BFG Balanced fleets

[jhedwards]

Hello all,

some friends and are I are looking at getting into BFG soon. We have the boxed set with the rules (which contains the 4 imperial and 4 chaos cruisers) which look like they are balanced at 1000 points each, and have played a couple of games with some great success. However, since there is a fair few of us we'd like to expand the fleets and buy new ones and i was wondering if anyone had any standard lists that i can "use" for inspiration... we are interested in Chaos / Tau and Eldar nominally at the same 1000 point levels, but will take all lists as inspiration.

 

BTW does anyone know if Forge World are selling again their BFG ship range again?

 

thanks in advance

 

john

[koran]

I dont have any lists, sorry. But just a warning that the tau fleet is pretty undergunned and slow. They are REALLY only a playable option for quite experienced players or your going to loose a LOT.

[Rider-75]

necrons are fairly unbalanced too - at least unless you are a canny player and can see how to cope with them.

 

the remaining fleets are all pretty evenly matched.

 

not played for a while, but as "add on" games BFG and BloodBowl are my favourites.

[koran]

Necrons are OK as long as they arnt playing eldar in my opinion... It will be a bit of a tough fight but once you work out how to fight them you shouldnt have too much of an issue, one thing I would say is that 1k points some builds of fleet will overpower others more often. At a little higher (I like 1,5k to 2k) you will get a more "rounded" set of fleets. I know your just starting out I just thought I would point it out incase you start to find one fleet wins a lot more than another.

[jhedwards]

yes,

well thats the idea, using the 8 plastic ships as starters... i suspect we are looking at space marine and chaos fleets to make games 2000 points each... so was really looking at ideas for the next 1000 points.

 

cheers

 

john

[Angel_of_Caliban]

I would say Chaos, Imperial, Orks, Tau, Nids, Eldar (CW/CC), Dark Eldar are all balanced enough. Crons are will most likely squish any and everyone, especially Eldar. Takes a good fleet and even better admiral to beat an average Cron player.

 

Are you looking for cheap 1000 addition or functional and good?

 

Easiest way to add/cheapest way to add 1000 to Chaos or Imperial is to add 4 Cruisers/Battlecruisers. They both work well of the ship of the line philosophy. But I would add a Battleship to each and Escorts, they liven up the game a bit. SM are hard to run at first, there not like SM in 40k where a kid can beat anyone without much effort. They are not a starter fleet. I would say best use split with Imperials. For Eldar Pirate's I would run EVERY Void Stalker I could and the rest escorts and or Light Cruisers. There main cruisers suck and there horrible overpriced dollar wise. Orks are mixed bag and takes some patience. There LD is horrible and most there weapons are variable. I would run ram ships and there cruisers and battleships mainly. Tau are not a direct conflict fleet. There power is flocks of ordnance and guiding torpedoes. They need to keep space from the direct fire weapons. The FW fleet can fair better in standard fight tho. Nids run lots of tricked out Hive Ships and a bundle of escorts, there cruisers suck too. I'll try to throw up some sample lists for you.

Imperial 1000 Thunder Punch

 

365 Emperor Battleship

50 Fleet-Admiral (Ld 8)

110 Dauntless Light (Lance)

110 Dauntless Light (Lance)

110 Dauntless Light (Lance)

150 Cobra Escorts (5)

105 Swords Escorts (3)

 

Eldar 1000 Pulsing Torpedoes

 

380 Void Stalker Battleship

100 Pirate Prince (Ld +2)

140 Aurora Light

140 Aurora Light

160 Hemlocks (4)

120 Hemlocks (3)

[Vaaish]

1500 points is the typical BFG game size. For me I tend to play IN mostly, and my typical fleet is this:

 

Emperor +AB

2x Vengeance

2x Lunar +NC

2x Dauntless torpedo

50 pt admiral

1500

 

My secondary fleet is this:

Emperor

2x Armageddon

2x Tyrant +range +NC

4x Falchion

Admiral + reroll

1500

 

Chaos is pretty straightforward. This is a typical competition list. Others revolve around the planet killer and add in some escorts.

