Fleet lists

This page is a work in progress!

Introduction¶

In the Rulebook, you learned how to play the basic game. The Fleets book will add the different fleets of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and put you in command of their warships in deadly combat among the stars, though whether as Mankind’s saviour or its destroyer remains to be seen.

This Fleet book is roughly divided into four sections:

The Fleet Lists give you all the rules on how to build a valid fleet list, including when and how to include commanders and squadrons, everything you ever wanted to know about reserves, allies and which races hate each other the most.

The Refits will give you a list of alternative torpedo variants that are available to every fleet; and additionally the rules for torpedo bombers and orbital mines.

The different fleets are the largest section of this book and give you every fleet and every ship that were ever officially (and semiofficially, e.g. the 2010 Errata/FAQ) included in the game.

Lastly, the Planetary Defences and Additional Ships give you exactly what they sound like: defences usable by most races when they are defenders in a scenario and additional ships not part of any warfleet.

Fleet Lists¶

Contained within this book are a number of fleet lists and vessels that enable you to collect and fight with any of the available fleets in Battlefleet Gothic. By using these lists, you can pick a fleet within certain limitations and ensure that it is balanced and fair when playing against another fleet chosen from the fleet lists.

Each fleet list is divided into the following sections:

Fleet Commander.¶

Your fleet can be led by a commander, e.g. an Imperial Admiral, Chaos Warmaster, Eldar Pirate Prince, Ork Warlord or Tau Kor’o.

Your Fleet Commander's leadership supersedes that of the vessel it is assigned to, even if it is lower!

The Fleet Commander can be assigned to a ship any time before the game, even after rolling up the Leadership values for your vessels. If any restrictions apply, these are noted in the fleet lists (like placing the Commander on the most expensive ship or buying upgrades for the Commander's ship) and may force you to assign the Commander during fleet list building.

A fleet with a total points value of more than 750 points must be led by a Fleet Commander unless specifically stated otherwise in the fleet list. Smaller fleets may be led by a Fleet Commander if you wish, but this is not compulsory.

Some fleets also have unique command structures which give them special bonuses. For example, having the option to take extra commanders for more re-rolls or better leadership. The different options for your Fleet Commanders are given in this section of the list.

Fleet Commander Re-rolls¶

Fleet Commanders may have a number of Fleet Commander re-rolls available to them, as indicated in the Fleet Commander section of the fleet list. Each of these re-rolls can only be used once per game and allows you to re-roll a failed Command check or Leadership test for a ship or squadron in their fleet. Remember that you can only use one reroll at a time, so it is not possible to use several re-rolls on the same Leadership test. If the Fleet Commander's flagship suffers a Bridge Smashed critical hit, any remaining Fleet Commander re-rolls are lost for the remainder of the battle.

Just like ship’s captains and crews, Chaos Lords, Ork Warlords, etc. can gain experience (leadership) in a campaign. Note that improvements can only be based on the ship’s or commander’s natural leadership, not on any bonuses gained by the ship itself. For example, an Emperor battleship with a natural Ld 7 is effectively Ld 8 in battle because of its inherent +1 Ld bonus, but it can only gain crew skills once its natural Leadership is at least Ld 8. Crew skills can only be gained by ships, not Fleet Commanders

If a ship containing a fleet commander, Warlord, Mark of Chaos, etc. is destroyed, the cost of any embarked commanders or other improvements are included in the Victory Points earned by the enemy, even if it can be assumed the fleet commander escaped to fight another day.

If a Fleet Commander with particular bonuses (such as Chaos Marks or Ork benefits) moves to another ship that already has particular crew skills, they may be combined as long as they do not contradict each other. For example, a Chaos fleet commander with a Mark of Slaanesh using the 13th Black Crusade fleet list cannot use as a flagship a vessel with the Mark of Khorne. Crew skills also cannot be multiplied; an Ork Warboss Fleet Commander with Mad Meks that moves to another ship that ship already had Mad Meks gains no additional benefit from this.

Capital Ships:¶

This section shows which, and how many, capital ships you may have in your fleet. Often, the number of larger capital ships such as battleships, Chaos grand cruisers and Imperial battlecruisers you can take is defined by the number of ordinary cruisers in your fleet. This is because such mighty vessels rarely operate independently and generally fight only in larger fleet formations.

