[long!] Battlefleet Gothic: Demo at White Marsh

(This is also going up on my web page at
"http://www.hicom.net/~teske/sfleet/bfg-demo.html")

"A thick fog lay across the land as Aaron left his apartment for the
long
trek down to the marsh...."

Well, this is going to be a brief (maybe!) commentary on my weekend
roadtrip down to the Baltimore area (I live in northern New Jersey, so
it
is a bit of a haul).  If you just want the BFG stuff, skip a couple
paragraphs... anyway.  It actually *was* foggy when I left for Indy's
place
Saturday afternoon; he had to work, which is why I didn't leave any
earlier.  The fog cleared out once I got away from the Black River area,
though, so no sweat, and the drive down was an uneventful four hours.

I arrived at Indy's place shortly before 5, and after I brought my stuff
in
(a couple boxes and my backpack -- mostly minis and rulesbooks ^_^ ) we
setteld down for a litle BSing about painting, ship design, Oerjan's
comments about the Indy vs. Iceburg battle, just how you *pronounce*
Oerjan
in the first place, and the Indy-Iceberg battle, and watched a little TV
as
well.  (Indy's comment: "It's scaring the children...! ^_^; )  We
plugged
in 'Thirdspace' (which I hadn't seen) over a pizza dinner, then settled
down for a Full Thrust game.  Remembering some of our talk about ship
designs earlier, I opted for a fleet with an escort cruiser (basically
the
Beijing/B escort variant, easily the best escort platform out of the
Fleet
Book), a Gothic BB, a Thunderbolt cruiser, and three Cobra DDs.  All but
the escort cruiser have pulse torps; ship designs will be up on my pages
a
little later this week, in preparation for the GZG convention at the end
of
February.  Anyway, I'll let Indy tell this tale, since he took the reams
of
notes; suffice it to say, it was a pretty average battle, dice-wise, for
both of us, but Indy's catching my Cobras (MASS 24) with his four heavy
DDs
(MASS 40) didn't help me any... I ended up losing, though it was a
fairly
close fight.  I'll comment on Indy's report after it's posted.	

I blame Jerry Han, by the way; I think he's draining off the Teske
Field,
since I didn't get anything more than a couple double rerolls, and none
of
the third rolls did damage.  Mark was also a bit more sensible in his
fleet
design than in our last battle, where he took a few pulse torps; he
didn't
take any last night.  My pulse torps didn't do too much; hit 2 of 3
shots,
but only did 3 points of damage. <sigh>

Watched another TV program, then went to sleep.

Morning!  And the Day of the Demo.  (Okay, I can prolly dispense with
the
Excessive Capitalization, but.... ^_^ )

Indy headed out to meet with friends, booting me out of his apartment
along
the way.  I made the drive back up to the White Marsh store; it's in a
mall
just off route 95, a bit north of the B'more beltway, so I'd passed it
heading down to Indy's.  I arrived at around 11 am... and Andy & Robin
(Dews) weren't due in until noon at the earliest.  Ah, well, hung around
the shop and chatted a bit with the staff, who were pretty nice, though
they knew I was here for the demo.  There were a few other early
arrivals,
and a couple knew a bit about the game, so I picked up a few early
tidbits,
but nothing that didn't get repeated later.

Andy & Robin showed up a bit after noon, and without too much ado began
to
set up the field: Andy'd brought a homemade starfield cloth, I think 3'
x
8', that we placed across two tables, and he put a planet (4-5"
diameter,
more like the moon) and a moon (pingpong ball on a stand) in the middle
--
the moon maybe 8" away from the planet -- and three "asteroid belts"
(small
pebbles in strips 2-3" wide by 8-10" long) and "dust clouds" (sand,
similar
dimensions).  The dust & rocks were more free-form than I may be
indicating
(I ought to know, I placed two of the asteroid belts); it wasn't fixed
on a
board like trees or rough may be for Epic or WH40K (forgive me, I'm
thinking in GW terms at the moment).  Anyway.

