Imperial Battle Cruisers
Overlord Class Battle Cruiser
Size: 5.3 KM long, 0.85 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 100,000
Max Acceleration: 2.4 g (standard speed), 2.9 g (boosted)
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 battle cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 16 Heavy Plasma-Macro Cannons (8 per broadside), 2 dorsal Laser Lance turrets (dorsal) 6 Torpedo launchers.
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Apulia lander
Lore: The Overlord Battlecruiser was the Imperial answer to the increasing numbers of Chaos Heavy Cruisers, and was built with a powerful power plant taking heavy inspiration from the experimental and potentially xenos power plant fitted to the Acheron Heavy Cruiser.
Designed in M39 by Battlefleet Obscurus in response to increased activity from Chaos war fleets. The battlecruiser incorporating a heavier variant of the Plasma-macro cannons pioneered by the Tyrant, the larger cannons having improved long-range killing power and rate of fire due to the battlecruisers massively powerful energy reserves; a pair Laser Lance's with much longer range than the older plasma-lances and a set of ever-simple and reliable torpedo launchers. This battlecruiser very quickly becoming a firm favourite across the Imperium, seen as the model by which all Imperial battlecruisers should be judged by. The ship having generally all-round good characteristics: Being fairly well armoured, decently fast and Heavily armed, fitting all criteria favoured by the Imperial Navy.
The Overlord has, despite its comparatively short service life in the navy, become one of the most common sights in large battlefleets and easily the most numerous of Imperial battlecruisers by M41. The battlecruiser being an excellent warship for destroying large fleets of similarly sized warships or brawling with larger battleships for a short time. Its armament and capabilities being close to the legendary Retribution Battleship, earning it the nick name 'The poor-man's Retribution', the battlecruiser being much cheaper and lacking the same firepower and durability of the larger battleship: although the ship had advantages of her own.
For one she was faster and more mobile by a large margin than the battleship, and had a vast power reserve that permitted the battlecruiser to put on sudden boosts of speed, range and firepower; although Imperial captain where under strict orders to not do this unless absolutely necessary due to the severe strain placed on the Battlecruiser's generators.
Needless to say, the battlecruiser is adored by admirals and captains across the Imperium: The Ship making a name for itself in nearly every major war since its creation.
Mars Class Battle Cruiser
Size: 5.4 KM long, 0.9 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 107,000
Max Acceleration: 2.3 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 battle cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 8 Heavy 'Titian Forge' Macro Cannons (4 per broadside), 2 plasma lance turrets (dorsally mounted), 2 hangar decks (1 per broadside), Prow Nova Cannon
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander, 50 Furies, 30 Star Hawks
Lore: The Mars class has about average speed and armour, but its weapons load out certainly was designed with flexibility in mind: with Nova cannon and Launch bays for long range strike support, and Dorsal plasma Lances and Heavy Macro Cannons for tearing apart enemy cruisers at mid-range and in close quarters. The original intention of the Battlecruiser is unknown, given the secretive nature of its origin and the design's incredible age. The ship originally created on Mars for the Imperium's use in the later days of the Horus Heresy.
This warship has seen perhaps the most dramatic change of favour in the history of the Imperium of Man. One of the oldest Battlecruiser classes, originally exclusively produced by the Ring of Iron shipyards of Mars, spent its first few millennia of existence being ridiculed by most of the Imperial Navy for being 'under-gunned' for a Battlecruiser: The Overlord Class being later seen as vastly superior. No Forge Worlds other than Mars constructed the ship, no orders were placed for the ship, and construction of the Ship was halted entirely by M39.
Now, in late M41, the Mars class is one of the most common and respected ship classes in the Imperium, largely replacing the Overlord as the primary Battlecruiser with Battlefleets Calixis and Kronos. This dramatic change of favour was brought about by the performance of the Mars class in the Gothic war.
The shift in the Mars' fortune began with a pair of the ancient, unpopular battlecruisers serving with Battlefleet Gothic when Abaddon launched his offensive. Both vessels served with distinction; the Imperius in particular fighting in nearly every major fleet engagement of the war, cementing a fearsome reputation for her high kill tallies among Pirate and Chaos fleets.
