Should they bring BFG back?

[Hyaenidae]

Bah. I prefer minis.

 

Fire ALL the broadsides!

[Ushtarador]

They shouldn't because we have started playing Firestorm Armada at our shop now, which also awesome, and I don't want to paint another fleet of spaceships now! :o

 

But silliness aside, I always loved Gothic, was really sad that it went away completely /:

 

[Kol Saresk]

Bah. I prefer minis.

Fire ALL the broadsides!

Honestly, I just want to see this one time on the big screen. Or in a 40K/30K novel. Just once. Two ships coming alongside, and then the cannons firing almost simultaneously, tearing each other apart. Fire spitting into the void, hulls being rent asunder, shields flickering into nonexistence, bodies tumbling into the void only to be caught by the crossfire. All the while, the ships jerk and shake as though the universe itself was being torn in twain.

A D-B, you got my wish of a moon being turned into a meteor shower to come true. I got my fingers crossed you can pull this one off too. Or at least give it to Abnett.

[Marshal Rohr]

Literature will never be able to do space battles justice in the era of computer animation. Even the greatest writers of all time could only write a scene each reader would comprehend differently. Only a visual representation with an awesome soundtrack can do a space battle justice.

[Kol Saresk]

Know No Fear gave me some jollies. And there's still that moon scene from Void Stalker which convinced me that A D-B is a dream-eater since it was practically torn out of my head.

[*Furyou Miko]

Honestly, I just want to see this one time on the big screen. Or in a 40K/30K novel. Just once. Two ships coming alongside, and then the cannons firing almost simultaneously, tearing each other apart. Fire spitting into the void, hulls being rent asunder, shields flickering into nonexistence, bodies tumbling into the void only to be caught by the crossfire. All the while, the ships jerk and shake as though the universe itself was being torn in twain.

A D-B, you got my wish of a moon being turned into a meteor shower to come true. I got my fingers crossed you can pull this one off too. Or at least give it to Abnett.

There was a pretty cool space battle cutscene in the game that shall not be named

Literature will never be able to do space battles justice in the era of computer animation. Even the greatest writers of all time could only write a scene each reader would comprehend differently. Only a visual representation with an awesome soundtrack can do a space battle justice.

I disagree, the pictures are always better in novels.

[incinerator950]

I liked Firewarrior, it's the game that got me into 40k.

 

Now that you mention it, Word Bearera have been one of the most recurring Chaos Marine factions around.

[Kristoff]

They shouldn't because we have started playing Firestorm Armada at our shop now, which also awesome, and I don't want to paint another fleet of spaceships now!

But silliness aside, I always loved Gothic, was really sad that it went away completely /:

I believe someone on the FSA forums was looking in to converting BFG in to FSA... Some people were against it, because they hate originality and believe it will screw up the balance of the game.

[Volt]

Honestly, I just want to see this one time on the big screen. Or in a 40K/30K novel. Just once. Two ships coming alongside, and then the cannons firing almost simultaneously, tearing each other apart. Fire spitting into the void, hulls being rent asunder, shields flickering into nonexistence, bodies tumbling into the void only to be caught by the crossfire. All the while, the ships jerk and shake as though the universe itself was being torn in twain.

A D-B, you got my wish of a moon being turned into a meteor shower to come true. I got my fingers crossed you can pull this one off too. Or at least give it to Abnett.

There was a pretty cool space battle cutscene in the game that shall not be named

Literature will never be able to do space battles justice in the era of computer animation. Even the greatest writers of all time could only write a scene each reader would comprehend differently. Only a visual representation with an awesome soundtrack can do a space battle justice.

I disagree, the pictures are always better in novels.

That Strike Cruiser is waaaay too close to the tau vessel. 40K ships fight at ranges of several hundred thousand kilometers, not several hundred.

[Marshal Rohr]

Honestly, I just want to see this one time on the big screen. Or in a 40K/30K novel. Just once. Two ships coming alongside, and then the cannons firing almost simultaneously, tearing each other apart. Fire spitting into the void, hulls being rent asunder, shields flickering into nonexistence, bodies tumbling into the void only to be caught by the crossfire. All the while, the ships jerk and shake as though the universe itself was being torn in twain.

A D-B, you got my wish of a moon being turned into a meteor shower to come true. I got my fingers crossed you can pull this one off too. Or at least give it to Abnett.

There was a pretty cool space battle cutscene in

Literature will never be able to do space battles justice in the era of computer animation. Even the greatest writers of all time could only write a scene each reader would comprehend differently. Only a visual representation with an awesome soundtrack can do a space battle justice.

I disagree, the pictures are always better in novels.

That Strike Cruiser is waaaay too close to the tau vessel. 40K ships can fight at ranges of several hundred thousand kilometers, not several hundred.