Escorts:¶

This shows the different types of escorts available to the fleet. There is usually no limit to the number of escorts allowed in a fleet, although the number of certain types of escorts may be restricted in some way in some fleet lists.

Ordnance:¶

This details the various types of ordnance available to the ships of the fleet.

Points Values¶

Each type of vessel in Battlefleet Gothic usually has a points value, which reflects how useful it is in game terms. The higher a vessel's points value, the better it is in battle. For example, a small Imperial Cobra class destroyer is worth only 30 points, while a huge Chaos Desolator class battleship is worth 300 points – that's ten Cobras for every Desolator!

Size of game¶

When you fight a battle, you normally pick a fleet to an agreed points limit. For example, you may agree with your opponent to play a 1,500 points Fleet Engagement, which means you each pick a fleet worth up to 1,500 point in total. A 500-1,000 points battle can be fought in a couple of hours, while battles involving fleets from 1,500 or more points will take proportionately longer. A 3,000 points battle will probably take the best part of a day to play and if you want a larger engagement, you'd better have some sleeping arrangements sorted out!

In most scenarios, the fleets are not picked to equal points values, or have additional vessels worth a random number of points. Where this is the case, the scenario will tell you what proportion of points one side has to the other.

Using the Fleet Lists¶

When you know what size battle and scenario you are playing, you can start selecting ships. As you pick ships to include in your fleet, simply add up their points value until you reach the agreed limit. You may not spend more than this on your fleet and often you'll be a few points short because there simply isn't anything to spend those last few points on. Remember when you're picking your fleet that you must have models to represent the ships you choose. If you have a Gothic class cruiser with two lance batteries, you must have a model assembled with two lance batteries to represent it. This helps both players to remember exactly what each ship is armed with and stops players getting a nasty surprise halfway through the battle ("It's a nova cannon is it? I see ... ").

Ship class variants¶

In some ship entries you will see certain ships of that class which mount different weaponry to its counterparts.

You may include these ships in your fleet if you wish and often they will cost more or less points than normal. As mentioned above, remember that the ship's armaments must be represented on the model.

Unless specifically noted as unique by their fleet lists, such as the Chaos Planet Killer or the named Ork battleships, you may take multiple examples of any class variant.

Forming up the Fleet¶

Escort ships normally must be formed into squadrons of between two and six ships each. The escorts in a squadron do not have to all be of the same class.

Escort squadrons reduced to a single escort in the midst of a battle may continue to operate singly for the duration of that battle, but afterward (in a campaign) must immediately be repaired or reinforced to include at least two escorts.

A single escort may be taken in a fleet as long as there are no other escorts in the fleet and no other restrictions due to the fleet list, such as a minimum of six escorts in a squadron, these restrictions cannot be ignored. If any more than one escort is taken in a fleet list, then all escorts must be formed in squadrons of at least two or whatever minimum is required by that particular fleet list. This also means if an escort squadron is limited to six ships and the fleet list has seven escorts, the escorts must be divided so no escort is operating without at least one other escort in a squadron. This rule exempts escorts that are allowed to operate alone, such as transports or Tau Messenger ships.

Cruisers, heavy cruisers and battlecruisers may be formed into squadrons of two to four ships. Battlecruisers, heavy cruisers and cruisers may be mixed together in the same squadron.

Grand cruisers and battleships may be formed into squadrons of two to three ships, but you may not mix battleships and grand cruisers in a squadron.

Fighting battles without the fleet lists¶

The fleet lists that follow have been written to allow players to pick a fleet that should be fairly balanced against another fleet chosen from the Fleet Lists. This means that players who have never met before, such as in a tournament, know that they should have a fair game to play.

However, if you are gaming with regular opponents, you may like to choose fleets which ignore some or all of the rules in the lists. For example, you might like to have an all-battleship clash, or allow battlecruisers, heavy cruisers and grand cruisers to be taken without having to take the specified number of cruisers first.

We have also kept the Imperial and Chaos fleets distinct from each other, to make sure that they fight differently and have their own character. However, as most Chaos ships are essentially old Imperial ships there is no reason why you couldn't mix things up a bit and include ships from the Chaos Fleet List in an Imperial fleet and vice versa. Similarly, if you wanted a pirate fleet to represent an alliance of various bands of bloodthirsty corsairs, you could collect a fleet that consists entirely of escorts, chosen from all four of the Fleet Lists to give you a mis-match of Imperial, Chaos, Eldar and Ork cut-throats.

