Assault Rams are void attack craft, intended to participate in close-range space boarding actions, that can also act as drop-assault vessels for direct orbital attack. There are many patterns of Assault Ram in use across the Imperium, but among the Space Marine Chapters, the multi-role Caestus is the most commonplace. Smaller than either the Thunderhawk Gunship or the Shark-class Boarding Torpedo, the patterns’ chief advantage is its speed and phenomenal durability which make it a highly resilient assault craft, even in the most fire-swept landing zones. Compact and heavily armoured, the Caestus Assault Ram is designed to survive direct collision with an enemy, leaving only ruin in its wake.

New Forge World model!
So the Space Marines have Assault Boats now? Nifty option for them I guess if your looking for 30cm speed AC.

Well that's for the Epic discussion. I'm in the BFG side of things and how this will play into OUR game

Frankly, I don't see how these things could possibly play any differently than T-hawks, which already double as both fighters and ACs. The ram is too small to be a straight AC, based on the relative size of the shark compared to the T-hawk, and of the T-hawk compared to the Caestus. Plus, their use as drop pods would already be taken into account in the same way drop pods themselves are accounted for.

Maybe they could act like boarding torpedoes, but with the ability to turn 90 deg instead of the basic 45 deg.

Well looking at it is seems to be about half the size of a FW T'Hawk. And not too much smaller than the FW Dreadclaw. Now let's think about this, the T'Hawk is given it's save role in combat because it's so hard to kill due to size. So the Caestus is probably about the same size as a typical A Boat. I think this would allow the SM a 30cm A Boat as well as the 20cm T'Hawk.

But at just 25% of the troop capacity, so you would need far more of them per salvo.

Certainly the closest comparitive in-game unit - same carrying capacity and equivalent boarding and drop pod capability.

Except assault boats are bigger than T-hawks; T-hawks get their save because they are smaller, more maneuverable, and sturdier, therefore making them harder to hit. They don't get their save because they are bigger than assault boats, which means that the Caestus would be even smaller still.

I still suggest making them boarding torpedoes with a special ability, maybe a save, or maybe a better turn as I said before. Otherwise, they'd act just like dreadclaws or T-hawks.

I have always imagined that the Thawk when used in BFG as an assault craft actualy only has at most 5 marines and then a bunch of chapter serfs aboard. Anything else would be too much of a risk and a drain on the drop strength, not to mention the ability to launch further waves (I imagine a strike cruiser has 8 or so hawks aboard, enough for 2-3 waves of thawks, one launching empty to cover another with troops aboard). In 40k that number of troops would easily be able to ramgape through a cruiser to a surface target like a weapons battery given the defenders being unarmoured and armed at best with shotguns. The biggest problem would be bulkheads!

Actually, if you buy the Codex numbers, a Strike Cruiser has like four T-Hawks aboard, tops. There's like twenty in a Chapter. Apparently.

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Um, Sema, the Dreadclaw is the standard sized A Boat. Not sure the dimensions for an Imperial Shark are but in BFG the Shark and Dreadclaw play identically. So if the Dreadclaw and Caestus have the same size and transport ability, I don't think it's unreasonable to give the SM a 30cm A Boat option for thier launch bays.

However, if the statement about only four T'Hawks are true, than each "squadron" of T'Hawks deployed from the SM vessels could actually be a combination of T'Hawks (giving the fighter cover) and Caestus (giving the AB ability) in the same marker. In this case, no rules changes are needed.

-Zhukov

I have several problems with just making the Caestus a straight-up A-boat:

First, in-game, I don't think the SMs should have access to both 20cm fighter/A-boats and 30cm A-boats.

Second, there is the matter of realtive abilities of the various A-boat types.

Dreadclaws are really just fancy drop pods with a capacity of 10 chaos marines (which means maybe 15 normal humans could fit). It makes up for its size by being able to cut through any part of the ship's hull and drop off ten crazy CSMs.

The T-hawk, which is bigger, can carry 30 marines in 40k (or 40 in E:A). The T-hawk is awesome because it is heavily armored and very maneuverable and can drop off its passengers even under heavy fire. The T-hawk also carries heavy guns and can act as an aircraft (in both 40k and Epic) - things the dreadclaw (and presumably the shark) lack , which is why a T-hawk can act as a fighter in BFG.

Now, the Caestus has the capacity and ability to punch through any part of a ship, like the dreadclaw. So I concede that, by that comparisson, it ought to be able to act like an A-boat. But making it faster or giving it greater range than the T-hawk doesn't seem right to me, because it is slower than the T-hawk (based on its 40k stats) and it is smaller than a T-hawk (meaning it should have less fuel capacity). That suggests to me that it should have a 20cm speed, at best, which makes it redundant. Maybe if it were a 30cm A-boat with the special rule that it must be removed from play at the begining of the players next turn after they launch, then that might be okay.

As an aside, by inferrence, everything I've written above means that the shark is somewhat inferrior to both the dreadclaw and the T-hawk (taken on a one-for-one basis). It has to carry more passengers than either the T-hawk or the dreadclaw because it only carries Imperial naval troops and not SMs. That tells me that it ought to be somewhat larger than the T-hawk. The only indication of the size of the shark is the sketch in the blue book, which shows it to be roughly the same size as the starhawk bomber, and roughly twice as big as the fury fighter. I believe the fury is about the same size as a T-hawk, though there is no way of knowing for sure. I can't find the referrence now, but I was under the impression that the naval space fighters were larger than the aircraft used in 40k and Epic, so that would fit with the shark being larger than the T-hawk.

Oh whoa, new BFG models.... yeah... like, half....

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http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Well I guess I could matter print a BFG scale one when I make the Epic scale one...

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