Battlefleet Gothic is a spin-off game of the well known Warhammer 40k Universe. It deals with the space combat aspect of the game, and can be integrated fairly seemlessly with the usual tabletop Warhammer 40k. It has much following in Europe, but is underadvertised in the States. It is produced by Games Workshop, and has its own line of books, miniatures, and magazines.
The game uses miniatures of a 1:70 000 scale.
The Game[]
The Battlefleet Gothic system is similar to the Epic system and it is part of the "Specialist Games" group.
There are four phases of a turn:
Movement: This is when the players move their ships. Ships also use "Special Orders" during this phase, which allows ships to move faster, reload, or other special abilities.
Shooting: This is when the players fire their weapons.
Ordnance: This is when the players operate their ordnance. Ordnance is used separately from the ships and is a catagory that ranges from landing parties to torpedoes.
End: This is when boarding actions are carried out and critical damage is repaired. Blast markers are removed also.
Fleets[]
- Imperial Navy: Namesake of the game
- Space Marines: Primiarly the Imperial Fists
- Chaos: Servants of the Dark Gods, commanded by the Despoiler
- Ork: Waaagh! fleets and Pirates
- Eldar: Craftworld fleets and corsairs
- Dark Eldar: Raiders and pirates
- Tau Empire: Tau, Demiurg, Nicassar and Kroot
- Tyranid: Hive Fleets
- Necron: Raiders
Weapons[]
Ships use three types of weapons for combat. They are Batteries, Lances, and Ordnance.
Weapon Batteries are various weapons that fire mass attacks at enemies.
Lance weapons are focused laser beams used for precision strikes against enemy ships. They are designed to pierce enemy armour.
Ordnance is a catch-all term for small craft and weapons that don't strike instantly, including torpedos, bombers, fighters, or landing craft and boarding torpedoes that are sent to make physical contact with enemy ships and allow boarding parties to enter the vessel.
Expansions[]
Battlefleet Gothic is a combination of the old "Space Fleet" game and the "Epic" gaming system. There is a box set available for purchase and the rules can be downloaded from the "Specialist Games" website.
The Boxed Set for the Battlefleet Gothic game contains:
- Battlefleet Gothic (rulebook)
- Getting Started guide and comic strip
- 4 Imperial Cruisers
- 4 Chaos Cruisers
- Fleet Registry roster pad
- 2 plastic range rulers
- 100 game counters
- 2 reference sheets
There are also updates called "Annuals" that are released every year and include supplemental rules, fleet sheets, and other information to help create variations in the game.
Armada[]
The "Annual update" for Battlefleet Gothic for 2003 was Battlefleet Gothic: Armada. This book introduced new fleets for the Imperial Navy, which are Armageddon, Bastion, Cadia and the Reserve of Segmentum Obscurus.
This book also collects the various rules on the many different fleets so that gamers could officially use them:
- Battlefleet Armageddon
- Imperial Bastion Fleet List
- Battlefleet Cadia
- Segmentum Obsuras Reserve Fleet List
- Codex Astartes Space marine Fleet List
- Chaos 13th Black Crusade Fleet List
- Later Gothic War Eldar Corsairs Fleet List
- Dark Eldar Pirates Fleet List
- Ghazghkull's Ork Waaagh! Fleet List
- Necron Harvest Fleet List
- Tyranid Vanguard Fleet List
- Tyranid Hive Fleet List
- Tau Kor'Vattra Fleet List
There are two new campaigns introduced in Armada:
- The Third Armageddon War
- Abaddon's Thirteenth Black Crusade
Invasion[]
Battlefleet Gothic: Invasion is a cross-over between the Battefleet Gothic game and the standard Warhammer 40,000 game. In the expansion are rules and scenarios that expand on the gaming system.
This game expansion is based on the fighting between a fleet and either a planetary defense or a space station defense. It emphasizes "Boarding Actions", i.e. fighting of troops between ships and/or bases, and uses different scenarios to emphasize the varied combats or events that can happen such as:
- Space
- Retrieval: The fleet is sent to retrieve an artifact from the remains of a battle.
- Defensive Ring: An attack made against a refueling station to distrupt an enemy's hit and run tactics.
- Port Maw: An invasion of the mighty Port Maw after a power outage.
- Ground
- Boarding Party: A standard raid in which an outnumbered opponent attempts to board and destroy an enemy's flagship.
- Deadline: A raiding party has a limited time to get rid of a large defense weapon while the two fleets battle each other.