Squadrons¶
Small ships, such as escorts, stand little chance of damaging larger ships on their own, so they are normally grouped into squadrons. A squadron will manoeuvre closely together and mass its weaponry to attack more effectively. Although cruisers and battleships normally operate alone, they can also be grouped into squadrons for a major battle, where their awesome firepower can be put to good effect.
Squadrons may have all sorts of different names, such as formations, flotillas, packs, groups or forces, but they all work in the same way.
Squadron Command Checks¶
Using squadrons enables the Admiral of the Fleet to give orders to groups of ships at the same time, instead of having to relay orders to each ship in his fleet individually. In Battlefleet Gothic this translates into the highly desirable advantage of only having to make a single Leadership test to place a whole squadron on special orders. Also, if the squadron is made up of capital ships with different Leadership values, the highest surviving Leadership value in the squadron is used for taking Command checks. Remember, in the case of escorts each squadron has a single Leadership value.
Normal Command check modifiers for enemy contacts and for being under fire apply to squadrons, even if only some of the ships in a squadron have Blast Markers in base contact.
Vessels in a squadron are all equally affected by special orders taken by any one ship in the squadron.
For instance, when on All Ahead Full, only one roll is made to determine additional move distance for all the vessels in the squadron. As is true for individual ships, squadrons can only undergo one special order per turn (including Brace For Impact!, which replaces any special order currently in effect). All ships in a squadron are affected by Brace For Impact!, not merely the ship actually taking fire. This includes capital ship squadrons!
Squadron Composition¶
Capital ship squadrons must be deployed and declared as such before the start of the game. Escort squadrons are selected as squadrons from the fleet list at the time you pick your forces. Unless described otherwise in its fleet list, an escort squadron can contain up to six ships. The ships in a squadron can be of different classes as long as they are all of the same type. For example, you could form an escort squadron of three Cobra class destroyers and three Firestorm class frigates. In practice, it’s generally a good idea to form squadrons from ships of the same class because it makes manoeuvring and choosing special orders easier – but it’s all a matter of taste.
Squadron Formation¶
To count as being part of a squadron, ships must remain close to at least one other vessel from the same squadron during the battle. Each ship must be no more than 15 cm from another ship in the squadron so that the whole squadron forms a continuous chain with ‘links’ of up to 15 cm between each ship.
Note that as the ships above are all within 15 cm of another ship in the squadron, they are all in formation.
Sometimes ships will drop out of formation due to bad manoeuvring, ships being destroyed, etc. If a ship drops out of formation it no longer counts as part of the squadron until it moves back to within 15 cm of another ship in the squadron. A ship which is out of formation must be moved back into formation as soon as possible, and it may not use special orders the squadron uses until it has done so.
Manoeuvring Squadrons¶
Individual ships within a squadron can manoeuvre freely within the standard movement rules, as long as they stay in formation. If any ship in an escort squadron moves off the table edge, the entire squadron must immediately and in subsequent turns only attempt to disengage.
In the example above, the escorts in the squadron have manoeuvred individually so that two have made a turn to starboard while the other two have continued moving straight ahead. Note that they are still in formation at the end of their move.
Shooting at Squadrons¶
When a squadron is targeted it is quite likely that some of its vessels will present different target aspects to the attacker. For example, some ships in the squadron may be closing targets while others are abeam.
In this case, the attacker can select which category of targets to go after but he cannot score hits on anything that is harder to target than the category he chose. For example, if a squadron has two ships closing and two abeam and the attacker fires at them as if they were all closing targets he can only score hits on the two closing ships.
The only way to shoot at a more distant member of a squadron is with gunnery weapons if the ship has more left modifiers on the gunnery table; or has weaker armour where only the hits that could not hurt the closest target hit it. If because of weaker armour, armour ignoring weapons cannot exploit this rule.
Allocating Hits against Squadrons¶
When a squadron is fired upon, any hits scored are allocated to the nearest eligible ship in the squadron until it is destroyed, then the next nearest eligible ship takes the remaining hits and so on. This only applies to shooting and does not apply to ordnance attacks, boarding actions, etc.
A leadership test cannot be taken to pick out individual ships within a squadron. This does not apply to ordnance attacks.
Hits taken by a squadron are only distributed among the vessels that actually took fire (such as in range and fire arc), regardless of how many hits the squadron actually took, though it affects ALL escorts within range and fire arc. This also applies to hits taken by an escort squadron negotiating an asteroid field, as well as hits delivered by ordnance or Nova Cannon, as those hits (regardless of how many) affect only the vessels directly contacted by the ordnance markers or Nova Cannon blast template. For example, if an escort squadron takes a total of ten hits from gunnery fire but only three escorts were actually in range and fire arc, no more than three escorts can be destroyed.
