The only issue with this theory is the time scales involved in many of the "Chaos" ships. The Imperium was making and using the Murder and Devastation Classes until M37, the Acheron was supposedly a unique ship, and the fact that the Styx was commonly used in M32 / M33 implies some means to at least maintain the ships. This is why I prefer the explanation of changing doctrines over lost technologies. Over time, the Imperium came to value frontal assault tactics. Torpedoes and a ramming prow add considerable tonnage to the vessel, resulting in the loss of speed. This also means that they had to sacrifice broadside firepower, resulting in the long range guns and heavy Lances being replaced with shorter guns. Once this doctrine kicks in, the Imperial trend towards standardisation encouraged Forgeworlds to favour the newer style of ships, and so the "Chaos" models dwindled away. Another possible explanation - Chaos designs are Terran / Saturnine ships, Imperial are Martian. The Mechanicus fleet uses similar elements of the Imperial ships, and as the Mechanicus gained near absolute monopoly over Imperial technology after the Heresy, it makes sense that they would slowly phase out the designs that weren't a product of their own Forges. They still used the "foreign" designs, because AdMech don't throw anything away, but nepotism and a belief in Martian supremacy eventually won out.
This works especialy well if you look at the despoiler class which was a post heresy imperial design. Made by the part of the navy which prefered strike craft over firepower in the end the fire power supporters would win and the remaining despoiler would leave into the service of chaos.
I like this explanation too, I based my explanation on a cross between the 30k artwork and old BFG fluff. The problem with the BFG fluff is that it says that many of these vessels came into being the mid 30's. So many of the designs are thus new. I like to think that the Chaos designs are the divergent ones, still resembling the older style and that tech, just built and refined with their new mission profile in mind. The Imperial tech is the counterpoint, trying to emulate the older style but without the tech and forced down a new path by superstition, doctrine and a lack of essential knowledge.
@@TheOuterCircle Doing a bit more digging into this idea, I've come across a few interesting points. Apologies in advance for the wall of text. The Retribution Battleships that fought in the Gothic War are believed to be from the founding of the Imperium, and "The traditional armoured prow and multiple-tube plasma engines mark them as products of the Martian shipyards." So now we have a connection between Mars and ramming prows. The Emperor Class predates the Imperium - Horus Heresy et al. It's design - heavy Carrier focus, lack of armoured prow, and massed, turreted batteries on the dorsal / prow mounts - are all more indicative of a Chaos ship than Imperial. However, the physical hull is an Imperial one. This might be a sign she's a "missing link" vessel like the Vengeance Class Grand Cruiser; a product of a time when ship design hadn't quite diverged properly. The fact the engines are god-awful even by Imperial standards supports this being a common ancestor, as both branches of ship design significantly improved their engines compared to the Emperor Class, even on vessels that are themselves ancient (Retribution and Desolator). It's also worth noting that at least one ship - the Legio Stygies - was canonically laid down in M30, but wasn't finished until M32. So we know that Forgeworlds were building Imperial hulls during, or even before the Great Crusade. It was also finished around the time the Styx was in widespread use, meaning the idea of a divergent doctrine still holds; the Legio Stygies may have begun life as a completely different ship, perhaps a Retribution, or even a ship for the Martian fleets, but when it was eventually completed the ship was outfitted for the carrier - long-range fire support duties common to the Navy of the period. Another interesting point is that the Overlord is "based upon" the Acheron. This raises a lot of questions because the two ships have absolutely nothing in common on the surface: the Acheron has a weak, but extreme-range lance broadside, mid-range dorsal lance turrets, and a mid-range forward battery "turret" on the prow. The Overlord, by contrast, has an extreme range battery broadside, extreme range lances, and the Imperial torpedo prow. However, there's a few interesting points in its lore entry... First, the only reason the Overlord has a torpedo prow at all is because of "difficulties in power transmission", which meant they couldn't get the forward batteries to function properly. However, removing them let the ship have a more powerful dorsal lance deck. So this does support your theory about power being an issue that leads to Imperial ship design - only it's not lance