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Inquisitorial Ships

Started by Vladilek, August 18, 2011, 06:18:41 AM

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Inquisitor Octavian Lars

I have a couple of sketches in the works and a question; what would the real length of the frigate and freighter be? (I was thinking 2 miles and 0.5 miles respectively, but I don't know the actual length of BFG ships)
Velterax III
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MarcoSkoll

Transports are likely to be bigger than the smaller warships. They need the space for cargo, warships haven't got to fit cargo bays. As for numbers, these numbers should be about right.

Transports: 2-3 km long. 1500-2000 crew.
Raider: 1.5 km long. 1500-2500 crew.
Frigate: 1.5-2 km long. 2500-3000 crew.
Light Cruiser: 4-4.5 km long. 5000-6000 crew.
Cruiser: 5km long. 9000-10000 crew.
Grand Cruiser: 6km long. 12000-15000 crew.
Battleships: 7.5 km long. 18000-25000 crew.

And before anyone corrects me on the crew numbers, I go by Andy Chambers' guidelines - the numbers from the RT RPG book have evidently suffered from size creep (in much the same way as some sources think that Titans should be hundreds of metres tall).
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

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Inquisitor Octavian Lars

Thanks a lot, do you have any ideas for these ship's names (class/possible given name (i.e. uss Enterprise))
Velterax III
All my wargaming under one address
http://velterax3chronicles.blogspot.com/

http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1566.0
Insertion Zone. Also on the Velterax III Chronicles.

Always looking for comments

Inquisitor Octavian Lars

Double post ;D , but I now have the paint sketches ready.
Velterax III
All my wargaming under one address
http://velterax3chronicles.blogspot.com/

http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1566.0
Insertion Zone. Also on the Velterax III Chronicles.

Always looking for comments

Inquisitor Goldeneye

Thanks for the stats. Marco, they'll help me a lot with refining the mental image I have of Erasmus' ship 'The Oath'.

Also, @ Ocatavian; Ship's names in the Imperium tend to simply take the form of a suitably... Baroque, I think is the correct adjective, name (often some Imperial saint or hero, or else some appropriately over-blown moniker), sometimes preceded by the ship's class.

For example, the Gothic War-set novel 'Execution Hour' features such ships as the 'Lord Solar Macharius', the 'Inviolable Retribution' and the 'Divine Right'.

Sometimes the book will preface the ship's name with 'His Divine Majesty's Ship' the whatever, but I don't know if this is standard practice throughout the Imperial navy, or whether it's just something the author pulled out of whatever orifice he felt fit.

Don't forget, if you can't think of anything then the internet has many English-to-Latin translators; cod-latin is your friend.
'A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.' -  William Wordsworth.

Canis-Sapiens

Quote from: Inquisitor Octavian Lars on August 20, 2011, 06:38:27 PM
Thanks a lot, do you have any ideas for these ship's names (class/possible given name (i.e. uss Enterprise))

The easiest place tofind ship names and capabilities is the GW specialist games site just look up the rules for battlefleet gothic. The rule book has sample ship names for each class of ship that fought in the gothic war against abaddon

MarcoSkoll

The four example ships in the Into the Storm book are:
Eternal Praetorian, a Lathe-class Monitor (Light) Cruiser; Measured Response, a Cobra-class naval Destroyer; Bounty of Scintilla, a Loki-class Q-Ship (a transport); and Sovereign Venture, a Tyrant-class Naval Cruiser.

As far as a given name, it's fairly rare for a ship to have a single word name like is common in the British navy (e.g. Victory, Belfast, Cornwall, Leander), although not completely unknown. If you want a ship to sound really fancy, then a two part High Gothic name (like is standard for Titans: e.g. Dies Irae) can do the trick.

Of course, if you're weird like me, you name it in Welsh; Ynys Mon is far less interesting in English: "Anglesea".

