient, it still moves with the ship even if it has made a save.

Fighters on CAP and Other Friendly Attack Craft: It is possible to defend friendly attack craft by putting them within the perimeter of a ship’s base that has fighters on CAP. Note: If enemy fighters intercept attack craft that are ‘hiding’ on a ship’s base in this manner, they will not be repelled by turrets.

Fighters on CAP don’t attack torpedoes or mines being launched from a friendly ship it is protecting or from friendly ships in base contact including when launching a massed torpedo salvo. However, they will defend against torpedoes and enemy mines in any other instance.

Resilient attack craft such as Manta bombers and Thunderhawks that end their movement in base contact with a ship escorted by CAP (meaning they are already in base contact with a ship when stopped by the fighter), use their 4+ save to survive the attack and subsequently survive against turrets may no longer move or attack other ordnance markers. However, they may complete their attack run against the target vessel normally as long as they do not have to move any more to do so. For example, two Mantas attack an Ork Terror Ship with a fighta-bomma in base contact serving as CAP.

Turret Suppression

Each fighter in a wave of bombers actually attacking a ship will add +1 attack to the total attack run of the wave, regardless of whether they are shot down by turrets or not. The maximum number of bonus attacks that can be added in this way cannot exceed the number of surviving bombers in the wave. There must be at least one surviving bomber in the wave after turret fire to gain these bonus attacks, and fighters are removed before any other type of ordnance. Fighters that never made it because they were intercepted by defending fighters (even those on CAP) don’t add to this suppression bonus. See the following examples:

An Emperor battleship (foolishly) launches a single wave of three bombers and five fighters against a Devastation cruiser with three turrets and no CAP. The Devastation’s turrets roll 4, 5, 6 to knock down three fighters. The three bombers now each roll 1D6-3 (minimum zero) attacks regardless of whether or not any of the fighters survived against turrets. Now only three of the five fighters that escorted the bombers provide an additional +1 attack because there are only three bombers in the wave, for a single total addition of +3 attacks.

An Emperor battleship launches a single wave of four bombers and four fighters against a Devastation cruiser with three turrets and no CAP. The Devastation’s turrets roll 4, 5, 6 to knock down three fighters. The four bombers now each roll 1D6-3 (minimum zero) attacks regardless of whether or not any of the fighters survived against turrets. Now all four of the fighters that escorted the bombers provide an additional +1 attack because there are four bombers in the wave, for a single total addition of +4 attacks.

Bombers

Bombers are slower, heavier craft with destructive anti-ship weapons. Though vulnerable to enemy fighters, bombers can be a serious threat to ships.

Bomber Rules

Bomber attacks have the following effects when they move into contact:

Vs Fighters:

The fighters quickly eliminate the lumbering bombers before returning to their mother ship for rearming and refuelling. Remove the defending and attacking markers from play.

Vs Other Ordnance Markers:

The bombers succeed in getting out of the way but nothing more. Leave both markers in play. These include bombers with a 4+ save.

Vs Ships:

The bombers make an attack run on the ship. Make D6 rolls to hit against the ship’s lowest Armour value for each attacking bomber squadron.

The number of attacks the squadron makes reduces by one for each turret on the ship. Remove the Squadron markers once the attack has been made.

Turrets always reduce bomber attack runs, even if they have been used to defend against torpedoes and thus cannot be used against attack craft.

Ships massing turrets with the one under attack do not affect this number.

For example, a wave of two bomber squadrons attack a Murder class cruiser that has two turrets. The cruiser gets two dice rolls to shoot at the incoming bombers with, and any that survive will make D6-2 attacks and then be removed from play.

Torpedo-Bombers

Fleets that do not normally have access to bombers also do not have access to torpedo-bombers. Attack craft that function as both fighters and bombers (such as Ork fighta-bommas) lose their fighter ability when converted to torpedo-bombers and function ONLY as torpedo-bombers.

Ships that pay an extra cost to be equipped with torpedo-bombers do not replace their bombers with torpedo-bombers. When taken, torpedo-bombers become an additional type of attack craft available to the carrier. Torpedo-bombers always move no more than 20 cm, regardless of how fast other bomber types move in a given fleet list.

Torpedo-bombers may not launch their torpedoes (convert to a torpedo salvo marker) in the same Ordnance Phase they were launched from their parent carrier. This includes if they make contact with their target in the same turn they were launched. In such cases, use normal bombers instead if desiring to attack an enemy ship in close range.

Assault Boats

Assault boats are designed to clamp on to a target vessel and breach its outer hull, allowing squads of elite warriors to storm on board. Once aboard, the boarders plant demolition charges, massacre the crew, poison the air and generally cause as much damage as possible before retreating.

Assault Boat Rules

Assault boat attacks have the following effects when they move into contact:

Vs Fighters:

The fighters overwhelm the assault boats and then return to their mother ship for rearming and refuelling. Remove both the defending and attacking markers from play.

Vs Other Ordnance Markers:

The assault boats simply manoeuvre around the enemy ordnance. Leave both markers in play.

Vs Ships:

The assault boats make an attack run on the ship. Immediately conduct a Hit-and-Run raid against the ship for each assault boat squadron. Hit-and-Run raids are detailed in the End Phase section.

After the attack the assault boats return to their ship to be reloaded with troops and refuelled. Remove the Squadron marker from play when the attack is made in the End Phase.

Resilient Attack Craft

Attack craft that are “resilient”, meaning they have a 4+ save against other ordnance such as Thunderhawks or Eldar fighters, can only attempt this save once per Ordnance Phase, regardless of attacking or being attacked. Even if they roll a 4+ to remain in play, they have to stop movement where the ordnance interaction took place and cannot move further for that Ordnance Phase, and they lose their 4+ save for the rest of that phase as well (or Movement Phase if save is made while in CAP). In all cases, resilient attack craft that fail to make their save are immediately removed.

Ordnance that use this save and end their movement in contact with an enemy vessel may attack it normally.

Resilient attack craft that behave as fighters must always do so when in contact with other ordnance, even if they may serve another function as well, such as Thunderhawks. Attack craft that do not function as fighters but have a save against fighter attacks, such as Tau Manta bombers, ignore any other type of ordnance except fighters in the same manner other bombers or assault boats do.

Multiple attacks

Any second interaction in the same Ordnance Phase such as attacking multiple markers in the same phase will cause the marker to be automatically removed, as normal fighters would be were they not resilient. The attacking player always decides the order of the ordnance interaction. For example, if two Thunderhawks move in contact with two Chaos Swiftdeath fighters, the Space Marine player decides in which order the ordnance interacts. He can decide Thunderhawk #1 removes one fighter, makes its 4+ save and remains in play, then decide Thunderhawk #1 removes the second Swiftdeath, in which case Thunderhawk #1 is automatically removed but Thunderhawk #2 remains in play without using its save and can thus move full distance. Conversely, the Space Marine player may decide to engage the Swiftdeaths one apiece, in which case both Thunderhawks remain in play if they both make their saves, but both expend their saves for that Ordnance Phase in the process. In this case, both Thunderhawks end their movement where they came in contact in the Swiftdeaths and may not continue to move full distance.

Opposing resilient ordnance

If two markers that both have a 4+ save attack each other and both remain in play by successfully rolling their saves, they stop movement and remain in contact until the next turn’s Ordnance Phase. However, if any marker that saves is attacked again in the same phase, it (along with the marker that attacked it) is automatically removed.

If a wave containing resilient attack craft attacks or is attacked and a save is made, ordnance markers that make saves may no longer move. However it may be split from the wave to allow the rest of the wave to continue its movement. Attack craft in the wave that were not attacked (and thus didn’t use their 4+ save) complete their movement normally. For example, instead of ignoring it, a wave of four Thunderhawks in the course of their movement attacks a single Ork Fighta-bomma not in base contact with a ship (rules for attacking ships with fighters on CAP remain unchanged). One Thunderhawk attacks the fighta-bomma, removing it. If it rolls its 4+ save it may remain in play, but it must stop where it made contact with the fighta-bomma and not move until the next Ordnance Phase. The remainder of the Thunderhawk wave may continue to move its full distance. In essence, the Thunderhawk marker that engaged the fighta-bomma peeled off the wave to engage it while the rest of the wave continued on to its target.

The End Phase

During the End Phase, players sort out any events which have been set into action during the turn, such as repairing any critical damage. Some of the Blast Markers are removed from the table, as the energy and debris they represent is naturally dissipated. The End Phase is also a good opportunity to tidy up the table top, count victory points, check up on scenario victory conditions and break out the biscuits. The End Phase works in the following order:

Conduct Boarding Actions/Hit-and-Run attacks

Attempt to repair critical damage.

Remove D6 Blast Markers from the tabletop.

Damage Control

Both players can attempt to repair critical damage during the End Phase. Repair crews will be working continuously of course, welding up hull breaches, re-routing power conduits, putting out fires and generally trying to keep the ship functioning. To represent this, capital ships roll 1D6 per Damage point remaining in the End Phase. Each roll of a 6 enables the ship to repair one critically damaged system or put out one fire. If the ship has any Blast Markers in contact, the player only rolls half as many dice as usual (rounding up).

Blast Marker Removal

With time, the debris and shock waves represented by Blast Markers will dissipate sufficiently to be of no further impediment to ships or their weapons. To represent this, the player whose turn it is rolls a D6 and removes that many Blast Markers. Blast Markers in contact with ships’ bases may not be removed, but otherwise the player is free to choose which ones will go.

Boarding Actions

Boarding actions are bloody, desperate battles between ships at very close range. The boarding vessel manoeuvres close to an enemy ship and sends a wave of armed crewmen across via teleporters, shuttles, life pods and in pressure suits to grab a foothold on the outer hull of the enemy vessel. The attackers then blow breaches in the hull and swarm in to try to overcome the defending crew in vicious firefights and hand-to-hand combat. Boarding actions are dangerous for both sides: even a victorious ship may suffer critical damage in the fighting or a prospective victim may explode with catastrophic results.

Moving in for Boarding

A ship may attempt a boarding action if it’s in base contact with an enemy vessel in the End Phase before damage control has been attempted or Blast Markers are removed. If a vessel is going to attempt a boarding action it must be declared in the Movement Phase when contact is made. Vessels attempting to board an enemy ship may not fire weapons or launch ordnance in the same turn because their crews are too busy participating in the boarding action.

Under no circumstances may a player initiate a ship-to-ship boarding action during the enemy’s turn, though it may defend against an enemy boarding action normally.

To resolve the action, both players roll a D6 and add the appropriate modifiers from the following list.

Boarding Modifiers
Condition | Modifier
Enemy ship has Blast Markers in direct base contact | +1
Enemy ship is crippled | +2
Enemy ship is on special orders | +1
Orks or Chaos | +1
Space Marines | +2
Own boarding value higher* | +1
Own boarding value is twice the enemy’s* | +2
Own boarding value is three times the enemy’s* | +3
Own boarding value is four or more times the enemy’s* | +4

*Only apply highest modifier.

Boarding Value

A ship’s boarding value is equal to the number of damage points it has remaining, modified by any special rules that apply to your ship or race, such as the Mark of Khorne doubling its boarding value, or Tau Kor’vattra vessels which have their value cut in half.

The ship being boarded afterwards adds its number of remaining turrets.

This is the final boarding value and it is this value, that offers the +1, +2, +3, +4 boarding modifier.

Boarding Action Results

The player with the highest total score is the winner. The losing ship suffers 1 point of damage for each point it lost the combat by. The total score is NOT limited to 6 and can potentially result in a roll of up to 12 or more.

There is also a chance of each ship suffering a critical hit during the fighting as shown on the table below. If a ship is reduced to 0 damage by a boarding action do not roll on the Catastrophic Damage table, instead the ship automatically becomes a drifting hulk (exception: if a ship is reduced to 0 damage by a critical hit, roll for catastrophic damage as normal). Ships which survive being boarded may move off normally in their next Movement Phase.

Results Table
Difference in scores | Boarding result | Winners/Losers Score Critical Hit on
1 | Stalemate | 5+/5+
2 | Heavy Fighting | 4+/5+
3 | Driven Back | 3+/6+
4 | Stormed | 2+/6+
5+ | Overwhelmed | Auto/None

For example the Hyperion (remaining damage 3) is boarded by the Plagueclaw (remaining damage 6). After modifiers, the Plagueclaw scores a 6 while the Hyperion scores a 4. The Hyperion has lost by 2 so it loses 2 damage points. In addition, the result of Heavy Fighting means that the Hyperion will suffer a critical hit on a D6 roll of 4, 5 or 6. The Plagueclaw will also suffer a critical hit on a D6 roll of 5 or 6.

Drawn Combats

If both players have the same score after modifiers the combat is a draw. In this case the ships grapple together and continue fighting in each subsequent End Phase. Neither ship may move, shoot or launch ordnance until the boarding action results in one of the ships being reduced to zero damage. The victorious (i.e. surviving) ship can then move off and continue to fight in its next turn.

Multi-Ship Boarding Actions

When several ships attempt to board an enemy vessel the attacking player may elect to let them board together or separately.

If they board together, add their boarding values together and a single dice roll is made to work out the boarding results.

Race and other modifiers are only counted once, so if both a Chaos Murder class cruiser with a normal Chaos crew and a Devastation class cruiser with a Chaos Space Marine crew boarded an Imperial cruiser together they would get a +2 race modifier, the +1 from being Chaos being superseded by the +2 for having a ship with a Chaos Space Marine crew. This is in addition to the +1 for the two ships having a higher boarding value than the ship being boarded (it is not twice the boarding value because the ship being boarded gets to count its turret value) for a total of +3 for the Chaos player.

This is also not taking into account whether or not any of the ships have any other modifiers that must be added or subtracted into the total or effects that either halve or double their respective boarding values, whether or not ships are braced, crippled, etc.

Any damage points inflicted are distributed amongst the attacking ships by the attacker himself, but the chance of critical damage being caused applies to each and every ship attempting to board.

In the case of separate boarding, roll for each capital ship or escort squadron separately. In this case the defending ship must roll separately against each attacker and the damage it takes is cumulative, but each attacking ship or escort squadron must modify its boarding roll based only on its own value, not on the values of the other ships and escort squadrons it is combining with in the action.

Escorts Ships Boarding

Escort ships can attempt to board other ships using the rules above. They can even attempt to board capital ships if they wish, although escorts will only stand a chance against a badly damaged vessel. Remember that when escorts are boarding or being boarded a successful critical hit will destroy them, so it is quite possible for an escort to win a boarding action but be destroyed in the process.

Hit-And-Run Attacks

In a Hit-and-Run attack, a select force of warriors is dispatched to attempt to attack a specific location on an enemy ship, planting charges to take it out of action. An enemy vessel can be left helpless from damage inflicted by a Hit-and-Run raid, leaving it to be finished off with conventional gunnery at leisure.

Hit-and-Run attacks can be made by assault craft and torpedoes, or by ships teleporting troops onto nearby enemy vessels.

Ships that cannot be boarded (such as Chaos vessels with the Mark of Nurgle) are NOT automatically immune from Hit-and-Run attacks.

Fleets that benefit from a +1 bonus to their Hit-and-Run attacks roll a 2 to 7 on a D6, meaning they will never fail to inflict some critical damage on their target.

Assault Boats

Assault boats attack by clamping onto the outer hull of an enemy ship and then cutting their way through to allow their crew to attack inside. Assault boats can be launched just like any other ordnance from flight decks and move 30 cm in any direction in every Ordnance Phase. The ships which may be loaded with assault boats are noted in the fleet lists.

If an assault boat marker comes into contact with a ship’s base, it can be shot at by turrets in the same way as bombers. If it survives, it makes a single Hit-and-Run attack in the Ordnance Phase and is then removed from play.

