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aka: Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2

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    The Imperial Navy 

General Tropes:

  • The Battlestar: The mighty Emperor class battleship, which is more of a gigantic aircraft carrier but still delivers a devastating broadside with its macro batteries.
  • Faction Calculus: The Imperial Navy is good at mid to close range engagements, thanks to its large macro battery broadsides, common use of torpedo prow armament, and very good armour and shields. However it struggles at long range engagements, due to its heavy reliance on Macro weapons, lack of carrier vessels until higher ship tiers (which tend to also be very expensive point wise), and moderate to mediocre speed. Also ironically they are still quite vulnerable to boarding actions. Overall, the Navy plays as the general "middle ground" fleet: a good rule of thumb is that the Imperial Navy is good at whatever the faction it faces is bad at, but it does not do what that faction does well. So against Chaos, they need to close in; against Orks, they need to keep away (although they can pretty much go toe to toe), and with Eldar, they need to really close in (and by that, we mean ram them).
    • The Inquisition: The shadowy operatives of the Imperium who seek to guard it from all threats, be they hostile aliens, heresies within the Imperium, or the powers of Chaos attacking from the Warp. In game, ships which bear their favor gain an elite Inquisitorial retinue, improving all crew skills by +1, and allows the use of the Emperor's Tarot cards, alerting the fleet to unknown dangers by revealing one unidentified enemy ship.
    • The Adeptus Mechanicus: The cult of the Machine. Founded on Mars, the Mechanicus' tech-priests are the chief holders of technological knowledge of the Imperium. Chief among their roles is the finding of Standard Template Constructs (STC) from before the Age of Strife, back when Humanity's technology was at it's pinnacle, and the production of equipment for the Imperium at large. Ships with their favor receive even further extensive modifications and improvements than others, receiving an additional skill and upgrade slot each.
    • The Imperial Navy: The primary military power in charge of the Imperium's void and aerial engagements, the Navy patrols sectors of space, or helps provide the fleet for the Imperium's many Crusades. The events of the game focus on Battlefleet Gothic, the fleet in charge of protecting the Gothic sector and role in the Gothic War/12th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler. Ships which bear the Navy's favor are considered decorated and the pride of their fleets. As such, the ship's captain will not become insubordinate, and Cobra-class destroyer escorts can be called in to assist and reinforce the fleet during battle.
    • The Adeptus Astartes: The Space Marines, the Emperor's elite genetically enhanced soldiers, limited in number but extremely skilled at combat, especially planetary assaults and fighting in the confines of ships and given some of the Imperium's finest equipment. Ships with the Adeptus Astartes' favor carry a small force of them on board, greatly improving the ship's ability to repel boarders by improving its Troop Value. They are also trained at performing Boarding Actions themselves, and can even launch Deep Striking Terminator armored elite squads onto the enemy ship, granting them additional Assault rolls during these actions.
  • Mighty Glacier: Their line ships are heavily armored but slow. This is more noticeable on Battleship class warships.
  • More Dakka: Navy ships rely on rows upon rows of giant macro-cannons that hurl truck-sized shells into the void for high burst damage at medium range. Plasma macro-batteries launch plasma bolts instead that have much longer range, but are still functionally the same.
  • The Political Officer: Imperial Navy also have to contend with these like Imperial Guard, which their presence assure that they will not become insubordinate or face the consequences if they do.
  • Trading Bars for Stripes: Imperial Navy don't even cover up the fact that the crew, specifically Ratings, came from lowly scums of the Imperium from the portrait's Explosive Collar to the bonus given by Penal Colonies (with 3% Troop Value decrease per each one lost).
  • Wave-Motion Gun: The Nova Cannon, a powerful, long range, forward facing weapon that fires a massive shell at just below the speed of light, before detonating in a massive thousands of kilometres wide blast at a preset distance. The sequel moves the Nova Cannon preference to the Adeptus Mechanicus and lets the Imperial Navy put much more emphasis on macro-cannons instead (though there are still Navy ships with Nova Cannons). As far as special weapons go, no other faction makes heavier use of torpedoes than the Navy.