Breaking the Rules¶

The rules of Battlefleet Gothic, including the scenarios and fleet lists, are there to help players who want to fight battles with immense starships. If you want to change something, write your own rules for guided torpedoes, invent a scenario, etc, then you should feel free to do so (the Games Design thought police won't come knocking on your door!).

The Battlefleet Gothic community still creates lots of new and exciting content. For example, take a look at the Additional Ships Compendium, Book of Nemesis, Books of the Void or Project Distant Darkness that add new ships and fleets. There are also entire homebrew rulesets that change the mechanics of the game itself like Battlefleet Gothic XR or Battlefleet Heresy.

Or if you have any ideas that you think other people will enjoy playing, why not go to the Discord server, the Facebook group, or head over to the Specialist-Arms forum and share them!

Reserves¶

Any ﬂeet chosen from one of the ﬂeet lists may also include reserves. For every three battleships, cruisers or escorts chosen from the ﬂeet list, you may also pick one ship of the same type from another ﬂeet list belonging to the same race. So, for every three cruisers chosen from the Gothic Sector ﬂeet list, you could pick one cruiser from another Imperial Navy ﬂeet list. Only ships of the same 'type' (battleship, cruiser or escort) count for reserves purposes, so you can't pick three escorts from a ﬂeet list and then use these to qualify for a battleship from reserves. Also, for these purposes, battlecruisers, grand cruisers, heavy cruisers, cruisers, and light cruisers all count as “cruisers”, so three cruisers would allow you to choose a grand cruiser as a reserve.

Reserves are still subject to the restrictions on minimum and maximum numbers of certain types of vessels. So, for example, a Chaos Incursion ﬂeet can have one grand cruiser for every three cruisers in the ﬂeet. Buying three cruisers (let's say a Carnage, a Murder and a Slaughter Class) entitles you to have a grand cruiser. Since three cruisers also entitles you to one reserve cruiser (be it heavy, grand, light or whatever) you could now pick a Repulsive class grand cruiser from the Chaos Incursion ﬂeet list, or instead pick a Retaliator or Executor class from the Thirteenth Black Crusade ﬂeet list. You couldn't pick a grand cruiser from both ﬂeet lists, however, since this would leave you with three cruisers and two grand cruisers – above the maximum permitted number. Basically, the restrictions on maximum and minimum numbers of ships are determined for the ﬂeet as a whole, regardless of whether they were purchased from the list or as reserves.

Reserve vessels may take any upgrades, refits, etc. available to either fleet list but may not take any special characters from the reserve fleet list to use with the primary fleet.

A player using the 12th Black Crusade fleet list with at least three cruisers can take a Retaliator grand cruiser as reserves from the 13th Black Crusade fleet list and upgrade it to take Chaos Space Marines, but that ship cannot take a Chaos Lord form the 13th Black Crusade list (a special character). Instead, it would have to use one of the only three Chaos Lords allotted to an Incursion Fleet list, though that Chaos Lord could have any of the Marks allowed by the Incursion Fleet List for the cost indicated on that list.

Reserve fleets are those specifically described as such in their fleet lists, not merely those identified as being capable of allying with each other. Reserve vessels taken at the start of a battle or earned as reinforcements in the course of a campaign must come from the same "race". For the purpose of the game, the races are: Imperial Navy (including Adeptus Mechanicus), Space Marines, Chaos (including Chaos Space Marines), Eldar, Craftworld Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Necrons, Tyranids and Tau (including Tau allies). Some fleet lists explicitly provide access to ships from other races. These may only be taken exactly as described on their fleet list rules and may not also be taken as reserves. See the following examples:

An Imperial Navy fleet taken from the Segmentum Solar fleet list can take Space Marine vessels as part of its fleet list, even though Space Marines are technically from another “race”. However, a Gothic Sector fleet list cannot take Space Marine vessels as reserves, even though it can take as reserves other Imperial Navy vessels from the Segmentum Solar fleet list.