Boarding Torpedoes

Boarding torpedoes carry dedicated assault troops and can be partially guided while in flight. They punch through the armour of the target, disgorging their cargo of warriors into the midst of the enemy. If boarding torpedoes move into contact with a ship’s base, they attack just like ordinary torpedoes (roll for turrets and to hit). Each one that hits makes a Hit-and-Run attack in the Ordnance Phase rather than inflicting a point of damage.

Teleport Attacks

Ships which are close to their enemies may attempt to initiate a small-scale boarding action using their teleporters. However, active shields interfere with the teleport beams, so such attacks can only be made against an enemy whose shields have been knocked down. Only the largest ships have the teleport capacity to move enough men onto their target to inflict the necessary amount of damage and such teleport attacks require prodigious amounts of energy from the ship’s reactors.

A ship may make a teleport attack in the End Phase against an enemy ship, that has no shields, within 10 cm.

Teleport attacks can be conducted by capital ships that are on Lock On or Reload Ordnance special orders. All other special orders preclude the use of teleport attacks. Necron Portals are not teleport attacks in the normal manner.

Crippled ships may not make teleport attacks.

As you can imagine, it takes a lot more manpower to disable the weapons batteries of a battleship than it does a destroyer’s. Therefore, escorts and defences with only one damage point left cannot make teleport attacks. In addition, a ship can’t make a teleport attack against a target with more hits at that point in the battle than it has itself.

A ship may only make one teleport attack each turn. For each teleport attack make one Hit-and-Run attack against the target ship.

Resolving a Hit-and-Run Attack

To resolve a Hit-and-Run attack, simply roll a D6. On a score of a 1 the attack has failed, on a 2 or more look up the score on the Critical Hits table and apply the result immediately.

This critical damage can be repaired as normal.

Due to their much smaller size, escorts do not have a specialized critical table. Instead, all Hit-and-Run attacks (including assault boats and teleport attacks) destroy escorts on a roll of 4+ as opposed to 2+.

Fleets that enjoy a bonus to their Hit-and-Run rolls still benefit from this bonus, needing a 3+ to succeed in Hit-and-Run attacks against escorts. Fleets that enjoy a -1 modifier to enemy Hit-and-Run attacks benefit in this regard as well, meaning Hit-and-Run attacks require a 5+ to destroy their escorts. Anything that rolls 2D6 and adds the result during a Hit-and-Run attack still do so, such as Dark Eldar Impalers, in which case the added result still normally (before any modifiers) destroys an escort on a roll of 4+, though they must roll 2D6 twice and take the lowest roll against Tyranids.

Remember that an escort which has suffered critical damage is automatically destroyed, though they can Brace for Impact! to counter the effects of the attack.

Squadrons

Small ships, such as escorts, stand little chance of damaging larger ships on their own, so they are normally grouped into squadrons. A squadron will manoeuvre closely together and mass its weaponry to attack more effectively. Although cruisers and battleships normally operate alone, they can also be grouped into squadrons for a major battle, where their awesome firepower can be put to good effect.

Squadrons may have all sorts of different names, such as formations, flotillas, packs, groups or forces, but they all work in the same way.

Squadron Command Checks

Using squadrons enables the Admiral of the Fleet to give orders to groups of ships at the same time, instead of having to relay orders to each ship in his fleet individually. In Battlefleet Gothic this translates into the highly desirable advantage of only having to make a single Leadership test to place a whole squadron on special orders. Also, if the squadron is made up of capital ships with different Leadership values, the highest surviving Leadership value in the squadron is used for taking Command checks. Remember, in the case of escorts each squadron has a single Leadership value.

Normal Command check modifiers for enemy contacts and for being under fire apply to squadrons, even if only some of the ships in a squadron have Blast Markers in base contact.

Vessels in a squadron are all equally affected by special orders taken by any one ship in the squadron. For instance, when on All Ahead Full, only one roll is made to determine additional move distance for all the vessels in the squadron. As is true for individual ships, squadrons can only undergo one special order per turn (including Brace For Impact!, which replaces any special order currently in effect). All ships in a squadron are affected by Brace For Impact!, not merely the ship actually taking fire. This includes capital ship squadrons!

Squadron Composition

Capital ship squadrons must be deployed and declared as such before the start of the game. Escort squadrons are selected as squadrons from the fleet list at the time your pick your forces. Unless described otherwise in its fleet list, an escort squadron can contain up to six ships. The ships in a squadron can be of different classes as long as they are all of the same type. For example, you could form an escort squadron of three Cobra class destroyers and three Firestorm class frigates. In practice, it’s generally a good idea to form squadrons from ships of the same class because it makes manoeuvring and choosing special orders easier – but it’s all a matter of taste.

Squadron Formation

To count as being part of a squadron, ships must remain close to at least one other vessel from the same squadron during the battle. Each ship must be no more than 15 cm from another ship in the squadron so that the whole squadron forms a continuous chain with ‘links’ of up to 15 cm between each ship.

Note that as the ships above are all within 15 cm of another ship in the squadron, they are all in formation.

Sometimes ships will drop out of formation due to bad manoeuvring, ships being destroyed, etc. If a ship drops out of formation it no longer counts as part of the squadron until it moves back to within 15 cm of another ship in the squadron. A ship which is out of formation must be moved back into formation as soon as possible, and it may not use special orders the squadron uses until it has done so.

Manoeuvring Squadrons

Individual ships within a squadron can manoeuvre freely within the standard movement rules, as long as they stay in formation. If any ship in an escort squadron moves off the table edge, the entire squadron must immediately and in subsequent turns only attempt to disengage.

In the example above, the escorts in the squadron have manoeuvred individually so that two have made a turn to starboard while the other two have continued moving straight ahead. Note that they are still in formation at the end of their move.

Shooting at Squadrons

When a squadron is targeted it is quite likely that some of its vessels will present different target aspects to the attacker. For example, some ships in the squadron may be closing targets while others are abeam.

In this case, the attacker can select which category of targets to go after but he cannot score hits on anything that is harder to target than the category he chose. For example, if a squadron has two ships closing and two abeam and the attacker fires at them as if they were all closing targets he can only score hits on the two closing ships.

The only ways to shoot at a more distant member of a squadron is with gunnery weapons if the ship has more left modifiers on the gunnery table or has weaker armour where only the hits that could not hurt the closest target hit it. If because of weaker armour, armour ignoring weapons cannot exploit this rule.

Allocating Hits against Squadrons

When a squadron is fired upon, any hits scored are allocated to the nearest eligible ship in the squadron until it is destroyed, then the next nearest eligible ship takes the remaining hits and so on. This only applies to shooting and does not apply to ordnance attacks, boarding actions, etc. A leadership test cannot be taken to pick out individual ships within a squadron. This does not apply to ordnance attacks.

Hits taken by a squadron are only distributed among the vessels that actually took fire (such as in range and fire arc), regardless of how many hits the squadron actually took, though it affects ALL escorts within range and fire arc. This also applies to hits taken by an escort squadron negotiating an asteroid field, as well as hits delivered by ordnance or Nova Cannon, as those hits (regardless of how many) affect only the vessels directly contacted by the ordnance markers or Nova Cannon blast template. For example, if an escort squadron takes a total of ten hits from gunnery fire but only three escorts were actually in range and fire arc, no more than three escorts can be destroyed.

In the example above, the Chaos cruiser Unclean targets an Imperial frigate squadron and scores 3 hits. The first hit knocks down the shield of the nearest frigate within the Unclean’s fire arc and the second hit destroys it. The third hit is taken on the next nearest frigate, knocking down its shield. Note that there is a frigate closer to the Unclean than the one which was destroyed but it is out of the Unclean’s fire arc and so cannot be hit.

Different Armour values

A mixed squadron of ships may include vessels with different armour values, or armour may vary because the ships have differing values on their front and sides. When attacking a squadron with a mix of armour values find out what the lowest armour is before rolling the dice. Any dice which equal or beat the lowest armour in the squadron will score hits: allocate the dice one at a time, starting with the lowest rolls against the nearest targets they can affect and work your way up.

In this example, the Unclean is firing on a mixed squadron including a Sword class frigate and a Cobra class destroyer.

Rolling three dice, it scores a 4, 5 and 6. The 4 is good enough to hit the Cobra and is allocated to it, the 5 and 6 can hit the Sword and both are allocated to that ship as it is a closer target.

Capital Ship Squadrons

Capital ships in a squadron that are being fired upon to the point that one of the capital ships is destroyed must roll for and apply all critical damage before counting as destroyed. The easiest way to avoid confusion is to roll each D6 critical roll separately while recording damage.

For example, if a squadron of three Dauntless light cruisers is fired upon by a squadron of three Carnage cruisers and takes a total of 13 hits, all critical damage rolls must be made for the first Dauntless before declaring it destroyed. This means if while applying hits one at a time and the first Dauntless rolls a Thrusters Damaged (+1HP) and Engine Room Damaged (+1HP) criticals in the process of being destroyed, there remains a total eight remaining hits to be applied to the next closest Dauntless light cruiser, with shields, Blast Markers, etc. still taking effect normally, for a total of seven HP damage to the second Dauntless, against which it rolls a D6 to check for critical damage while applying hits one at a time (after the shield hit). This means at least one hit would pass to the third Dauntless even if the second rolled no critical damage.

This rule in particular applies to squadrons of ships that do not count critical damage normally and instead take an additional 1HP of damage, such as Ork Roks or Kroot Warspheres.

If a capital ship squadron disengages in its entirety, each capital ship calculates its percentage destroyed for victory points separately and not in the same manner as escorts.

Shooting by Squadrons

As mentioned earlier, squadrons combine their firing together.

Escort squadrons have their total firepower added up and halved (rounding up) when on special orders that affect weapons strength/ firepower. Capital ships have their firepower/ strength halved individually (rounding up), even if in a squadron. Escort squadrons do not have their weapon strength halved solely because the squadron is crippled (reduced to half its starting number).

When a squadron shoots, it is subject to the normal rules and restrictions for a single ship. So, for example, if a squadron wants to fire at a target other than its closest enemy it must pass a Leadership test to do so. Any ships in the squadron out of range or fire arc of the squadron’s primary target may fire on another enemy.

Firing Weapon Batteries

Squadrons firing weapons batteries normally add their firepower together before working out how many dice they roll on the Gunnery chart. However, squadrons firing weapons batteries can throw up a few problems because ships may be in a position to fire at the target ship from different aspects, ranges, etc. Where this occurs calculate the ships’ firepower individually.

When calculating the ships’ firepower individually, this only applies to ships firing at different firing arcs. To clarify the example, if a squadron of five Sword frigates are firing on a cruiser where two are in its rear arc and three are in its beam arc, the two escorts behind it would calculate their firepower together as Moving Away, and the three on the ship’s beam would calculate their firepower together as Abeam. Then these two sums are added together before making the dice roll.

Launching Ordnance

Ships in a squadron launch ordnance individually unless they are in base-to-base contact. Any ships in base-to-base contact with other ships from the squadron can opt to combine their ordnance together into a bigger attack craft wave or torpedo salvo.

When launching a combined salvo from a squadron the salvo must be in ALL of the ships appropriate firing arcs and its furthermost edge at the limit of its speed from the furthest ship’s stem. All the ships firing a combined salvo must be in base to base contact. Note that some ships (such as Ork Ravagers) cannot for any reason combine salvoes in this manner.

Measure the distance travelled by a combined ordnance attack from the ship furthest from the target, to ensure that it doesn’t get a free speed boost due to being part of a combined force.

Planetary Defences

In certain scenarios, one player may be allowed to select planetary defences as part of their forces, generally to assist in defending a planet against an attacking enemy fleet. All races use some equivalent to planetary defences to form networks of armed satellites and ground installations to keep enemy ships at bay. Planetary defences also include system ships (vessels which have no warp drives and so are incapable of leaving the system they are stationed in), minefields, etc.

Two new unit types are introduced with planetary defences: satellite and ground.

Satellite units may not move as they are stationed in orbit around a planet or moon, or occasionally in deep space. Their weapons are able to fire all round so they don’t worry about fire arcs at all.

Ground units protect planets from spaceships getting close enough to send troops down to the surface. These anti-ship weapons are unable to move because they are concealed in deep underground silos for their protection. Ground units are limited to a single 90° fire arc extending up from the planet’s surface.

Special Rules

Orbital defences or ships that count as defences may be placed in squadrons, with 1HP defences grouped in up to six units and larger defences grouped in up to four. A Ramilies Star Fort cannot squadron with other orbital defences.

Stationary planetary defences may be placed in base contact if desired, but they can never be stacked or have their bases overlap other stationary planetary defences.

When desired, the defender in a scenario may spend up to one-third of his allocated point value on planetary defences, in addition to any planetary defences provided by the specific scenario. This allows for the use of larger planetary defences such as major fleet bases and the like, for which the profile and point cost of an Imperial Blackstone Fortress may be used. However, these additional defences come directly from the points allowed against his or her fleet list.

Stationary defences and vessels used as planetary defences such as Defence Monitors or system ships do not roll for leadership or have a leadership value just as other normal planetary defences do not, with the exception that they reload ordnance (where applicable) on a nominal leadership of 7 unless specifically stated otherwise in their fleet lists or special rules. This means that they cannot take on any special orders except Reload Ordnance, though they may also attempt to Brace For Impact against this same leadership. They also make all other leadership checks they may have to make against Ld 7, such as for navigating celestial phenomena and for ignoring closest targets.

Ships that are targeted as defences but otherwise are not normally restricted to planetary defences, such as Ork Roks, Kroot Warspheres, etc., are treated as ships and can make Special Orders normally.

When shooting at minefields, treat them as ordnance for purposes of target priority.

Notes: If a critical hit is rolled which cannot be applied, for example a station with no lances gets a ‘Lances damaged’ critical hit, apply the next highest critical instead. In this case the station would suffer main armament damage instead. If a station suffers multiple critical hits to the same place they must all be repaired before the location functions again as normal.

Defences Critical Hits Table
2D6 Roll | Extra Damage | Result
2-3 | +0 | Lances Damaged: The station’s lance array is taken off-line by the hit. The station may not fire until its lance armament has been repaired.
4 | 0+ | Main Armament Damaged: Heavy damage silences the station’s weapons batteries. They may not fire until it has been repaired.
5 | 0+ |
6 | +1 | Ordnance Bays Hit: The station’s ordnance bays are ravaged by explosions. No ordnance may be fired by the station until the bays have been repaired.
7 | 0 | Reactors Damaged: The reactors are damaged, shutting down the power to the defences. Until power is restored the station’s shields and turrets are at half Strength.
8-9 | +1 | Fire! Oxygen lines are broken, leading to fires in many compartments. Roll to repair (i.e. extinguish the fire) in the End Phase. If the fire is not put out it causes 1 point of extra damage and keeps burning.
10 | +0 | Orbit Lost: The defences’ thruster assembly is disabled. The defence falls D6 cm towards the planet’s surface in each of its Movement Phases until either the damage is repaired or it hits the planet and is destroyed.
11 | +D3 | Hull Breach: A huge gash is torn in the station’s hull, causing massive carnage.
12 | +D6 | Bulkhead Collapse: Explosions rip through the station as a series of pressure doors collapse.

Defences with Multiple Hits

Some large defensive platforms, such as space stations and the huge Blackstone Fortresses, have multiple hits. When it comes to taking damage, these work just like capital ships. They suffer critical hits just like capital ships and get crippled once they have lost half their damage points. If a defence with multiple hits is reduced to 0 damage, roll on the Catastrophic Damage table. However, defences never drift, they always remain in place.