Admiral Spire

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/admiral_spire.jpg


  • The Captain: He starts the prologue as this, in command of a Dauntless-class light cruiser, but is quickly promoted to the rank of Admiral and given command of a fleet.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: This is apparently what the aforementioned test entailed. "Apparently," because you don't see what happens, the equipment in the room he was tested in looks as much like medical equipment as torture tools, and the purpose was to discern whether his information about an invading Chaos Fleet was true and without intent to lead the Imperium into a trap.
  • Cowboy Cop: Should he work with the Aeldari, defying and then later killing a friggin' Inquisitor. Yes, it was the smart thing to do with a Chaos invasion raging across the galaxy. Yes, the Lord Commander of the Imperium himself has forged an alliance with them. But to do so, he had to defy an Inquisitor. While Emil Darkhammer was declared Excommunicate Traitoris in the game books by this point and would therefore be fair game, such a thing isn't given so much as a mention in the campaign: up until Spire decided to defy Darkhammer, the Lord High Admiral gave Darkhammer every bit the deference owed to an Inquisitor. The only possible explanation for why Spire wasn't made into a Servitor and the planets of his entire crew subjected to Exterminatus is that the Imperium is in such bad straits that they can't afford to lose him. That, or Guilliman vouched for him, considering that Darkhammer was the one who was way out of line in this case.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: He is stated to originate from a world that rebelled against the Imperium, which is why he is subjected to the above.
  • Death Glare: When his homeworld's rebellion is mentioned, he doesn't look at all happy about it.
  • Defiant to the End / Determinator: The Space Marine DLC Trailer features Spire monologuing about his faith in the Emperor and the wonders he's seen done in His name... as he sits grievously injured on the bridge of a crippled flagship that's about to be finished off by a Chaos battleship. He's saved in the end by a Big Damn Heroes intervention from the Blood Angels.
    Such horrors would drive an ordinary man to madness. But Spire is no ordinary man...
  • Dueling Player Characters: For players of the original Battlefleet Gothic, since Spire was The Hero of that game. Picking any campaign other than the Imperium's will result in you having to fight and kill Spire at some point.
  • Final Boss: Of the Chaos Campaign. He's the most significant leader of the Imperium forces still present, and the one most capable of reversing all their hard-won victories, after Guilliman is captured and delivered to Abaddon by Vrykan.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: At the start of the second game's Imperial campaign, Spire is revealed to have spent the eight-hundred year period since the end of the 12th Black Crusade stranded in the Warp, and returns to realspace just after the fall of Cadia during the 13th. Due to time not flowing properly in the Warp, only a few years have passed from Spire's perspective.
  • Four-Star Badass: What he becomes by the end of the prologue. The sequel takes it even further by giving Spire another Rank Up, with Lord Inquisitor Darkhammer field promoting him to Lord High Admiral after having just killed the title's previous holder, Drang, for being a Chaos plant.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told: Spire has a big impact on the Gothic War, but does not get mentioned in the wider materials which only describe the conflict in Broad Strokes. Considering that every assignment he has during the campaign after the first mission is at the direct bequest of the Inquisition, his specific actions may have been deliberately left off the official record. He is deliberately left out of most narrations in the sequel, with the victory in the Gothic section being attributed to Ravensburg.
  • Hero Antagonist: Of the Necron, Tyranid and Chaos Campaigns in the second game.
  • The Hero Dies: In Battlefleet Gothic 2, Spire will die in any campaign other than the Imperium's, and it'll always be the player's fleet who gets the honour of killing him.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: In the Tyranid intro mission, he eventually abandons the Righteous Protector as the Tyranids rip it apart, taking Commodore Kage's point that the Tyranids have already won that battle and there's "no sense piling death on top of defeat."
  • Made of Iron: Subjected to an extremely unpleasant test of his faith and purity and comes out unscathed, telling the Inquisitor who conducted the test that he understands why it was necessary.
  • Perspective Flip: Comes up a couple of times with him in other Campaigns.
    • Tyranid Campaign: Their intro mission re-treads the Tyranids' introduction to the Imperial Campaign, but this time with the player fighting Spire's fleet instead of warding off the Tyranids.
    • Necron Campaign: The mission fighting him concerns his attempt to destroy the Dark Throne, though here the player takes control of Amarkun and fights off the attack to kill Spire, instead of supporting the Raven Guard in destroying the World Engine.
  • Villain Killer: While several are optional in both games Spire can make a habit of taking down noteworthy figures among the Imperium's enemies. Ork Warbosses, Chaos Commanders, Necron Lords, Tyranid Synapase Creatures and, at the end of the second game's campaign, Abaddon the Despoiler himself. Spire succeeds where ten thousand years worth of Imperial heroes have failed.
  • Warm-Up Boss: He's the first boss you fight in the Tyranid Campaign, in the very first mission no less. Though justified in that it's a Perspective Flip of the mission that introduces the Tyranids as an enemy faction in the Imperium's Campaign. Fortunately, his ship the Righteous Protector is only the default Cruiser tonnage...unless you're playing the Skalgrim Game Mod, in which case the Righteous Protector is an Agamemnon type Battleship instead.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: His last boss battle in the Tyranid Campaign concerns his attempt to bar the Great Devourer's way into the Cadian Sector by the order of Roboute Guilliman. This time, he doesn't abandon ship in time.

Inquisitor Horst


Lord Admiral Cornelius von Ravensburg


  • Frontline General: Takes to the field a couple of times in the Divine Right Battleship to help Spire defend the Gothic Sector, most notably during the Final Battle with Abaddon's Planet Killer.
  • Four-Star Badass: Your direct superior officer and overall commander of Battlefleet Gothic. In Warhammer lore, he devised the plans throughout the invasion of the sector up until its end when the warp storm fades and imperial forces arrive as reinforcements.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: It does not take long for him to admit Spire's potential. Keep it mind that this is after he mentions Spire's homeworld being rebellious. In the ensuing dialogues in the prologue, he all but ignores this little fact, choosing to trust the Inquisitor Horst's test deeming Spire fit for being admiral. In the canonical storyline, he agrees to a temporary truce with the Eldar on the notion that Battlefleet Gothic will need all the help it can get to wait out the storm and survive long enough to receive reinforcements.

Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines


  • Apocalyptic Log: Essentially narrates one of these in the Tyranid Campaign. Starting after the Aeldari are defeated and Craftworld Os'tara is destroyed, Guilliman will chime in with commentary on the Tyranids' progress in both conquering the Segmentum Obscurus and defeating the other factions (optional and mandatory alike), with his comments getting correspondingly grim and bleak as the situation goes From Bad to Worse and the player progresses through the campaign.
  • Big Damn Heroes: His resurrection was this in general for the Imperium, but in the game proper he shows up at the helm of the Macragge's Honor to aid Spire's forces when they're attacked by the Planet Killer in an optional mission near the end of the Imperium's Campaign, while joining up as a fleet afterwards.
  • Fate Worse than Death: In the Chaos Campaign, Malos captures Guilliman alive and delivers him to Abaddon, who describes with great relish what he plans to do to the Primarch.
  • Final Boss: Of the Tyranid Campaign, facing down the Great Devourer's swarms in the ruins of Cadia, Ultramarines fleet at his side and at the helm of the Macragge's Honour, in a last-ditch effort to stop them from conquering the Segmentum Obscurus.
  • Hero of Another Story: He spends the Tyranid Campaign steadily driving back the Chaos forces from and regaining control of the Cadian Sector while the player is going around eating everything else and destroying the other factions, with the Cadian Sector itself serving as the campaign's Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • Humble Hero: Despite being a son of the God-Emperor and basically living god in his own right, Guilliman recognizes that Spire is the naval expert and thus willingly places himself under Spire's command.
  • Optional Boss: In the Necron Campaign. The mission he appears in, Wrath Of A Primarch, in essentially an optional sidequest to further cripple the Imperium. It's up to the player whether or not to fight and kill him.

