Unlike the vessels of the Imperial Navy, a Space Marineship has a relatively small crew. A Space Marine is fartoo valuable to waste in manning a gun or watching asurveyor screen, and so only the officers aboard a vessel are likely to be Space Marines, as well as the few Techmarines who oversee the engines and perform othermechanical duties. Almost all the ship's systems are runand monitored by servitors; half-human cyborgs who are wired into the vessel's weapons, engines and communications apparatus. There are also a few hundred Chapter serfs to attend to other duties, such as routine cleaning and maintenance, serving the Space Marinesduring meal times and other such honoured tasks. These serfs come from the Chapter's home planet or the enclave they protect, many of them Novitiates or applicants who have failed some part of the recruiting or training process. These serfs are fanatically loyal to their superhuman masters, and indoctrinated into many of the lesser ordersof the Chapter's Cult. Although human, they still benefit from remarkable training and access to superior weaponry than is usually found on a naval vessel, making them a fearsome prospect in a boarding action - even without the support of their genetically modified lords. 
All Space Marine Chapters make use of ships known collectively as Rapid Strike Vessels. These ships are mainly used for patrolling through the Space Marine domains, and for providing a mobile escort for the Chapter's Battle Barges and Strike Cruisers. They also conduct routine convoy escort missions, as well as scouting and surveillance missions before a chapter commits its valuable resources to a warzone. Rapid Strike Vessels are crewed by the Chapter's serfs, overseen by a cadre of Techmarines and other specialists. Whilst the Hunter, Nova and Gladius are by no means the only Rapid Strike Vessels available to Chapters, they are certainly the most widely used. As well as the more mundane duties such as patrolling they will be called upon as escorts if the Chapter expects a large confrontation in space. The Hunter is a fast and highly maneuverable torpedo boat much like its Imperial Navy counterpart, the Cobra. The Gladius is usually the most numerous ship in a Chapter's fleet and will be the principle transport for smaller Space Marine forces sent on missions which do not justify the deployment of a Strike Cruiser. A Nova class vessel will most likely be the only lance-armed ship available to the chapter and are slightly rarer than the Gladius. Leadership: Use the following table when working out starting Leadership.
Boarding: Space Marines are the supreme fighting force of the Imperium, and excel at ship-to-ship boarding actions, where their skill is paramount and their lack of numbers irrelevant. To represent this Space Marine ships add +2 to their D6 roll when they fight in a boarding action and add +1 when they make a hit and run attack. Enemy hit and run attacks against a Space Marine ship deduct 1 from their dice rolls (and so will fail on a roll of 1 or 2 before modification).
Scenarios: Space Marines excel at planetary landings and attacking enemy-held systems. Their entire organisation and the weapons and ships at their disposal are designed solely for the purpose of reclaiming or destroying planets that have fallen into enemy hands. In the Planetary Assault scenario, Marine Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges earn 2 Assault points per turn they spend landing troops or bombarding the planet. In the Exterminatus scenario, the Battle Barge may be used as an Exterminator. Once the Battle Barge is in position to exterminate the planet, it only needs a roll of 3+ to do so. Bombardment Cannon: Space Marine battle barges carry a heavyweight battery of bombardment cannons as part of their main armament. Bombardment cannons are huge, turret-mounted linear accelerators, capable of launching a salvo of heavy magma bomb warheads. As their name implies, bombardment cannons are used primarily for pounding planetary defences into rubble and giving devastating orbital support to Space Marine landing forces. Bombardment cannons are equally devastating in ship-to-ship combat, capable of blasting apart any capital ship in just a few salvoes. Bombardment cannons fire in the same way as weapon batteries with two exceptions.
Ordnance: Rather than the bombers and fighters employed by Imperial Naval forces, the Adeptus Astartes make exclusive use of the Thunderhawk gunship. They also make use of other types of ordnance not widely used in the Imperial Fleet. Space Marine vessels may fire boarding torpedoes instead of ordinary torpedoes, as detailed in the Ordnance rules in Battlefleet Gothic. Remember that as these are Space Marines, they will have a +1 bonus to their hit and run attacks if they hit an enemy ship. There are no specific rules for drop pods – they have been taken into account with the Space Marines’ special rules for planetary assaults. Thunderhawk gunships combine the abilities of assault boats and fighters, and move like any other attack craft, with a speed of 20cm. A Thunderhawk counter that is intercepted by enemy fighters or moves onto an enemy ordnance marker removes the enemy as fighters would. However, roll a dice when this happens. On a score of 4+, do not remove the Thunderhawk marker (though Thunderhawks can only remove one enemy marker in any given ordnance phase and stop moving as soon as they intercept an enemy). Note that against Eldar fighters, which also have this ability, it is possible that you end up with neither marker being removed! If this happens, either marker is free to move away in their next turn, or they can stay in place and attempt to remove their enemy again. When a Thunderhawk marker moves into contact with an enemy ship’s base, they are treated exactly like assault boats (with the +1 bonus to their hit and run attack for being Space Marines). Once a Thunderhawk marker has made its hit and run attack, it is removed from play. |
