Retro Corner - Space Fleet, the forerunner to Battlefleet Gothic.

[Chris*ta]

I remember the articles from WD, and I still have a copy of the boxed game ... somewhere. The plastic ships are quite nicely done.

My recollection is that Space Fleet was released before the four other intro games that you mention, (rather than being one of them) but I may be wrong. I remember there being one called Mighty something and it used the art that was also the cover of WD132. I believe it included the skaven miniatures and board pieces from Advanced Heroquest, iirc.

[Mr Mystery]

Dragon Masters?

[grimmas]

It was called Mighty Warriors. I never played it I thought it was WFB lite though.

[Bold or Stupid]

Mighty Warriors was - I think - basically Advanced Heroquest light. Which I'll admit is an odd concept at best...

[Gotthammer]

Some old art for you all, most all by Tony Hough (some is from the 1990 concepts of the original Battlefleet Gothic that was never released, not sure how much of it was used elsewhere). Titles are what I've been able to glean the pieces are called or represent:

"One day, son..."




Gun deck:




Targeting matrix:




Unknown:




Unknown:




Eldar bridge:




Eldar broadside (this piece, devoid of context, appears in the Rogue Trader rulebook and always seemed a bit odd - like why are they looking at a stopwatch? Well those familiar with older naval warfare know gunnery officers used stopwatches to time torpedoes, which given the vast distances of space combat is a fair analogy):




Eldar weapons fire:




All hands to battle stations:




Hold of the titan transport:

[Gotthammer]

Imperial galleon:




Imperial warship:




This one was labelled as "ImperialFleetApproachAstro" so a representation of the Astronomicon?




Imperial ship rides shockwave:




Space blast:




Orbital barrage:




"Space nuke"




The great ship:




And this ones actually from Space Crusade, but is still nifty:



- - - Updated - - -

Oh, forgot - for a bit of history about the original Battlefleet Gothic that never appeared and turned into Space Fleet (and discussion of Space Fleet itself) check out [URL="http://leadplague.blogspot.fr/2015/04/from-space-fleet-to-battlefleet-gothic.html"]this article[/URL] and [URL="http://leadplague.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/from-space-fleet-to-battlefleet-gothic.html"]its sequel[/URL].

[BunkhouseBuster]

Nice! I wish I could have been into wargaming back in those days. Alas, I would have been far too young for anything; in 1991 I was only two years old. I did manage to pick up a decent sized Imperial Fleet and play a bunch of Battlefleet Gothic right before GW killed it a couple years ago.

[Mr Mystery]

Interesting how many of the early concepts are still appearing these days.

See that rivet gun on the left?



And the shotgun?



Seems as if Jes is now able to realise anything he can sketch. I imagine that must be a real joy for any sculptor.

[Captain Bubonicus]

Ship Manouevres....guess we know where X-Wing found inspiration!

I think it's older than that - I remember an old WWI fighter combat game from the late 70's/early 80's that used a maneuver reveal mechanic, too! I think it was "Aces High."

[Haighus]

What exactly is a 'boarding gaff', other than GW at the time realising un-augmented humans in assault was a joke?