Fixed that. Battle of Phall, dude. Ships were firing broadsides as they scraped against each other. Coolest space fight in history.

[Volt]

Honestly, I just want to see this one time on the big screen. Or in a 40K/30K novel. Just once. Two ships coming alongside, and then the cannons firing almost simultaneously, tearing each other apart. Fire spitting into the void, hulls being rent asunder, shields flickering into nonexistence, bodies tumbling into the void only to be caught by the crossfire. All the while, the ships jerk and shake as though the universe itself was being torn in twain.

A D-B, you got my wish of a moon being turned into a meteor shower to come true. I got my fingers crossed you can pull this one off too. Or at least give it to Abnett.

There was a pretty cool space battle cutscene in

Literature will never be able to do space battles justice in the era of computer animation. Even the greatest writers of all time could only write a scene each reader would comprehend differently. Only a visual representation with an awesome soundtrack can do a space battle justice.

I disagree, the pictures are always better in novels.

That Strike Cruiser is waaaay too close to the tau vessel. 40K ships can fight at ranges of several hundred thousand kilometers, not several hundred.

Fixed that. Battle of Phall, dude. Ships were firing broadsides as they scraped against each other. Coolest space fight in history.

If you mean "horribly incompetent" and not cool, then yes, you are correct. There is a reason we stopped having ships sail right up to "knife fight" ranges to broadside each other over a hundred years ago.

(Unless you want to argue the concept of ship-based bayonet charges, although the whole point of those was that it was by and large bloodless. If both sides are charging into what is effectively melee for ships, both commanders have seriously screwed up their game of chicken.)

[Hyaenidae]

Hundreds of years ago, a ships' greatest weapon wasn't super-human armoured monstrosities that could be shot right into the heart of an enemy ship at near-terminal velocity.

 

You say incompetent, I say playing to their strengths.

[Marshal Rohr]

Honestly, I just want to see this one time on the big screen. Or in a 40K/30K novel. Just once. Two ships coming alongside, and then the cannons firing almost simultaneously, tearing each other apart. Fire spitting into the void, hulls being rent asunder, shields flickering into nonexistence, bodies tumbling into the void only to be caught by the crossfire. All the while, the ships jerk and shake as though the universe itself was being torn in twain.

A D-B, you got my wish of a moon being turned into a meteor shower to come true. I got my fingers crossed you can pull this one off too. Or at least give it to Abnett.

There was a pretty cool space battle cutscene in

Literature will never be able to do space battles justice in the era of computer animation. Even the greatest writers of all time could only write a scene each reader would comprehend differently. Only a visual representation with an awesome soundtrack can do a space battle justice.

I disagree, the pictures are always better in novels.

That Strike Cruiser is waaaay too close to the tau vessel. 40K ships can fight at ranges of several hundred thousand kilometers, not several hundred.

Fixed that. Battle of Phall, dude. Ships were firing broadsides as they scraped against each other. Coolest space fight in history.

If you mean "horribly incompetent" and not cool, then yes, you are correct. There is a reason we stopped having ships sail right up to "knife fight" ranges to broadside each other over a hundred years ago.

(Unless you want to argue the concept of ship-based bayonet charges, although the whole point of those was that it was by and large bloodless. If both sides are charging into what is effectively melee for ships, both commanders have seriously screwed up their game of chicken.)

I said cool, not smart :P

[Volt]

Hundreds of years ago, a ships' greatest weapon wasn't super-human armoured monstrosities that could be shot right into the heart of an enemy ship at near-terminal velocity.

 

You say incompetent, I say playing to their strengths.

Which is pointless because you're causing incredible danger to yourself to close distance. Boarding is only an option if you hilariously by means I can't even comprehend, "jump" an enemy in open space and are close enough to fire the boarding torpedoes. But even then, you're simply pointlessly endangering the Astartes as you could just as easily fire actual torpedoes which will wreak havoc on the enemy and probably instantly kill them.

 

(Ignoring that an Imperial ship, or any ship with a heavily armored and armed front, shouldn't be firing broadsides. They should be coming down from the front, either on top or from the flank to maximize the target and enablde torpedoes to be accurately fired straight at the enemy. If you're going to get close. Otherwise stay a good three hundred thousand kilometers or more and strafe the enemy ship to pieces with lance batteries.)

[Hyaenidae]

Astartes are far more dangerous than a broadside, than a lance strike, than anything imaginable.

 

If you have no faith in a boarding action, then you have no faith in Space Marines at all, or what they're truly capable of.

 

Play Guard and hide in your troop ships, while the Transhuman monsters you're facing takes one ship at a time.

 

Quoting a Legion that disgusts me, "We have come for you".

[Volt]

Astartes are far more dangerous than a broadside, than a lance strike, than anything imaginable.

 

If you have no faith in a boarding action, then you have no faith in Space Marines at all, or what they're truly capable of.

