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Battlefleet Gothic is the most recent addition to the 'Warhammer 40,000' Universe line of miniatures wargames from Games Workshop. While it has its warts (like any system), it easily overcomes them to deliever a wonderfully enjoyable starship combat game.

This isn't actually GW's first foray into the world of capital ship combat. That honor goes to the venerable 'Space Fleet' game, which has been out of print for quite some time now. I never played it, and don't know much about it other than that one of the Imperial battleships had teeth and defeated enemy ships by gnawing them in half. Riiiiight. Anyway, such silliness is absent from BFG.

Rules Overview

BFG's rules are fairly simple, and easily grasped after one or two hour-and-a-half cruiser duels. Due to the simplicity of its rules system, BFG is very easy to learn and teach.
Ships move a certain distance each turn; they must move at least half their maximum movement ("We can't stop, it's too dangerous, we've got to slow down first...") and larger ships must move a greater distance between successive turns. (This is the sole concession to conservation of momentum; those looking for games where you can fly sideways--yes, like that Starfury from Babylon 5--shouldn't look here.)

Weapons firing is similar to Epic 40,000 (in fact, I'm told that most of BFG's rules system reads as if it were cribbed directly from the Epic rulebook.) You cross-reference your ship's firepower to the target ship's type and aspect on a table, and roll the indicated number of dice; any dice that roll higher than the target's 'armor value' score hits. Most ships have shields to protect them from a hit or two before their hulls start taking damage points; once a ship loses all its damage points, though, it is destroyed (and there's a table to roll on for that, too, so your ship might blow up in a huge cinematic explosion complete with the Expanding Ring(tm) or simply fall to bits.)

Also present in BFG are 'Special Orders'. These are a group of optional actions your ships can take to make them act differently. For example, 'All Ahead Full' lets them move an extra 4d6 centimeters, but they cannot make any turns and their weapons' firepower is reduced. 'Lock On', on the other hand, also prevents a ship from turning, but it can reroll weapons shots that miss.

One of the more interesting (and, unfortunately, confusing) aspects of BFG is the Ordnance. In this game, a single fighter or bomber is nothing more than an annoyance, even for the tiny destroyer-class ships. Therefore, carriers are rated by the number of attack-craft squadrons they can launch; torpedo ships launch salvoes of a given strength. Fighters, bombers, and torpedoes are collectively referred to as 'Ordnance', and there is a whole separate phase of the turn (and a section of the rulebook) dealing with their effects. Ordnance can be very powerful, though it's somewhat balanced by the fact that every capital ship has a number of defensive turrets that get to shoot at incoming Ordnance, as well as the fact that carriers and torpedo-launchers have to use a Special Order to reload between successive waves. As there are a number of strange interactions that can occur between ships and ordnance, though, it's quite possible to run across a question that's not answered in the rulebook.

The rulebook also includes a number of pregenerated scenarios (several variations on cruiser duels, along with convoy escort and planetary assault scenarios) and instructions for stringing multiple scenarios together into a campaign. The scenarios are generally interesting to play.

Miniatures

The miniatures for BFG are excellent. The boxed set comes with eight plastic cruisers; four Chaos-style and four Imperial-style. (Interestingly, these four cruisers form quite a solid fleet on their own; you can do quite well with nothing more than what you get from the box.) The plastics were designed under GW's new 'Plastics that Don't Suck' policy, and so they're extremely customizable. Each cruiser comes as the 'spine' of the ship, with open bays for the various types of weapon mounts. You decide which guns you want to put where and stick them in. (The box also includes a guide to building the 'official' cruiser classes.) Thus, with a single set of parts, you can build any one of a number of different ships.

The metals are also nicely-done. GW learned their lesson from Epic 40,000 and lowered their blister prices from the stratospheric, thus insuring that you can buy a blister or two of Escorts without spending as much as you did on the game in the first place. The only problem with the metal ships is that they don't stand on the bases provided very well; extensive gluing is required before they really fit properly. Once you get them glued down, though, they sit nicely. Painting the BFG ships is a snap, due to the large amounts of raised detail; a few minutes of drybrushing will give you quite a nice-looking fleet.

To sum up, Battlefleet Gothic is an excellent "cinematic" starship-combat game; you can set up a game in fifteen minutes and finish one in two hours, and it's quite an enjoyable game to play. The simplicity of the rules, instead of making the game easy to break, make it quick to learn and therefore quicker to enjoy. It's not the height of space-war realism, but it's not striving to be; and it achieves all the goals it _does_ aim for.

