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Although GW “retired” Battlefleet Gothic (and the other “specialist” games) back in 2013, the community has kept it alive and it seems to be as well-played now as it ever was. I think this has a lot to do with the “open source” approach to game development that was trialled for BFG, with a “rules committee” guiding its development both during and after the period it was offically supported, and the vast range of excellent 3D-printed (or printable) miniatures that are available.

This community effort culminated in Battlefleet Gothic: Remastered, assembled by Simon Saier from the offical GW publications and FAQs and errata. BFG:R consists of two high-quality publications: a rulebook and a fleets list, which are all you need to play the game (apart from the usual dice, scenery, and some models).

While the PDFs are of superb quality, they are quite large, over 700 pages in total, and I’ve found that their sheer size causes problems while playing the game:

1. I personally find a physical book easier to use while playing a game, but 700 pages would leave most home printers a smoking ruin, and having them printed commercially would do the same thing to my wallet; and
2. A PDF can be quite difficult to scan through and search on a mobile device like a phone or tablet, when you’re in a rush to check a rule in the middle of a game.

So I decided to “scratch an itch”, and create an online, searchable and easily-navigable version of Battlefleet Gothic: Remastered. It can be found at battlefleet-game.org.

I bought these Star Galleon ships from Vanguard Miniatures ages ago, but didn’t get round to painting them until now.

As I have been working through the various scenarios, campaigns, and fleet lists from the Battlefleet Gothic: Remastered rulebook (about which I will post soon!) I have come across a few scenarios that look fun to play and which require reserves and/or specialist ships. These two will stand in as Inquisitorial cruisers, or maybe Adeptus Custodes cruisers from Battlefleet Indomitus. I love how the design calls back to the original ships from Space Fleet!

Here is the entire, reinforced Battlefleet Vastus, in all its glory.

More pictures below the fold.

Here come the final reinforcements for Battlefleet Vastus, for now at least!

The showstopper is obviously this awesome 3D-printed Emperor-class Battleship, the sister to Invictus. Look at all those launch bays.

She’s not arrived alone, but the rest is below the fold.

Stay tuned, as the ships of Battlefleet Vastus will be sailing en masse very soon!

Here are three new cruisers to reinforce Battlefleet Vastus, along with the escorts in my last post.

I am working on some new ships to reinforce Battlefleet Vastus, and the first to leave drydock are two squadrons of escorts: some Firestorm Rapid Strike Vessels, and some more Cobra Destroyers:

The veterans among my readership may notice that the Firestorms are not the frigates from Battlefleet Gothic released in 1999, but the cruisers of the same name from Space Fleet, the forerunner to BFG, which was released in 1991.

Stand by for more BFG hobby content in the near future!

Towards the end of last year, some of us in the North Kent Legions Imperialis group started talking about Battlefleet Gothic. A few of us had either played it in the past or were interested in starting. And as a result, last night I was able to haul Battlefleet Vastus out of drydock and launch it into the Void to bring the Emperor’s retribution to the filthy Xenos!

I've just finished repainting some of my Imperial Navy fleet for Battlefleet Gothic. The old ships (as you can see) were not painted in a consistent colour scheme, so I decided to strip them off and repaint them.

About half of the original fleet remains unpainted. I think that I will turn them into a Rogue Trader fleet: I have some old Space Fleet ships which are quite characterful and would work well in that faction.

One innovation in my painting technique for these ships was the use of Sharpies metallic pens to do a lot of the metal. It's much faster and easier than brushing on paint, and the finish is perfect. I recommend investing in some!

More pics below the fold!

You may recall that last year I painted a Cairn-class Tomb Ship, which inspired my to repaint the other ships in my fleet. Well, there they all are!

The colour scheme is based on the same bronze and gold scheme I’ve used on my Epic- and 40K-scale Necrons, so there is consistency across all three games.

More pics below.

I picked this model up for a (relative) song on eBay. A couple of days ago I had a catch-up session with the airbush, to prime a bunch of models that had been sitting there waiting to be painted, and the Cairn was one of them.

I have been thinking about repainting my BFG Necron fleet, which currently has a rather uninspiring paint job, so I tried out a new colour scheme on this model. The scheme is based on the same bronze and gold scheme I've used on my Epic- and 40K-scale Necrons, so there is consistency across all three games.

More pics below!

This week, the news that Games Workshop is shutting down Specialist Games has been all over the Web, Facebook and Twitter. SG has been withering on the vine for about ten years, and its death was on the cards the moment that Finecast was launched, heralding the inevitable abandonment of metal miniatures. It's no surprise to me that GW decided to put it out of its misery.

But here's the thing. Despite GW officially abandoning Epic: Armageddon, Battlefleet Gothic, and the other SG names, they're not really dead. They will never be dead if the community of gamers and hobbyists continues to play games, develop rules, build and paint miniatures, and share their hobby online.