The Mars proved to be exactly the ship that the Battlefleet needed: long range firepower and carrier capacity on a chassis that was entirely capable of fulfilling long range escort/patrol duties with few escorts of its own being required. Although neither did anything especially notable when compared to their Overlord-class cousins, they proved that the Mars class was a powerful and valuable asset to any large fleet. Imperium-wide mass production resumed in early M41, followed shortly thereafter by widespread deployment into every major Battlefleet.
Armageddon Class Battle Cruiser
Size: 5 KM long, 0.8 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 98,500
Max Acceleration: 2.4 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 battle cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 8 Heavy 'Titian Forge' Macro Cannons (4 per broadside), 2 Plasma lance batteries (1 per broadside), 6 torpedo tubes
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander
Lore: This ship was a hurried class of warship, built exclusively from the wrecks of Lunar class cruisers in Battlefleet Armageddon, to try and increase the rate at which 'new' capital ships could be produced to feed the high attrition rate of the Wars for Armageddon. The Battlecruiser keeps the Lance batteries from the Lunar class, and much of the interior is left largely untouched. But that is where similarities end: a second plasma reactor is placed in an extended rear section to power the dorsal lances and extend the range of all lance weapons on the ship, Macro Cannons removed and replaced for Heavy Macro Cannons as well as armour hastily applied to nearly every major section of the ship to try and prevent the ship from becoming a wreck again.
The ship itself served its purpose well. It provided Battlefleet Armageddon with a further means to replace losses in the ongoing war against the Ork hordes, and the larger array of weapons and greater survivability enhancing the performance of the ship in combat 10-fold when compared to the Lunar class they once were: having firepower comparable to a Battleship. However, the ship does have one glaring weakness: it is hellishly cramped. The ship, despite extensive hull refits on most variants, isn't any larger than the Lunar class it is based of off... yet carries 3,500 more crew members to service the greater number of weapons and power conduits.
This glaring weakness is what has largely prevented most other battlefleets from adopting the design. The short effective operation range making it poorly suited to the long range Escort and Patrol errands, which are common in the spread-out sectors of the Imperium, and the lack of carrier capacity making it incompatible with the Fleet preferences of many battle fleets, Gothic in particular having a very damning opinion of the 'Rust-Bucket Battlecruisers'. Although some other Battle Fleets have since been seen making their own native variants of the Armageddon Battle Cruiser from their Lunar casualties.
Mercury/Orion/Long Serpent Class Battle Cruisers
Size: 5.3 KM long, 0.85 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 100,000
Max Acceleration: 3.1 g
Defences: Tripple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 battle cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 16 Heavy 'Sun Breaker' Laser-Macro Cannons (8 cannons per broadside), 2 Laser Lance turrets (dorsally mounted), Prow Nova Cannon
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander
Lore: This ship was specifically designed to kill pirates, and was the next phase of Battlefleet Tempestus' plans to create an anti-piracy fleet lead by admiral Knightsbridge in M41, this cruiser being built from experiences learned during the conflicts in Barbus Costa.
The ship boated a very high standard speed a battlecruiser, had a large array of brutally powerful and accurate, yet complex and expensive, Laser-Macro Cannons that could each vaporise an escort with a single well-aimed shot; a pair of laser lances and a deadly Nova Cannon.
The plan with the vessel was really very simple: groups of the battlecruisers would run down pirate fleets, corner them, and destroy them under Nova Volleys and heavy laser-macro barrages. The design philosophy of 'larger than anything faster, and faster than anything larger' prevailing with this warship, large areas of the ship given only minimal armour reinforcement. Knightsbridge and his follows supremely confident that anything that could piece its hide could be outgunned or outrun by their new creation.