power specifically. The Overlord is specifically armed with "long range laser batteries" for its broadside, and they deliberately used the recovered power to increase lance range, not to put more lances on her. All of this is starting to point to an interesting possibility; the problem lies in moving power through the ship itself. Presumably, the reactors are all in the aft of the ship as that is the largest chunk of either ship's design, as well as being the most protected from attack. It would seem that what's truly holding the Imperials back is an inability to get that produced power to the front of the ship, which is why they have shifted to low-power options. And as a final point in support of this idea, let us look at the Martian ships. They do seem to be narrower at the aft than Imperial vessels, albeit with more / larger "wings" - already speculated to be a cooling system or point defense apparatus. However, they also have a more armoured midsection, and what sits on top of that? A lance turret. An extreme range lance turret - a true power hog of a weapon! Every single Mechanicus cruiser has that, and even the Light Cruisers use this armoured section to house additional point-defense turrets. Thus, two theories emerge; there is a fundamental design flaw in Martian style ships that required the adoption of a ramming prow and the slab-sided weapon systems (fewer, larger guns = less moving parts = less power draw). The Mechancius recognised this and fixed it in their own ships by elongating the hull and moving some of the power systems to the armoured mid-ship. They never changed the Imperial designs because, well, why would they? Mars is already known for saving the best stuff for themselves, and we know not all Imperial ships comes from Forgeworlds, so to protect their power (both political and military), the Mechanicus have never allowed the "fixed" designs to reach wider circulation. They continued to experiment with "flat top" ship designs well into the 37th millennium, using them to test bed new design concepts and engineering techniques because they considered those designs less worthy than the Imperial vessels that more closely resembled the "correct", Martian way of doing things. However, as time went on and Martian ship design deviated more and more from the ugly, flat-headed wrongness of "Chaos" designs, the Forgeworlds eventually gave up altogether and stopped making ships that way. Some designs were reworked to fit with "proper" ship hull configurations, while others vanished altogether, the secrets of their construction deliberately quashed to ensure that the only ships Mankind possessed were those of pure Martian heritage. This makes an oddly satisfying amount of sense to me. I'd be curious as to what you think. :)
Joe Vines for the first question there are some but they are extremely rare. For example take thethe Desolater battleship only two or three are left in the whole imperial Navy. And as for the elongated power packs that was ether A: probably the design of the Crusade/Heresy era Power armor or was a result of Chaos corruption warping their armor as marines spent longer in the eye of the terror exposed to the raw powers of the warp.
So i have a couple of questions about Battlefleet gothic and the heresy. 1, what classes was active during the heresy? Can the traitors for example have space marine strike cruisers or emperor class battleships? 2, there were rumors a year ago that forge world would bring back Battlefleet gothic, anyone heard any news about that? 3, Any one know where to find less expensive ships? Ebay and shapeways are still to expensive for me (100 + euro for one ship is to much.).
1 : I don't know sorry 2 : They will definitly bring it back, but nobody know when unfortunatly... 3 : The best way is to buy alternative models. Vanguard miniatures has a bunch of gothic starships that looks like BFG ships. vanguardminiatures.co.uk/product-category/battlegroup-helios/gothic-starships/
They tried to show the ship styles evolving and changing over time with the Vengeance grand cruiser. It was like a big blocky ghetto attempt at the higher quality older heresy designs, and you could see elements of the current Imperial designs.
The only issue with this theory is the time scales involved in many of the "Chaos" ships. The Imperium was making and using the Murder and Devastation Classes until M37, the Acheron was supposedly a unique ship, and the fact that the Styx was commonly used in M32 / M33 implies some means to at least maintain the ships.
This is why I prefer the explanation of changing doctrines over lost technologies.
Over time, the Imperium came to value frontal assault tactics. Torpedoes and a ramming prow add considerable tonnage to the vessel, resulting in the loss of speed. This also means that they had to sacrifice broadside firepower, resulting in the long range guns and heavy Lances being replaced with shorter guns.