Blast Marker Removal

You remove D6 Blast Markers from each defence with a speed of 0 cm in each End Phase after all other actions in the End Phase. This only applies to stationary defences, not planetary defences that behave as ships (such as monitors or system ships). This also does not apply to ships on standby or ships reduced to 0 cm due to movement effects but otherwise capable of movement.

Warp Rifts

Warp rifts are especially unstable and dangerous forms of celestial phenomena, and planetary defences of any type cannot be placed closer than 30 cm to a warp rift, with all other rules still applying normally. This means if a particular defence must be placed within 15 cm of celestial phenomena, it still must be so placed, and it can’t be placed within 30 cm of a warp rift.

The Battlefield

In order to fight a battle you will need somewhere to set up your battlefield – any flat, stable area will do. Some people make do with a smooth bit of floor but most use a kitchen or dining table (preferably protected by a cloth or blanket).

By far the best option, if it’s available, is to fight over a gaming board made up of sheets of chipboard, plywood or MDF laid over another table. Typically the battlefield should be between 6' to 8' long (around 1.8 metres to 2.4 metres) and 4' to 6' wide (1.2 to 1.8 metres).

You can play on a smaller area quite easily but you’ll need to keep the forces that are fighting proportionately smaller to ensure that you’ve got some room to manoeuvre.

Celestial Phenomena

Space, the void, vacuum. Sounds empty, but actually there’s all kinds of stuff floating around between the stars. It’s not exactly densely packed, of course, but it has its effects on navigation and combat, so, strategy being what it is, this means that battles will usually be fought around and over it. For example, dust clouds and asteroid fields are enough to force a ship to slow down as it passes through the area, making it an ideal spot for an ambush. Equally, capturing or raiding worlds will always be an objective of enemy ships, ensuring that space combat will often happen in close proximity to planets.

Incidentally this section is called Celestial Phenomena because terrain simply didn’t seem like the right word. Nonetheless this is terrain for space battles and it forms an important part of the game – so don’t skimp on it!

So you’ve got your battlefield, but it’s a featureless, empty void. While this might be appropriate if you’re in the depths of space it makes for a rather dull battle. Celestial phenomena are an important feature of every battlefield. A good commander will use them to his best advantage during a battle, blocking the enemy’s lines of fire, getting his heavy ships into good firing positions and concealing his escorts until they are ready to strike.

Building up a collection of scenery to represent celestial phenomena is an important and enjoyable part of the hobby, as it enhances your games. Most types can be easily represented on the tabletop at minimal cost using sand, pebbles, etc. Beyond this there are almost limitless opportunities for making scenery easily and cheaply. With a little effort you will soon become an expert at constructing planets, moons and other phenomena out of the most mundane of household goods. You can find plenty of examples of home made scenery online and the White Dwarf magazine often contains articles about making scenery and can serve as an invaluable source of ideas and inspiration.

Placing Celestial Phenomena on the Battlefield

There are many ways to set up celestial phenomena and any method is perfectly acceptable as long as it creates a fair battlefield. Remember that the purpose of setting up celestial phenomena is to provide an entertaining and interesting battlefield, not to impede movement or lines of fire so much that it becomes almost impossible to actually fight the enemy. If a piece of scenery is going to be a major feature of the battle, such as a wide asteroid belt spanning the table, then you need to okay this with your opponent. This sort of battlefield is perfectly fine and might make for an enjoyable game but you and your opponent would have to agree upon it beforehand. Here are some different methods you might employ when setting up your battlefield.

Setting Up Celestial Phenomena: Method 1

One of the players positions all the celestial phenomena on the table. His opponent can then pick which table edge to deploy from. Many of the scenarios require you to roll for choice of table edges, but if one player has set up the celestial phenomena then it is only fair that his opponent chooses which board edge to deploy from. This is a good method if you are playing a game at one player’s house, as he can set up the celestial phenomena before his opponent arrives, allowing you to get straight on with the battle.

Setting Up Celestial Phenomena: Method 2

Divide the table into 60 cm square areas. Next roll a D6 for each area. On a 4 or more the area contains celestial phenomena which is determined using the appropriate battlezone generator. Roll a D6 to determine which of the generators to use for this battlefield (or agree on one with your opponent) and then roll on that generator for celestial phenomena in each area. Position the phenomena anywhere within the area, but don’t place them on top of each other. We’ve included a set of sample battlezone generators over the following pages, but it’s easy enough to come up with your own customised ones that include all the celestial phenomena in your own collection.

Setting Up Celestial Phenomena: Method 3

As a variant, you can use the fleets’ attack ratings to determine which battlezone the battle is fought in. This represents the two fleets trying to pick their ground by offering battle where it suits them best. Each player secretly chooses a battlezone and adds the number of the battlezone to his fleet’s attack rating. Both players then declare their total score. The player with the highest score wins and the battle is fought in the zone he chose.

Battlezones

1. Flare Region Generator

The flare region is closest to the system’s sun. It is an area scoured by incandescent flares of super heated gas from the surface of the sun and fierce radioactive winds. Planets this close to the star are almost always death worlds, places too ravaged by the sun’s heat to be habitable to life.

D6 Roll | Result
1 | Solar Flare
2 | Solar Flare
3 | Radiation burst
4 | Asteroid field
5 | D3 gas/dust clouds (generally a solar flare remnant)
6 | Planet (roll again: 1-5 = small, 6 = medium)*

2. Mercurial Zone Generator

At the mercurial zone the sun’s ferocity is still awesome to behold, but solar flares less frequently reach out to burn everything in their path. Occasionally a planet can be found in the mercurial zone which can sustain limited life deep underground or constantly moving around its dark side to shelter from the sun’s rays.

D6 Roll | Result
1 | Solar Flare
2 | Radiation burst
3 | Asteroid field
4 | D3 gas/dust clouds (solar filaments or flare remnants)
5 | D3 gas/dust clouds (solar filaments or flare remnants)
6 | Planet (roll again: 1-5 = small, 6 = medium)*

3. Inner Biosphere generator

As the inner biosphere is reached, planets become more hospitable, though often their atmospheres are a noxious soup of harmful gases. Nonetheless colonies and hive cities occur in the inner biosphere of certain systems.

D6 Roll | Result
1 | Roll again: 1-3 = Radiation burst; 4-6 = solar flare
2 | Asteroid field
3 | D3 asteroid fields
4 | D3 gas/dust clouds
5 | D3 gas/dust clouds
6 | Planet (roll again: 1-5 = small, 6 = medium)*

4. Primary Biosphere generator

In the primary biosphere a balance is struck between the burning heat of the sun and the icy cold of the void. Most inhabited worlds lie within this biosphere and it’s here that the bulk of a system’s defences are built.

D6 Roll | Result
1 | Asteroid field
2 | D3 asteroid fields
3 | Gas/dust clouds
4 | D3 gas/dust clouds
5 | Planet (roll again: 1-5 = small, 6 = medium)*
6 | Planet (roll again: 1-5 = small, 6 = medium)*

5. Outer Reaches Generator

The outer reaches of a system are the realm of gas giants and worlds generally too cold and harsh to support life. Many battles between ships occur here as the system’s defenders attempt to prevent enemy ships reaching the primary biosphere.

D6 Roll | Result
1 | D3+1 asteroid fields
2 | D3 asteroid fields
3 | D3 gas/dust clouds
4 | Gas/dust cloud
5 | Planet (roll again: 1-3 = small, 4-6 = medium)*
6 | Planet (roll again: 1-3 = small, 4-6 = medium)*

6. Deep Space Generator

Ships coming out of the warp must appear some distance away in deep space or risk destruction among the graviton surges in-system. Many civilised worlds have specific jump points marked by beacons to assist navigation. An ambushing fleet will often lurk near a jump point in the hope of catching an emerging foe unaware.

D6 Roll | Result
1 | D3 asteroid fields
2 | Asteroid fields
3 | D3 gas/dust clouds
4 | Gas/dust cloud
5 | Warp rift
6 | Small planet (a rogue planet in a highly eccentric orbit)*

*In all cases a maximum of one planet will be present on the tabletop: if a second planet is generated roll again. Remember to roll to see whether a planet has any moons. If a large planet is generated, it will have rings around it on a D6 roll of 4 or more.

Tabletop Features

The following features are celestial phenomena that are placed onto the tabletop. Remember to leave plenty of empty space between them.

Tabletop features are generally placed in relation to the nearest star. This is because nearly everything caught in the inconceivably gross gravitational pull of a star will be in some kind of orbit around it.

When placing these features, start by determining which table edge is closest to the nearest star, described as “sunward” in Battlefleet Gothic. To do so roll a D6.

Once you have established which way is sunward, you can start to place celestial phenomena. Each of the types is listed as follows with suggested sizes and methods of placement. However, if you have phenomena made up on bases of a particular size or something similar just use them the way they are. Likewise, don’t let the following suggestions stop you from doing something interesting or exciting: they are just there as guidelines to take some of the brain ache out of setting up the tabletop, not as definitive rules.

Any celestial phenomena affect a ship as soon as it contacts a ship’s base. However, it does not block fields of fire unless it physically blocks line of sight from the stem of the shooting ship to the stem of the target ship.

As warp drive implosions are not affected by celestial phenomena for purposes of line of sight, this includes when it takes place inside celestial phenomena such as asteroid fields. Being inside, outside or the other side of an asteroid field from an exploding ship does not affect whether or not it is in the explosion’s 3D6 cm blast radius.

Gas and Dust Clouds

Gas and dust clouds represent areas of space with a notably greater density of (mostly) hydrogen gas or tiny particles of matter. These clouds may be fragments left over from the formation of stars and star systems, the outer fringes of nebulae or protostars, or even gasses ejected by solar flares. They represent a moderate navigational hazard to shipping: basic shielding is sufficient to prevent damage occurring but ships are slowed somewhat by passing through them. Gas and dust clouds impair targeting by weapon batteries and may destroy ordnance which passes through them, making them potentially useful areas to exploit in ship-to-ship combat.

Effects

To ships in base contact, gas and dust clouds have the same effect as a single Blast Marker in all respects (i.e. on firing, movement, shields, Leadership and ordnance). Eldar and their kin can make a leadership check to ignore all effects of gas clouds, and their escorts may re-roll this result for free. If passed, it will take no damage nor suffer any effects of being in contact with it. If a ship having 0 shield strength explodes due to contact with a gas/dust cloud, the explosion will originate at the point the ship entered the cloud.

Placement

Use flock or cotton wool to show gas & dust clouds, usually found in bands or streamers running parallel to the sunward table edge. Each band is D6×2 cm wide and D6×5 cm long.

Asteroid Fields

Asteroid fields orbit most stars at varying distances. They are generally thought to be debris fragments left over from collisions between planets during the formation of a star system. Asteroid fields may also be left over after the destruction of a planet or moon, or represent an area of wreckage resulting from a space battle.

Effects

An asteroid field blocks line of fire and any torpedoes that strike it are detonated.

Ships moving through an asteroid field, or coming into base contact with the edge of one, must pass a Leadership test on 2D6 to navigate it successfully.

Ships using All Ahead Full special orders make the test on 3D6 instead.

Escort ships may re-roll the Leadership test if they fail it, but the second roll stands whether it is successful or not. A ship that fails the Leadership test suffers D6 damage from asteroid impacts, but its shields will block damage as normal.

Escort and capital ship squadrons make this leadership test normally, once for the whole squadron. In the case of capital ship squadrons that fail this test, each ship that comes in base contact with the asteroid field in any way suffers D6 damage. Escort squadrons re-roll this leadership test for free. In the case of escort squadrons that still fail this re-roll, D6 damage is distributed among the escorts that actually contacted the asteroid field, in the order that the ships were moved. In all cases, shields (but not holofields) work normally against hits.

Blast Markers are not placed when asteroid impacts take shields down, however the ship will be slowed down 5 cm as if it has moved through Blast Markers that turn.

Hulks which drift into an asteroid field are destroyed.

Attack craft squadrons which move through an asteroid field are destroyed on a D6 roll of 6.

Ships cannot shoot into or out of an asteroid field. However, shooting between ships inside an asteroid field can take place only if both the shooting and target ships are both inside an asteroid field. Lances and weapon batteries have no more than 10 cm range, Nova Cannons don’t work and torpedoes of any type cannot be used. Shooting at enemies within 10 cm range does not impart a right column shift when inside an asteroid field. Attack Craft work normally but must make a D6 roll every Ordnance Phase they remain in the field, with every wave or individual marker removed on a roll of 6. Ships that are braced or crippled may not shoot inside an asteroid field.

Asteroid fields are treated as minefields if you wish to shoot at them. You must first pass a leadership test to shoot an asteroid field even if it is the only possible target, with a Blast Marker placed in contact with the asteroid field facing the direction the shooting came from for every roll of 6.

Placement

Asteroid fields can be represented by an area of rocks, pebbles, gravel or kitty litter (unused!). Like gas and dust clouds, asteroid fields are placed so that they run parallel to the sunward table edge. Typically, asteroid fields are D3×5 cm wide and D3×5 cm long.

Warp Rifts

Occasionally, a temporary rift can occur between normal space and warp space, particularly during a powerful warp storm or after a large fleet has dropped out of the warp. Moving into such a rift is highly dangerous, but may well provide an edge for a desperate or foolish captain.

Effects

A warp rift blocks line of fire and any torpedoes that strike it are detonated. Hulks which drift into a rift disappear, never to be seen again, so they may not be salvaged after the battle. Attack craft squadrons which move into a rift are destroyed.

Ships moving into a warp rift must pass a Leadership test on 3D6 to navigate it successfully. If the ship passes the test, it may be repositioned up to 2D6×10 cm away from the rift, pointing in any direction. If it fails, the ship disappears from the battle altogether – lost in the warp!

Roll a D6 for each ship lost in the warp after the game: on a 1 it is lost in the warp forever, doomed to drift on the tides of the immaterium until its crew die, on a 2-6 it is only temporarily lost and will eventually find its way back to the fleet.

Placement

Use a strip of white paper, cloth or cotton wool to represent a warp rift. The rift is D3×5 cm wide and D3×10 cm long.

Planets

Less than 1% of systems have planets orbiting a solitary star in the manner of ancient Terra. Even so, there are millions of star systems containing billions of worlds scattered across the galaxy. Most planets are either desolate, empty and airless, or surrounded by an atmosphere too noxious to support life. In the Gothic sector there are over two hundred inhabited worlds and tens of thousands of other planets. Planets often become the focus of space battles as opposing fleets attempt to establish forward bases or extend their control throughout a contested system.

Effects

Planets are represented by a template or model (ball) placed on the tabletop.

When a ship’s stem is actually on a planetary template (as opposed to behind it), the template does not block its line of sight or any ships line of sight to it. If multiple ships are on a planetary template, they can all see each other.

A ship counts as being upon a planetary template if its stem touches the template, not merely if it is in base contact or if its base partially overlaps the template.

Torpedoes are destroyed when they come into contact with the template’s edge, either when launching them toward the planet or from it by ships in high orbit upon the template itself. It is possible to launch torpedoes while on a planetary template but they will be removed when they touch its edge.

Hulks which drift into a planet are also destroyed. Ships may move ‘through’ a planet (by passing over or under it).

Every planet is surrounded by an area of space where its gravitational pull is strong enough to affect shipping. This area is referred to as its gravity well. The gravity well extends out a set distance from the edge of the planet template and affects a ship’s manoeuvring as follows.

Typical planetary templates:

Small planet (eg the size of Mercury, Pluto or Mars) – up to 15 cm diameter.

Medium planet (eg equivalent to Venus or Earth) – 16-25 cm diameter.

Large planet (eg the size of Saturn or Jupiter) – 26-50 cm(!) diameter.

Typical gravity wells:

Small planet –

up to 10 cm from template edge.

Medium planet –

up to 15 cmfrom template edge.