Desolator

2x Acheron

2x Carnage

2x Devastation

warmaster et al

1500

 

Personally I wouldn't run the IN list that AOC posted because it relies too much on light cruisers moving much faster than your BB making it pretty easy to knock them out and overwhelm the BB. More specifically, it fails miserably against eldar who have more than enough firepower to take down the light cruisers AND get a 2+ save vs the lances.

[Angel_of_Caliban]

Personally I wouldn't run the IN list that AOC posted because it relies too much on light cruisers moving much faster than your BB making it pretty easy to knock them out and overwhelm the BB. More specifically, it fails miserably against eldar who have more than enough firepower to take down the light cruisers AND get a 2+ save vs the lances.

You act like you play BFG? What do you know you crazy person you!!! Go back and paint 6mm IF SM!! LOL j/k Vaaish, Btw I'm locked out of Taccoms if anyone ask. Waiting for CS to fix it. I PM'd on Spec forum.

 

Why don't you like my Imperial list? Granted it would be very hard to track down Eldar with that but you would do a nice punch to most fleet's. Plus they said they were playing Imp and Chaos right now. Eldar really only loses to a fleet designed to beat them. Come on who takes only WB's on a daily bases? I would keep the Cobra's with the BB and cause 'pick one ordnance to save you by plan' and then flank the rest of the fleet with the Dauntless after the Emperor has fired its 16 WB salvo at something. For the points it will outnumber most other fleets. 4 cruisers VS 1 BB, 3 LC, 8 Escorts.

[Vaaish]

In time I'll get back to 6mm. Taking a break to paint up a couple of rhinos and some light cruisers. :) but, yep, I play bfg second to Epic. On to your fleet :)

 

The problem lies in that you do not have a viable anvil to your hammer. Light cruiser centric fleets work based on their ability to present an opponent with two equally difficult targets. Having just the emperor doesn't provide enough of a threat if the light cruisers are lost which makes the weaker light cruisers a primary target. Second, to get the most out of the dauntless you really need to squadron them which makes the squadron susceptible to bracing. Not always an issue, but it does cause a significant reduction in firepower and it's more aggravated because of the lack of heavy hitters to stay with the empy.

 

Specifically against fleets, chaos typically brings at least 8 launch bays which negates your offensive power with the empy. With one shield chaos can easily target and damage the light cruisers seeing chaos typically has a fair bit more than 9 30cm lances to use. In fact, they can get at least one round of shooting in most times before you can return fire. With only one turret, bombers are another threat against the dauntless and against your escorts, he can launch AB which ignore shields and kill an escort on a 2+ if they make it through shields. What all of this amounts to is your softer ships being quickly stripped from the emperor leaving you with little weapons to respond. I.e. you don't have the durability to go head to head, and you don't have the range to dance. You have speed, but then again, your escorts and light cruisers are only moving at the same speed as a typical chaos cruiser.

 

Light cruisers are basically large escorts and work very well in a role where their strength is equal to the rest of the force. I rarly leave a fleet without a couple of dauntless, but typically I'll plan a firebase to balance them. Maybe a Retribution and two vengeance and the stock up on a mix of endeavour and dauntless. This provides two equal strength segments for the force so you can't concentrate on the light cruisers without taking the brunt of the firepower from the heavy ships and if you concentrate on the heavy ships the light cruisers can wreak havoc on your forces.

 

on to your last bit:

You need a balanced fleet, not a focused one. If you look at both of my posted lists, they include WB in quantity that are effective at 45-60cm which eliminates the Eldar safe zones as well as a good number of lances and torpedoes. Yes you will have numbers, but even that is only by escorts of which 5 are only 4+ armor. Torpedo salvos eat them for breakfast. Numbers don't mean jack if they don't have staying power. Of your ships you only have one that can take any serious firepower and you are gambling that 1. you will get the first strike, 2. The enemy is in an ideal facing, 3. the enemy will focus on the emperor. 4. the empy will do much actual damage.

 

More likely the empy will be outside of 30cm, and the enemy will be abeam meaning it will either lock on and forgo launching ordnance next turn, or roll 3-6 dice maybe dropping shields on one enemy ship (remember most chaos ships like carnage and acherons like to be abeam circling the target rather than running headlong at them). The dauntless will have already weathered at least one round of shooting depending on how much dancing the chaos fleet does to keep away from the empy.