For a class name, a possible option for a Frigate would be something "swordy", because there's of course Sword class, Rapier class, etc. Some name for a blade that hasn't been used yet could be good - although not "Katana", please, we don't need any more Nippophiles.

~~~~~

One example that came up recently would be The Compulsion of Fate, the Solemne Vanguard-class Escort that's the ship in Stormgrad's RT campaign.
In that case, Solemne is the forge world the design originates from and Vanguard is the class name.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Inquisitor Octavian Lars

Thanks, I have named several imperial ships for AQ recently, so I am no stranger. Also, I only used Enterprise as an example.
Velterax III
All my wargaming under one address
http://velterax3chronicles.blogspot.com/

http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1566.0
Insertion Zone. Also on the Velterax III Chronicles.

Always looking for comments

Ynek

If I remember rightly, Imperial Cruiser classes are always named after the world, moon, system or segmentum where they were invented/discovered.

For instance, the Lunar Class, the Mars Class, the Armageddon Class, the Nemesis Class, the Gothic Class, etc. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the Overlord class, the Dictator class, and virtually all of the ships that eventually fell into the traitor legion's hands. But the majority of cruiser types I've seen rules for in BFG have been named after planets or systems.

As for individual ships, the BFG rulebook says that the ship will be named in accordance of where the ship originally came from. If the ship was a recovered and restored hulk, it will normally be renamed by the individual who rediscovered it (usually the captain of the ship that finds it.) One example given in the BFG rulebook is the 'divine right', as the captain who found it believed he was led to the hulk by visions from the Emperor.

Planetary governors often pay part of their tithes with ships built on/in orbit around their world. Normally, they take this opportunity to immortalise themselves by naming ships after themselves. The Lord Daros is one example.

Ships built by the Imperial Navy in Imperial dockyards are often given hereditary titles which formerly belonged to ships which have been lost.

That's what the BFG rulebook has to say on the subject of ship's nomenclature.
"Somehow, Inquisitor, when you say 'with all due respect,' I don't think that you mean any respect at all."

"I disagree, governor. I think I am giving you all of the respect that you are due..."

Inquisitor Octavian Lars

So, Octavian's frigate now has a name thanks to your comment!
The Lord Octavian Lars, a Rapier class frigate
And I'm still working on the freighter
Velterax III
All my wargaming under one address
http://velterax3chronicles.blogspot.com/

http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1566.0
Insertion Zone. Also on the Velterax III Chronicles.

Always looking for comments

Ynek

Just in the spirit of sharing Inquisitorial ships, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share mine. ^_^

Presenting Inquisitor Thaddeus's (heavily modified and barely recognisable) cobra class destroyer.



The cobra was a hulk recovered by the Umpalotte Rogue Trader fleet in the beginning of M40 near the Omega World. (A highly dangerous anomaly in the Levitus subsector which has been an object of fascination for Inquisitors for generations, most notably the Ordo Obscurus.) The wreck was dragged back to Ferrum, the principal forgeworld of the Levitus subsector, where it was repaired at great financial cost to the Umpalotte dynasty.

The Omega World is an object which is extremely feared by spacefarers. Simply being in ownership of such a ship was a status symbol marking the bearer as someone exceptionally daring and perhaps even reckless. The Umpalotte family saw the ship as a great trophy to prove their mettle. As such, when the ship was declared 'finished', it was renamed "Tropaea".

The Tropaea had been substantially modified during the repairs. The torpedo tubes were removed to make more space for cargo, (apparently a very popular modification made by rogue traders, since torpedoes are extremely expensive to replace, and take up so much room on board,) and the cargo hold itself was more than doubled in size.

As the ship was viewed as a prized trophy, it actually saw very little combat, and was mostly used for transporting cargo. However, when the Umpalotte dynasty successfully defeated the flagship of the pirate prince Malignis, the engines of the pirate ship were taken as a trophy and were, again at great expense, fitted onto the Tropaea, making it much faster, but much less agile compared with other ships of it's class.

Over the following centuries, many more 'trophies of victory' were added to the Tropaea, making it a veritable trophy museum in space. A lance turret from the pirate ship 'Thor', a series of dark Age of Technology shield projectors and an ancient starship bridge recovered from a space hulk have all found their way into the Tropaea's increasingly prestigious hull.

The ship was largely used by the opulent Umpalotte dynasty to show off to dignitaries and ambassadors. Planetary governors were brought on board to dine, walking through the gilded corridors and viewing the spoils of war and trophies of the rogue trader's adventures. It was a symbol of the Umpalotte dynasty's success, and a testament to their strength.