Large planet –

up to 30 cm from template edge.

Ships within the gravity well of a planet may make a free 45° turn at the beginning and end of their move, but the turn must always be made towards the planet. The ship does not have to move its minimum distance before it is able to make its free turn. Free turns provided by gravity wells can be used even when the ship cannot normally turn, such as when under All Ahead Full or Lock On special orders. They can also be combined with Come To New Heading special orders.

This does not change the fact that the free turn can only be used before the start of the move and again only at the end of the move. In either or both instance(s) the ship must actually be in the gravity well to use it, and the free turn is only toward the centre of the planet’s or moon’s gravity well or toward a space hulk’s stem or no more than 45 degrees, whichever is less.

A ship within a planet’s gravity well may elect to enter high or low orbit. A ship does not have to move whilst it is in high orbit, but such a stationary ship uses the defences column for gunnery purposes if it elects to remain stationary. A ship that enters low orbit, however, is removed from play and (where the scenario requires it) is placed on a separate low orbit table. Ships moving up from low orbit are placed touching the outer edge of the planet template.

Placement

Planets are usually so far apart that only one will be placed on the tabletop, although in spectacular ‘When Planets Collide’ scenarios you might want to place two planets in shockingly close proximity.

Ringed Planets

Occasionally planets (usually the larger ones) have rings made up of gas, dust and asteroids. These are represented by gas and dust clouds and/or asteroid fields placed in a ring around the planet.

Placement

If there is a large planet on the table roll a D6. On a 5 or 6 it has rings around it. Place D3 rings around the planet, then roll a D6 to see what sort each ring is: 1-4 = gas/ dust, 5-6 = asteroid. Each ring is D6 cm wide and begins D6×5 cm away from the planet’s edge. Note that some may end up merging into one another, but that’s fine.

Moons

Most planets have many small moons around them and most of these are no larger than generously sized asteroids. These rules are confined to dealing with larger moons several thousand kilometres in diameter.

Effects

Moons count as small planets in all respects, including when deciding the effects of their gravity wells on turning ships.

Placement

Medium planets typically have D3-1 moons, large planets have D6-2 moons. Moons are up to 5 cm in diameter. A planet’s moons are placed 2D6×10 cm from the planet: roll randomly to see which direction they are from the planet.

Tabletop Effects

The following features affect the entire battlefield. They may be combined with tabletop features to produce, for example, a battle around a planet close to a sun.

Fighting Sunward

In battles close to the centre of a system, the presence of the local star has powerful effects on the ship’s ability to detect other vessels. At extreme ranges, the glare of the sun will tend to obscure the energy signature of enemy vessels, making them difficult to target accurately. In close proximity, an opposing ship with the sun behind it is easier to pick out and track using reflection surveyors and image capture devices.

Effects

In the outer reaches and deep space the light from the distant star has no effect on combat. Fighting sunward is only of consequence in the Flare Region, Mercurial Zone and Inner Biosphere, and has the following effects:

Any firing conducted towards the sunward table edge doubles the column shifts for long and short range.

To determine if you are shooting sunward place the bearing compass over the firing ship with the arrows parallel with the sunward edge. If the target is within the arc facing the sunward edge you are shooting sunward.

At long range (over 30 cm) the powerful photosphere blinds long range sensors, so take two column shifts right on the Gunnery table instead of one. At short range (15 cm or under) targets are ‘silhouetted’ instead, so make two column shifts left.

Solar Flares

Most stars periodically release explosive bursts of energy over small areas of their surface. Of course small, in solar terms, means areas hundreds of millions of kilometres across! These huge flares of energy rush outward at tremendous speeds, flooding the vicinity with highly charged particles and magnetic shock waves. A shielded vessel can find its protection virtually overwhelmed by these events and a vessel without shields is sure to suffer damage.

Effects

Roll a D6 at the start of each turn. If more than one flare was generated as part of the celestial phenomena roll a D6 per flare generated. On any roll of a 6 a flare occurs, but a flare will only manifest itself once per game. Once a flare occurs, this roll no longer needs to be rolled. Each ship on the tabletop has one Blast Marker placed sunward of them. Any ship without shields will suffer one hit and will take critical damage on a roll of 4 or more on a D6. Roll a D6 for each Ordnance marker – on a 4 or more it is removed from play. Eldar and their kin can make a leadership check to ignore all effects of solar flares, and their escorts may re-roll this result for free. If passed, it will take no damage but instead turn directly away from the solar flare and move 2D6 cm.

Radiation Bursts

As well as solar flares and often in conjunction with them, a sun will frequently emit bursts of radiation, including electromagnetic and radio waves. These temporarily scramble any communications traffic between ships and even disrupt ship-board commnets. Commanding a ship in these conditions is extremely difficult and for this reason most commanders assiduously avoid the flare region of the local star.

Effects

Roll a D6 at the start of each turn. If more than one radiation burst was generated as part of the celestial phenomena, roll a D6 for each one generated. For each roll of 5 or 6 a radiation burst occurs. Only one radiation burst can happen per turn even if multiple radiation burst were rolled for. Roll a D6 to see what the interference level of the burst is and all ships on the table reduce their Leadership value by the interference level for that turn. For example, if a radiation burst occurs and a 3 is rolled for the interference level, all ships suffer -3 to their Leadership for the rest of the turn.

In addition to the reduced Leadership for the interference, Fleet Commanders may only use their re-rolls for Command checks for their own ship or squadron during radiation bursts.

Fighting in Low Orbit

In certain scenarios, ships can enter low orbit to attack a planet. Achieving low orbit is essential to any such attack, since a drop ship’s range is very limited and any attempt to bombard ground forces from a greater distance is purely up to chance.

You will need a separate table (or section at one end of the main table) to represent low orbit. This doesn’t need to be very large – 45-60 cm wide × 90-135 cm long should be sufficient. One long table edge should be nominated as the planet edge and represents the planet itself. Ships within the gravity well of a planet may elect to enter low orbit at the start of any of their turns – place the ship on the low orbit table, touching the edge furthest from the planet.

Ships in low orbit do not have to move and capital ships do not have to move a minimum distance before they can turn. To represent interference from the planet’s gravity well and the outermost edges of its atmosphere, all firepower shooting in low orbit suffers one column shift to the right, lances and nova cannons require a 4+ roll to fire and torpedoes may not be fired by ships at all.

Ships which move within 45 cm of the planet edge will be gripped in the heart of the gravity well and must use their engines to keep station if they don’t wish to crash. At the start of each player’s turn, all ships within 45 cm of the planet table edge are moved directly towards the planet (without changing facing or turning in any way).

The distance that they move depends upon the size of the planet: small = 5 cm; medium = 8 cm; large = 10 cm. Any ship that moves off of the planet table edge in this way is totally destroyed. Escorts and transports which voluntarily move off the planet edge are said to have landed and are removed from play; capital ships cannot land. If a ship in low orbit moves off the table from any other edge, it is assumed to have left low orbit and is placed back on the main table, touching the edge of the planet. A ship may not enter low orbit and then leave it again in the same turn.

Apart from this, movement and combat is resolved in each player’s turn as normal.

If you’re limited for space, you can represent the low orbit table with a sheet of paper and markers, using a scale of 1 mm : 1 cm on the Deep Space table. Alternatively, you could use graph paper to plot moves in low orbit, again changing the scale as appropriate.

Scenarios

Although some space battles are straightforward affairs, with two fleets engaging each other simply to destroy the enemy, it is just as likely that the fleets will have a more specific objective to achieve, such as escorting a convoy or supporting a planetary assault. This section of Battlefleet Gothic provides the rules for fighting these different types of battle.

Choosing a Scenario

For your first couple of games we recommend you play the Cruiser Clash introductory scenario on pg. 128 while you get used to the rules and start building up your fleet. Once you have an idea of how the rules work you can try out some of the different scenarios that follow. There are ten scenarios in this section of the book, divided into small scale raids and larger battles. The two featured campaigns have some specific scenarios, as do a lot of the fleet lists.

Below are several ways of deciding which scenario to play.

Arbitrary Decision Method

This is by far the quickest and simplest method of choosing a scenario. Despite its rather grandiose title, this method merely involves the players picking a scenario they want to play because of the forces they have available, how much time they have, or just because it’s their favourite.

Random Generation Method

If you wish to pick a scenario randomly, roll a D6. On a roll of a 1, 2 or 3, roll again on the Raids table. On a roll of a 4 or more, roll on the Battles table. Alternatively you can just decide whether you want to fight a raid or a battle and then roll on the appropriate table.

Using an Attack Rating

Some fleets are intrinsically better than others at launching attacks and picking where and when they fight their battles. This may be due to a skilled admiral, faster ships, better organisation, or access to powerful psykers who can scry the future and predict the enemy’s actions. It also represents the fleet’s ability to navigate warp space, as well as the wild, aggressive and often random nature of their attacks (particularly for Orks!). This is called a fleet’s attack rating, which represents how likely they are to initiate a raid or battle (as opposed to being attacked themselves). The chart that follows shows the attack ratings of all fleets.

You can use attack ratings to determine the scenario to be played by the following method. Each player rolls a number of D6 equal to their attack rating and chooses the best individual dice score. Compare the best scores of both sides. The fleet with the highest score has launched an attack and may choose which scenario to fight. If it is a draw, then determine a scenario randomly as already described.

Determining Attackers and Defenders

In many of the scenarios, one side will be attacking and the other side will be defending. If a scenario has an attacker and a defender, you can simply decide who is attacking and who is defending, or randomly choose which player is attacking by rolling a dice, tossing a coin, playing scissors-paper-stone or whatever. Alternatively, you can use the attack ratings given above. As with determining a scenario, both players roll a number of dice equal to their attack rating and the player with the highest single dice roll is the attacker.

If you are using attack ratings to determine the scenario being played (see above), the player who gets to choose the scenario is always the attacker.

The Scenarios

Each scenario is presented in the following format:

Title and Overview presents the type of scenario being played, with a short description detailing the situation that faces the fleet commanders.

Forces tells you how to pick your fleets, usually in conjunction with the Fleet Lists. In some scenarios, one side may have random forces, or additional resources such as planetary defences, transport ships, etc.

Battlezone shows what restrictions there are, if any, on choosing a battlezone, as well as any compulsory celestial phenomena that must be placed on the tabletop.

Set-up gives instructions for each of the fleets, showing where they begin the battle, where any reinforcements arrive on the battlefield, etc. This section also tells you which of the fleets must be set up first.

First Turn tells you which fleet has the first turn. Often the players roll a D6 and the winner can choose whether to go first or second.

Special Rules gives you details of any rules that are specific to that scenario, such as making a planetary assault, using special Contact markers, squadrons being on standby orders and so forth.

Game Length tells you how many turns the battle will last for, together with any other events which may end the battle.

Victory Conditions is the important bit! It is here that you’ll find what your fleet must do in order to win. Often victory points are used to determine the winner, and the rules for these are as follows.

Victory Points

In many scenarios, the winner will be the player who scores the most victory points. Victory points are a measure of how much damage a fleet has inflicted on its enemy and are won by crippling and destroying enemy ships. Additional victory points can also be scored by achieving certain objectives, as detailed in the Victory Conditions section of the scenario, such as escaping an attack or attacking an enemy base. Victory points are earned as follows:

Capital Ships

If a capital ship is destroyed, the opposing player earns a number of victory points equal to the ship’s points value. This should also include the points value of any Admiral, Warmaster or Chaos Lord on board and any points spent on other types of upgrades.

If a capital ship is crippled, the opposing player earns 25% of its total points value (rounding up) as victory points.

At the end of the battle, the fleet that holds the field earns victory points for the number of hulks it can capture. Your fleet holds the field if all enemy ships have been destroyed (or have disengaged) and your fleet has at least one operational ship on the table at the end of the battle. If one fleet holds the field the player earns victory points equal to half of the points value of each hulk on the table. Note that you earn victory points for your own ships that have been reduced to hulks (you have denied valuable resources to the enemy) as well as enemy hulks.

Escort Ships, Orbital Defences and Other Vessels

Each destroyed planetary defence installation earns a player a number of victory points equal to the installation’s points value. Each destroyed escort earns its value in victory points provided the entire escort squadron is destroyed.

Disengaged Ships

Ships and escort squadrons which have disengaged are worth 25% of their total points value (including refits and embarked commander) in victory points if they were crippled before they disengaged. If the ship or escort squadron disengaged before it was crippled it is worth victory points equal to 10% of its value. An escort squadron is considered crippled if it loses half of its ships, rounding up.

Victory Points Summary

Each enemy ship destroyed

Victory points equal to its points value. Each enemy capital ship crippled Victory points equal to 25% of its points value, (rounded up).

Each enemy ship disengaged

Victory points equal to 25% of the enemy ship’s points value (rounded up) if crippled, or 10% (rounded up) if not.

Holding the field

Victory points equal to 50% of the points value of each hulk (friend or foe) on the tabletop (rounded up).

Scenario objectives

Victory points are awarded as detailed in the individual scenarios.

Pre-Battle Summary

Determine Scenario. Choose, randomly generate one or use the attack ratings method.

Decide Attacker and Defender. If needed, randomly decide who is attacking, or use the attack ratings to determine the attacker. If you are using attack ratings to choose a scenario, the player who chooses is the attacker.

Choose Forces. Select your fleet following the instructions in the selected scenario.

Set up Celestial Phenomena. Determine the type of battlezone the game is played in and place any celestial phenomena on the tabletop (see pgs. 104–113 for details of celestial phenomena).

Generate Leadership. Roll for the Leadership values of your ships and squadrons.

Deploy Fleets. Set up your ships on the table as outlined in the scenario.

Determine First Turn. Find out who has the first turn as detailed in the scenario.

Start Fighting!

Sub-Plots

Each player may generate a sub-plot if they wish (note that in a campaign you must generate a sub-plot each). Roll a D6. On a roll of 1-2, roll on the Legacies of War table. On a roll of 3-4, roll on the Chance Circumstances table. On a roll of 5-6, roll on the Secret Ploys table.

Each sub-plot includes additional victory conditions, which may or may not complement your primary mission. If you are fighting a battle with sub-plots, there are four different victory results, depending on whether you win the main battle and if you complete your sub-plot objectives.

Objectives Achieved | Battle Result
Completed main mission and sub-plot | Heroic Victory! You will long be remembered as a magnificent commander. Epic tales will be told of your exploits, and your deeds and tactics will be taught to future generations.
Completed main mission | Victory! Your fame is growing, as someone who can get the job done despite minor set-backs and myriad distractions. Your name becomes synonymous with sound tactics and steadfast leadership.
Failed main mission but completed sub-plot | Heroic Defeat! You will be remembered for snatching honour from the jaws of defeat. Stories will tell of hopeless odds and unforeseeable circumstances. You will be remembered for your courage and determination.
Failed main mission but completed sub-plot | Miserable Defeat! Your name becomes a watchword for incompetence and failure. If you die, you will not be missed. This is a dark day for your race ...

Renown

If you are playing in a campaign, you may gain or lose renown for achieving or failing in your sub-plot objective. This is given in brackets after the objective like this: (renown gained for completion/renown lost for failure). For example, the Extended Duty sub-plot is (+1/0) which means you gain an extra point of Renown for completing it, but you will not lose any if you fail.

Legacies of War (Roll of 1-2)

Score | Sub-Plot

1

Gunnery Practice:
In most space battles, victory went to the fleet with the best trained gun crews. It was not unusual for a fleet commander to order his captains to concentrate on gun drill training above all else. Roll a D6 for every capital ship in your fleet. On a 4, 5 or 6 the ship has a +1 Leadership bonus when attempting to go onto Lock On special order.