Once this doctrine kicks in, the Imperial trend towards standardisation encouraged Forgeworlds to favour the newer style of ships, and so the "Chaos" models dwindled away.
Another possible explanation - Chaos designs are Terran / Saturnine ships, Imperial are Martian. The Mechanicus fleet uses similar elements of the Imperial ships, and as the Mechanicus gained near absolute monopoly over Imperial technology after the Heresy, it makes sense that they would slowly phase out the designs that weren't a product of their own Forges. They still used the "foreign" designs, because AdMech don't throw anything away, but nepotism and a belief in Martian supremacy eventually won out.
This works especialy well if you look at the despoiler class which was a post heresy imperial design. Made by the part of the navy which prefered strike craft over firepower in the end the fire power supporters would win and the remaining despoiler would leave into the service of chaos.
I like this explanation too, I based my explanation on a cross between the 30k artwork and old BFG fluff.
The problem with the BFG fluff is that it says that many of these vessels came into being the mid 30's. So many of the designs are thus new. I like to think that the Chaos designs are the divergent ones, still resembling the older style and that tech, just built and refined with their new mission profile in mind.
The Imperial tech is the counterpoint, trying to emulate the older style but without the tech and forced down a new path by superstition, doctrine and a lack of essential knowledge.
@@TheOuterCircle Doing a bit more digging into this idea, I've come across a few interesting points. Apologies in advance for the wall of text.
The Retribution Battleships that fought in the Gothic War are believed to be from the founding of the Imperium, and "The traditional armoured prow and multiple-tube plasma engines mark them as products of the Martian shipyards." So now we have a connection between Mars and ramming prows.
The Emperor Class predates the Imperium - Horus Heresy et al. It's design - heavy Carrier focus, lack of armoured prow, and massed, turreted batteries on the dorsal / prow mounts - are all more indicative of a Chaos ship than Imperial. However, the physical hull is an Imperial one. This might be a sign she's a "missing link" vessel like the Vengeance Class Grand Cruiser; a product of a time when ship design hadn't quite diverged properly. The fact the engines are god-awful even by Imperial standards supports this being a common ancestor, as both branches of ship design significantly improved their engines compared to the Emperor Class, even on vessels that are themselves ancient (Retribution and Desolator).
It's also worth noting that at least one ship - the Legio Stygies - was canonically laid down in M30, but wasn't finished until M32. So we know that Forgeworlds were building Imperial hulls during, or even before the Great Crusade. It was also finished around the time the Styx was in widespread use, meaning the idea of a divergent doctrine still holds; the Legio Stygies may have begun life as a completely different ship, perhaps a Retribution, or even a ship for the Martian fleets, but when it was eventually completed the ship was outfitted for the carrier - long-range fire support duties common to the Navy of the period.
Another interesting point is that the Overlord is "based upon" the Acheron. This raises a lot of questions because the two ships have absolutely nothing in common on the surface: the Acheron has a weak, but extreme-range lance broadside, mid-range dorsal lance turrets, and a mid-range forward battery "turret" on the prow. The Overlord, by contrast, has an extreme range battery broadside, extreme range lances, and the Imperial torpedo prow. However, there's a few interesting points in its lore entry...
First, the only reason the Overlord has a torpedo prow at all is because of "difficulties in power transmission", which meant they couldn't get the forward batteries to function properly. However, removing them let the ship have a more powerful dorsal lance deck. So this does support your theory about power being an issue that leads to Imperial ship design - only it's not lance power specifically. The Overlord is specifically armed with "long range laser batteries" for its broadside, and they deliberately used the recovered power to increase lance range, not to put more lances on her.
All of this is starting to point to an interesting possibility; the problem lies in moving power through the ship itself. Presumably, the reactors are all in the aft of the ship as that is the largest chunk of either ship's design, as well as being the most protected from attack. It would seem that what's truly holding the Imperials back is an inability to get that produced power to the front of the ship, which is why they have shifted to low-power options.
