Re: Battlefleet Gothic Report

At 04:25 PM 1/24/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, I was impressed in spite of myself.

<grin>

>(and it was nice to finally meet Aaron Teske in the flesh,
>a rather handsom tall gentleman)

Well, tall anyway. ^_^;

>First off, the miniatures are gorgeous!  They were not much
>like the the cardboard punch-outs in White Dwarf #225,

Just to note, those punch-outs are all based aroudn the Space Fleet
Emperor
Capital Ship, with various wingy-bits added for the Imperials, and
spikey-bits added for Chaos. <shrug>

>they more resembled the concept drawings and ship miniatures
>in the article. You can see one in the illustration at
>http://www.games-workshop.com/newreleases/battlefleet.html

Yup.  That is, by the by, the box cover, though without the "Special
preview day!" sticker. ^_^

>Like Aaron observed, they were just *made* for drybrushing.

Mmm, I think I just said it a little, um, juicier. ^_^;;  But that's
what I
said at the store, yes.

>Lots of very deep detail, with raised fretwork.
>We figure that given Pudding Workshop's history of pricing,
>some people will by the boxed set and throw away the rules,
>so they can get a price break on a set of minis.

I'm actually curious how this'll work; if the boxes are $60, then the
minis
have to be at least $8/cruiser, which isn't all *that* cheap.  (Okay,
it's
not too bad, they're big, but....)  I'd guess the battleships (huge
masses
of pewter!) are going to end up being $30 each or thereabouts... maybe
be
worth it, too. ^_^;  At least for one or two, anyway.

>All the Imperial ships had that Greek trireme nosepiece
>( for ramming ) and actually have some minor customization
>built in.  The sides of the ships can accept different
>panels: broadside turrents, fighter launching bays, etc.

Yup-yup.  Forgot fighter bays; means there's prolly a fourth "basic
cruiser" out there.  The battleships may have the side panels, too,
since
there is a carrier-varient battleship for both Chaos and the Imperium.

>The cruisers were fairly large, I estimate they were
>about 3.5 inches long.  What do you think Aaron?

Sounds right, yes.

>For the game, they had the chaos fleet painted black with
>dark red dry-brushing, and the imperial fleet was black
>with dark green dry-brushing. 

Other way 'round, actually, but whatever.  *Moat* of their minis -- the
well-painted ones -- followed that scheme; the minis they gave us to use
on
the baord were reversed.  So helpful.... ^_^;

>The gameplay was pretty fast.	With a crowd of 8 novices
>who had just heard a quick run-through of the rules,
>they managed to play about 3 turns in 30 minutes, and
>were playing faster after that as they got the hang of it.

Yup.  Of course, with slow ship speeds (though a narrow map, 3' or so)
and
fairly short weapons ranges, that still means not a whole lot of damage
was
done.  In the second game, people started closing so more damage was
done,
which was kinda stupid of Chaos 'cause they had those nice 60 cm(!)
lances....

[snippity]
>There are also rules for space stations and mine fields.

Oh yes, forgot the stations, though I didn't read that section.  Two
types
of bases from what I remember, military and shipyards....

>I did like the illustration of hundreds of slaves dragging
>a missile into the launch tube.  The missile was about
>fifty feet in diameter.

^_^  They do have the Dominator battleship... complete with, come to
think
of it, the Nova Cannon.  (Instead of the Inferno Gun.)	Hmm.  High
explosive, area of effect template, but only around the detonation point
instead of a continuous wave like the FT Nova Cannon....

>There was a "naval" feel to the game, with a lot of
>attempts to "cross the T".  Heading straight at 
>an enemy gives the enemy the most favorable chance to
>hit you.  This is why Imperial ships have stronger
>nose armor.

Yup.  Not that we got to use it much....

>The naval feel comes from the fact that most weapons
>fire to the port and starboard, broadsides as it were.
>
>Aaron asked Andy Chambers (the designer) about Full Thrust.
>Andy's main comment was he didn't care for the pre-written
>movement orders in FT.  Battlefleet Gothic therefore uses
>the old "Player A moves and fires, then Player B moves
>and fires".

Though, to be somewhat fair to Andy, he does mention alternating
squadrons
as an alternate method in the back of the book.  Although I'm not sure
where the ordinance phases would fall, then....

>They played the demos on a huge table, with handfulls of
>pebbles representing asteroid shoals, sprinkings of brown
>artifical dirt for dust clouds, and a nice planet hemisphere
>for a small moon (a 4 inch hemisphere, with large craters
>molded in plaster or sculpy, and drybrushed).

Yup.  I think Indy would have a fit at the asteroid "belts", but
whatever.
^_^  No-one ever accused GW of trying for realism... the scale on the
game
is *very* screwy; given the distaces involved (i.e., fit a planet and
it's
moon on the table) turns have *got* to be taking a long time, but the
ships
*still* maneuver like cows. <shrug>  Still and all, though, it follows
the
background very, very well....

					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!