The Demiurg and Kroot have specific rules allowing them to be used by various other fleets as allies in the same manner those fleets can take reserves. However, the Tau Kor’vattra fleet list allows a far more liberal use of Demiurg vessels in the fleet. In this case, Demiurg vessels may be taken as provided for in the Tau Kor’vattra fleet list irrespective of limitations that would normally be placed on using reserves.

A given fleet may take ships as reserves from any number of fleet lists that are the same race that allow their vessels to be used as reserves. For example, a Gothic Sector fleet list with six cruisers may take both a grand cruiser from the Imperial Bastions fleet list and a cruiser from the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet list. However, a given fleet list cannot take as reserves ships listed as reserves or allies to another fleet list. For example, a Chaos Repulsive grand cruiser is listed as reserves for the Imperial Bastions fleet list, and the Armageddon Sector fleet list has Space Marine vessels as allies. Because it is listed only as reserves of that list, a Repulsive grand cruiser or Space Marines strike cruiser cannot be taken as a reserve vessel for any other Imperial fleet list. In short, you cannot use a reserve of a reserve. Reserves can only ever be ships belonging to the same "race", chosen from a fleet list of the same "race".

These allowances and restrictions apply for both one-off battles and while earning reinforcements in the course of a campaign. However, ships or special characters added to a fleet list as a special reward or through special scenario or campaign driven circumstances are exempt from meeting fleet prerequisites beforehand. For example, an Imperial fleet is allowed to immediately have a single Space Marine battle barge in its fleet list in the course of a campaign with no fleet prerequisites and regardless of reserves if it expends an appeal roll against the Space Marines table on pg [???] of the rulebook and rolls a 2D6 roll of 2, even if that fleet is not from the Segmentum Solar fleet list.

Allies, Subjects and Mercenaries¶

Some fleet lists have explicit access to ships from other races. The Tau in particular have access to ships from several different races simultaneously. These may only be taken exactly as described on their fleet list rules and may not also be taken as reserves.

Allied and reserve vessels cannot use refits and upgrades from the fleet list they are allied to unless they are of the same race or the rules for that fleet specifically allow it.

Instead of a named reserve fleet listed in the rules of various fleet lists, vessels from certain fleets may elect for whatever reason to form permanent or temporary alliances with other fleets. The outcome of the Gothic War in particular hinged on a hasty, short-lived alliance between the Imperial Navy and the Eldar. Some ships in particular have rules that allow them to ally with any number of fleets or even fleets on both sides of a battle, such as the Demiurg on pg. [???]–[???]. In all cases these follow the standard rules for reserves in that no more than one allied vessel may be taken for every three core vessels in the fleet.

Unless specifically described otherwise in a particular fleet list (such as Demiurg ships in a Tau fleet), the same restrictions that apply to reserves also apply to allies regarding ship types, (escorts, cruisers, battleships, etc.). Finally, this list does not supersede any specific ship or fleet restrictions, such as the Craftworld Eldar having access to the Corsair Eldar fleet list as reserves (and vice versa) only when the fleet is led by an Eldar Hero aboard the Flame of Asuryan, or that three Dark Eldar escorts must be taken in a fleet in order to have one Dark Eldar capital ship. Allied vessels taken in this way cannot be placed in squadrons with vessels in the core fleet unless specifically allowed to in the core fleet’s list, nor can they use the core fleet’s re-rolls unless specifically allowed to.

Just as a fleet can take any number of reserves as long as restrictions are followed concerning the number taken compared to the core fleet list (typically in a ration of no more than one for three unless listed otherwise in a given fleet list), the number of allied vessels the fleet takes is only limited by the rules applied to the allied fleet as long as all other restrictions concerning reserves are also followed.

In addition to these restrictions, no vessel can be allied to a fleet for which it is a natural enemy, nor can it ally itself to a fleet that already contains allies for which it is a natural enemy. In the convoluted universe of Battlefleet Gothic there are many races that are natural enemies of each other. Any fleet that is natural enemies with another given fleet will also not ally with ships allied to that fleet, even if they normally would not be enemies of that fleet. In all cases this is provided only as a guide as opposed to any requirement that such fleets must ally with each other, and it is just as plausible that any one of these will be enemies of and combat any other. It is easier to list enemies than possible allies, but in the end this list is to be treated as a guide for what fleets may ally with each other, detailed as follows:

Allies Matrix¶

(Editor's note: this page in the PDF is empty)