When the Umpalotte dynasty began to crumble, the Tropaea Victoriae (as it was THEN called) was naturally the last ship they would ever dare to part with. It was the ship which bore the hard-earned trophies of the generations that preceeded them. It was simply too precious to let slip. When the last member of the dynasty lay on his death bed, he had the ship moored over the dead suns of Gellar's World, a place which he had long invisioned having a romantic, poetic death.

However, destitute, he failed to pay his mooring fees, and the ship was taken as payment by the Imperial authorities. It was unsuitable for front-line combat, due to the extent of the modifications that the Rogue Traders had performed. Whilst the ship was certainly stronger than the average Cobra Class, it was also far harder and more expensive to repair. Most of the technology on board was thousands (in some cases tens of thousands) of years old, which would be a nightmare to repair if anything went wrong.

Many groups which had heard of the ship (and it's reputation) offered large sums of money for it, and one of these groups was a recently promoted Inquisitor named Thaddeus. Thaddeus, by hook or by crook, won the auction and took the ship as his own. Due to his extraordinary relationship with the Levitus Subsector Adeptus Mechanicus, he and his tech priestess, Victoria Murae, were able to negotiate for a modest crew to be supplied by the forge world of Ferrum.

In the centuries that have followed, Thaddeus has noted that the ship is an extraordinary marvel. The ancient technologies contained within her venerable hull have certainly made for a superior vessel, although his navigator, Pontius Yukon (an antisocial individual often known as "Pontius the pilot" behind his back,) has commented that flying the ship is trickier than normal to fly.

(I haven't really played much Rogue Trader to be able to write a set of statistics for this vessel, but I do have stats for it in BFG.... But The Conclave probably isn't the place to start throwing out BFG rules. XD)
"Somehow, Inquisitor, when you say 'with all due respect,' I don't think that you mean any respect at all."

"I disagree, governor. I think I am giving you all of the respect that you are due..."

Inquisitor Goldeneye

If we're sharing ships, then I've just managed to find an old I did sketch of Inquisitor Goldeneye's vessel.



Unfortunately I am unfamiliar with both Rogue Trader and Battle Fleet Gothic, so I have no 'game stats.' for it, just suff I've made up off the top of my head.



Anyway, here's an artist's (pffft...) impression of the ship in question:-










And here's the profile I just whipped up to go with the vessel's history:-




Ship Name: The Oath.

Class: Pre-heresy transport/ Unknown.

Length: 1.8 miles.

Crew: Aprox. 800, plus servitors.

Armaments: Standard port & starboard gun batteries. One each port & starboard lance battery. One concealed, xenotech-enhanced prow lance battery (Crossref. 'Jokearo').

Drive: Standard warp drive. Subluminal drive with unsanctioned enhancements. Untested xenotech device; possibly non-warp superluminal drive (Crossref. 'Necron', 'Inertialess Drive').

Armour/ Shields: Reinforced armour plating & additional void shields have been installed at the cost of some storage space. Modified xenotech stealth device (Crossref. 'Eldar', 'Holofield').

History: Discovered as a drifting hulk by Erasmus Goldeneye a few decades after beginning his carer as an Inquisitor proper, the ancient vessel which was to become known as 'The Oath' most likely started its existence as a troop-transport for the Imperium in the days before the Horus Heresy.

Originally the ship would have had facilities and space to house, feed and drill a full six to eight platoons of guardsmen, plus hanger-bays for accompanying armour support and orbit-to-surface landing craft. Most of the interior ship, in fact, consisted of huge, empty rooms. Goldeneye saw the potential in it immediately, and had her refitted to suit his own ends.

At first the ship, which had been a mutant-infested hulk for countless centuries, was temperamental, and prone to all manner of glitches and minor malfunctions. Temperamentalness is a far from desirable trait in an interstellar craft, and Goldeneye was moved to name it after an ancient proverb he distantly remembered;* "He is mad who puts his trust in the tameness of a wolf, the health of a horse, the love of a boy or the oath of a whore." Obviously 'The Tame Wolf' and 'The Healthy Horse' are not particularly inspiring names for a ship, and as for 'The Boy's Love', well... there are some preconceptions about naval life which just don't require that kind of encouragement. 'The Whore's Oath' however has an almost piratical ring to it and, although it is usually abbreviated to 'The Oath', it is quite common for bellow-deck crew to refer to her by her full name.

Over time the Inquisitor has acquired some interesting toys to install on his ship; the void shields salvaged from a hulked Grand Cruiser, an enhanced lance battery which slides from beneath the prow armour like a concealed blade, and some decidedly non-standard additions to the subluminal plasma-drive.