    The Fleets of Chaos 

General Tropes:

  • The Battlestar: Compared to other factions, Chaos ships tend to have more launch bays.
  • Beam Spam: Their major strength being lance batteries, which they can fire armor piercing beam from afar.
  • Cosmetically Different Sides: Averted in BFG:A 2 where the the four Marked Legionsnote  all have special abilities related to their patron god. In the campaign, you can find special planets that let you recruit fleets drawn from the remaining legions at veterancy level 2 or even 3.
  • Faction Calculus: Utilizing ancient warships, many of which have long since been retired from the Imperial Navy, the Chaos fleet acts as a dark mirror image to the Imperial Navy. Generally preferring mid to long range engagements, the ships of this fleet typically carry a combination of Lance and Macro weaponry for their broadsides. There is also a carrier vessel type ship in every size-class. Topping all of this off, the ships of Chaos tend to have faster speeds than their counterparts. However, this comes at some significant costs. The ships lack the heavy prow armor of the modern day Imperial fleet, and are less armoured generally. They also tend to lack prow-armaments like Torpedoes, and the Nova-Cannons of the Loyal Imperial Navy. Finally, their Macro batteries are significantly weaker than others.
    • The Mark of Khorne: Ships with the Mark of the Lord of Slaughter become infected with Khorne's bloodlust, warping into forms that resemble bone temples to the concept of destruction. The bloodthirst of any heretic crewing the Chariots of Slaughter and the legion of daemons Khorne entrusts his fleet with makes these ships ideal for boarding actions and repelling any foolish enough to face the servants of the God of Blood in their own ship, giving these ships an unflinchingly aggressive playstyle.
    • The Mark of Tzeentch: The subtle and spectacular magics of the Changer of Ways inflicts significantly less mutation than what perhaps the Imperium is expecting, instead becoming oddly beautiful blue and gold vessels that give testament to the glory Tzeentch offers to all who serve him. Any who confuse "beauty" with "soft" are incredible fools; as befitting the Great Conspirator, Tzeentch's ships are given abilities that make their crews masters of mind games and ambush tactics. They can summon mists from the Warp to create their own nebulas for them and their fellow ships to lurk in, and may summon a Warp Echo to deceive the sensors of the enemy—in many ways, for the arcane arts that create these echoes also allow the true ship to switch places instantaneously, leaving the enemy confused and demoralized and allowing the ship to slip safely into the Warp... or prepare a flanking broadside.
    • The Mark of Nurgle: The Lord of Decay's loving touch makes his chosen fleet as disgusting and repulsive as any living being infected with his pathogens, growing disturbingly organic components and becoming coated with slime, surrounded by a swarming cloud of space-born Void-Locusts like a grotesque hive queen. It is advised that any who face these leprous ships stay far away—the Mark of Nurgle does not give the Grandfather's servants any greater armor, but the Locusts recognize when an enemy has entered their territory and viciously swarm the unfortunate ship, inflicting a constant stream of damage so long as Nurgle's ship remains nearby. Boarding a Nurglite ship is even more foolish—not only must one deal with the plague-maddened crew but the plague itself, making it nearly impossible to do anything lasting to the plague ship but send boarders to an early grave—if the cultists are feeling unusually merciful.
    • The Mark of Slaanesh: The flying palaces of the Prince of Pleasures are as gaudy and pastel as one would expect from the god of decadence. And indeed, Slaanesh does not give his/her servants much in the way of direct combat ability—she/he has far more creative powers in mind than just droll shooting. The Whispers of Slaanesh surround these starborn shrines to temptation—as they grow closer, the captains of opposing ships become more prone to cowardice and disloyalty, disrupting the enemy's plans as they are forced to kill otherwise competent captains or let their ships be lost in the Warp for a few critical days. By focusing them, the siren song disrupts the chain of command more directly, canceling the fleet orders of the ships and leaving the enemy helpless for a few critical seconds as the Slaaneshi ship demonstrates that just because Slaanesh did not give it new guns does not mean it lost the ones it already had.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Despite their armor being weak compared to Imperial Navy and Orks, their fast ships can take more brunt than Eldar ships. On a more specialized note, the Desolator battleship is actually faster than Chaos grand cruisers, and thus as fast as ships two tiers below it, without lacking in firepower.
  • Long-Range Fighter: Their focus on Lance Cannons act as compensation for their shortage of Macro Cannons, making Chaos ships more effective in long range attacks.
  • Loud of War: In BFG:A 2, Emperor's Children flagships have the Siren Cannons special ability that lets their macro-cannons and lances deal additional morale damage when the shots hit the hull, in keeping with this legion's penchant for sonic weaponry.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: Surprisingly, almost completely averted in the Chaos campaign of BFG:A 2. Chaos forces are infamous for their constant infighting, but in the campaign you do so exactly twice: once against a measly two cruisers that pose next to no threat, and once in the final mission against a single treacherous Titan-class vessel.

Warmaster Abaddon the Despoiler

Warmaster of Chaos, Lord of the Black Legion and Champion of the Chaos Gods. He leads a massive chaos invasion in the Gothic Sector in order to capture the ancient and powerful space stations, the Blackstone Fortresses.

For tropes from the broader Warhammer 40k setting, see Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Marines.


  • Bad Boss: It doesn't matter if there's another Chaos warship in the way or behind the Imperial ship he's aiming the Planet Killer's Armaggeddon Cannon; he'll fire it anyway.
  • BFS: Wields the fell-blade Drach'nyen.
  • Big Bad: Of the series overall, as both games take place during his Black Crusades (the 12th and 13th, specifically).
  • All Your Powers Combined: As per fluff, he has the favor of all four Chaos Gods. In-game, this is represented by his ship, the Planet Killer, possessing the strengths and powers of all four marks above.
  • Kick the Dog: Through the use of his flagship, the Planet Killer, he destroys a cardinal world with a populace of over 14 billion.
  • Man Behind the Man: Mephet'ran, the Deceiver was the one who told Abaddon about the Blackstone Fortresses while in the form of a chaos crone. The Deceiver's shadow is even visible against the cavern wall where it speaks to Abaddon about its prophetic visions.
  • We Can Rule Together: In his first showdown against Admiral Spire where his flagship takes significant damage, Abaddon finds Spire's devotion misplaced and offers him fame and power if he joins his side. Spire tells him to shove it. He retracts this offer immediately after. He tries the same in the finale of the Imperium campaign in the second game to the same effect
  • Who Dares?: When the Planetkiller takes damage, he screams:
    Abaddon: You DARE attack my ship? I will make you suffer for this!
  • This Cannot Be!: At the end of the Imperium campaign in Armada 2 he does not take his defeat (and shortly death) at the hands of Admiral Spire with much dignity.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: Subverted in the first game, where you can diverge from canon and prevent Abbadon from capturing the Hand of Darkness and Eye of Night. Played straight in the second game, however, as Cadia is destroyed, the Eye of Terror expands into the Great Rift, and the 13th Black Crusade sweeps across the galaxy.