During the setup, we were getting a running commentary about the game,
and
answers to a couple of questions about available minis, the future of
the
game, etc.  I'll cover that later.  There were three demos, that I know
of;
I left just after the third began at 3:15, 'cause I wanted to get home.
The first two were four cruisers per side (Imperial vs. Chaos); the
third
had five.  I played in the first, on the Imperial side; we paired off
the
cruisers for the setup, while the Chaos players grouped theirs (roughly)
three and one.	The turns were played I move-you move; Chaos won
initiative, and we moved first.  I'm not going to go into detail here on
the battle, but I did take some pictures, and hopefully they'll come out
well enough to try a battle report based around them.  I'll let you
know.
(Now, I've just got to finish off the roll of film....)

After the demo, Andy went off to get some air (he'd been talking fast &
furious) and I managed to intercept him, to ask him about future ships &
the like.  (See below.)  I mentioned that I played Full Thrust; he
commented that it was a good attempt, but that the preplanned movement
was
too much bookkeeping for his liking, as it would really slow down large
battles.  Of course, that's undoubtedly a draw for some people, and is
probably the largest technical difference between the two games.  he
then
went out for a smoke (so much for fresh air!) and I went to watch the
second demo... and bumped into a guy wearing a pin that said "Winchell,"
which I recalled as the given name of Nyrath the nearly wise.  I
introduced
myself, and we proceeded to trade some comments about the game &
miniatures
(he likes the minis, isn't as certain about the game) and then tear into
one of the photocopies of the rulebook they had handy.	All in all, it
looks solid, and it was good to meet another list member in the flesh...
got a face to go with the name, now.  Nice guy, but he has lots of eyes
about his person.... ^_-

Anyway, Nyrath decided to leave around 3, soon after the Imperium "won"
the
second demo (seven points of damage inflicted on Chaos ships vs. four
recieved; my battle stalemated at four apiece) after about an hour of
play.
 Not too bad, since that was several turns, and each ship had it's own
commander -- not exactly a great situation for concentration of
firepower,
especially if many of the players don't know what they're doing.  It
takes
a lot of shots to bring down a cruiser!

After Nyrath left, I hung around a bit longer, looked at the time, added
four hours, and decided to book.  I bid Andy Chambers goodbye, and
headed
out the door for the drive home....

Now, a breakdown of the game, review-style:

BATTLEFLEET GOTHIC
"There is no peace among the stars."  (Quote from the side of the
mocked-up
game box.)
by Andy Chambers, and probably several others who didn't get mention at
the
demo
Release date is slated for Easter '99.
Price: unknown, but should be less than the "big game" box sets.  The
guesstimate running around the demo was $60; we'll see how that compares
to
the cost of buying the minis seperately.
In the game: Rulebook, Fleet Registry (roster pad), Ship name labels
(?), 2
range rulers, 4 Imperial ships, 4 Chaos ships, 6 special order dice
(same
as E40K dice), 6 d6es, 8 flying bases (circular base, not hex), Assembly
guide with exclusive comic(?!?).  (This from a little blurb sheet Nyrath
and I both grabbed out of the box, after asking Robin if we could have
'em.)

OVERVIEW: 
Starship combat in the Warhammer 40,000 universe!  Everything that Space
Fleet was, and a lot more -- open map (no squares), terrain, and
(especially!) the background.  The main game focuses on the battle
between
the Imperium and Abbadon's Chaos fleet in the Gothic sector, as far as I
could tell; many of the sidebars in the copies of the rules were
illegible
because they were photocopies.	Ork and Eldar ships are also present in
the
main rules, though in their case there is nothing larger than a cruiser
(or
'kroozer') -- basically, raiding forces.  If you look for an historical
context, I'd try the "Age of Sail" (no, I don't know that much about it)
for the emphasis on broadsides armament -- even the Eldar have more of
an
emphasis on broadsides than they did in Space Fleet, though they are
much
more reminescant of, say, Mediterranean war galleys (something I *do*
know
a bit about).  The Orks are, well, Orks; I'll cover the races in depth
later.	The presentation is nice; it looks like the rules will have a
lot
of new artwork in them, a good thing if I ever heard one. ^_^  One rules
book holds everything, including a campaign background, and subplots
(held
over from the Space Fleet rules, one of the few things!) to help spice
up
standard battles.

