Battlefleet Gothic – Chaos Fleet

Welcome back to the grim dark space battles, with Battlefleet Gothic. I did an intro post on this dual fleet project, and we have to start somewhere, so let us do that with the Chaos Fleet.

I'll be using the fleet lists from the Battlefleet Gothic Remastered (I have the v.033 of the fleet lists at hand) and going for a roughly 2.000 points amount of miniatures as a starting ground, to know what to print and have a small collection for smaller to above medium sized battles.

I haven't had the chance to actually play a game of Battlefleet myself so far (It was on schedule for the 8th Rhein-Main Multiversum but had to be postponed spontaneously), so this is not a list to cover any meta or tournament gaming. Just something that felt like an appropiate mixture, and the BFG reddit community was kind enough to give me feedback on my initial list, so that I wouldn't miss out on anything / unintentionally build a No-No list (either too weak or imbalanced to properly play).

The Chaos Fleet has a lot of options, you for example have access to possessed vehicles (daemon ships), which is something that is legion specific fleets a great addition. I didn't go for that initially, but I can see maybe doing that in case I have any failed prints as the daemonic / possessed ships are a great modeling opportunity (and why waste a fixable print? - especially with this option). As Battlefleet Gothic covers the timeline of the 12th black crusade, the Gothic Wars, you obviously have the option as a Chaos player, to name Abaddon as the Warmaster of your fleet, along with various Chaos Lords and give them / the vessels, the marks of different chaos gods, along with upgrading the crew from heretics, lost and damned to actual Astartes of the traitor legions.

The Remastered Fleet lists cover for Chaos a 13th Black Crusade Fleet list, that we will be using for this project (instead of the Incursion list), as the Black Crusade lists give you more options. There are anyhow four more lists, dedicated to the fleets of the worshippers of specific chaos gods (Sorcerous Fleet, Plaguefleet, Berzerker Fleet and Fleet of Pleasure). If I wanted to build a 30k list, I could use the Battlefleet Heresy lists of the XVIth Legion - Sons of Horus from book 1. But for the sake of simplicity, we will stay with the Remastered fleet for now, the Heresy List is just something that would be used for themed gaming, making use of the models I already (am going to) have.

The old range for Chaos in Battlefleet Gothic isn't the largest, but still rather decent. You have a plastic kit for the (Heavy) Cruisers, everything else was produced in metal. As I just started with a third edition Space Marine army when Battlefleet Gothic was released, all the metal products (along with Battlefleet being a bit rare in Germany either way, don't remember anyone in my gaming circle even owning the boxed set, and we covered most systems from that time) were out of reach. But here's an overview from the Specialist Games catalogue, found on SoLegends. With the scarcity of these on the second hand market, the whole game is basically kept alive today by 3d printing, which is a far better solution for everybody compared to recasts.

The fleet building in BFG a bit like a tree, so to be able to choose Unit type A, I need a at least number X of Unit type B, which may require a certain amount of Unit type C. For example, to include a battleship class ship in my fleet, I need three cruisers or heavy cruisers. Heavy cruisers may only be bought per two regular cruisers, which are limited to a maximum of 12 per fleet.

As my capital battle ship, I went for a Chaos Battle Barge. This one is - as the class depicts - a battle ship and as such is placed upon a 60mm round base, instead of the 32mm every other model has. (Any ship or defence with either 3 or more shields OR greater than 10 Hits must use a large size base.) These are the first 410 points of my fleet and requires me to have at least three (heavy) cruisers.

I like the design of the Grand Cruisers, especially the Retaliator Class as they mix the old and the new. With shields of 3, this one would be placed upon a 60mm round base as well. Another 260 points to the fleet list, requiring three (heavy) cruisers as well, like Battle Barge. I could see this being represented by a (Dark) Mechanicum Vessel, as I would just have to swap the front prow.

Now we need to boost up on heavy cruisers and cruisers. Initially I went for two Heavy Cruisers, Hades and Acheron Class, but it was recommended to me to swap the Hades for a Styx Class, to have a carrier in smaller games. This adds 260 and 190 points to the fleet. Requiring me to add four regular cruisers. Those were set for Murder, Carnage and Slaughter, with the fourth either being a Inferno or a possessed cruiser class vessel, not decided yet. Adding further 170, 180 and 165 points to the list.

For the smaller ships. Chaos fleets have access to Escorts as well as the Imperial or Space Marine fleets. There are three different vessels in that size, Idolator, Infidel and Iconoclast. Each may be organised in a squadron of 2 to 6, limited just by the amount of points (you can add as many escorts as you like, without the requirement of other vessels). I went with 3 Idolator Class Raiders and 3 Infidel Class Raiders, along with 4 Iconoclast Class Destroyers. All of these small ships will be placed on 32mm round bases. And add another 135, 120 and 120 points to the fleet list.

At this point the total amount of ships / miniatures is 8 larger vessels (of which two are on 60 mm bases) and 10 escorts. A very reasonable size for a project. The models will be 3d printed, yet, the bases will be bought from Citadel, as there are no other manufacturers on the market, and I don't fancy the STL files for flight stands. In this case I'll require 3 sets of the smaller 32mm flight stands and one set of the larger 60mm flight stands, costing me 16,80 EUR at my local Warhammer store. As a centre piece I can see myself adding a planet killer to this collection. But that's a bit of a reward (and counterpart to the Gloriana Class of the Imperial Fleet). Beyond that, I will probably use laminated markers and tokens, but am unsure about the ordnance. Here I would need a total of 18 squadrons, maybe I start with printing out these on card board and depending on the usage and frequency of game play, I'll replace them with 3d models.

This is around 2,000 points of a pool (a bit more, but as said above, this is not meant as a list to use, more of a collection to choose from) - without upgrades. For comparison, the fleet from the BFG Remastered Starter Kit covers these ships;

• 2x Murder Class Cruisers
• 1x Slaughter Class Cruiser
• 1x Squadron of 3 Idolator Class Raiders
• 1x Squadron of 3 Infidel Class Raiders
• 1x Styx Class Heavy Cruiser

and that's a ~ 1,100 points list (incl. the warlord) to begin with. I cover most of these, so that confirms my choice of models so far.

I would need names for the 8 vessels, as well as the three squadrons. But what is really nice about the rulebooks, the cover famous ships, so in case you didn't read the novels etc. you get an idea how these were called and what would be fitting names for your fleet. Many know the Terminus Est, Proudheart, Wrathful or Vengeful Spirit. I could go with Harbinger of Doom for the Battle Barge, as it was the Twin of the Vengeful Spirit and acted as a flag ship for Abaddon during the Horus Heresy and on occasion beyond, but that would be very specific and I'd like to be a bit more flexibel.

Ragebearer, sounds like a proper name for the Battle Barge. Crimson Wrath, Anvil of Fate, Mother Cthonia, Endless Pain, could work for the (Heavy) Cruisers and Blood Fangs and Harbingers of Terror for the Escort Squadrons. Next step would be to choose the models that I would like to use. For Chaos I am leaning strongly towards the designs by ItalianMoose, as they are pretty close to the old models, and with Chaos I'm quite fine with that. But more on that in the next article, as I have to see how I can incorporate the Dark Mechanicum aspect into this project.