Chaos Lord Malos Vrykan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/malos_vrykan.jpg

The player character for the Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 Chaos campaign. He is a Word Bearer Chaos Lord who is chosen to command his own flotilla in service of Abaddon, although his exploits as an admiral mark him for greatness.


  • A Father to His Men: Played with as only a Chaos Lord can. Malos will sacrifice as many of his underlings as he needs to to get what he wants, but will not abide them dying senselessly. When Threxos Hellbreed's late arrival to the first battle against Spire leads to spiraling casualties on Malos's end, Malos is livid with him.
    Hellbreed: I had to teach an Imperial whelp a lesson in slaughter beyond the system rim. I thought you had this matter in hand, but now I find you cowering before this gilded relic. Must I fight your battles also?
    Malos: You were to stand alongside us, Lord Ravager. Instead, my men have died, in prosecution of a war YOU ARE TOO CALLOW TO FIGHT!
  • Bald of Evil: Malos is completely bald and is a devout servant of the Dark Gods.
  • The Chosen One: He was chosen by a daemon to become a Chaos Space Marine, growing from mere human cultist to officer of a chaos warband.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Not usually, but the snark comes out in force when dealing with Jasul Barass, Malos responding to Jasul's psychotic, bellicose screaming with barely-disguised irritation.
  • Frontline General: Like all Chaos Lords, he is at his best commanding a flagship and destroying enemy ships.
  • Human Notepad: As a Word Bearer, Malos is covered in runes that pray to the Chaos Gods.
  • Make Way for the New Villains: At the end of the Chaos campaign, Malos is so successful that he develops ambition of overthrowing Abaddon the Despoiler, considering him a relic of the past. The cinematic also implies that Malos would probably be successful.
  • Unwitting Pawn: He is one all along to Dark Apostle Akrist Vane, who reveals that he used him as an enforcer until he could muster the strength to usurp him. Malos is naturally angered at the treachery, and proves to be too much for his would-be successor.

    Aeldari Corsairs 

General Tropes:

  • Achilles' Heel: Enemy lances and their own engines. Lances' huge range nullifies the Aeldaris' speed advantage, they're virtually guaranteed to hit, and their high crit chance lets them shoot out Aeldari ships' engines in no time. Since Aeldari rely on speed for protection, suffering any engine damage is basically a death sentence for them.
  • The Aesthetics of Technology: While the Imperials use ships resembling Gothic cathedrals in space and the Orks use ramshackle scrap-metal ships festooned with guns and tribal icons, Eldar ships are sleek and futuristic, resembling tropical fish, and they are armed with plasma starcannons and lance batteries. While their firepower is well above average, they are very fragile and vulnerable to massed fire and ramming.
  • Enemy Mine: Players can ally with them due to sharing a common foe, along with aiding their quests.
  • Faction Calculus: The Eldar fall squarely into the Cannons. They specialize in lightning fast strikes, and are most certainly the most maneuverable of the factions, with only Chaos coming close to matching them. However, their ships are very squishy in comparison to the other main four factions, so much so that while even Chaos can pull off decent ramming maneuvers in a pinch, it's a suicidal tactic for most Eldar ships to attempt. Another issue is all their guns are forward facing, thus they end up being micro intensive. This is combined with their holofield mechanic, meaning they don't have shields unless they move. A good player can dance around their opponents, knocking out engines and leaving them free to whittle down their enemies from behind while taking minimal damage. Can be a Pariah faction as the ships are reliant on micromanagement and abilities, leaving them underpowered and unable to win many battles in the early game until they can get upgrades.
    • Ulthwe: The ship under the favor of the Craftworld known for their seers can allow the summons of Maelstrom and Psychic Blockade as a defense against lightning strike.
    • Biel-Tan: Being known for their militancy means that the ships with this Craftworld's favor will receive Aspect Warriors to enhance ships' troop value along with the ability to summon the Avatar of Khaine on board enemy ships as a superior form of Lightning Strike.
    • Alaitoc: A ship under Alaitoc's favor have Cameleoline Alloy, gaining invisibility without a blip until it moves, and Ranger strike teams with the ability to grant critical hits automatically even if the enemy ships have shields.
    • Saim-Hann: Already known for their quick attacks, Saim-Hann favors will allow ship to gain 50% damage if attacking from hidden mode and create Phantom Disruption to cripple enemy scanners.
  • Glass Cannon: Their ships are fast and maneuverable, and have access to destructive weaponry. Unfortunately, they have weak armor and most of their ships lack shields.
  • Our Elves Are Different: A species of highly advanced Space Elves will highly developed psychic powers, the Eldar are few in numbers and low on armor or durability, and generally prefer to fight their battles from a long distance away, use other species as pawns instead, or — once in a blue moon — ally with the Empire to fight a mutual threat.
  • Pride: A famous trait of their race is their legendary pride and arrogance. During their debut trailer, the Eldar admiral has this to say after decisively destroying an Ork fleet:note 
    Eldar Admiral: You have a crude grasp, at best, of void combat strategy. I should not have expected much from your primitive race.
  • Stealth in Space: Their starships have holo-field's that can turn their ships invisible.

Prince Eldrathain:


  • Friendly Enemy: A reciprocated example with Spire: the two of them get along very well, considering. When they fight in II, it is because duty has forced the situation, not animosity, and neither side is happy about it.
  • Graceful Loser: Upon his defeat in II, Eldrathain leaves without a fuss, complimenting Spire and bidding him a formal farewell, though he assures Spire that he hasn't given up on trying to avenge Craftworld Os'tara: he makes good on his promise while Spire is busy in another part of the Segmentum.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: If the player allied with him, he not only agrees to stop attacking the Imperial Navy until the end of the Chaos invasion, but will also allow the use of Eldar Webway that provides the player with safer means interstellar travel during the period of Warp Storms (bonus deployment in-game).
  • Space Pirates: Leader of a crew of space corsairs.
  • Warrior Prince: His title is a nod to his position as a leader of Eldar Corsairs and also skilled in void combat too.