Prove the wisdom of your commands and inflict at least 1 point of damage on every enemy capital ship. (+1/-1)

2

Extended Duty:
Towards the end of the Gothic War, both sides were in poor shape. Ships often went into battle still suffering from damage sustained in previous engagements, or suffering serious shortages of manpower and ammunition. Roll a D6 for each capital ship in your fleet. On a 1, it starts the battle with D3 damage points less than normal. On a 2, it suffers a -1 modifier to all Leadership tests for Lock On & Reload Ordnance special orders. On a 3+ the ship is unaffected.

Destroy/cripple more points of enemy ships than you lose. (+1/0)

3
Blood Bond:
Ships’ captains working together over an extended period built up a great deal of camaraderie. They would often push their crew to ever greater efforts to avenge a fallen comrade. Equally, if the fleet lost too many ships, morale would suffer badly. If one of your capital ships is crippled or destroyed, all the other capital ships in the fleet gain +1 Leadership for the next turn. Finish the battle with less than half your capital ships crippled or destroyed. (+1/-1)

4
Fleet Experience:
A fleet that spent a long period under the same commander would get to know his plans and thinking. In some cases, they would even be able to predict the fleet commander’s orders. Any ship within 30cm of your fleet commander’s ship may use his Leadership value instead of their own. Your fleet commander’s ship must survive the battle with at least 75% of its original damage left or lose the confidence of its subordinates. (+1/0)

5 | No Quarter! As the war dragged on, the battle of attrition escalated to astounding proportions. Often fleets were sent in to battle with no other objective than to blast the enemy out of the stars! Cripple/destroy at least half the points value of the enemy fleet. (+1/-1)

6
Vendetta:
As the war progressed, worlds were razed and populations were enslaved or killed. Enemy ships became infamous for their exploits so it was a real boost to morale if these vessels could be destroyed. Nominate one enemy capital ship to be the object of your vendetta. Cripple or destroy the nominated capital ship. (+1/-2)

Chance of Circumstances (Roll of 3-4)

Score | Sub-Plot

1
Meteor Storm!
Meteor storms were a major cause of damage to ships. Roll a D6 for each capital ship in your fleet. On a 1, 2 or 3, roll once on the Critical Damage table and apply the result to the ship at the start of the game. There are no additional victory conditions. If you can win with your fleet in such disarray it will be truly heroic, if you fail you will be condemned for your poor navigation and inability to adapt to circumstance. (+3/-2)

2
Signalling Problems:
Due to the increased warp storms, Astropaths were frequently unable to communicate between star systems, so escort ships were used to carry orders instead. You may only use fleet commander re-rolls on squadrons that have a ship within 30cm of your fleet commander’s ship. At least half of your fleet’s escorts must survive the battle. (+1/-1)

3
Unexpected Help:
Many ships were used in smaller numbers as long range patrols or scout fleets. In a good many battles, one side or the other had its strength unexpectedly bolstered by being joined by one of these roving ships or squadrons. You may add a single capital ship or squadron of escort ships totalling D3×50 points to your fleet before the game begins. At least one ship from the reinforcements must survive the battle, without being crippled or destroyed, to continue its mission. (0/-2)

4
Navigational Hazards:
Asteroid fields and gas clouds can aid or hinder a fleet, depending on how well their cover is utilised. Roll a D6.

D6
Effect

1-2
Place an extra gas/dust cloud on the tabletop.

3-4
Place two extra gas/dust clouds on the tabletop.

5
Place an extra asteroid field on the tabletop.

6
Place an extra asteroid field and D3 gas & dust clouds on the tabletop!

No additional victory conditions. Win and you’ll be praised for using the environment against your foe, lose and you’ll be cursed for not choosing a better battlezone! (+1/-1)

5
Fresh Captain:
Ship captains who proved themselves in battle would often be re-assigned to larger, better armed vessels. This meant that the captain’s previous ship would have to spend time getting used to their new commander. Randomly select one of your capital ships (not including the fleet commander’s vessel). This ship loses -1 Leadership. The chosen ship must cripple or destroy enemy ships worth equal to or more than its own points value. (+1/-1).

6
Enemy Plans:
Boarding parties occasionally uncovered enemy plans. Each time you launch a boarding action against an enemy capital ship, roll a D6. On a score of a 4 or more, the enemy plans have been located. Add +1 to the roll if you board the opposing fleet commander’s ship. You must capture the enemy’s battle plans. (+1/-1)

Secret Ploys (Roll of 5-6)

Score | Sub-Plot

1
Surprise Attack!
Although many battles were decided by sheer weight of fire and big guns, an almost equal number were won by one fleet surprising another while en route to its destination. A fleet commander who could ambush his enemy in such a fashion would have to maximise his advantage, before the enemy had time to organise themselves. The enemy fleet cannot go on to special orders for the first D3 turns. There are no additional victory conditions. If you can win then your cunning strategy will be praised across the sector; if you fail you will be condemned for your hastiness and poorly thought out plan. (+2/-2)

2
Secret Intelligence: Spies and traitors could be found in nearly every fleet in the Gothic War. Although mostly they were only useful for informing the enemy about fleet movements at the strategic level, occasionally they could gain knowledge of the fleet commander’s battle plan just prior to an engagement and get this information to the other side. You gain an extra fleet commander re-roll for this battle. Nominate one enemy capital ship, where your informant is hiding out. You must board this ship, or make a Hit-and-Run attack on it at least once to extract the informer. (0/-1)

3
Experimental Ship:
Both sides tried numerous ploys to gain whatever edge they could over their enemy. Strategy and tactics would be changed and one area of experiment was ship design itself. Many ships were fitted with one-off weapons, engines or shield systems and their performance was closely monitored. Even recovered ancient technology or alien artefacts were sometimes retro-fitted to a ship to change its performance in one way or another. Unfortunately, there was no perfect combination and whenever something was improved, something else had to be sacrificed to accommodate the new systems. Randomly select a capital ship in your fleet. This ship has recently been fitted with an experimental system that has yet to be tried out in the heat of battle. Roll a D6 on each of the following tables to see how the ship has been altered (re-roll the side effect if the two contradict each other):

D6
Improvement

1
All weapons batteries/lances +50% range.

2
+1 shield

3
Speed +5 cm

4
+2 damage

5
Ship may make 90° turns.

6
+1 Leadership

D6
Side Effect

1
-1 shield

2
All weapons batteries/lances are at 50% range.

3
-2 damage

4
Speed -5 cm

5
-1 Leadership

6
Weapon battery firepower/lances at 50% strength (rounding up).

You must prevent the experimental ship from being crippled or destroyed so that it may be examined and lessons teamed about its performance. (+1/-1)

4
Desperate Mission:
It was not unusual for individual ships to be detached from the main fleet to undertake special missions. This could range from transporting attack plans, to small raids, or conveying Imperial Agents such as Inquisitors and Assassins to their secret destinations. Nominate one of your capital ships as having to perform the desperate mission. You must prevent this ship from being crippled or destroyed. (+1/-1)

5
Decoy:
There are instances throughout the war of both sides using decoy ships to distract the enemy and cause confusion. Often these decoys would be incredibly ancient, out-of-service vessels, or transports refitted to outwardly resemble warships. They would only have a skeleton crew and their objective would be to attract enemy fire and divert the enemy’s attention away from your real warships. You may include an extra capital ship in your fleet. However, this vessel really has the characteristics of a transport ship. Do not tell your opponent which of your ships is the decoy until it is fired upon or fires itself. The decoy is worth zero victory points. If the enemy fires with a capital ship at the decoy, then your ploy has succeeded. If he does not, then you have failed. (+1/-1)

6
Hit-and-Run:
Although the war was a constant battle of attrition, speed was vital on occasion. If a fleet could hit hard and fast, it could attain its objectives before nearby enemy ships could react. If an attack could be quickly repulsed, then a swift counter-attack could scatter or destroy an enemy fleet. Roll 2D6. This is the number of turns you have in which to win the game. If you have not won within this time limit then you have failed in your sub-plot, as your victory will not be as useful to the fleet. (+1/-1)

Scenario One

Cruiser Clash

The Cruiser Clash is an introduction to the Battlefleet Gothic rules. We suggest you play it several times when you’re learning the rules, adding in extra rules from the Alternatives section as you become more familiar with the way the game works. After a couple of games you should hopefully be able to play a game using just the information on the playsheets.

In this battle, two forces of opposing cruisers have run into each other near to a system’s jump point. Seeing their hated enemies, they immediately attack. The side which can inflict the most damage on the enemy will emerge victorious.

Forces

Each fleet consists of between one and four cruisers (both sides have the same amount). Each ship is worth no more than 185 points and should be chosen from the appropriate fleet list. Refer to the fleet lists for characteristics, etc., of the different cruiser classes.

Battlezone

For your first game, we suggest you do not place any celestial phenomena.

Set-up

Remember to roll for the Leadership values of your ships before setting them up, using the Leadership table on pg. 45 (also on the playsheet).

One player rolls a dice. On a 1, 2 or 3 they set up in the area marked Fleet A on the map. On a 4, 5 or 6 their ships must be set up in the Fleet B zone.

Next, both players roll a dice. The player with the lowest score sets up one of his cruisers first. The other player then sets up one of his ships and the players alternate deploying ships until all the cruisers are on the table.

Ships may be put anywhere in the player’s own deployment zone, but must be placed facing towards the opposite long table edge.

First Turn

Both players roll a dice. The player with the highest score may choose whether to have the first or second turn.

Game Length

The game lasts until the players have had eight complete turns each or until one fleet has all its ships destroyed.

Victory Conditions

Normal victory points are not used in this scenario. Instead, at the end of the game, each player scores 1 point for each point of damage they have inflicted on the enemy ships. A player scores an additional point for each crippled enemy ship, or 3 additional points for each destroyed enemy ship.

For example, if an enemy ship suffers 5 points of damage this earns the opposing player 5 points and an additional point because the ship has been crippled. Note that you only receive 3 additional points for destroyed ships – you do not also get the single point for the ship having been crippled before it was destroyed.

The player who scores the most victory points is the winner.

Cruiser Clash

Alternatives

After you have played this scenario once or twice, you may like to introduce some of the other Battlefleet Gothic rules.

In this battle, two forces of opposing cruisers have run into each other near to a system’s jump point. Seeing their hated enemies, they immediately attack. The side which can inflict the most damage on the enemy will emerge victorious.

Forces

One thing you could do is remove the restriction on the maximum points value of the cruisers, which means that you’ll be able to take cruisers with nova cannons and launch bays if you want. Alternatively, you could allow each player one cruiser with launch bays in their fleet, or some other restriction. Refer to the Fleet lists for the points values of different cruisers.

As another alternative, the players can pick any number of cruisers, up to an agreed points value, using their fleet list. A good size to start with is 750 points, or 1,000 points if you want to include fleet commanders in your game. Fleet commanders are Admirals and Warmasters who lead the fleets into battle. The rules for fleet commanders and the fleet commander options available to a player are given at the start of the fleet lists.

Battlezone

Once you’ve got used to moving and shooting with your ships over an open table, you can try placing celestial phenomena on the tabletop. First of all, place a few gas and dust clouds on the table and after you’ve played with those a couple of times you might like to add a planet or some asteroid fields as well.

When you’ve got an idea of how these basic types of celestial phenomena work in the game (and the tactics you can use to make the most of them), you can usethe full celestial phenomena rules. If you do this, roll a dice – on a roll of a 1, 2 or 3 the battle takes place in the outer reaches; on a 4, 5 or 6 the battle is fought in deep space. See the Celestial Phenomena section starting on pg. 104 for more details.

Set-up

You may like to use the Set-up rules for the Fleet Engagement.

Victory Conditions

Rather than adding up damage points, you can use the victory points system in the introduction to the Scenarios section.

Scenario Two

The Bait

A lone ship has been sent into a system to lure out the defending forces in an extended pursuit. Unknown to the pursuers, the fleeing vessel has some friends lying in wait up ahead.

Forces

This scenario is a raid, so it plays well with forces worth up to 750 points. These are divided up as shown below.

Pursuing forces: Up to 500 points.

Pursued forces: One ship or squadron worth up to 250 points initially, with up to 500 points of reinforcements.

Battlezone

This battle is most likely to take place in the outer reaches at the edge of a system, or in deep space near the jump point. If you are using a random battlezone generator, roll a D6: 1-3 = outer reaches, 4-6 = deep space.

Set-up

The pursued vessel is placed in the centre of the table first, facing one of the short edges. The pursuers are deployed more than 60 cm away behind it. Reinforcements for the pursued ship enter from the table edge in front of it.

First Turn

The fleeing ship takes the first turn.

Special Rules

Any reinforcements for the fleeing ships may enter the table on any turn, including Turn 1. If the reinforcing ships enter after turn 1, they may be deployed up to 30 cm along the long table edges for each turn after the first.

For example, a Slaughter class cruiser enters as reinforcements on turn 4, so it may be placed on the short table edge or up to 90 cm along one of the long edges.

Game Length

The game continues until one fleet disengages or is destroyed.

Victory Conditions

Standard victory points are earned for ships crippled or destroyed.

Scenario Three

The Raiders

A small attacking force has been sent in to cripple or destroy as much of the enemy fleet as possible before they are destroyed themselves. If the attackers succeed, the defending fleet will be put out of operation for months, enabling the attacker’s main fleet to roam the system unhindered.

Forces

Agree a points limit for the battle.

The defender may spend up to this points limit in total, while the attacker can spend up to half this total.

Battlezone

The attack could take place on a fleet near a planet, or on one out in deep space, so set up celestial phenomena in any mutually agreed fashion.

Set-up

The defender deploys his whole fleet first. The defending fleet must be set up with all the ships facing the same table edge and at least 30cm from any table edge. Each defending ship or squadron must be set up at least 20cm apart. The attacker moves his fleet on to the table from any edge in his first turn.

First Turn

The attacker takes the first turn and moves his fleet on from one table edge.

Special Rules

For the first D6 turns, all the defender’s ships suffer a -1 Leadership penalty to represent their reduced state of alert.

Game Length

The game continues for eight turns, or until one fleet disengages.

Victory Conditions

Both fleets score victory points as normal and the fleet with the highest victory points total at the end of the battle wins.

Scenario Four

Surprise Attack

The attacking fleet has launched a pre-emptive strike against the enemy, catching them unawares while they are still taking on stores in dock. The defenders must try to muster a defence as quickly as possible, before they are destroyed piecemeal.

Forces

Both fleets are picked to an equal points value. In addition, the defender may spend an extra D6×10 points on planetary defences for every 500 points (or part) in his fleet (i.e. 10-60 points for up to 500 points of ships, 20-120 points for 501-1,000 points of ships and so on).

Battlezone

A surprise attack normally takes place in the system’s primary or inner biosphere. Set up a planet in the middle of the table. The planet’s size depends upon the size of the battle: up to 500 points = small, between 500 to 1,500 points = medium, over 1,500 points = large. Generate rings, moons, etc. as normal. Then determine which table edge is sunward and place other celestial phenomena as normal.

Set-up

At the start of the game, the defender may choose D3 ships or squadrons to be on full alert. These ships may be set up anywhere on the table that is at least 30 cm from a table edge. The rest of the defending fleet is still on standby. Squadrons on standby must be deployed with at least one ship within 15 cm of the planet and all ships abeam of the planet’s surface.

The attackers move on to the table edge of their choice in their first turn.

First Turn

The attacker gets the first turn.

Special Rules

Ships or squadrons on standby may not move, fire weapons or launch ordnance. They may however attempt to Brace for Impact! and repair critical damage. Turrets and shields work normally. To go on alert status, it must first pass a Leadership Test. Note that this is not a Command check, so failing with one squadron or ship will not prevent you from testing the others. A ship or squadron may not use special orders on the same turn that it goes on alert status.