THE RULES:
The rules work a lot like Epic 40K, and are the same as the rules
presented
in White Dwarf #225 so I'm not going to go into too much detail here.
(I'll post a sumary if enough people ask.)  Ships have batteries of
beams/guns/plasma launchers/whatever, which use a firepower table to
determine the number of dice they roll, and "lances", which are like the
E40K anti-tank guns (always hit on a 4+).  There are also "ordinance"
weapons: torpedoes, fighters, bombers, assault shuttles, boarding
torpedoes, and mines (and maybe more), all of which are one-use devices
(fighers & bombers are handwaved as returning to their ship after their
attack run -- basically, a Full Thrust combat endurance of 1).	All of
the
ordinace type have counters that come in the boxed set, though I don't
doubt GW will release minis for them as well.  (Andy had some examples,
mounted on E40K infantry stands.)  In White Dwarf #225, there was a
'torpedo phase' after the movement and firing phases; this is replaced
with
an 'ordinance phase' where torpedoes have to move, and the other types
(barring mines, which sit there) can move if they want to.  All
ordinance
moves in the ordinance phase, not just the stuff belonging to the
"active"
player.

The demo battles were fought between Imperial Lunar class cruisers and
Chaos Murder class cruisers -- both with the same statline as presented
in
White Dwarf #225, page 47, though the points costs were increased (to
180
for the Lunar, I didn't see the Chaos sheet).  In general, ship types
break
down into Capital (Battleship, Battlecruiser, Cruiser, Light Cruiser)
and
Escort (Destroyer, Frigate, etc.).

The firing mechanics are pretty simple, though you need a chart lookup
for
the firepower-based weapons.  Beam weapons are generally
broadsides-only,
though they cover all three arcs on many escorts.  These have a
firepower
rating, which cross-references a table (like Epic 40K's) based on
whether
the target is a capital ship, an escort, or ordinace, and whether it is
closing (easiest target), moving away, or moving abeam (across the
ships'
field of view -- the hardest target).  The table is set up in columns,
which allows for increases in difficulty of the shot to be implemented
as
column shifts to the left (easier) or right (harder).  As far as I know,
the only way to get a left column shift is to 'Lock on weapons' which
means
your ship can't turn, but right column shifts are easy -- dust clouds,
blast markers, and Eldar Holofields all give right column shifts, as
does
extreme range (>30 cm).  Oh yeah -- if the range is <15 cm you get a
left
column shift for close range.  The chart gives you a # of dice to roll;
you
need to roll the target's armor or over to hit it.

Lances always have a 4+ 'to hit', regardless of range or the target's
armor.	Torpedoes are fired in any direction within their arc, and move
forward until they brush against something.  If that something is the
base
of a starship, they attack it, in which case the ship can defend itself
with "turrets" to try and knock down incoming torps, one shot per turret
per incoming salvo.  The torps that get through have to roll the
target's
armor or over to hit, as beams; oddly enough, that means escorts
(usually
4+ armor) are *easier* to hit with torpedoes than cap ships (usually
5+/6+
armor), unless there's some rules I don't know about.

Other ordinance types... fighters are very good at attacking other
ordinance counters, bombers get an attack run on a starship (I don't
rememebr the exact mechanics ^_^; ), and assault shuttles and boarding
torpedoes I didn't read the rules on.  After one encounter, fighters and
bombers are considered to be out of ammo, and are handwaved off the map
--
reload ordinance is a special order, and if you roll well you have an
infinite supply.  (You need to make a Leadership test to place special
orders; if the Leadership check comes up with doubles, you've run out of
ordinance.)