And as a final point in support of this idea, let us look at the Martian ships. They do seem to be narrower at the aft than Imperial vessels, albeit with more / larger "wings" - already speculated to be a cooling system or point defense apparatus. However, they also have a more armoured midsection, and what sits on top of that? A lance turret. An extreme range lance turret - a true power hog of a weapon! Every single Mechanicus cruiser has that, and even the Light Cruisers use this armoured section to house additional point-defense turrets.
Thus, two theories emerge; there is a fundamental design flaw in Martian style ships that required the adoption of a ramming prow and the slab-sided weapon systems (fewer, larger guns = less moving parts = less power draw). The Mechancius recognised this and fixed it in their own ships by elongating the hull and moving some of the power systems to the armoured mid-ship. They never changed the Imperial designs because, well, why would they? Mars is already known for saving the best stuff for themselves, and we know not all Imperial ships comes from Forgeworlds, so to protect their power (both political and military), the Mechanicus have never allowed the "fixed" designs to reach wider circulation.
They continued to experiment with "flat top" ship designs well into the 37th millennium, using them to test bed new design concepts and engineering techniques because they considered those designs less worthy than the Imperial vessels that more closely resembled the "correct", Martian way of doing things. However, as time went on and Martian ship design deviated more and more from the ugly, flat-headed wrongness of "Chaos" designs, the Forgeworlds eventually gave up altogether and stopped making ships that way. Some designs were reworked to fit with "proper" ship hull configurations, while others vanished altogether, the secrets of their construction deliberately quashed to ensure that the only ships Mankind possessed were those of pure Martian heritage.
This makes an oddly satisfying amount of sense to me. I'd be curious as to what you think. :)
Thank you. This all makes sense and answers the question rattling my brain since the first game
Please do more videos exactly like this one
I just want to say I agree with BFG being one of the best games GW ever made. That and Necromunda (original and 1.5 - haven't tried the new one).
Panzergraf Modern Necromunda is not the same as the original unfortunately :(
Question: does anyone have a link or know of anyone kitbashing their own Imperial Battleships? Would love to see some images.
Doubleheaded Eagle Not sure if this is helpful, but Shapeways.com might be helpful.
Henry the 9th Wow checked it out, never thought about 3D printing. Thanks dude.
Are there pre heresy "pointy" ships still in use within the imperium? And also why do chaos marines tend to have elongated vents on their power packs?
Joe Vines for the first question there are some but they are extremely rare. For example take thethe Desolater battleship only two or three are left in the whole imperial Navy. And as for the elongated power packs that was ether A: probably the design of the Crusade/Heresy era Power armor or was a result of Chaos corruption warping their armor as marines spent longer in the eye of the terror exposed to the raw powers of the warp.
Great Vid! Anyone know the 3d software being used here?
So i have a couple of questions about Battlefleet gothic and the heresy.
1, what classes was active during the heresy? Can the traitors for example have space marine strike cruisers or emperor class battleships?
2, there were rumors a year ago that forge world would bring back Battlefleet gothic, anyone heard any news about that?
3, Any one know where to find less expensive ships? Ebay and shapeways are still to expensive for me (100 + euro for one ship is to much.).
1 : I don't know sorry
2 : They will definitly bring it back, but nobody know when unfortunatly...
3 : The best way is to buy alternative models. Vanguard miniatures has a bunch of gothic starships that looks like BFG ships. vanguardminiatures.co.uk/product-category/battlegroup-helios/gothic-starships/
I'm quite liking your Battlefleet Gothic videos. Let's hope GW will do a re-release at some point!
Will you share these 3D files on thingiverse?
They tried to show the ship styles evolving and changing over time with the Vengeance grand cruiser. It was like a big blocky ghetto attempt at the higher quality older heresy designs, and you could see elements of the current Imperial designs.
I wish my computer is good enough to play battlefleet gothic armada now
I prefer Dropfleet