New Ship (Imperial Ironclad)

Imperial Ironclad Class Cruiser (180 points)

The Ironclad is the brainchild of Planetary Governor Abel Stanten, of the mining world Agraxos II. Lacking any Battleship force in his surrounding area, and reasoning that the endurance of a lead ship in a cruiser squadron is more important than its offensive ability, he ordered two damaged Lunar class cruisers to be refitted with additional armour instead of reinstating the prow-mounted and some of the side-mounted weaponry. The result was a class able to take enormous punishment while acting as a lynchpin for the rest of a cruiser squadron to operate around.

After initial success against Ork pirates, the two Ironclads were overhauled from the inside out, and an additional ship was built from scratch by the mining world, and named for its governor. All compartments and bulkheads were reinforced with quadruple-concentrate rockcrete, additional spaced armour and ablative plating was added to the prow and sides. Additional failsafe systems were installed for the plasma drives, more efficient energy overflows for the weapons systems, and other features ensuring maximum durability against both artillery and boarding parties. Reduced weapon systems meant the number of crew required to man the ship was cut by nearly 30%. Although this results in fewer defenders against boarding actions, the additional defences and segmenting of the compartments which do contain crew balances this out.
 

Type/Hits	Speed		Turns	Shields	Armour		Turrets
Cruiser/8	20cm		45*	2	6+/5+ rear		2
Armament		Range/Speed		Firepower/Str.		Fire Arc
Port lance b.		30cm		2		Left
Starb. lance b.		30cm		2		Right
Port weapons b.		30cm		4		Left
Starb. weapons b.		30cm		4		Right

 

Famous Ships

Abel Stanten, Agraxos, Iron Fist

Notes

The Ironclad class is somewhat cumbersome, and cannot use Come To New Heading special orders. However, the ship gains +1 Leadership when attempting a Brace For Impact order, and all critical hits against the prow are ignored (instead of counting as the next result on the table).

The Abel Stanten may upgrade its turret array from 2 to 3 at a cost of +10 points.

The Ironclad class can be modelled by halving the width of the Weapons Batteries (a quarter off of each end) and filling the gaps with massive armour plating. The torpedo launchers on the prow should also be plated over.