Speaking of Leadership... yes, it's present, as in all GW games.  (Not a
bad thing, really, just a standard....)  For one-off games, Leadership
is
rolled for each ship on a d6: 1 = 6 Ld, 2-3 = 7, 4-5 = 8, 6 = 9 Ld.  In
a
campaign (yes, there are campaign rules, and a map of the star systems
in
the Gothic sector) ships will carry over their Leadership values, and
can
increase them with experience.	Placing special orders is a Ld check;
all
special orders are placed in the movement phase, sequentially by ship,
and
as soon as one Ld check is failed, no more special orders can be placed.
(Okay, one special order -- "Brace for im-PACT!!!" (which should be
yelled
loudly, which is kinda fun ^_^ ) is rolled for on your opponent's turn,
and
has no effect on other ships.)

Alright, I think that's enough of the rules for now; I'm probably more
rambling on them than anything else, and it's really pretty simple in
spite
of what you may think. ^_^;

The miniatures... are very, very nice. ^_^  Okay, so many of you prolly
know I like the Space Fleet minis to begin with, but even so.  The
cruisers
we used were about the size of the Space Fleet Emperor Capital Ship --
4"
or so -- while the battleships look to be giving the Superior
superdreads a
run for their moeny, in volume of metal if not actual size (the BFG
ships
are much more 3-D than the Superior ships).  The Imperial ships maintain
the "cathedral" feel of the Space Fleet Emperor and Tyrant-style ships,
but
it is even more emphasized by putting more "depth" into the sides of the
parts.	These things are a drybrusher's wet dream.  Ditto the depth for
the
Chaos ships, but... it's different.  The sculptor did a good job making
the
two styles unique; I just wish they had a little more variation *within*
a
style.	*All* the Imperial ships have a "plow" on the front, just like
the
SF Tyrant and Emperor, though not all have the ramming prow.  The Chaos
ships all have somewhat curvy heads... kinda hard to explain, I'll try
and
get the pictures up.  I didn't see enough Eldar or Ork ships to really
get
a feel for them; the Eldar still have "solar sails" but they aren't as
emphasized, and extend both above and below the mini -- rather nice
minis,
actually, especially since I was afraid GW would pattern the Eldar ships
on
the E40K flyers.  The Ork ships typically have jaws on the front, from
what
I could see, but manage to be fairly different.  Hopefully, there's lots
of
bitz with the Ork ships so they're more customizable. ^_^

I should have some pictures, scanned from the flyer I grabbed, up on my
website by this time tomorrow evening; I'll let you know.  These are of
a
Chaos War Fleet and an Imperial Battle Fleet, though I *think* some of
the
Chaos ships may be Orkoid instead -- I'm not positive, though.

So... a breakdown, by race, of ships and minis.

Imperial ships tend to be a bit slower than other ships, but better
armored
-- 6+ armor on the nose (good protection for when you're closing). 
Weapons
ranges vary, but look to use 30 cm or 45 cm as a standard.  Most of the
ships have prow torpedo launchers, and broadsides that vary between
bateries and lances.  The Gothic Cruiser (they did keep nearly all of
the
Space Fleet ship names, and the ships have similar roles even, which is
*very* nice) has a 4x lance broadside; the Tyrant Cruiser has a 10x
firepower broadside (split between 4x 45cm and 6x 30cm).  The Lunar
cruiser
has a mix.  From what I can tell, all three of these cruisers are built
from a standard "core" ship -- the plow at the front (with torpedo
tubes,
all three have strength 6 torps), a neck, and the rear, superstructure,
&
engines.  This core comes on a single plastic sprue, while other plastic
sprues hold weapons you can place on the "neck" part of the core, which
is
a bare stretch of plastic.  Very nice, really, especially if you can
figure
out a way to easily swap weapons sections. ^_^

Chaos ships are a bit faster than Imperial ships (25 cm vs. 20 cm for
cruisers) and have longer-ranged weapons, not exactly a pretty combo for
the Imperium.  But they cost a little more than their Imperial
counterparts, don't get torpedoes (learn to use 'em, Imperials!), and
don't
have the reinforced front armor, so it's not all good for Chaos... I'm
guessing there is a similar "core" of plastic cruisers for Chaos as
there
is for the Imperial cruisers, but I'm not really sure.	(Yeah, I'm
biased
towards the Imperium.  Sue me.)