BFG resources:

Battlefleet Gothic Mailing List
The Realm of Inisfail's BFG section
Games Workshop's Battlefleet Gothic section

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Battlefleet Gothic
Author: Andy Chambers et al. Category: Miniature Company/Publisher: Games Workshop Line: Warhammer 40,000 Universe Cost: US$59.99 Playtest Review by Michael Powers on 11/03/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Space	Battlefleet Gothic is the most recent addition to the 'Warhammer 40,000' Universe line of miniatures wargames from Games Workshop. While it has its warts (like any system), it easily overcomes them to deliever a wonderfully enjoyable starship combat game. This isn't actually GW's first foray into the world of capital ship combat. That honor goes to the venerable 'Space Fleet' game, which has been out of print for quite some time now. I never played it, and don't know much about it other than that one of the Imperial battleships had teeth and defeated enemy ships by gnawing them in half. Riiiiight. Anyway, such silliness is absent from BFG. Rules Overview BFG's rules are fairly simple, and easily grasped after one or two hour-and-a-half cruiser duels. Due to the simplicity of its rules system, BFG is very easy to learn and teach. Ships move a certain distance each turn; they must move at least half their maximum movement ("We can't stop, it's too dangerous, we've got to slow down first...") and larger ships must move a greater distance between successive turns. (This is the sole concession to conservation of momentum; those looking for games where you can fly sideways--yes, like that Starfury from Babylon 5--shouldn't look here.) Weapons firing is similar to Epic 40,000 (in fact, I'm told that most of BFG's rules system reads as if it were cribbed directly from the Epic rulebook.) You cross-reference your ship's firepower to the target ship's type and aspect on a table, and roll the indicated number of dice; any dice that roll higher than the target's 'armor value' score hits. Most ships have shields to protect them from a hit or two before their hulls start taking damage points; once a ship loses all its damage points, though, it is destroyed (and there's a table to roll on for that, too, so your ship might blow up in a huge cinematic explosion complete with the Expanding Ring(tm) or simply fall to bits.) Also present in BFG are 'Special Orders'. These are a group of optional actions your ships can take to make them act differently. For example, 'All Ahead Full' lets them move an extra 4d6 centimeters, but they cannot make any turns and their weapons' firepower is reduced. 'Lock On', on the other hand, also prevents a ship from turning, but it can reroll weapons shots that miss. One of the more interesting (and, unfortunately, confusing) aspects of BFG is the Ordnance. In this game, a single fighter or bomber is nothing more than an annoyance, even for the tiny destroyer-class ships. Therefore, carriers are rated by the number of attack-craft squadrons they can launch; torpedo ships launch salvoes of a given strength. Fighters, bombers, and torpedoes are collectively referred to as 'Ordnance', and there is a whole separate phase of the turn (and a section of the rulebook) dealing with their effects. Ordnance can be very powerful, though it's somewhat balanced by the fact that every capital ship has a number of defensive turrets that get to shoot at incoming Ordnance, as well as the fact that carriers and torpedo-launchers have to use a Special Order to reload between successive waves. As there are a number of strange interactions that can occur between ships and ordnance, though, it's quite possible to run across a question that's not answered in the rulebook. The rulebook also includes a number of pregenerated scenarios (several variations on cruiser duels, along with convoy escort and planetary assault scenarios) and instructions for stringing multiple scenarios together into a campaign. The scenarios are generally interesting to play. Miniatures The miniatures for BFG are excellent. The boxed set comes with eight plastic cruisers; four Chaos-style and four Imperial-style. (Interestingly, these four cruisers form quite a solid fleet on their own; you can do quite well with nothing more than what you get from the box.) The plastics were designed under GW's new 'Plastics that Don't Suck' policy, and so they're extremely customizable. Each cruiser comes as the 'spine' of the ship, with open bays for the various types of weapon mounts. You decide which guns you want to put where and stick them in. (The box also includes a guide to building the 'official' cruiser classes.) Thus, with a single set of parts, you can build any one of a number of different ships. The metals are also nicely-done. GW learned their lesson from Epic 40,000 and lowered their blister prices from the stratospheric, thus insuring that you can buy a blister or two of Escorts without spending as much as you did on the game in the first place. The only problem with the metal ships is that they don't stand on the bases provided very well; extensive gluing is required before they really fit properly. Once you get them glued down, though, they sit nicely. Painting the BFG ships is a snap, due to the large amounts of raised detail; a few minutes of drybrushing will give you quite a nice-looking fleet. To sum up, Battlefleet Gothic is an excellent "cinematic" starship-combat game; you can set up a game in fifteen minutes and finish one in two hours, and it's quite an enjoyable game to play. The simplicity of the rules, instead of making the game easy to break, make it quick to learn and therefore quicker to enjoy. It's not the height of space-war realism, but it's not striving to be; and it achieves all the goals it _does_ aim for. BFG resources: Battlefleet Gothic Mailing List The Realm of Inisfail's BFG section Games Workshop's Battlefleet Gothic section Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)