Battlefleet Gothic

Now a recent wonder through the internet and I came across a few interesting things, most notably and the purpose of this post was Battlefleet Gothic. Ok, I didn't just discover BFG, I remember it when it was stocked in store, along side the likes of Blood Bowl and Epic. What it did do, get me thinking about a few conversations that I've had recently about Fantasy Flight Games taking on the licence for Specialist Games from GW.

Now, I've looked at Drop Fleet Commander and Firestorm Armada, but they don't tie in with anything else I have and I don't really want to buy more models for more games. Ive thought about BFG in the past, and I've always had the same idea, I would love to tie in all the systems, namely BFG, 40k and Epic in to one big campaign/army, i.e. for my Hjaltland LI I would have a fleet in BFG (prob only about 750pts), a 40k army (about 2000pts) and then an epic force, containing what is in the 40k force plus some bigger units, notably super heavies and fliers (possibly about 3/4 thousand points).

The idea would be to play games over all the systems, starting with BFG. This phase would act as the initial contact, with one side trying to make a beach head in a system while another side tried to prevent this, there would be bonuses and penalties depending upon what happens.

Phase two would be based around 40k, with the ground beach head, again with bonuses and penalties as a result of the game. the game would then move on to phase three, which would be both epic and 40k scales, switching back and forth depending upon what happens.

An example of this would be an Imperial force enters a system to retake a planet from Chaos, a BFG combat occurs, with the imperium taking heavy casualties but winning, as such they would get a bonus for winning, i.e. choose deployment/setup, maybe mission type, but get penalties such as being restricted as to what forces can be fielded, to represent the destroyed/damaged BFG fleet. The Chaos player would also get similar penalties/bonuses based on his BFG performance. Again, after the landing fight, the Imperium lost, then in the next phase it would be Epic but setup/mission would fall to the Chaos player and the Imperium would again be restricted in units where chaos wouldn't be, (although points would be matched).

The game would go back and forth like that with 40k games to represent things like taking particular objectives such as tactical relays, comms stations, space ports supply dumps, etc all containing bonuses for the winner and penalties for the looser plus extras for what happened during the battle. Things like supply dumps would mean that lost special weapons (see below) could be reissued from the supply dump stocks, space ports would mean reserves could be called in easier (maybe +1 to reserve rolls). The BFG fights would also occur at random times to see if players can bring down reinforcements to replace losses or even to maintain the space they control.

Through out the game casualties would be taken and as in real life some would be lost. I would do this on a dice roll, something like on a 1 they die, 2-3 injured and miss next battle, 4-6 recover and can fight. The result would apply to both epic and 40k, this would mean that some units would be fighting under strength during the battle, maybe deploying with only 7 marines instead of 10. This would apply to individual models, but one bonus for the winner could be choosing which weapons are maintained, as they control the battlefield and can recover lost weapons, but the looser has to take whatever the dice decree. i.e. the winner looses 5 marines, including a flamer and heavy bolter, both of which die on a roll of 1, but as he controls the board, the weapons can be passed on to a surviving member of the unit, but the looser who lost a Chaos marine melta gunner, who also died on a roll of 1, cannot pass the weapon on, it is considered lost on the field. The only exceptions that I can think of are for warlords, who can be replaced by another HQ/character unit, after all an army still has to have a leader and sgt's who could be replaced by loosing a normal troop unit, however any upgrades could only be carried over by the winning side. Multi wound models would also roll for every wound and not just the once, meaning they would have a greater chance or survival, but would only gain back the number of wounds up to there starting value, any rolls of 1 would permanently remove the wound. Say a Chapter Master on 3 wounds (??) looses two in a battle, he would roll two dice, getting a 1 and a 3, meaning he must miss the next battle and can only ever have a max of 2 wounds for the rest of the campaign.

I agree there would be a lot of issues to iron out but that's the idea. I suppose it could be a very short campaign or a very long one depending upon what happens, but in theory, one side should start gaining the upper hand, as while points would remain even, one side would be getting to pick units and one would have to deal with what they have, but there would also be the issue of injured or dead soldiers impacting units, so it should never get too lopsided. Afterall, being able to choose your units is all well and good if most of your units are understrength.

The main down side to all of this will be that players would have to have all three system and all the same models across 40k and epic, and it would take a lot of time to organise and play. This whole thing also relies on FFG actually releasing BFG or Epic, while BFG is likely, Epic isn't, which is a shame.