    Ork Freebooterz 

General Tropes:

  • Faction Calculus: The Freebooterz fit squarely into the Powerhouse, though played somewhat unconventionally. First and foremost, the Ork fleet are organised differently from the other fleets: instead of selecting from a list of different ships within a class, the Orks provide just one basic "krooza" but offer a wide variety of possible loadout options to choose from. An inescapable hallmark of all Ork ships is a massive, thick and heavy prow on the front which provides outstanding protection from the front, and also a number of engines on the back, making Ork ships very fast in straight courses but conversely quite vulnerable to damage in the rear. Ork ships are not only unrivalled for ramming actions but also for boarding actions, as Orks are notoriously fierce fighters and relish the chance to krump the enemy crew in the proper Orky way. However, you will also wish to seek close proximity to enemy vessels due to the also notorious inaccuracy of Ork gunnery; hitting anything at ranges further than medium is a feat, though this is somewhat made up for in closer ranges by the sheer number of the guns. Due to their anarchic and insubordinate natures, Ork kaptins have poor morale and are more likely than others to disobey the admiral and abandon battle... Unless you buy a special upgrade to give the kaptin some particularly "coercive" motivation to doing what he's told. They might also be the Horde faction as Ork ships are mercifully cheap in points costs: it's entirely possible to forgo torpedoes and battleships and bring an entire full fleet of cruisers and light cruisers, or two stripped down light cruisers and twenty escorts.
    • Evil Sunz: The resident speed freaks of Ork "kultur" naturally push their ships combustion gauge a full 25% further than normal. The real fun comes from the installation of a Tractor Beam perfect for "korrecting" the path of an enemy ship.
    • Blood Axes: Orks are notoriously enthusiastic and direct in warfare - a trait that has not helped their reputation as dim-witted. So naturally the Blood Axes, the only Orks disciplined enough to use the "Silent Running" order, tend to be underestimated. Though they do tend to announce their presence via blasts from their salvaged Nova Kannon.
    • Goffs: The tuff and no-nonsense Ork clan bring a similarly direct souped-up ship ram and an additional boarding action. What's not to like?
    • Bad Moonz: Typically the wealthiest Ork clan and they've been putting their wealth to good use; not just in the bonus upgrade slot, but in the installation of the insanity that is the Shokk Attak Gun - a twice-hitting Lightning Strike with the range of a Nova Cannon.
  • Not the Intended Use: While the true strength (not to mention most of their =DPS=) of the Orks lies in their ramming and boarding capacity, they can still nonetheless put up a surprising amount of accuracy-independent 12K-range weapons; from their always-hit lances that can be upgraded to inflict a stacking debuff to the sheer numbers of aircraft hangars (between 2-7 on every ship in the fleet) a fleet can contain.
  • Pirate Song: The shanty they grunt in the trailers.
    Fifteen Orks on a dead man's hulk
    Lookin' down da barrel of a gun
    Gruntin' at each other
    Through big sharp teeth
    Sayin' "This one'll give us some fun!"
    Fourteen Orks on a humie ship
    Killin' anything that isn't green
    Gruntin' to each other
    Through big sharp teeth
    Sayin' "Times be gettin' lean!"
    One Ork left ta steal da loot
    Wishin' it hadn't turned out so
    Gruntin' ta himself
    Through big sharp teeth
    Sayin' "I shuda let da pilot go!"
  • Ramming Always Works: All factions have the option, but Ork ships in particular are geared towards it. Even one of their tiny escort types, the Brute Ram Ship, is designed specifically for ramming.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Due to their chaotic and disorganized nature, this trait is more emphasized compared to other factions. Unless their ship had something set up behind their subordinates.
  • Space Pirates: The actual faction name is Ork Pirates for a reason, and their introduction makes it pretty clear these are Freebooterz.

    Space Marines 

General Tropes:

  • Badass Army: Man for man, the Astartes are the greatest warriors in the whole galaxy, and so they are deadly in the Boarding Party.
  • Boarding Party: Their greatest strength is their troop value, which increases their success on boarding actions for both Lightning Strike and Boarding Action.
  • Close-Range Combatant: The Space Marines lean fully head into this area in the second game — while the Imperial Navy is geared toward fighting at mid range, and the Mechanicus fight at long range with advanced targeting systems and lots of Nova Cannons, Astartes ships are meant to get into close range and board their opponents.
  • Cool, but Inefficient: Many players consider Space Marine Battle Barges to be cool but far too expensive to be practical. A single battle barge costs more than two strike cruisers, which are faster, more flexible and have superior combined damage potential overall. Two ships are also more difficult to focus down than one, and losing one of the two still leaves you with half the firepower instead of none at all.
  • Cosmetically Different Sides:
    • The five featured chapters - the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Imperial Fists, Dark Angels and Space Wolves, have no mechanical differences between each other. The differences lie only in colour schemes, iconography, dialogue and crew characters. Some would say a missed opportunity, others would say this allows every players' favourite chapters to be represented without feeling weaker than others.
    • This is averted in the Imperial campaign of BFG:A 2. Several First Founding chapter homeworlds are located around the Eye of Terror, one of which is Medusa, home to the Iron Hands chapter. Fully upgrading the planet gives two additional starting levels to any Iron Hands ship built in the subsector. Combine this with the level 4 admiral ability Exceptional Instructor and your Iron Hands fleets can launch max-level ships right out of the shipyard. They're the only chapter in the game with this sort of bonus; the Dark Angels and Imperial Fists for instance don't have anything of the sort despite similarly or even more extensive holdings in the area.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: They lack fighter capability and fast-attack units compared to Imperial Navy. Having fighters requires a special upgrade. Averted in the sequel where almost all SM ships have launch bays, although they tend to be on the weaker end of the spectrum.
  • The Determinator: Their lack of fear means that their ships are less likely to cause insubordination and most loyal crews of all factions.
  • Faction Calculus: Space Marines fall into the Elite. They lack a dedicated battlecruiser but can bring two battleships. Their ships are exceptionally heavily armoured on all sides, and moderately fast as well. They have a very high troops count per ship meaning they are great at boarding enemy ships and repelling attempts on their own, and their crews are very resistant to morale effects and insubordination. However their gunnery is substandard, firing around half the shots of an equivalent Imperial Navy ship; they usually fire slowly and between this and the relatively high points cost of each ship can leave them vulnerable to being swarmed. The Favours system also works differently from other factions; each favour can only be applied to a single ship in the whole fleet but these favours are correspondingly more powerful, adding a named character to the crew who imparts more powerful special skills as they are levelled up.
    • Master of Sanctity: Responsible for the spiritual wellbeing of the Astartes on-board, the Master of Sanctity is the master of Chaplains and can rally the marines to make the ship immune to boarding actions for a time.
    • Librarian: An Astartes just as potent on the psychic battlefield as he is on the physical one, he can instill mutinous thoughts and actions into a ship's crew from several kilometres away.
    • Master of the Forge: The greatest weaponsmith and master of the chapter's armoury, the Master of the Forge allows ships to take additional upgrades.
    • Chapter Master: The highest-ranked Astartes in the entire chapter, his ability increases troop value on a target ship while decreasing that of enemy ships, and passively buffs the special order of the entire fleet.
  • Mighty Glacier: Many Space Marine ships have slow speed but are more heavily armoured than those of other factions.
  • Space Marine: Probably one of the few cases where they actually live up to their namesake - Space Marine ships have the highest base troop values (for their respective sizes) in the game, making them excellent at boarding actions and resilient to boarding actions themselves.

