Space marine fleets: why no cruisers?

[Crimson Longinus]

 

So there has been some rumours about BFG returning in some form, and this got me thinking about marine fleets yet again. 

And one thing I find peculiar, is that marine capital ships are either battle barges, which tend to be battleship sized, or strike cruisers, which are light cruiser sized. And this is a bit weird.

Most common imperial ships are cruisers, yet for some reason marine fleets do not field ships of this size class at all. Why? Is there reason besides that GW did not make kit for such when they originally published BFG?

[Mazer Rackham]

The Lore reason goes back all the way to the HH, when the Legions had fully integrated fleet, army and materiel support. The remits were shifted with the Codex Astartes, and the Adeptus Terra and High Lords saw an opportunity to curtail the power of the Legions when they became Chapters.

 

Essentially, Space Marines are allowed to have powerful ships for the sole purposes of Chapter fiefdom policing, and planetary assault, which is why their ships are so heavily armed and armoured, but they lack the staying power in a space-superiority fight.

 

It's essentially the Rock/Paper/Scissors game that was the response to the HH imbalances of power.

 

Now, that's not to say that some classes of Astartes vessel don't make the Imperial Navy nervous. Marines have some high-speed light ships with formidable weapons and armour for their size, and of course First Founding Chapters may take more potent 'Naval' hardware - the Space Wolves have a Mars Class Battlecruiser, and an Emperor Battleship - much to the chagrin of Navy Commanders...

 

This was reflected in BFG Armada/FAQ 2010 rules which allowed one of the Players ships to be a Venerable Battle Barge (you can but a ship from Navy, Chaos or some other Sector Fleet lists, for example).

 

Edited yesterday at 03:17 PM by Mazer Rackham

[Crimson Longinus]

17 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

The Lore reason goes back all the way to the HH, when the Legions had fully integrated fleet, army and materiel support. The remits were shifted with the Codex Astartes, and the Adeptus Terra and High Lords saw an opportunity to curtail the power of the Legions when they became Chapters.

 

Essentially, Space Marines are allowed to have powerful ships for the sole purposes of Chapter fiefdom policing, and planetary assault, which is why their ships are so heavily armed and armoured, but they lack the staying power in a space-superiority fight.

 

It's essentially the Rock/Paper/Scissors game that was the response to the HH imbalances of power.

 

Now, that's not to say that some classes of Astartes vessel don't make the Imperial Navy nervous. Marines have some high-speed light ships with formidable weapons and armour for their size, and of course First Founding Chapters may take more potent 'Naval' hardware - the Space Wolves have a Mars Class Battlecruiser, and an Emperor Battleship - much to the chagrin of Navy Commanders...

 

This was reflected in BFG Armada/FAQ 2010 rules which allowed one of the Players ships to be a Venerable Battle Barge (you can but a ship from Navy, Chaos or some other Sector Fleet lists, for example).

 

 

Yeh, I know that the authorities wanted to limit the power of marine organisations after the HH, though to me it is a bit unclear why this would affect cruiser sized ships specifically. Like you can have small capital ships, and huge capital ships are perfectly fine too, but the medium sized ones? Those are right out! Or are cruisers in particular somehow essential for anchoring space battle lines or something?

 

Also, if this is indeed a post Heresy limitation, would it mean that the Legions had cruiser sized ships? So chaos marines would still have them?

[Mazer Rackham]

I think the cruiser restrictions are more of a blanket thing, but Imperial Navy Cruisers are the backbone of the Sector Fleets, the Battlecruisers especially can hold down entire sub-sectors depending on the configuration - there are some which are supremely self-sufficient and equipped to deal with numerous threats. Lunars are regularly paired with Gothic class, for example. They have enough tonnage to take a pounding and enough weight to dish it out.

 

12 minutes ago, Crimson Longinus said:

Also, if this is indeed a post Heresy limitation, would it mean that the Legions had cruiser sized ships? So chaos marines would still have them?

 

Very much so. In fact almost all of the Chaos ships in BFG are pre-heresy relics, and they have plenty of Grand Cruisers, Battlecruisers, Heavy Cruisers and Cruisers. The Imperium by comparison seems to go for Cruisers and Light Cruisers as I would imagine they're easier to build, easier to deploy widely, and have an economy of force where that's important.

[Xin Ceithan]

To further add to the descriptive confusion, you might want to check out the notes on HH era exploration / Legion fleets ( it’s in one ofthe early HH Black Books IIRC) 

 

There is an overview of some types / classes of vessels ( not all familiar to BFG ) used by the Legions.

It also states that during the Great Crusade / Heresy there was a tendency to classify any capital ship carrying a sizeable / deployable Legion force as a “Battlebarge”  

 

Which might explain why the Space Sharks or the Executioners get away with the odd asset that isn’t strictly conforming to the Navy classifications, e.g. the “Night Hag”  (as seen in the BFG section of the IA books on the Badab War ) 

[Mazer Rackham]

2 minutes ago, Xin Ceithan said:

Which might explain why the Space Sharks or the Executioners get away with the odd asset that isn’t strictly conforming to the Navy classifications, e.g. the “Night Hag”  (as seen in the BFG section of the IA books on the Badab War ) 

 

The Night Hag, a favourite of mine - it's a cruiser in displacement, but it's more akin to 'Pocket Battleship' in how it operates. It was actually not a naval shipyard vessel at all, but a refit or private commission for a Rogue Trader.

 

Speaking of Heresy books, there is a BFG Heresy fanfic rulebook put together that looks just like a HH Black Book.