Battlefleet Gothic: don't bring escorts to a cruiser fight

Multiple contacts! Incoming!

Battlefleet Gothic are my go to rules for deep space fleet combat. They are an old set of rules, no longer in production from Games Workshop, although there are rumours of a re-launch in the wake of the success of the likes of Blood Bowl and Necromunda.

I've not played a lot of BFG, but enough to appreciate its systems. I've also acquired quite a few Necron warships. But I've not played since around 2010. An opportunity arose to get the fleet out for a foray against a Chaos fleet at Dice Saloon.

We decided on 1000 points, which is a good number for players who are relatively unfamiliar with the system to get a good battle done inside four hours. I could not find my cruisers and my tomb ship, so opted for almost 1000 points of escorts in the form of Jackal and Dirge raiders, backed up with one Scythe-class light cruiser, a couple of re-rolls. This was a decision forced on me by circumstances, but it would prove to be an interesting exercise.

The Chaos opposition brought three escorts, two cruisers and the mother of all battle barges to the table. We opted for a suprise attack scenario with the Chaos fleet in close orbit around a sun, screened by some of the hyper-heated gas clouds around the star. The Necrons launched their attack on a broad front.

Necron raiders approaching a gas cloud. Locked on target.

I managed to destroy two escorts, but was still getting my head around the special orders and really only started to make proper use of the unique Necron Brace for Impact qualities after about turn 3. By that stage I'd lost a few of my raiders.

The mother of all Chaos battle barges shrugs off hits...

I wanted to try to focus my attack on the battle barge, which was by far the largest Chaos ship present, but reckoned without its considerable shields. I made only one real hit on it all game, although the raiders were adept at staying in its baffles and shooting at it repeatedly with lighting arcs.

Necrons try to swarm the barge...

I had one opportunity to bring almost my entire fleet's firepower to bear on the battle barge, but failed to do any serious damage due to some amazingly bad dice rolling. The cruisers had longer range weapons than mine, and while the Necrons had the edge in maneuverability, they could reach out and blow my robots out of the sky with their lances.

In retrospect, I should probably have gone after one of the cruisers, as they were lighter targets. I considerably overestimated the ability of my raiders to damage the battle barge. It was too much of a beast. I also should have made more use of special orders than I did, as these are what make the Necrons a lot more deadlier. My cruiser escaped to fight another day on turn 8 despite repeated attacks from bombers, which goes to show you how tough even a light Shroud-class is. IIRC it survived three waves of bombers intact.

I really missed having my Scythes, the Necron heavy cruisers. I shall redouble my efforts to find them - they have got to be around here somewhere....