    Tau Merchant and Protector Fleets 

General Tropes:

  • Asteroid Miners: What the Demiurg do for a living when they're not blowing up stuff for the Tau. Their experience gives their ships damage immunity in asteroid fields, and one of their most powerful weapons requires asteroids or wreckage in the ship's vicinity in order to be fired.
  • Faction Calculus:
    • T'au ships also fall into the Glass Cannon archetype, though to a greater extreme than the Eldar. Tau ships equipped with railgun batteries and missiles can send a frightening amount of firepower to bear in their forward and side firing arcs, often able to wipe out enemy ships from well outside their own detection range. Like the Space Marines, Tau do not have battlecruisers, but they have two ships from auxiliary races: the Demiurg and the Kroot. The massive firepower of the Tau fleet comes at a cost: Tau ships are slow on the move, vulnerable to both ramming and boarding actions and have not much more armour than Eldar ships. They also cannot make use of Lightning Strikes (but their auxiliary ships can).
    • The Kor'vattra Merchant fleet plays very differently, as they represent older T'au ships from before the Damocles Crusade and the resulting modernisation efforts from the Earth Caste that gave birth to the Protector fleet. Kor'vattra ships are quite well-armoured with strong hulls (on par with Imperial Navy ships in fact), and they maintain more launch bays, at the expense of even slower speed and diminished long-range firepower spread in a 360 degree radius around them. They also, like the Kor'or'vesh, suck at boarding actions.
  • Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: Tau ships carry few broadside weapons, relying on massive frontal firepower to deal damage instead. They still can't hold a candle to the Eldar in this regard, though.
  • Glass Cannon: They have enormous frontal firepower but their ships are not particularly fast or durable. They compensate for this by Tau ships not being the only ones there (Kroot Warspheres are Mighty Glaciers and Demiurg are expensive Jack of All Stats).
  • Homing Projectile: Their Heavy Seeker Missiles will track their targets for 30 seconds.
  • Hufflepuff House: Due to the Tau Empire being on the opposite side of the known galaxy from both the Gothic Sector and the Eye of Terror, the Tau are the only major race with no presence in the campaigns whatsoever, despite encompassing two playable factions.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Kroot Warspheres carry nothing but an array of powerful missile launchers for ranged combat. They deal mediocre damage for a battleship-class vessel, but that's okay because the Kroot's main strength lies in their powerful boarding parties anyway.
  • Not the Intended Use: An in-universe example: The Demiurg ships have a massive mining laser, intended to break up asteroids for resource extraction. There's no particular reason not to "mine" enemy vessels.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Tau Navy's auxiliaries, the Demiurg and the Kroot, have the Mercenary modifier that slaps them with an enormous -50 bravery reduction. It's much more likely to see Kroot Warspheres or Demiurg vessels flee the battlefield than it is to see them explode, and anything that inflicts morale damage is extremely effective at taking them out of the equation.

    Necron Harvester Fleets 

General Tropes:

  • Achilles' Heel: Their reliance on armor over shields means they're particularly vulnerable to armor-piercing weapons like Lances. It also makes them extremely susceptible to Subsystem Damage and Lightning Strikes.
  • Always Accurate Attack: Necron weapons have 100% accuracy at any range, somewhat compensating for their ships' slow speed. They can still miss holoshielded Eldar ships, though.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Particle Whips deal high damage that pierces armor and ignores shields. Needless to say they're highly effective against just about anything.
  • The Battlestar: All Necron line ships carry Doom Scythe fighter squadrons in addition to their powerful weapons batteries.
  • Brown Note: Some of their ships have abilities that inflict massive morale damage.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: The Dark Throne, despite being a World Engine, seems to majorly lack in weaponry and shielding departments, when compared to the likes of Borsis (the only other known World Engine in canon), apparently trading it for the next-generation Pylon prototype.
  • Deflector Shields: Notable for their total lack of them, but their Necrodermis armor more than makes up for it as long as the enemy isn't too big on armor-piercing ordnance.
  • Flash Step: The Inertialess Drive ability allows them to relocate and reorientate their ships at a moment's notice over a generous distance. Combos nicely with ram attacks, especially against the elusive Aeldari.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: 40K lore tells of a flotilla of three light Necron ships that suddenly appeared in the Sol system, set a course to Mars and weathered the firestorm from one of the most powerful space defense systems in the galaxy long enough for one of them to actually touch down on the Red Planet's surface before it was destroyed. Naturally, Necron vessels in this game aren't nearly as invincible, although still among the toughest bastards overall.
    • Also in regards to the aforementioned lack of deflector shields, as in the more recent canon, Necron vehicles are actually equipped with "quantum shields" that are noted as being among the most effective in the galaxy. This might be a result of conflicting canons, though, as in the old Battlefleet Gothic game manuals the Necrons indeed had to rely on their armor alone (though, back then, they also had much more effective inertialess drives and didn't have to rely on dolmen gates for transportation... The game mashes together different eras of the setting).
  • Healing Factor: Necron ships self-repair constantly, making them that much harder to take down. One of their stances increases the regeneration to 3 hullpoints per second, which makes them virtually immune to Death of a Thousand Cuts as any damage inflicted by light to medium weapons gets repaired quickly. That said, they can never heal back to full in battle since the regeneration effect simultaneously inflicts Maximum HP Reduction on the ship.
  • Made of Iron: Aside from the fact that these ships comprise the space navy of a race of Terminator Expys, they're also by far the most heavily armored vessels in the game, boasting a whopping 87% damage reduction across the board on all facings.
  • Magnetic Weapons: Subverted by their ubiquitous Gauss weapons, crackling green beams that strip the target apart on the molecular level instead of magnetically accelerating metallic slugs like this sort of weapon normally does. They're horrifyingly deadly regardless.
  • Mighty Glacier: Their fleets are slower and fewer in numbers than those of most other factions, but they have very heavy armor, devastating weapons, and a Healing Factor to make them even more resilient.
  • Portal Network: The Necrons' unique campaign trait is their network of Dolmen Gates that interconnects all subsectors. The gate system is often more or less in the middle of the subsector, so while individual Necron ships are rather slow, their fleets can move around the map faster than any other - parking task forces in gate systems allows you to reinforce just about any system in 1-2 turns at most.
  • Sinister Geometry: As is the rule for Necrons, their void vessels sport vaguely Ancient Egyptian shapes made from a dark metal, covered in alien sigils and a generous helping of sickly-green Tron Lines.
  • Subsystem Damage: Their lack of shields massively increases the risk of suffering these from any number of sources. It's depressingly common for Necron ships to lose weapons, engines or, worst of all, their deck to the enemy's opening salvo, leaving them sitting ducks to be picked off and, assuming they manage to limp back to port, taking them out of action for several turns while they're being repaired. A specific admiral skill can be used to negate all critical damages in a nice radius, but its huge cooldown means you'll probably just suffer a dozen more crits immediately afterwards.
  • Tractor Beam: One campaign upgrade enables all ships with Lightning Arc weaponry to pull the target ship toward them when the shot strikes its hull. It's so powerful that even Chaos battleships on full burn can be stopped dead or even pulled backwards by a single Reaper battlecruiser, and a whole fleet doing this can lock down just about anything. Just be careful to not take the upgrade until after you've eliminated the Orks and Tyranids from the map.
  • Unfriendly Fire: Necron ships have a disturbing knack for getting in each other's way in the heat of battle. This can end up inflicting more damage on your fleet than the enemy did when your ships keep crashing into one another while your attention is focused on the enemy. Other faction ships can collide as well, but somehow they're much better at avoiding it.

Trazyn the Infinite

  • The Chessmaster: Just like in the tabletop's lore, Trazyn plays absolutely everyone in the game like a fiddle. Some of those he deals with profit from it, others pay horribly for it, but the one who always comes out on top is Trazyn.
  • Collector of the Strange: His whole schtick as the Archivist of Solemnance is to add more to his "carefully curated collection". One mission during the Necron Campaign consists in securing a White Scar Captain for his collection.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Arguably the most sarcastic Killer Robot in recent gaming history.
  • Enemy Mine: In the Prologue, he aids the Imperium and Cawl to help defend Cadia due to not wanting Chaos to destroy the Pylons. After that fails he alerts Spire to the awakening Nepheru dynasty and eventually points them to their World Engine superweapon, all because he considers the Nepheru brutish savages. And because they offended him at some unspecified point in the past, which might well have been over 60 million years ago.
  • I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: He words his warning about the Nepheru's Dark Throne World Engine this way when Spire rebukes his offer of support.
  • Magnificent Bastard: With charm, cunning and audacity he effortlessly plays every side likes fiddles during the conflict all to fulfil his personal agenda.
  • Quest Giver: He hands out most of the anti-Necron missions in the Imperial campaign.
  • Smug Snake: Very much so. Trazyn might be one of the more reasonable Necron Lords, but he still considers himself light-years above the Puny Humans and makes no secret of it. Plus he knows he's far beyond Spire's reach, so he can taunt and belittle him without fear of reprisal.
  • Troll: You can't help but get the feeling that half of Trazyn's machinations serve the sole purpose of amusing himself at the expense of others. It isn't for nothing that parts of the fandom call him "Trollzyn".
  • Try to Fit That on a Business Card: His full in-game tile is 'Archaeovist of the solemnace galleries, Trazyn the Infinite' - even the textbox containing his speech is struggling to list it in one line.