 

Play Guard and hide in your troop ships, while the Transhuman monsters you're facing takes one ship at a time.

 

Quoting a Legion that disgusts me, "We have come for you".

 

Except by your logic we should be sending destroyers and battleships to drop off Navy SEAL teams onto enemy destroyers and battleships (whoah, where'd those come from?) of equal armament and firepower. By attempting to close for a broadside you're exposing your entire ship's flank to the enemy firepower, and depending on how close you are, the void shields might merge and leave you completely vunlnerable to macrocannon broadsides! The reason why you don't seen suicidal ramming or boarding with ships of equal size from WWII onwards is because when guns are very very lethal and have incredible range, closing is lethal and typically ends up in just getting one party horribly killed, or severely maiming/crippling both parties. Especially in 40k, when you have actual laser batteries that fire continuous beams used to cut up enemy ships, or torpedoes that are similar to the fast-moving ship killing missiles of the modern day.

 

This also plays into the historical use of bayonets and the concept of playing chicken in war. Bayonets weren't used to horribly maim the enemy use. Well, that's what they were intended for, but in practice when a group of screaming people with pointy sticks rush at you, you tend to run the hell away screaming for your dear life. The few guys that trip and fall or are too stupid the run die, but by and large it's bloodless compared to things like the American Civil War or WWI. With ships in 40k, a Strike Cruiser that comes screaming in with full thrust for a boarding run, yeah. That's a space bayonet charge. Space Marines should never actually have to be used for baording, because the enemy commander should be somewhat intelligent and bugger off.

 

http://i.imgur.com/xYkWysM.jpg

 

 

If an astartes fleet (blue) is trading blows with an enemy fleet (red), the enemy knows damn well what's going to happen and zog off. Boarding action will be practiced by Astartes, but almost never used, both for safety reasons (charging into enemy fire and leaving the safeties of great range in ANY non-melee combat is generally a terrible idea), but also because 99% of the time the enemy should be faaaar away when they see astartes ships making a boarding run.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

Astartes are far more dangerous than a broadside, than a lance strike, than anything imaginable.

 

If you have no faith in a boarding action, then you have no faith in Space Marines at all, or what they're truly capable of.

 

Play Guard and hide in your troop ships, while the Transhuman monsters you're facing takes one ship at a time.

 

Quoting a Legion that disgusts me, "We have come for you".

 

Except by your logic we should be sending destroyers and battleships to drop off Navy SEAL teams onto enemy destroyers and battleships (whoah, where'd those come from?) of equal armament and firepower. By attempting to close for a broadside you're exposing your entire ship's flank to the enemy firepower, and depending on how close you are, the void shields might merge and leave you completely vunlnerable to macrocannon broadsides! The reason why you don't seen suicidal ramming or boarding with ships of equal size from WWII onwards is because when guns are very very lethal and have incredible range, closing is lethal and typically ends up in just getting one party horribly killed, or severely maiming/crippling both parties. Especially in 40k, when you have actual laser batteries that fire continuous beams used to cut up enemy ships, or torpedoes that are similar to the fast-moving ship killing missiles of the modern day.

 

This also plays into the historical use of bayonets and the concept of playing chicken in war. Bayonets weren't used to horribly maim the enemy use. Well, that's what they were intended for, but in practice when a group of screaming people with pointy sticks rush at you, you tend to run the hell away screaming for your dear life. The few guys that trip and fall or are too stupid the run die, but by and large it's bloodless compared to things like the American Civil War or WWI. With ships in 40k, a Strike Cruiser that comes screaming in with full thrust for a boarding run, yeah. That's a space bayonet charge. Space Marines should never actually have to be used for baording, because the enemy commander should be somewhat intelligent and bugger off.

 

http://i.imgur.com/xYkWysM.jpg

 

 

If an astartes fleet (blue) is trading blows with an enemy fleet (red), the enemy knows damn well what's going to happen and zog off. Boarding action will be practiced by Astartes, but almost never used, both for safety reasons (charging into enemy fire and leaving the safeties of great range in ANY non-melee combat is generally a terrible idea), but also because 99% of the time the enemy should be faaaar away when they see astartes ships making a boarding run.

 

 

Where does the enemy run when the legions come to invade a planet? If they leave, their planet is doomed.

[Hyaenidae]

All the flat-plane 2-D charts in the world doesn't change the dozens upon dozens of stories of boarding actions not only succeeding, but utterly routing the enemy; stretching from the Unification Wars and the Siege of Luna, all the way to the Badab Tyrannicide, Third War of Armageddon and 13th Black Crusade.

 

Astartes are the most dangerous weapon in void warfare. Period.

[Kol Saresk]

40K warfare is to us as modern warfare is to the British Army during the Colonial Era: Unthinkable. Modern era warfare, you avoid melee. You avoid trench warfare. You avoid marching into battle in phalanxes. You avoid forlorn hopes.