In the example above, the Chaos cruiser Unclean targets an Imperial frigate squadron and scores 3 hits. The first hit knocks down the shield of the nearest frigate within the Unclean’s fire arc and the second hit destroys it. The third hit is taken on the next nearest frigate, knocking down its shield. Note that there is a frigate closer to the Unclean than the one which was destroyed but it is out of the Unclean’s fire arc and so cannot be hit.
Different Armour values¶
A mixed squadron of ships may include vessels with different armour values, or armour may vary because the ships have differing values on their front and sides. When attacking a squadron with a mix of armour values find out what the lowest armour is before rolling the dice. Any dice which equal or beat the lowest armour in the squadron will score hits: allocate the dice one at a time, starting with the lowest rolls against the nearest targets they can affect and work your way up.
In this example, the Unclean is firing on a mixed squadron including a Sword class frigate and a Cobra class destroyer.
Rolling three dice, it scores a 4, 5 and 6. The 4 is good enough to hit the Cobra and is allocated to it, the 5 and 6 can hit the Sword and both are allocated to that ship as it is a closer target.
Capital Ship Squadrons¶
Capital ships in a squadron that are being fired upon to the point that one of the capital ships is destroyed must roll for and apply all critical damage before counting as destroyed. The easiest way to avoid confusion is to roll each D6 critical roll separately while recording damage.
For example, if a squadron of three Dauntless light cruisers is fired upon by a squadron of three Carnage cruisers and takes a total of 13 hits, all critical damage rolls must be made for the first Dauntless before declaring it destroyed. This means if while applying hits one at a time and the first Dauntless rolls a Thrusters Damaged (+1HP) and Engine Room Damaged (+1HP) criticals in the process of being destroyed, there remains a total eight remaining hits to be applied to the next closest Dauntless light cruiser, with shields, Blast Markers, etc. still taking effect normally, for a total of seven HP damage to the second Dauntless, against which it rolls a D6 to check for critical damage while applying hits one at a time (after the shield hit). This means at least one hit would pass to the third Dauntless even if the second rolled no critical damage.
This rule in particular applies to squadrons of ships that do not count critical damage normally and instead take an additional 1HP of damage, such as Ork Roks or Kroot Warspheres.
If a capital ship squadron disengages in its entirety, each capital ship calculates its percentage destroyed for victory points separately and not in the same manner as escorts.
Shooting by Squadrons¶
As mentioned earlier, squadrons combine their firing together.
Escort squadrons have their total firepower added up and halved (rounding up) when on special orders that affect weapons strength/ firepower. Capital ships have their firepower/ strength halved individually (rounding up), even if in a squadron. Escort squadrons do not have their weapon strength halved solely because the squadron is crippled (reduced to half its starting number).
When a squadron shoots, it is subject to the normal rules and restrictions for a single ship. So, for example, if a squadron wants to fire at a target other than its closest enemy it must pass a Leadership test to do so. Any ships in the squadron out of range or fire arc of the squadron’s primary target may fire on another enemy.
Firing Weapons Batteries¶
Squadrons firing weapons batteries normally add their firepower together before working out how many dice they roll on the Gunnery chart. However, squadrons firing weapons batteries can throw up a few problems because ships may be in a position to fire at the target ship from different aspects, ranges, etc. Where this occurs calculate the ships’ firepower individually.
When calculating the ships’ firepower individually, this only applies to ships firing at different firing arcs. To clarify the example, if a squadron of five Sword frigates are firing on a cruiser where two are in its rear arc and three are in its beam arc, the two escorts behind it would calculate their firepower together as Moving Away, and the three on the ship’s beam would calculate their firepower together as Abeam. Then these two sums are added together before making the dice roll.
Launching Ordnance¶
Ships in a squadron launch ordnance individually unless they are in base-to-base contact. Any ships in base-to-base contact with other ships from the squadron can opt to combine their ordnance together into a bigger attack craft wave or torpedo salvo.
When launching a combined salvo from a squadron the salvo must be in ALL of the ships appropriate firing arcs and its furthermost edge at the limit of its speed from the furthest ship’s stem. All the ships firing a combined salvo must be in base to base contact. Note that some ships (such as Ork Ravagers) cannot for any reason combine salvoes in this manner.
Measure the distance travelled by a combined ordnance attack from the ship furthest from the torpedo's final position, to ensure that it doesn’t get a free speed boost due to being part of a combined force.