Game Length

The game lasts until one fleet disengages or is destroyed.

Victory Conditions

Both fleets score victory points as normal and the fleet with the highest victory points total at the end of the battle wins.

Scenario Five

Blockade Run

A fleet has been trapped in the system for several months, unable to fight past the enemy fleet blockading the jump point. A small attack force has been assembled to break through the blockade at its weakest point, to hopefully return with sufficient reinforcements to lift the blockade totally.

Forces

Agree on a points value total for the battle. The blockading player may spend this many points on his fleet. The attacker (attempting to break the blockade) may spend up to half this points total on ships.

Battlezone

The blockading force is stationed on the edges of the system, so the battle will take place in either the outer reaches or deep space.

Set-up

Divide the table lengthways into thirds, as shown. The blockading player then sets up his fleet. Roll a D6 for each blockading ship or squadron to determine which third of the table it is deployed in. Blockading ships may start facing in any direction, but may not be placed within 60 cm of the attacker’s table edge. The attacker then sets up his force within 15 cm of his table edge.

First Turn

Both players roll a dice and the player with the highest score may choose whether to go first or second.

Game Length

The game lasts for six turns.

Victory Conditions

Both players score victory points for destroying and crippling enemy ships as normal. In addition, the attacker scores victory points equal to the points value of any ships that he can move off via the blockading player’s table edge. Crippled ships are worth a quarter of their points value if the attacker can get them off the table. The side with the most victory points wins.

Scenario Six

Convoy

In this scenario, the defender must escort a convoy of vital transport vessels into a star system threatened by enemy forces. In order to catch the convoy, the attacking forces have seeded a wide area of space with ships lurking on minimal power to avoid detection and clusters of ‘deadfall’ torpedoes which will activate and launch as soon as an enemy ship registers on their sensors. But this convoy is desperately needed and must run the gauntlet of ships and missiles to deliver the supplies it carries.

Forces

The convoy must include at least two transport ships. For every two transports the defender may choose up to 100 points of ships to protect the convoy, which may be deployed in a maximum of one squadron per pair of transports in the convoy. The transports may be formed into a single squadron if you want.

The attackers are generated randomly. Make D3 rolls on the table below plus one extra roll for each pair of transport ships in the convoy.

D6 Roll | Result
1 | One deadfall torpedo or attack craft cluster
2 | Two deadfall torpedo or attack craft clusters
3 | Three deadfall torpedo or attack craft clusters
4 | A squadron of escort ships worth up to 100 points
5 | A squadron of escort ships worth up to 150 points
6 | One capital ship worth up to 200 points

Escort squadrons and capital ships are chosen from the attacker’s fleet list.

Battlezone

The convoy could be attacked near a planet, or out in deep space, so set up celestial phenomena in any mutually agreed fashion. If you wish, you can use battlezone generators for the Convoy scenario. Roll to see which region of space the convoy is moving through and then generate celestial phenomena on the appropriate battlezone generator.

Set-up

The attacking player sets up first. Place a face down Contact marker on the table for each capital ship, squadron, deadfall missile or attack craft cluster. Markers must be placed at least 30 cm apart and may not be placed within 30 cm of a table edge. If all of the counters cannot fit onto the table, start to double them up by placing an extra counter on top of each one already placed.

The convoy player then rolls a D6 to determine which short table edge the convoy enters from. Place one ship from the convoy at the edge of the table to mark the point where the convoy will move on from. The convoy may not enter the table within 45 cm of either of the long table edges.

First Turn

The convoy player takes the first turn. The convoy moves onto the table from the point indicated. Any ships which do not enter the table on the first turn must move on in the second convoy player’s turn. Any convoy ships which fail to enter play on the second turn are considered to be lost in the warp and do not take part in the game.

Special Rules

The attacker’s face down counters are activated by a convoy vessel moving within 30 cm of them. Turn the activated counter face up as soon as the vessel moves within range and then complete the vessel’s movement. Once the convoy player’s Movement Phase is finished, deploy the attacking forces for any activated counters as follows.

The attacking player may voluntarily activate one counter at the start of his own Movement Phase to represent his forces detecting the approaching convoy. If any of the convoy player’s ships are using special orders the attacking player may voluntarily activate up to two counters.

Deadfall torpedoes

Replace the Contact marker with a D6+2 Strength torpedo salvo. The attacking player may orientate the torpedo salvo to fire in whichever direction he wishes. The torpedoes have a speed of 30 cm and start moving in the next Ordnance Phase.

Attack Craft

Replace the Contact marker with D3+1 squadrons of attack craft. The attacking player can select any mix of fighters, bombers or assault boats and may place them together into a wave if he wants. The attack craft start moving in the next Ordnance Phase.

Squadron

Place one ship from the squadron on top of the Contact marker. The rest of the squadron is placed in formation with the first ship, no closer to the enemy than the first ship placed. The squadron may be deployed facing in any direction, but all the ships in it must be pointing in the same direction.

Capital Ship

Place the capital ship on top of the Contact marker, facing in any direction the attacking player chooses.

Game Length

The battle continues until the last transport leaves the table or is destroyed.

Victory Conditions

The success or failure of the convoy depends on the number of transports which get through. Only transports which cross the board and move off the opposite short table edge count for victory purposes.

Transports existing | Result
None | Attackers Win The defending forces have performed miserably. The attackers will feast well on their captured booty.
One | Attackers Marginal Win A single transport getting through was barely worth the risk of sending forces into hostile space. If the attackers can maintain this kind of stranglehold, the system is doomed.
Two | Convoy Marginal Win The convoy has been defended adequately – two of the valuable transports made it. More would have been better though.
Three or more | Convoy Win The convoy has made it through with enough transports to stave off the current crisis. Medals and promotions all round!

Scenario Seven

Planetary Assault

One fleet is attempting to deploy troops onto a contested planet, either to spearhead an invasion or reinforce existing armies. They must smash through the defenders and hold off any counter-attack while they send troops down to the planet’s surface.

Forces

Both fleets are of equal points. The defender can spend an extra D6×10 points on planetary defences for every 500 points (or part) in his fleet. The attacker may take two free transports for every 500 points (or part) in his fleet.

Battlezone

A planetary assault normally takes place in the system’s primary or inner biosphere. Place a planet no more than 150 cm from one of the short table edges (roll a D6 to determine size: 1 = small, 2-5 = medium, 6 = large) and generate rings, moons etc. as normal. Declare one table edge as sunward and set up other celestial phenomena as normal.

Set-up

The defender can choose to place ships and squadrons either on patrol or on standby in high orbit within the planet’s gravity. Roll a D6 for each defending ship/squadron on patrol: 1-3 the attacker may set up the ship/ squadron, on a 4-6 the defender may set it up. Ships on patrol may be set up anywhere that is not within 30 cm of a table edge or within an area of celestial phenomena. The defender always decides the facing of ships, regardless of who set them up. The attacker deploys his fleet within 15cm of the short table edge furthest from the planet. You will also need a separate low orbit table

First Turn

The players roll a D6. Whoever got the highest may take either the first or second turn.

Special Rules

Attacking ships must move within 30 cm of the planet table edge on the low orbit table to send troops to the surface and bombard enemy positions. For each turn an attacking capital ship spends within 30 cm of the planet edge, the attacker scores 1 assault point. For each turn an attacking transport spends within 30 cm of the planet edge, the attacker scores 2 assault points. A ship deploying troops or bombarding the planet may not do anything else that turn.

Game Length

The game lasts until one fleet is destroyed or disengages, or the attacker has scored 10 or more assault points.

Victory Conditions

Add up the assault points earned by the attacker and add +1 to the total for every 500 victory points (rounding down) scored by the attacker for destroying or crippling ships and planetary defences. Deduct -1 assault point for every 500 victory points (rounding up) scored by the defender. Look up the adjusted assault point total on the table below.

Total assault points | Result
0-1 | Defender’s Victory The attacking forces achieved almost nothing. The pitiful amount of assaulting troops that reached the planet will be quickly annihilated.
2-5 | Defender’s Marginal Win The assaulting forces are prevented from making a substantial landing on the planet. Nonetheless, enemy detachments will now have to be hunted down and destroyed.
6-9 | Attacker’s Marginal Win The assault dropped enough troops, etc., to capture a large part of the planet’s resources. Ongoing battles for control of the world will rage for months, even years.
10+ | Attacker’s Victory The attackers succeeded in sweeping aside the defending forces and staging decisive landings at key points all over the planet. Within a few weeks of mopping up, the attackers will have complete control of the planet.

Scenario Eight

Escalating Engagement

Two opposing fleets are in the area, each unsure of the enemy’s size and disposition. As they split to spread their search wider, two groups come into contact and signal the rest of their fleets. Whose ships will arrive first? Will they be able to overcome the enemy? Only time will tell ...

Forces

Both players’ fleets are split into five divisions. Each player takes five Contact markers to represent their divisions and assigns part of their fleet to each marker. Note down which vessels and squadrons are allocated to each marker.

There are no restrictions as to what ships can be in a division. Once a division moves onto the table, it is not constrained to stick together like a squadron. However, all five Contact markers must be allocated to at least some ships and they are drawn randomly, so an even split of forces is best. Also be warned that the time a division takes to arrive depends on the speed of its slowest vessel.

Battlezone

Escalating engagements can occur anywhere from deep space to far inside a contested system, hence any method for placing celestial phenomena which can be mutually agreed by the players is acceptable.

Set-up

At the start of battle, each player has only one division on the tabletop: the others arrive as reinforcements later. Each player randomly chooses one Contact marker for their starting force. Roll to see who places their marker first. A marker may be placed anywhere on the table that is not within 30 cm of a table edge or within 60 cm of an enemy marker.

Once both markers have been placed, deploy the ships from the divisions they represent anywhere within 10 cm of the marker.

First Turn

Once all ships have been deployed both players roll a D6 and the player with the higher score has the choice of whether to take the first or second turn.

Special Rules

In the End Phase of each player’s turn, the player randomly chooses another one of their Contact markers and places it along a randomly rolled table edge within the following restrictions:

• The marker may not be placed within 60 cm of any enemy ships.

• If there are friendly ships within 30 cm of the table edge the marker must be placed within 30 cm of them.

At the beginning of a player’s turn, he can try to bring additional ships into play by rolling a D6 for any Contact marker that is already in place on a table edge. The minimum score needed to bring the ships represented by that marker into play depends on the speed of the slowest ship in the division:

Division's speed | Score needed to arrive*
up to 20 cm | 5+
25 | 4+
30 cm or more | 3+

*If friendly ships are within 30 cm of the Contact marker add +2 to the dice roll.

If the roll equals or beats the number needed, the ships of that division may move on to the table from anywhere along the table edge that is within 10 cm of the Contact marker.

If the roll is failed, the Contact marker may be moved along the table edge by up to the speed of the slowest ship in the division.

Game Length

The game lasts until one fleet disengages or is destroyed.

Victory Conditions

Both fleets score victory points as normal and the fleet with the highest victory points total at the end of the battle wins.

Scenario Nine

Exterminatus

The attacking fleet is escorting Exterminators, ships capable of laying waste to entire planetary populations or even obliterating all life on a world in a matter of hours. The Exterminator fleet must be stopped and every ship in the vicinity is rushing to defend the threatened planet.

Forces

Agree a points total for the game. The attacker chooses a fleet up to this points value and in addition may take specialised Exterminator ships. The attackers may include a ship modified to become an Exterminator for every 1,000 points (or part) in his fleet (i.e. up to 1,000 points = one Exterminator, 1,001-2,000 points = two Exterminators, etc.). Nominate any capital ship to be an Exterminator: the ship’s prow armament is replaced by an Armageddon weapon, which can only be used against planetary targets (in effect the prow weapon is lost). An attacking Chaos fleet may choose to include an active Blackstone Fortress (with the rules given in the Chaos Ships fleet list) instead of using modified capital ships. In this case the fortress does not sacrifice any of its weaponry to enable it to carry an Armageddon weapon.

The defender chooses a fleet to defend the planet and will receive additional reinforcements throughout the game. The defender may spend an extra D6×10 points on planetary defences for every 500 points (or part) in his fleet (i.e. 10-60 points for up to 500 points of ships, 20-120 points for 501-1,000 points of ships, etc.). If he wishes, the defender may also spend up to 25%of the points from his fleet on additional planetary defences.

Battlezone

The battle is fought in the primary or inner biosphere. Place a planet no more than 150 cm from one of the short table edges (roll a D6 to determine size: 1 = small, 2-5 = medium, 6 = large), generating rings, moons etc. as normal. Declare one table edge as sunward, as detailed in the Celestial Phenomena rules and place extra phenomena following whichever method you choose.

Set-up

The defender has most of his fleet stationed near to the planet as the enemy approaches, but several ships or squadrons are out on patrol and arrive later in the engagement. The defender must pick one capital ship or escort squadron to be on patrol for each 500 points in his fleet. These are kept to one side, not deployed at the start of the game. The remainder of the defending fleet may be deployed anywhere on the tabletop, but not within 30 cm of a table edge.

The attacker sets up his entire fleet within 15 cm of the table edge which is furthest from the planet.

You will also need a separate low orbit table, as described in the Celestial Phenomena section.

First Turn

Each player rolls a dice and the player with the higher score may choose whether to go first or second.

Special Rules

The Exterminator/s must enter low orbit and move to within 45 cm of the planet table edge. At the start of each turn that an Exterminator is within 45 cm of the planet table edge, roll a dice. On a roll of a 4 or more it activates its Armageddon weapon and triggers a catastrophic event that will obliterate all life on the planet! The defenders may always target an Exterminator – if it is not the closest target then no Leadership test is required.

The defending fleet rolls for the arrival of its patrols at the start of each of the defender’s turns. Roll a D6 for each defending capital ship and escort squadron which is not in play and compare it to the table below.

Ship's speed | Score needed to arrive
up to 20 cm | 5+
25 | 4+
30 cm or more | 3+

If the roll equals or beats the number shown, the ship arrives as a reinforcement on a randomly determined table edge.

IMAGE scenario 9 die roll

Note: If this scenario is being played as part of a campaign and the planet is destroyed roll on the table that follows.

D6 roll | Result
1-3 | The system becomes uninhabited, mark it as such on the sub-sector map.
4-6 | The system’s primary world is destroyed but one or more other planets still bear life. Roll again to see what the system becomes: 1-3 agri-world, 4-6 mining planet.

Game Length

The game ends when one fleet disengages, all the attacker’s Exterminators are destroyed, or an Exterminator destroys the planet.

Victory Conditions

If one fleet disengages then it loses.

If all the attacking Exterminators are destroyed, the defender wins. If the planet is destroyed then the attacker wins!

Scenario Ten

Fleet Engagement

Although many space battles are fought between relatively small forces with very specific objectives – raiding convoys, making surprise strikes and so on – larger fleets will sometimes bring each other to battle to protect a system, hold the line or simply to destroy each other.

Forces

Both fleets are picked to an equal points value.

Battlezone

Fleet actions are normally fought in the primary or inner biospheres to keep a particular world outside bombardment range, but they could take place anywhere. Celestial phenomena can be set up in any mutually agreeable manner.

Set-up

| Opponent's Choice
Your Choice | Sphere | Wedge | Cross
Sphere | B | A(d.grey)/C(d.grey) | A(d.grey)/D(d.grey)
Wedge | A(white)/C(white) | D(d.grey)/D(white) | B
Cross | A(white)/D(white) | B | B

Notes: In a split result (i.e. A(d.grey)/D(d.grey)) both players roll a D6 to see which set-up is used. The player whose fastest ship has a higher speed than any enemy ship adds +1 to his dice roll. The fleet with the best Admiral (i.e. highest Leadership) adds +1 to its roll. The fleet with the most escort class ships adds +1. The winner of the dice roll may choose which set-up to use.