The Eldar have ships that emphasize speed, agility... and fragility. 
Their
ships have fewer hits than other races' ships do at the same class (the
Eldar cruisers have 6 instead of 8), which doesn't sound too bad until
you
realize that crippling damage -- when you drop to half hits -- is just
that
much closer, and that you lose 5 cm off your speed and half your weapons
(and more!) when it happens.  Bad!!!  On the other hand, the Eldar
holofields are *amazingly* effective against anything but massed
firepower;
it's a fixed 2+ save vs. lances and torpedoes, though I'm not sure of
the
effect on bombers.  Against firepower weapons, the holofield gives a
column
shift to the right -- helpful, but probably not enough to save their
skins
if someone lays a decent broadside on 'em.  Which is why speed is so
important -- Eldar get to move their ships *twice*, once in the movement
phase, and once in the ordinace phase, which means they can move into
range, fire, and then flit back out again before their opponent can do
anything.  (Nyrath's comment: think of GEVs fighting against OGREs.) 
The
Eldar weapons are also better than anyone else's; their torpedoes can
reroll misses and are harder for turrets to target, their Pulsar Lances
can
hit up to 3 times, and their (short-ranged) firepower weapons have
advanced
targetting systems that treat all ships as "closing" targets -- useful!
Just don't get shot....

The Orks are, well, Orks.  Most of their weapons have random firepower
and
strength (d6, or d6+1), which means you can see piddly salvos from a
cruiser while an escort gets it's crap together to fire off 6 torps at
once.  (Imperial escorts fire 2 torps at a time.)  Though, since Orks
have
a -1 to their Leadership, reloading ordinace... can be a trick.  On the
other hand... the Heavy Guns, which are a fixed number (guess the Orks
manning 'em always want to fire 'em!) do two points of damage instead of
one, an unfriendly thing to run into.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS....
Future releases for Space Fleet are going to depend a *lot* on the
reception of the game, according the Andy.  (Sculpting resources... are
stretched, said he, with a grimace.)  Andy's hoping to get Ork and Eldar
battleships out fairly quickly, and is apparently working on rules (and
maybe minis) for Space Hulks.  ("Ooh!  Cooties!" said Nyrath.... ^_^ ) 
The
reason all the minis look so alike, according to Andy, is that GW has
concentrated on one sector of Imperial space; if Battlefleet Gothic does
well (interesting side note, it got a *lot* warmer response in the
States
than in the UK) then they may expand the general fleets with different
ship
concepts.  As this is the "Gothic War" between Chaos and the Imperium,
the
Tyranids don't enter into things, but if BFG does well I don't doubt the
bugs'll be released.  (And, of course, you can always convert the old
minis
even if they are a mite small -- everything is measured stand-to-stand
anyway.  I'll do Tyranid conversions for my web page after the game
comes
out.)  Any other races (Dark Eldar, Necrons, Marine-specific ships
maybe?)
are totally up in the air, with no plans for release as yet.

<WHEW!!!>
Okay, I think that does it.  So much for brief!  If you've made it this
far, congradulations, and feel free to post/ask any questions you want.
I'll post when piccies go up, which I'll do ASAP.

					Aaron Teske
					ateske@HICom.net
LAUNCH DAY!
A totally unprovoked attack on peaceful neighbors. Must be the race 
file. Does strange things.
		--Rick Kujecko, on the War Monger PRT in Stars!