Two modifications, however, stand out from all the others. One is the holofield array, salvaged from the wreck of an Eldar vessel, and installed on his own craft using his close ally Magos Blitzkreig's contacts among xenophilic circles in the machine cult. This modified array does not merely scramble the augurs and auspice readings of other vessels, but can actually allow the ship to mimic the energy readings of other Imperial ships; essentially disguising itself as a completely different vessel, or even a drifting space-hulk.

The other piece of xenotech is far more sinister; a huge Necrontir machine, which squats, vast and menacing amongst the ships other systems. Neither the Inquisitor nor Magos Blitzkreig is entirely sure what it is, nor what it will do if activated.

Between them they have surmised that it may be one of the Necron's fabled 'Inertialess Drives', which enable them to travel at superluminal speeds without using warp-space, but, as of yet, they have not been able to determine this for certain, and neither of them are about to turn it on just to see. It is, however, wired into the ship's systems in such a way that, in a do-or-die emergency, the device can be powered at short notice (not quite literally 'at the push of a button', but something reasonably close).

Obviously, with all the xenotech and unsanctioned (some would say techno-heretical) modifications, Goldeneye has to be very careful who he lets on board. To this end as much of the running of the ship as possible is maintained by servitors and automated systems, meaning that a ship designed to potentially house thousands has a crew of merely 800 or so. Even with all the extra machinery stuffed into the hull this still leaves a lot of room for the Inquisitor to play with...




* Actually a slight modification of a Shakespearian quote from 'King Lear'.
'A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.' -  William Wordsworth.

Heroka Vendile

Quote from: Inquisitor Goldeneye on September 13, 2011, 10:25:25 PM
'The Oath' most likely started its existence as a troop-transport for the Imperium in the days before the Horus Heresy.
[...] a full six to eight platoons of guardsmen, plus hanger-bays for accompanying armour support and orbit-to-surface landing craft.
That's a very very small troop transport, especially by Imperial standards. Sounds and looks more like some sort of small exploration or escort craft.

QuoteNeither the Inquisitor nor Magos Blitzkreig is entirely sure what it is, nor what it will do if activated.
If they're that unsure then you'd think they'd most definitely not install it on the ship, no matter the potential gains, you don't want a potentially volatile giant brick onboard.
It's all fun and games until someone shoots their own guy with a Graviton gun instead of the MASSIVE SPIDER.
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Ynek

#28
Quote from: Heroka Vendile on September 17, 2011, 01:04:23 PM
That's a very very small troop transport, especially by Imperial standards. Sounds and looks more like some sort of small exploration or escort craft.

I agree with Heroka on that one. Imperial troop transports are classified as heavy transports in Battlefleet Gothic. (Heavy transports are classed as light cruisers, rather than standard transports which are listed as escorts. They're capable of carrying multiple full regiments, complete with support vehicles.) An exploration craft is likely to be closer to the size you mention.

On the flipside of the coin, it's very true that things were done differently during the pre-heresy era. You could argue that this small troop-ship is merely symbolic of the largely defensive role that the Imperial Guard (then Imperal Army) played in the Imperium as a whole.

Planetary invasions etc. were largely Space Marine operations. My knowledge of pre-heresy Imperial doctrine is limited, but if I recall correctly, the Imperial Army was mostly defensive.

Defensive armies tend to stay close to what they're defending, and don't need to move around much. Therefore, large-scale troop carriers might not have been necessary at this time. Thus, you might have found that smaller ships, such as "the Oath" were more common.

Alternatively, you might reason that the ship is a faster, but lighter troop transport than the Imperium would normally use. The ship carries small numbers of troops, but at very high speed - ideal for opportunistic surgical strikes (or an Inquisitor in a hurry). You could reason that the ship fell into Goldeneye's hands after a change of leadership in the local Navy. The ship didn't fit with new tactics or doctrines, and so was sold off to generate income, much like how the real world army sells off obsolete or surplus gear.

Alternatively, there's the old: "An STC template was discovered. They built a few of what was on it, found they weren't that great compared to the current carriers, so stopped building them. This is one of the few that was built."


EDIT:
Thought I might as well share this with you all, since it appears to be almost relvant....



CGI model of Thaddeus's ship... Made in Blender 3D.
"Somehow, Inquisitor, when you say 'with all due respect,' I don't think that you mean any respect at all."

"I disagree, governor. I think I am giving you all of the respect that you are due..."

DapperAnarchist

It sounds to me a bit like a Dropship of somekind - perhaps a specialist one, for long range insertion, boarding actions, and other special forces stuff, behind the line of the Astartes advance.
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