Now is the time for the various communities that have developed around these games to take ownership of them and carry them forward. This has already happened with Epic: Armageddon: the playtesting groups that helped Jervis Johnson develop the game never went away, and now after over a decade, those people are still developing new and improved rules and army lists for the game, following the same path as the original NetEpic team did. They took what GW abandoned, and are giving it new life. This should absolutely be happening with the other SG games.

Rules are only part of the picture. Obviously there are models as well. Apart from eBay, which will probably provide plentiful supplies of second-hand miniatures for all the Specialist games for decades to come, players of the 28mm based games (Necromunda and Mordheim) can make use of miniatures from Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer: it's a great opportunity to customise and convert. There is already a thriving Inq28 community of gamers who play Inquisitor using 28mm miniatures: some of the conversion work I've seen is amazing!

For Epic, BFG and Warmaster, the solution is to look for proxies: miniatures from other games and manufacturers that look similar to the "official" models. And for those who like taking risks, you can expect there to be a thriving black market in 6mm scale versions of 40K models, and re-worked variants of the old BFG ship range: if you know where to look, you can get what you need (note: I do not condone such activity, as it is clearly illegal, but I won't deny that it doesn't happen).

So you see: although Specialist Games (the GW division) may now be dead, the Specialist Games themselves can, should, and very likely will, live on.

Just what are the Demiurg? They've been part of Warhammer 40,000 canon since the release of Battlefleet Gothic back in 1999. Some have seen them as an attempt to re-introduce the Space Dwarf archetype after the unfortunate fate which befell the Squats. Others have noted the similarities between the Demiurg and the Bentusi race from the Homeworld series (NB, save Homeworld!).

Anyway, while there are rumours about the Demiurg making an appearance when the Tau codex is revised, you can play as Demiurg in Battlefleet Gothic. There are two ship types that are available from Forgeworld: the massive Stronghold ship, and the smaller Bastion cruiser.

Several years ago I bought four of these smaller ships with the intention of giving them to a friend as a christmas present. Shamefully, they've languished in the queue since then. But now I've finally finished them!



The paint job is very simple: Army Painter Uniform grey, washed with a 50/50 mix of Badab Black and water, then drybrushed with Coat d'Arms Slate Grey, and finally Citadel Rakarth Flesh. These models are a dry-brusher's wet dream. I picked out some of the surface detail using Tin Bitz or Gunmetal, which I then washed with Devlan Mud.

Wow, three posts in one day!

Here are some Falchion class escort ships. I've been thinking about repainting my BFG Imperial Navy fleet, as each squadron has been painted with a different colour scheme which doesn't really make sense. I decided to go for a fairly simple style and a more realistic look (the idea of painting billions of litres of paint onto the outside of a ship which no-one will ever see doesn't make much sense to me). This is just Army Painter grey primer covered in a watered down mix of Badab Black and Devlan Mud, drybrushed with codex and fortress grey.

I haven't had a chance to play Battlefleet Gothic for a couple of years: I used to have a nice black gaming board (painted with scratch resistant floor paint) but I had to jettison it when I had my basement refurbished.

When you are short of space to store rigid gaming boards, mats are a great solution. They can be rolled or folded and take up very little space when stored. And there are some great manufacturers out there: Zuzzy textured rubber mats are pretty awesome, but there's also Eric Hotz's felt mats and those of TerrainMat.com.

A few days ago I bit the bullet and decided to buy a gaming mat: I miss playing BFG and want to get back into it! As it turned out, the Hotz Deep Space Mat which most closely fits the size of my kitchen table was very affordable, and shipping was good too. The only downside was the five week waiting time. So I was very pleasantly surprised when my mat turned up this week!

The mat is really nice: the colours are sharp and the felt is a nice deep black, which is important to properly convey just how black space really is. The only quibble I have is that the stars are quite big blobs, but this is really a very minor thing. Here are some pictures of the mat, laid out on the floor of my basement:

This inspired me to get my old Imperial Navy fleet out for a dust-off: I finished it some time around 2000 and I'm still quite pleased with it. Here are some photos:





















Painting BFG ships is pleasingly simple: black undercoat and lots of drybrushing! Simple but really effective, and very rewarding to do. The miniatures themselves are absolutely gorgeous. And the fact that you can create quite a large fleet but still only have to paint a dozen or so models is a big plus for a time starved gamer like me.

You'll see some planets above - the big ones I bought from an anonymous vendor at Salute 2009. The smaller moon is one of my own creations: basically just a styrofoam ball from a craft shop, painted with textured paint and washed with red and brown.

I also have a small Necron fleet and some static defence stations, but they can wait for another post :-)