[BFG] BBJ's first BFG Fleet

[blackbabyjesus]

Have been wanting to play BFG for aaaaaaages, looking at all the cool minis and remembering that when it first came out I really enjoyed the few small games I had played. So I went to eBay and bidded my little black heart out snagging a few real bargains (4 cruisers and an Emperor Battleship for £25! brand new!). This has left me with a whole raft of ships, and absolutely NO idea what I'm doing with them ^_^

 

The full manifest of what's arrived so far is:

 

1x Emperor Battleship

1x Retribution Battleship

7x Plastic Cruisers (3 are made as Overlord/Tyrant/Dominator, the other 4 are unassembled)

1x Dauntless (torpedo prow)

6x Sword Frigates

6x Firestorm Frigates

 

Have a further 3 Cobras and another Dauntless on the way too, but they're not here yet!

 

So, I guess what I'm posting for is a bit of guidance perhaps with lists; what to make my 4 cruisers as (thinking about magnetising the weapons so I can play about a bit), are the frigates useless? will 2 dauntless be enough? which battleship to use? etc etc.

 

Also going to use this post as a bit of a modelling log too I think... not much to see yet, just a few photos of jamjars full of nitromors and ships and some plastic ones that have survived the stripping!

[Frosty the Pyro]

Well i tend to use nids in BFG but for Imperials, its all about those sweet, sweet, nova cannons

[blackbabyjesus]

Sooo, the list is still unknown... but I've painted a few minis ;)

here's an Overlord (I think!) battlecruiser and 3 Firestorm frigates for your delectation!

[blackbabyjesus]

woo, double post!

here's the next minis lined up for the chopping block, an emperor battleship and another escort squadron... the emperor took all of my patience to build, nothing fitted together at all, every part had to be pinned and quite a few needed filling with green stuff too, a very poor quality kit! On the up side though, now it's put together it does look quite badass, just a case of having enough codex grey to cover it all, it's HUGE!

anyhoo, piccies before they go under the spray and become unphotographable:

[RADU LYKAN]

nice scheme, almost exactly the same as mine ;) but i went all the way up to white rather than keeping the grey as you can see if you follow the link in my sig.

 

regarding the list, you could try to form 2 seperate lists, each based around your choice of battleship. so either an aggressive charge led by the retribution or a long range nova cannon list backed up by the emperors attack craft.

 

i recommend magnetising the three dominators/tyrants/overlords so they can be used as either. this leaves you with 4 ships to make. again magnetise these, 2 as mars/dicators and if you have enough bits (and magnets ;) ) then the other two should be changeable between armageddons, lunars and gothics. this gives you a variety of options for trying things out. to be honest if you dont mind the work then magnetising all ships and all weapon load outs would be your best bet and save you ever needing to buy more cruisers unless you go in for seriously large battles.

 

would also allow for some real variety in your play, 7 gothics one day, a load of carriers the next. i wish i had magnetised some of my fleet but its so easy to get excited and just glue everything together as soon as it arrives! :)

 

good luck and looking forward to the rest of your stuff

[blackbabyjesus]

That's actually a really good idea, I've definitely got the flexibility to build 2 fleets with the ships I've got.

Sadly only 4 of the cruisers are in a magnetisable state, I bought 3 ready made from ebay which are all made up as overlords, good solid all rounders I guess but perhaps a little boring and defnitely a bit expensive points wise.

The other 4 however I'll magnetise everything I can on them, can't really magnetise the dorsal lance turrets with any kind of effectiveness though so I'll have to make some kind of decision regarding those. Maybe have 1 with the lances fitted so I can make a mars if I need one, and the others with masts so I can make them into whatever I need.

Fleet discussion aside, I've been a busy(ish) bee this afternoon, and have basecoated the grey on the Emperor, such a fiddlyass model to paint, I completely ruined a large brush doing this, it'll have to be used for the drybrushing later. Even in death, large brushes still serve.

Picture!

[RADU LYKAN]

i wouldnt use too many overlords, lots of people say they are overcosted. maybe leave one as an overlord, one a tyrant and add a nova cannon to the last one for a dominator. if you dont have small enough magnets/drill bit then yes, leaving one with the dorsal turrets in will allow for all the different battle cruisers.

shame about your brush, might be a bit late but i used halfords matt grey primer to base coat all of my ships after that it was all drybrushing, no damage to any nice brushes

 

edit: is the second dauntless also a torpedo variant? dauntless' work best in groups of between 2 and 3 but really need to have the same prow armament to be effective. dont worry if the second one is a lance variant, just gives you an excuse to buy 1 more of each ;)

[blackbabyjesus]

1 torpedo and 1 lance, which is a shame, I shall keep watching ebay for another load of imperial stuff, it's all chaos and ork at the moment :D