 

40K embraces all of these. It is supposed to. Its the days of the Four Great Empires meeting the Middle Ages meeting the Colonial Era meeting World War I.

[Marshal Rohr]

You wouldn't throw away some of the lessons of the modern era though. Fire teams, combined arms maneuver, integrated weapons systems all have a place in the universe. Just because a Legion may need to fight in the trenches doesn't mean they wouldn't do so without close air support. A shield wall of breachers is only viable because it has combined arms backing it up. Power armor brings back all the tactical maneuvering of classical and medieval warfare because it renders ballistic weapons nearly obsolete. The only reason we fight like we do now is because ballistics cause mass casualties, but if you eliminate the risk from ballistics, you open up a whole new world of possibilities.

[daveNYC]

Astartes are the most dangerous weapon in void warfare. Period.

 

I'm pretty sure that the most dangerous weapon is a broadside of weapons packing megatons worth of damage into each shot.

 

Astartes can be quite effective at their role, but their role is limited, and they're vulnerable when being delivered.

[Bryan Blaire]

In a world dominated by SPACE MAGIC ( pending Firepower ;) ) to even make things work (such as the Space Marines), equating real world uses of military force to actions within 40K doesn't really work. You can't throw everything out the window that we know of modern warfare, but we can't assume that because modern warfare does something in X fashion, it doesn't automatically extrapolate that the same must happen in SPACE MAGIC-land, because the rules arent actually the real world rules.

 

That said, if BFG were to make a come back, I'd hope it would be under license with a company other than GW producing it, so that GW can remain focused on their two games (fine, and LotR/Hobbit) because those need some work and dedicated focus right now. All the Specialist Games are a distraction from that and could be licensed out.

[Marshal Rohr]

In a world dominated by SPACE MAGIC ( pending Firepower ;) ) to even make things work (such as the Space Marines), equating real world uses of military force to actions within 40K doesn't really work. You can't throw everything out the window that we know of modern warfare, but we can't assume that because modern warfare does something in X fashion, it doesn't automatically extrapolate that the same must happen in SPACE MAGIC-land, because the rules arent actually the real world rules.

 

That said, if BFG were to make a come back, I'd hope it would be under license with a company other than GW producing it, so that GW can remain focused on their two games (fine, and LotR/Hobbit) because those need some work and dedicated focus right now. All the Specialist Games are a distraction from that and could be licensed out.

I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not? Are you saying that in 40K it doesn't matter if a crew served weapon suppresses the enemy while an assault element moves across the objective? Or that close air support is meaningless if your enemy can light things on fire with his mind?

[incinerator950]

Honestly, I just want to see this one time on the big screen. Or in a 40K/30K novel. Just once. Two ships coming alongside, and then the cannons firing almost simultaneously, tearing each other apart. Fire spitting into the void, hulls being rent asunder, shields flickering into nonexistence, bodies tumbling into the void only to be caught by the crossfire. All the while, the ships jerk and shake as though the universe itself was being torn in twain.

A D-B, you got my wish of a moon being turned into a meteor shower to come true. I got my fingers crossed you can pull this one off too. Or at least give it to Abnett.

There was a pretty cool space battle cutscene in

Literature will never be able to do space battles justice in the era of computer animation. Even the greatest writers of all time could only write a scene each reader would comprehend differently. Only a visual representation with an awesome soundtrack can do a space battle justice.

I disagree, the pictures are always better in novels.

That Strike Cruiser is waaaay too close to the tau vessel. 40K ships can fight at ranges of several hundred thousand kilometers, not several hundred.

Fixed that. Battle of Phall, dude. Ships were firing broadsides as they scraped against each other. Coolest space fight in history.

If you mean "horribly incompetent" and not cool, then yes, you are correct. There is a reason we stopped having ships sail right up to "knife fight" ranges to broadside each other over a hundred years ago.

(Unless you want to argue the concept of ship-based bayonet charges, although the whole point of those was that it was by and large bloodless. If both sides are charging into what is effectively melee for ships, both commanders have seriously screwed up their game of chicken.)

As a former seaman, I would suggest you look at the mock wargame results from about a decade ago, and a attack force destroyed the sophisticated, ranged Navy ships up close.

If you can't fight at range or at point-blank, the only incompitent commander is the one who assumes there's one avinue of attack.

[Bryan Blaire]

A little of both, maybe. Because we've never had a real world situation involving "anything seen here" (motions to the tabletop 40K game), we don't have good real world examples to base things on, it's all supposition. Since there really isn't even a good "base line" in the fluff, any individual person's suppositions are as good as anyone else's as to what would or wouldn't work.

 

I was speaking more to the idea of "Space Marines wouldn't ever be effective boarding considering all this real world stuff" (even though we've seen just that in the fluff) than anything though.