Each player must choose one of the following fleet formations. Compare the two formations chosen on the table below and use the set-up indicated.

Sphere: This formation attempts to spread the fleet broadly so that it envelops the enemy fleet, surrounding it as the ships close in. The sphere is vulnerable to a wedge formation which will break through the closing net.

Wedge: A wedge is easily surrounded by more complex formations such as the sphere and cross. However a wedge keeps the fleet closely packed together for mutual support and allows it to storm through thinly-spread opponents.

Cross: A formation which spreads ships out to run parallel with the enemy fleet, keeping them on the broadside for an extended engagement.

Once the set-up has been determined, both players roll a D6 and the player who rolls the lowest has to deploy a squadron or lone ship in their set-up area first. The players then alternate deploying ships or squadrons in their set-up areas until all forces have been deployed.

Divisions

Some set-ups split a fleet’s deployment zone into several divisions. When this happens the fleet must deploy at least one ship or squadron in each division available.

Approach Angle

The set-up maps have arrows indicating the approach angle for the opposing fleets. As ships are deployed, they must be orientated so that they are travelling in the same direction as the arrows in their division.

First Turn

Once all ships have been deployed both players roll a D6 and the player with the higher score has the choice of whether to take the first or the second turn.

Special Rules

For the first D6 turns, all the defender’s ships suffer a -1 Leadership penalty to represent their reduced state of alert.

Game Length

The game lasts until one fleet disengages or is destroyed.

Victory Conditions

Both fleets score victory points as normal and the fleet with the highest victory points total wins.

Campaign Rules

At some stage all wargamers contemplate running a campaign. This is understandable – after all, battles don’t take place in isolation, they are part of an ongoing war. A campaign allows you to fight your own ‘ongoing war’ by linking battles together, so that the results of one battle will have an effect on the future ones you fight. It adds a lot to a campaign if you keep a journal of the progress of the war, and from this you can write your own part of the history of the Gothic campaign. Over the course of the war you will be able to develop cunning strategies to conquer a whole sub-sector of the Gothic system and you will be able to watch your fleet develop as ships’ crews gain in skill and ability – or are destroyed and have to be replaced with inexperienced crews. In the battles you fight there will be famous victories and shameful defeats, legendary (or infamous!) commanders will emerge and ships in your fleet will gain fame for the awesome feats they have pulled off against all the odds!

As I hope you can tell, campaigns can be a lot of fun and they are not all that difficult to run either. To help you, we’ve developed a map-based campaign system based on our own experiences of running campaigns over the years, but you really should feel free to modify and change what’s here to suit your own tastes.

For example, playing a campaign offers great opportunities to try out new rules or new classes of ship that you’ve invented, or you could start thinking of adding rules for fighting land battles and boarding actions using the Warhammer 40,000 and Kill Team rules. The possibilities really are endless.

Getting Started

In order to run a campaign you’ll need at least one player with a Chaos fleet and one player with an Imperial fleet. Any amount of extra players can join in, including players with Ork or Eldar fleets.

Once you’ve got your players together you need to pick one of the sub-sectors we’ve provided maps for as the location for your campaign (the maps can be found at the end of this section). For your first campaign we recommend starting off with one of the smaller sub-sectors, unless there are lots of players (i.e. more than eight) taking part in the campaign. You’ll need to photocopy the sub-sector map you’ve decided to use (or draw it by hand) to keep track of which player controls each system. We glued our map to a sheet of card and blu-tacked it to the wall in our gaming area, then used coloured pins to show which player controlled each system, but you could just as easily write down who controls what.

Next you need to get all the players together for a ‘campaign briefing’. The most important thing you’ll need to go over at this point is the rules for the campaign, to make sure that everybody knows what’s going on. You should then decide how long the campaign is to last. For your first campaign we recommend playing for one month of real time and on the whole it’s best to keep campaigns short – after all, you can always start another one!

Once this has been decided, players can pick their starting systems and design their fleets using the rules described below, then you can start fighting battles. However, it is usually a good idea to set a regular time and place for campaign meetings, and also to elect a ‘campaign arbitrator’ who is in charge of making sure that the campaign runs smoothly. You might also want to consider putting together a campaign newsletter, in which case you’ll need to decide who will be its editor.

Starting Systems

At the start of the campaign, many of the systems in the sub-sector will be neutral. As the campaign progresses, this will change and players will gain control of systems that will pay them tithes and help repair their ships.

Designers’ Note: Actually all systems start nominally under the control of the Imperium, but as planetary governors tend to go their own way until reminded of their obligations, they are for all intents and purposes neutral.

Imperial and Chaos players start with one of the systems in the sub-sector under their control. Roll a D6 to decide the order that both players pick their system, and record who controls which system with coloured pins on the campaign map, or by keeping a written record. Eldar and Ork players start with a hidden pirate base instead, and should write down secretly which system it is hidden in (they can pick a system controlled by an Imperial or Chaos player).

Starting Fleets & the Fleet Register

Imperial and Chaos fleets begin the campaign with 2,000 points and Ork and Eldar fleets start with 1,500 points. Important: you must have models to represent all of the ships in your fleet, in case they all end up in a big battle! If your fleet doesn’t add up to 2,000 points, then just use what you’ve got available (don’t worry – you will get to add new ships to your fleet during the course of the campaign as you as you buy and paint new models for your collection). Each player has his own fleet registry. He uses it to keep notes and dates of when a capital ship or escort squadron was commissioned (i.e. bought) along with class of ship etc., when it takes its fleet trials (i.e. it’s assembled, painted and its Leadership rating is rolled for), its campaign history and its loss if and when they occur. If a vessel is used in battle before its fleet trials are complete (i.e. it’s not fully assembled and painted) it will suffer a critical hit on a D6 roll of 1 every time it uses special orders.

Ships which are added to the fleet register after the start of the campaign suffer a -1 modifier to their Leadership due to their hasty training and less experienced officers.

When players fight battles they must pick their forces from their own fleet register.

The Commander

Each player’s fleet has a commander (or an appropriately named leader for their race) who represents the player himself. Over the course of the campaign, your commander will collect renown points and gain in rank, and at the end of the campaign the commander with the highest renown is the winner. Once you’ve filled in your fleet register, you need to fill in the details of your commander. He’ll need a name, and starts off with 1 point of renown and one re-roll. In addition, you must pick one ship in your fleet as his flagship. If this ship is involved in a battle then ‘you’ are there, and you may use the commander’s re-roll or any other special abilities he may have in the battle. If the flagship is not there then you may not use the commander’s re-roll or abilities.

If the flagship is destroyed, then it is assumed that your commander manages to escape somehow. He may not have any further effect in that game, but you may choose a new flagship for him once the game is over.

Fighting Battles

In order for things to happen in the campaign players must fight battles (doh!). At its simplest level all players have to do is challenge any other player that is in the campaign to a game and if they agree then the game uses the additional campaign rules below as well as the rules used for a normal game.

The only problem with this is that it can lead to some odd situations where Imperial fleets attack other Imperial fleets to gain control of systems, and because of this, it’s best if the Imperial players are not allowed to attack each other and if the Chaos and Eldar players restrain themselves, if possible, from attacking players of their own race. If you have a lot of Imperial fleets in the campaign (or, indeed, only Imperial fleets), then it is best to split them into loyalists and rebels, the latter being assumed to have gone over to the dark gods of Chaos!

Anyway, however you decide to do it, you need to challenge other players in the campaign to a game. The game is arranged in exactly the same manner as a one-off game; simply agree on a time and a place and go for it. You can play as many or as few campaign games as you like, all you need to do is find an opponent.

Note that opposing players do not have to agree to play just because you happened to have challenged them to a battle – but you may want to penalise players that refuse to play games with anybody for long periods of time and spoil the campaign for the other players.

For example, if a player doesn’t play any games for (say) a fortnight then they lose a point of renown, and if they don’t play any games for a month then one of their systems (randomly selected) rebels and is turned over to another player.

The Campaign Turn

Campaign games include a number of extra steps which take place at the beginning and end of the game, these are described below. Unless stated otherwise all of the normal Battlefleet Gothic rules apply in a campaign game. Each time that two players have a game they both get what is known as a campaign turn. The turn uses the following sequence of play:

Build-Up

Determine Initiative

Roll for incoming Orders, select target system if necessary

Select Forces from Fleet Registry

Fight Battle

Aftermath

Claim System

Adjust Renown

Promotions & Demotions

Ship Experience

Repairs & Withdrawals

Make Appeals

Build-Up

The build-up stage takes place at the start of the battle, before either player deploys or picks his fleet. In this stage you decide where the battle will be, what type of scenario to play, and what size of fleets to use. The stage has a number of steps that need to be carried out in the following order:

Determine Initiative

Receive Orders

Pick Fleet

1. Determine Initiative

Roll to see who is attacker and who is defender (the player who rolls highest is the attacker). If one player has more systems than the other his forces are stretched more thinly, so the player with fewer systems gains a +1 bonus to the dice roll. You may want to incorporate the attack ratings from the scenarios introduction, where you roll a number of dice, picking the highest one, to determine the initiative.

2. Receive Orders

Although fleet commanders have a large measure of autonomy, higher command still sends down the orders telling them what they must achieve next. In effect, the players get to decide what happens in the battles, but receive orders that direct the strategy they must follow, and the type of battles they will fight. To reflect this, one of the players must roll a D6 to determine what type and size of scenario is to be played.

Incoming Orders
D6 Roll | Orders
1-2 | Raid (500-750 points)
3-6 | Battle (750-1500 points)

If one player has 21 Renown points or more he may choose whether to fight a battle or a raid (if both are this status then roll to see who decides).

Decide Scenario: Roll on the tables below to determine which scenario is to be played, or if both player agree you can pick one from those listed for the type of scenario.

Raids

D6 Roll
Scenarios

1
Cruiser Clash

2
The Bait

3
The Raiders

4
Blockade Run

5-6
Convoy

Battles

D6 Roll
Scenarios

1
Exterminatus

2
Surprise Attack

3
Planetary Assault

4
Escalating Engagement

5-6
Fleet Engagement

Decide Location: The attacker must select the system in which the scenario will take place. The system must be connected to one already controlled by the player via a warp route. If no systems are already held, any may be chosen. If an uninhabited system is chosen, the defender must reduce his points value by 100 pts. Other types of system can affect the number of planetary defences, as described elsewhere in the rules.

Decide Size of Battle: Once a mission has been generated, players agree the points value of the game and select their forces. The players can agree on the exact number of points for the game within the limits listed on the Incoming Order table. If one player holds more systems than the other their forces will be spread thinly, giving the player with the least number of systems an advantage. Each extra system a player holds over his opponent reduces his fleet size by 10 points.

Ork & Eldar Scenarios: Ork and Eldar fleets only ever make raids, they never take part in battles. If you roll up a battle on the Incoming Orders table, then it is treated as a major raid instead. Roll for the scenario for the major raid on the Raids table, but the size of the battle is increased to 750-1,500 points.

3. Pick Fleets

Both players must now pick their fleets using ships from their fleet register. The total value of the ships you pick may not exceed the points total you and your opponent have decided for the scenario you are to play. Note that you can’t change the details of ships on the register or adjust their points value at this stage – the ships you pick must come from your register and not be changed in any way.

Fight the Battle: With the build-up completed all you need do now is roll for a sub-plot and then get fighting (hurrah!).

Orks and Eldar never get to capture systems, but instead have a secret pirate base. If an Ork or Eldar player’s opponent with a rank of Admiral or higher (or its equivalent for other races) gains the initiative for a scenario, then he can attempt to attack the base instead of playing a normal scenario.

The attacker must, however, first find the base: roll a D6 and multiply the score by 10. If you roll under the Ork or Eldar side’s renown, then you’ve tracked down the base and system that it is hidden in must be revealed. If the player fails to find the base (i.e. fails to roll under the defender’s renown) then play a normal scenario. Once you know the location of the base you don’t have to find it again (you can reveal its location to other players too if you want).

Once the base is found, the player may attack it if he controls the system, or it is in a neutral system. If neither of these conditions apply, then play a normal scenario instead. Assuming you find the base and it is in a location where you can attack it, then play either the Planetary Assault or the Exterminatus scenario. If the attacker wins then the base is destroyed and can no longer be used by the Ork or Eldar player.

Aftermath

Once you have fought a campaign game and know who has won, you come to probably the most important stage: the aftermath. This is where you find out what effect the game you have just played has on the campaign map, as well as the effect it has had on the ships and crew that took part. This stage has a number of steps, which need to be carried out in the following order:

Spoils of War

Adjust Renown

Promotions & Demotions

Ship Experience

Repairs & Withdrawals

Appeals

1. The Spoils of War

Whenever an attacker wins a battle, he may claim control of the system if it is connected by a warp route to one he already controls. The system can only be taken over by the player that won the battle if it previously belonged to the player that he defeated, or if it was previously neutral.

Whenever an attacker wins a raid, he may count the opponent’s system where the raid took place as his own for the rest of this campaign turn (which is important, since the systems you control affect your ability to repair ships, etc.).

2. Adjust Renown

Renown is a measure of the fame or infamy enjoyed by you, the fleet commander. Players start the campaign with 1 point of renown and can gain or lose renown as shown on the Renown table. Renown is very, very important because, at the end of the campaign, the player that has earned the most renown is the winner! Note that you can gain or lose renown even if your commander was not present during the scenario (i.e. his flagship did not take part).

Renown can be gained for the following
Winning a battle or major raid | +2
Winning a raid | +1
Victory points earned | +(VPs/100 round upperroman)
Sub-plots | variable
Each capital ship hulk captured | +1
Fought commander with higher renown | +1
Fought fleet with higher points value and lost | +1
Fought fleet with higher points value and won | +2

Renown is lost for the following:
Losing a battle | -1
Losing a raid | -1
Each capital ship lost | -1
Sub-plots | variable

Note: A commander can never be reduced below 1 renown point (you may be renowned as a bad commander, but you will be renowned nonetheless).

3. Promotions and Demotions

The player gains promotions according to their renown as shown on the tables below. It is possible to lose rank if you lose renown points. Your rank determines how many re-rolls or Marks of Chaos you receive in the scenarios that you fight. Tau fleet commanders use the Imperial table for their promotions.

