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| Battlefleet Gothic Eldar Nightshade |
The above picture is a Battlefleet Gothic Eldar Nightshade. Man, I just love the look. It reminds me a lot of the Babylon 5 Minbari Sharlin War Cruiser, as do all of the BFG Eldar. I've decided, as part of a this Apoc-Eclipse scenario, I'm bringing an Eldar space ship.
Obviously it won't be a true Nightshade, since the BFG-to-40k scale would make it about the size of a shopping mall, but it will be based on that hull design. The thought is that it will be the Eldar equivalent of a PT boat (patrol-torpedo), manned by 50-200 Eldar and captained by Prince Yriel. (He was on an inspection visit when the call to arms went out.) They managed to break through the orbital blockade and are taking the fight to the ground forces.
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| Eldar Spacecraft/Table |
The rectangular area under the hull is an 8' plastic banquet table, to give you a sense of scale. The main parts of interest are:
- Bridge. There will be full access to the bridge. It will be modeled and will hopefully be a fun place to battle.
- Torpedo tubes. The basic profile of these will be the Deathstrike Missile (non-Apoc version) with a bigger blast template. The Eldar player places a marker on the main table where the torpedo will land next turnso the enemy has a movement phase to get out of the way.
- Main gun. Something extremely nasty.
- Engine parts.
- Nova Prism Cannon (see Star Dragon).
- Pulsar Inteceptors. Normal Pulsar mode or Heavy 2, AA, Interceptor.
The expectation is that this will be a full-on model on the next battle field. If you can shoot it, you can shoot it. The craft will have a pre-set flight path; where it will be on which turn. Flyers will be able to engage it. Hover-mode flyers will be able to land on it. Teleporters will not unless there is some technique that will allow them to be more accurate (Chaos Icon, Teleport Homer, etc.). There will be transit via wraithgates to and from the surface. You won't be able to remove all of the structure points, but you will be able to take out the engines, weapons, or C&C. I hope it'll be a blast.
Eldar Fusion Torpedo:
- S8, AP1, Heavy (1), Ordinance (15"), Mega Melta, Incoming, Large Targeting, Interception
- Yes, I have a 15" template. Contact me if you want one too!
- Mega Melta: 8+3D6 under the center hole. 8+2D6 under the rest of the template.
- Incomming: The fusion torpedo has a range of thousands of kilometers and cannot get up to maximum speed on a 40k battlefield. At this range, it is obvious where it will strike and the enemy can potentially move out of the way. During deployment and at the end of the Eldar shooting phase, place a marker for every functioning torpedo tube in arc. The shot is resolved at the start of the next Eldar shooting phase, scattering 4D6-4".
- Large Targeting: The torpedoes are designed to be shot at space craft, and as such the auto-target systems work best when aimed at a large vehicle. If the marker is placed on a super-heavy vehicle roll a D6. If the result is less than or equal to the starting number of structure points when resolving the hit the torpedo scatters 2D6-4", centered on the current position of the vehicle.
- Interception: The torpedo marker may be shot at as if it were a Deep Striking unit using the normal Interception rules. It is counted as a Flyer with Toughness 8, 3 wounds, and an armour save of 2+. If the torpedo is 'killed', the marker is removed.
The following picture shows a basic idea of the table layout and where the Nightshade will be during each turn. I've also shown the Nightshade's weapon arcs. The enemy will have 4 turns to damage as many systems on the Nightshade as possible. It won't be until turn 3 that all of the weapons will be in arc, so they really only have 2 shots with the biggest gun. On turn 5, if the fortress is not destroyed and the Nightshade is still mobile, the Nightshade will crash into the fortress.
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| Main table and the location of the spacecraft on each turn. |
This is assuming, of course, that we get a play space big enough to fit all of that.
The real trick is going to be to make the Nightshade's engines tough enough that the enemy cannot just Deep Strike a couple dozen Terminators onto it and swat it out of the sky. It should be possible, though. It should also be possible to accomplish most of the victory conditions from the battlefield.
Date:
Third quarter 2012.
Rules:
We will use our Apoc-Eclipse House Rules.