Chalice Class Battle Cruiser
Size: 5.1 KM long, 0.8 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 98,200
Max Acceleration: 3.4 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 battle cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 28 Macro Cannons (14 per broadside), 2 Plasma lance turrets (dorsally mounted), 6 torpedo launchers
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander
Lore: The Chalice Class battlecruiser was an experiment performed by the Admirals of Battlefleet Calixis to improve the speed with which the Imperial Navy could deploy heavy firepower to key strategic locations. The Battlecruiser was classed as a 'Fast Heavy Cruiser' by her native Battlefleet, her design very much being of the 'Faster than anything bigger, Bigger than anything faster' line of thinking: being armed with an impressive number of Macro cannons and a compliment of torps and Dorsal Lances to provide options for engagement of larger targets and dealing with escorts/cruisers at mid-range.
The speed of the Challice Class far outstripped all its compatriots, being the fastest large capital ship produced in millennia by the time of her construction: this would be both her greatest strength and her downfall. The stress placed upon the plasma generators that propelled the ship was such that they had a nasty tendency to rupture, she also lacked armour, as the Imperial ship designers where under the impression that any enemy would be dead or far too slow to catch and kill the Chalice. Both of these major weaknesses making her an unpopular choice for large fleet engagements, however she is still a prized ship for her rarity, incredible speed and breath taking beauty for an imperial production vessel.
Jovian Class Battle Cruiser
Size: 5.4 KM long, 0.9 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 117,000
Max Acceleration: 2.3 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 battle cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 2 Laser Lance turrets (dorsally mounted), 4 hangar decks (2 per broadside)
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander, 110 Furies, 66 Star Hawks
Lore: Jovian herself spent her life as a Mars Class Battlecruiser. Having served with Mars, Battlefleet Gothic and fighting her final battle with Battlefleet Bakka against Hive Fleet Behemoth while trying to defend Macragge along with the rest of her Battlefleet, the Ultramarines chapter fleet and Battlefleet Tempestus in M41. But her story didn't end there. The wreck of the venerable Mars class would find herself the centre of attention for the Imperial admiralty, as the lesson learned from the battle with the new tyranid threat had taught them that only lances and Strike craft mattered in a fight vs the tyranids: as staying at long range from their menacing short range vessels was all that mattered.
The idea was to have the ship's Nova cannon and macro cannons striped to make room for more hanger capacity and free up power for superior engine function and Lance range. Although the idea repulsed the more hard-line 'Big-Gun Lobby' admirals, who insisted that lances where the way forward against the tyranids, the design went ahead: the destroyed Nova cannon and prow armour replaced with a new prow, and lance batteries removed for more hanger capacity.
The newly created Jovian Class would go to see large scale production with Battlefleet Gothic, and lesser production with other battle fleets. The Jovian class seeing extensive service against Orks, raiders and Tyranids across the Imperium in late M41.
Dominion Class Battle Cruiser
Size: 5.3 KM long, 0.9 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 106,000
Max Acceleration: 2.5 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 battle cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament:2 Plasma lance batteries (1 per broadside, 2 Laser Lance turrets (dorsally mounted), 2 hangar decks (1 per broadside), 6 torpedo launchers
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander, 50 Furies, 24 Star Hawks
Lore: The Dominion Class was designed as a modern replacement for the aging Mars Class design, proposed by the Fleet-Lords of Battlefleet Bakka. The idea behind the design was to create a vessel with firepower more akin to an Apocalypse Class Battleship, but with superior Speed, cheaper production costs and not sacrificing the Hanger capacity (Carriers being in desperately short supply for Battlefleet Bakka at the time).
The designers with Battlefleet Bakka apparently didn't learn from the Gothic class. The firepower of the Lances proving ineffective against anything larger than an escort, and the Hanger capacity was no greater than that of a Dictator class Cruiser, which was much faster and cheaper to produce.
The Dominion class did, however, shine against the Tyranids in the First Tyrannic War, where the combination of Lances (which had a grizzly effect on the bio-ships of the Tyranids, much like a long range flame-thrower in space) and strike craft (as staying at range and keeping the massive ships distracted was key to survival in fleet engagements against the Tyranids) proved very effective against the Tyranids. However, the slow rate of fire of the Lances did mean they had to deployed in groups or with a heavy escort to be used to their full effect.