Imperial Promotions (All Imperials except Mechanicus Fleets)
Renown | Title | Ld | Notes
1-5 | Commander | 8 | 1 re-roll
6-10 | Battle Group Commander | 8 | 2 re-rolls
11-20 | Sub-sector Commander | 9 | 2 re-rolls
21-30 | Admiral | 9 | 3 re-rolls
31-50 | Fleet Admiral | 10 | 3 re-rolls
51+ | Solar Admiral | 10 | 4 re-rolls

Mechanicus Promotions
Renown | Title | Ld | Notes
1-5 | Explorator Techpriest | 7 | 1 re-roll
6-10 | Magos Errant | 8 | 1 re-roll, 1 refit
11-20 | Magos Explorator | 8 | 2 re-rolls, 1 refit
21-30 | Aspiring Archmagos | 9 | 2 re-rolls, 1 refit
31-50 | Archmagos Explorator | 9 | 3 re-rolls, 1 refit
51+ | Archmagos Veneratus | 10 | 3 re-rolls, 2 refits

Chaos Promotions
Renown | Title | Ld | Notes
1-5 | Chaos Champion | 8 | 1 re-roll
6-10 | Exalted Chaos Champion | 8 | 1 re-roll, 1 Mark of Chaos
11-20 | Tyrant | 9 | 1 re-roll, 1 Mark of Chaos
21-30 | Chaos Lord | 9 | 1 re-roll, 2 Mark of Chaos
31-50 | Overlord | 10 | 1 re-roll, 2 Mark of Chaos
51+ | Warmaster | 10 | 1 re-roll, 3 Mark of Chaos

Ork Promotions
Renown | Title | Notes
1-5 | Nob | 1 re-roll
6-10 | Big Nob | 2 re-rolls
11-20 | Boss | 2 re-rolls
21-30 | Big Boss | 3 re-rolls
31-50 | War Boss | 3 re-rolls
51+ | Warlord | 4 re-rolls

Eldar Promotions (all types of Eldar)
Renown | Title | Ld Bonus | Notes
1-5 | Captain | +0 | 1 re-roll
6-10 | Lord | +1 | 1 re-roll
11-20 | Shadow Lord | +1 | 2 re-rolls
21-30 | Prince | +2 | 2 re-rolls
31-50 | Shadow Prince | +2 | 3 re-rolls
51+ | King | +2 | 4 re-rolls

4. Ship Experience

As the campaign progresses ships (or rather, ship crews) will gain experience. This is represented by increasing their Leadership characteristic, and by giving them special ‘crew skills’. On the other hand a ship that is badly damaged is likely to have lost a sizable proportion of its experienced crewmen, which will reduce its effectiveness, while a ship that is destroyed will have to be replaced by a new or salvaged vessel with a very inexperienced crew.

Gaining Experience:

Ships which fought in a battle and were not crippled or destroyed roll 2D6. If the roll is higher than their Leadership rating, then either their Leadership may be improved by +1 point (up to a maximum of 10) or the ship may roll on the Crew Skills table. You may choose which option to take, unless the ship has a Leadership of 6 or 7, in which case you must choose to increase the ship’s Leadership by +1 point instead of taking a skill.

Crippled Ships:

Ships which were crippled in a battle lose -1 Leadership (to a minimum of 6). Note that crew skills aren’t lost for being crippled, even if the ship’s Leadership is reduced to 6 or 7.

Destroyed Ships:

Ships which are destroyed (i.e. reduced to 0 damage points) must be replaced with a new ship. Change their name on your fleet register. The new ship has a Leadership of 6, no crew skills, and any refits that have been taken are lost (the rules for refits follow later on).

Escort Squadrons:

Escort squadrons gain and lose Leadership and skills in the same way as ships. Escort squadrons which suffer 50% or greater casualties are considered crippled for the purpose of experience, while those that are wiped out are considered destroyed.

5. Repairs & Withdrawals

In a campaign, ships that have suffered damage must be repaired, and it is the number of systems a player controls that determines just how much damage can be fixed. Sometimes the systems under your control won’t be able to repair all the damage your fleet has suffered, in which case you can either withdraw the ships and send them to be repaired outside the sub-sector, or you can let them limp on as they are until you have time to repair them.

Repairs: Each system a player controls may repair a number of damage points. This varies depending on the type of system and your renown. The number of damage points different systems can repair is shown below. Renown is important because it helps with recruiting/press ganging extra crew, claiming resources and time in dock etc.. Note that all criticals are repaired automatically, including ones which may not be repaired during a battle (i.e. Bridge Smashed and Shields Collapse). Also remember that if the attacker won a raid he may count the enemy system where the raid took place as his own for this turn. You can use Repair points to bring escort squadrons back up to strength, in which case each escort ship is worth 1 damage point.

Repairing Vessels

An Imperial commander has just won a battle. He now controls a hive world, two Agri-worlds and a penal colony and has 28 renown points. During the battle one of his cruisers took five points of damage, another took three points of damage and another lost four hits. He also lost two frigates from a squadron of four. With the systems he currently has under his control, the Imperial commander may repair nine points of damage plus D6-2 for his penal colony. He rolls a 4, which gives him a total of 11 repair points. He uses 5 to totally repair the first cruiser and another 3 to repair the second cruiser. He replaces the two lost frigates, meaning he can only repair 1 point of damage on the third cruiser. This cruiser will start its next battle with three hits less than normal.

Repair Points
Renown | Agri | Penal (min. of 1) | Mining | Forge, hive, pirate world | Civilised | Uninhabited
1-5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1
6-10 | 1 | D6-4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1
11-20 | 1 | D6-3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1
21-30 | 2 | D6-2 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1
31-50 | 2 | D6-1 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1
51+ | 3 | D6 | 4 | 12 | 6 | 1

Withdrawing ships: A player may choose to withdraw ships to get them fully repaired at a major base. Mark the fact they have been withdrawn on the fleet register. Ships which are withdrawn are unavailable for the player’s next game, after which they return to the fleet with their full number of hits. Escort squadrons which are withdrawn may return at full strength.

6. Appeals

After repairs have been completed, both players can appeal to higher authorities/ the gods of Chaos for aid. The amount of help you can expect to receive depends on how well you’ve been doing, as measured by your renown. To reflect this, the number of appeals that may be made depend on the players’ renown as shown on the table below.

Renown | No. of Appeals
1-10 | 1 Appeal
11-30 | 2 Appeals
31-50 | 3 Appeals
51+ | 4 Appeals

Appeals may be made for the things listed below. If you are allowed to make more than one appeal you can ask for the same thing up to two times (and may have each appeal granted), or you can appeal for different things – it’s up to you! However, you must declare what you will appeal for this turn before determining whether the appeals have been granted. Having declared what you are going to appeal for, roll a D6 for each appeal to see if the appeal is granted.

Type of appeals allowed

Appeal Granted
Reinforcements | 2+
Refits | 4+
Other | 5+

There are 3 different types of appeal.

Not every fleet is allowed every type. Allowances, restrictions and specific upgrades are printed with the fleet lists. The General Upgrades on the following pages are used by most fleets, so they are printed here and are not repeated in the fleet lists.

Reinforcements

If the appeal is granted, one new capital ship or a squadron of up to five escorts may be added to the player’s fleet registry. Note that you must have the models to represent the ships – if you don’t, then they can’t be added to the fleet register.

Refits

If you read through the background sections of Battlefleet Gothic, you’ll see that ships often have things added, or have equipment updated or improved. This is called refitting, and in a campaign, you’ll get a chance to refit the ships in your fleet in order to (hopefully) improve their performance in different areas. A player who is granted a refit must choose one of his capital ships to undergo the refit, then roll a D6 to see what type of equipment system is upgraded. On a roll of 1 or 2 you receive a ship refit, on a roll of 3 or 4 an engine refit, and on a roll of 5 or 6 a weapon refit Then roll on the appropriate Refit table given later to see exactly what you get. If you roll a result that the ship already has, roll again until you get a result the ship does not already benefit from.The points value of the ship is increased by 10% for each refit it has and you’ll need to update your ship register appropriately.

Other Appeals

Other appeals allow you to request the aid of other allied forces. For example, Imperial players can call on the aid of a Space Marine Chapter, Chaos players may draw on the power of the warp to cast arcane spells, etc.. The types of other appeal you can make are listed under “Types of Appeal Allowed” earlier, and if granted allows you to roll on the appropriate Appeal table. Again, if you roll a result on the table that you already have, then roll again until you get a new result.

Conclusion

As noted in the introduction, you should set a deadline for the campaign. When the deadline comes up the player that has built up the greatest renown is the winner. However, once you’ve got some experience running campaigns like this, you should feel free to change the criteria for victory. For example, you could say that the first player to gain control of five systems is the winner (though this will be tough on Ork and Eldar players), or you could keep on playing until the entire sub-sector is entirely controlled by Chaos, in which case all of the Chaos and Ork players win, or is entirely controlled by the Imperium, in which case all of the Imperial and Eldar players win.

Other alternatives include doing a convoy run, where a fleet has to travel from system to system across the map, fighting opponents along the way as it does so, or you could have a game based on an Ork Waaagh! where Ork players are allowed to control systems. The most important thing to remember is that the rules above are only a starting point, and the possibilities for making up your own campaigns are really only limited by your imagination. Have fun!

General Upgrades

These refits and crew skills can be earned by every ship, unless otherwise noted.

Engine Refit
The ship’s engines are fitted with additional systems or improvements have been made to the power generators and energy relays in some fashion. Roll on the following table.
D6 Roll | Engine Refit
1 | Secondary Reactors: The ship’s additional power generators allow it to put on a tremendous burst of speed for short lengths of time. The ship rolls an extra 2D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders.

2
Evasive Jets: The hull of the vessel is studded with powerful short-burn engines which allow it to drastically turn to avoid incoming fire. At the start of the enemy Shooting Phase, the ship may take a Leadership test. If it is passed, the ship may make a single 45° turn immediately. However, the ship may not go on to special orders during the next turn.

3 | Manoeuvring Thrusters: Additional thrusters along the length of the ship allow it to turn much more quickly. The ship reduces the distance it needs to move before turning by 5 cm.
4 | Arrester Engines: The ship has a number of secondary engines mounted near its prow, which enable the vessel to reduce speed rapidly. When attempting to Burn Retros or Come to New Heading special orders, the ship may add +1 to its Leadership.
5 | Auxiliary Power Relays: The rear of the ship is criss-crossed with additional cables and pipelines, feeding more power to the engines. The ship gains +5 cm to its speed.
6 | Navigational Shields: The ship is enveloped in low-frequency shields designed to shunt aside debris and other impediments as the ship moves. The ship does not suffer reductions to its speed for moving through Blast Markers (this includes gas and dust clouds and similar effects).

Ship Refit
The structure of the ship is improved in some way, new equipment is installed, or better trained or specialised crew members are brought in. Roll on the following table.
D6 Roll | Ship Refit
1 | Improved Sensor Array: The ship’s assayers and long range surveyors are particularly attuned to pick up energy emissions and signals from enemy ships. When taking Leadership tests to go on to special orders, the ship gains +2 for enemy ships on special orders, rather than the normal +1.
2 | Additional Shield Generator: The ship has additional shield generators to deflect incoming shots. The ship gains +1 Shields.
3 | Superior Damage Control: The ship benefits from an improved auto-repair system, or more highly adept engineers and technicians. The ship may roll one extra dice in the End Phase when attempting to repair damage.
4 | Reinforced Hull: The ship’s hull is fitted with additional armour and internal bracing, increasing its damage by 25% (rounded up) but reducing its speed by 5 cm.
5 | Improved Logic Engines: The ship’s countless metriculators and mechanical cogitators enable the crew to perform with full effectiveness even in the midst of the fiercest battle. The ship does not suffer -1 Leadership for being in contact with Blast Markers.
6 | Overload Shield Capacitors: Specialised power relays and generators allow the ship’s engineers to temporarily divert extra power to the shields. For each hit against the shields, roll a D6. On a roll of a 6, the hit is ignored and no Blast Marker is placed.

Weapons Refit
The ship has been upgraded with additional or more sophisticated weapons systems, greatly enhancing its battle effectiveness. Roll on the following table:
D6 Roll | Weapons Refit
1 | Extra Turrets: The vessel is studded with numerous close defence weapons to shoot down enemy torpedoes and attack craft. This ship adds +1 to its Turrets value.
2 | Turbo-weapons: The ship’s weapons have been given additional punch and accuracy at long range. The ship does not suffer a right column shift when firing over 30 cm.
3 | Targeting Matrix: The ship’s weapon systems are linked together through a massive targeting network so that they can maximise their fire. All firing by weapons batteries benefits from a left column shift on the Gunnery table (before any other column shifts for range or Blast Markers).
4 | Auto-loaders: The ship’s crew are aided in their task of readying torpedoes and attack craft by huge semi-automated machinery. The ship adds +1 to its Leadership when attempting Reload Ordnance special orders (re-roll this if the ship has no ordnance).
5 | Superior Fire Control: A powerful fire control system has been installed in the ship’s bridge, enabling the command crew to direct the ship’s firing with greater effect. The ship adds +1 to its Leadership when attempting Lock On special orders.

6
Motion-Tracking Targeters: A complex analytical array linked to the ship’s navigational systems enables the gun crews to fire with greater accuracy when the ship is performing special manoeuvres. If the ship is on All Ahead Full, Burn Retros or Come to New Heading special orders, its firepower and lance Strength is reduced by 25% (rounded up) rather than halved.

Crew Skills
D6 Roll | Skill
1 | Expert Gunnery: The ship’s gun crew are amongst the finest in the whole sector, able to lay down a devastating barrage. When the ship attempts Lock On special orders you may roll 3D6 and discard the highest roll before comparing the score to the ship’s Leadership.

2
Skilled Engineers: The crew responsible for running the engines are highly adept, able to respond quickly to orders for more or less power. When the ship attempts All Ahead Full or Burn Retros special orders you may roll 3D6 and discard the highest roll before comparing the score to the ship’s Leadership.

3
Adept Trimsman: The officers and crew responsible for the ship’s manoeuvring boast that they could get the ship to turn on the head of a pin! Whenever the ship attempts Come to New Heading special orders you may roll 3D6 and discard the highest roll before comparing the score to the ship’s Leadership.

4
Excellent Pilots: The ship is famed for the skill of its pilots. The well-timed attack runs of its bombers can cause horrendous damage while its fighter pilots fly rings around enemy attack craft. Any bombers launched by this ship may re-roll the dice when determining how many To Hit rolls they have. If fighters from this ship intercept attack craft or torpedoes, roll a D6. On a score of 4+ the fighters are not removed as normal but remain in play. Re-roll this skill if the ship does not carry attack craft. Eldar players should re-roll this skill.

5 | Disciplined Crew: The ship’s crew bend to their tasks with enthusiasm and loyalty. Once per battle the ship may re-roll a failed Leadership test or Command check.
6 | Elite Command Crew: The ship’s command crew work well as a team, able to respond quickly to the orders of the fleet commander. Once per battle the ship may automatically pass a Leadership test or Command check – there is no need to roll any dice.

The Sub Sector Maps

Number of Systems

A sub-sector contains many stars, but of these only a few will have any planets orbiting. The vast majority will be gas giants or planets locked in sub-zero ice ages. This means that any given sub-sector will have relatively few star systems actually worth fighting over. Of these, the majority will be mining worlds, agri-worlds and other worlds with a sizeable population and contemporary technology level (categorised as civilised worlds). A few systems may have a forge world, hive world or other such planet. Occasionally uninhabited systems also have strategic importance as jump points or gathering places for assembling war fleets. The sub-sector maps only show those systems of military or strategic importance to the forces fighting in the Gothic War.

Warpspace Channels

In theory it is possible to travel anywhere through warp space. However, the warp’s shifting tides make it easier to travel from some systems to others, and short warp jumps are always more accurate than longer ones. This is particularly true when moving a large fleet, which may become spread out across several light years of space. For this reason, the systems on a sub-sector map are connected by a number of warp channels to the other systems.

System Type

Each system will be one of the following types: uninhabited, agri-world, mining world, hive world, penal colony, forge world or civilised world. The system may actually contain more than one world, but the political power and the bulk of the resources will be concentrated on the type of world shown. The system type will influence how much ship damage it can repair and level of its orbital defences.

Special Notes

Blackstone Fortresses: We have marked on the maps where each of the Blackstone Fortresses is located. If you wish to (and you don’t have to if you don’t want to) you can include a Blackstone Fortress in the planetary defences of that system.

Port Maw: Port Maw is the largest naval base in the Gothic Sector and the headquarters of the Battlefleet Gothic. Any planets in the Port Maw system (not to be confused with the Port Maw sub-sector) have double the normal amount of planetary defences.

Key to Sub-sector Maps
A | Agri-world
C | Civilised world
F | Forge world
H | Hive world
M | Mining world
P | Penal world
U | Uninhabited system

The Third Armageddon War

Section Incomplete

Abaddon’s 13th Black Crusade

Section Incomplete