Amarkun the Gatherer

  • Affably Evil: He's nothing but polite and well-mannered to other species, always at least attempting a peaceful solution first and seeking largely to restore his own race's place in the galaxy more than punish tresspassers.
  • The Chains of Commanding: Has never had any interest in becoming phaeron. Zaa points out this is exactly what would make him a better one than vain, paranoid megalomaniac Kephrekh.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Necron campaign ends with Amarkun using the Dark Throne World Engine to utterly erase the Eye of Terror, dealing a blow to the Chaos Gods unlike anything else in the entire history of the franchise. It won't have killed or directly hurt any of them, but it sure threw the biggest wrench in the galaxy in their plans for real space.
  • The Dragon: To Kephrekh the Unbroken, Phaeron of the Nepheru Dynasty.
  • Dragon Ascendant: Trazyn and Zaa convince him to usurp Kephrekh via Klingon Promotion about halfway through the Necron campaign, as is customary among villainous factions in WH40K.
  • Noble Demon: Despite being a Necron under the command of a particularly murderous Dynasty, Amarkun might well be one of the most decent characters in the galaxy. He always greets even his worst enemies with "esteemed foe", offers opposing forces the chance to hand over what he wants and then withdraw without unnecessary bloodshed, and only resorts to violence after all other options have been exhausted.
  • Snark-to-Snark Combat: He and his cryptek Zaa are constantly trying to out-snark each other.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: His goal in the campaign is to use the Dark Throne World Engine to destroy the Eye of Terror, something that is beneficial to Necrons and organics alike.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: His sole ambition in unlife is to gain his phaeron's approval by carrying out his orders to the letter. He changes his tune once he realizes that Kephrekh's path only leads to stagnation and oblivion.
  • Villain Has a Point: He tries to reason with other factions by pointing out his goal is something that will benefit them both, but given that this is the type of galaxy where trusting someone outside your own kind leads to disaster, nobody listens. By the end of the campaign he isn't even a villain.
  • Villain Protagonist: He leads the forces of one of the most genocidal and expansionist Necron dynasties in existence with the purpose of reclaiming their ancient domain by purging every single living being in it.
    • Eventually played with or subverted after he usurps Kephrekh, where he becomes about as heroic as one can be in 40K.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: His realization that this will be his ultimate fate regardless of how well he serves Kephrekh is one of his main reasons to usurp his Phaeron.

Zaa of Tomorrow

  • Cyber Cyclops: Like all Necron crypteks, Zaa only has a single large optical sensor in the center of his face.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Played with. He clearly has his own agenda but remains loyal to Amarkun throughout the whole campaign... by steering him exactly where he wants him to be.
  • The Good Chancellor: Ultimately fills this role after Amarkun removes Kephrekh. He takes a commanding role guiding the Dynasty through the story, though Amarkun periodically countermands him to propose something better.
  • Non-Action Guy: Crypteks aren't front-line combatants, so he prefers to act from the rear while Amarkun's fleets do the heavy lifting. When he does take to the field in person, expect an Escort Mission.
  • Number Two: He's Amarkun's right-hand man and primary advisor.
  • Oh, Crap!: The only time he noticeably loses his cool is when Huron Blackheart suddenly shows up at the helm of a Blackstone Fortress in the final mission. Blackstones were purpose-built to kill C'tan and Necrons in general, making them one of the few things that pose an actual threat to the Dark Throne, so Zaa's reaction is completely understandable.
  • Seers: Zaa possesses limited but still impressive divination abilities for a race without any connection to the Warp. The Necrons' insanely advanced technology probably compensates well enough.
  • Servile Snarker: A loyal servant, but also one of the snarkiest characters in the game.
  • The Smart Guy: As a cryptek, Zaa specializes in technical knowledge far beyond anything even the AdMech could dream of. His expertise provides the basis for many of Amarkun's military victories.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: Zaa always speaks in an incredibly serene monotone even while outlining his plans to kill billions of fleshlings.

    Tyranid Hive Fleets 

General Tropes:

  • Boarding Party: Their unbelievably deadly boarding assaults are their bread and butter in void combat, and also the reason why they're such a nightmare to fight. Tyranid line ships can have up to three different boarding attacks, all of which can be reused indefinitely, and the one provided by launch bays can depopulate capital ships from across the map before the enemy even knows where the tyranid vessels are. Nobody, not even Orks or Space Marines, can hope to last long against tyranid ships in boarding range, especially since the latter are mostly immune to hostile boarding actions themselves. Tyranid campaign missions tend to be one helluva lot easier than any other faction's thanks to this advantage since neither firepower nor armor, hitpoints or speed matters when thousands of ravenous monsters invade your ships and butcher your crews with little resistance.
    • With that said, the tyranids must also be cautious of boarding actions carried against them: unlike other factions' ships, which turn into "Drifting Hulks" which can be latter recrewed if reduced to 0 Troop Value, tyranid vessels simply explode. In fact, for almost every faction, repeated boarding attacks are the effective way of taking out the tyraids' Ancient One, whose immense durability can otherwise make fighting all but impossible.
  • Brown Note: Tyranid "admirals" can gain the Psychic Scream ability that inflicts an enormous 400 points of morale damage to anything in a 9,000 unit radius, which is often enough to catch most of the enemy fleet. The Ancient One has a supercharged version of this attack with even larger radius that inflicts 2,000 points of morale damage, enough to send anything and everything with a morale bar running for the map borders at once. Its only saving grace is the fact that it has a lengthy charge time, unlike the normal admiral ability that is instantaneous.
  • Combat Tentacles: Several ship classes wield these in the form of "feeder tendrils". These umbilicals latch directly onto enemy ships and drain away their crew units over time, making them a devastating complement to boarding actions. However, their short range means that the simplest way to dislodge the tendril is for the defending ship to physically move away from its attacker.
  • Deadly Lunge: Tyranid ships replace the All Ahead Full manoeuvre with the Rush ability, an extremely sudden and very fast movement in any direction regardless of its previous facing. They also have several ship types with giant jaws that are immune to frontal ramming damage. Combining the two results in a terrifying ram attack that's particularly lethal to already damaged ships. Worst of all, there's no subsystem one could target to disable this ability. The only way to prevent tyranid ships from using it is to destroy them.
  • Geo Effects: One Level 1 campaign upgrade increases their weapons' rate of fire by a whopping 50% for as long as the ship is within a gas cloud or asteroid field. Against other close-range factions like Orks or Space Marines this means they can just park their fleet in the closest nebula, wait for the enemy to come to them and then focus them down through sheer firepower. Asteroid fields have the additional bonus of making everything inside much harder to hit.
  • Keystone Army: Losing their synapse creatures (read: their flagships) throws any remaining lesser ships into disarray. It's not entirely impossible to claim victory if this happens, but it sure gets a whole lot harder. The factions that have campaigns can exploit this by tracking down and killing the Ancient One, the gigantic leader of the swarm tendril that's invading the Segmentum Obscurus.
  • Kill It with Fire: Amusingly for a faction that lacks actual fire weapons, this tends to be their primary method of dealing direct damage to enemy ships. Tyranid pyro-acid weaponry starts a Fire Aboard with every critical hit it lands, and a ship under bombardment from a PA-heavy Tyranid swarm can quickly end up with a dozen simultaneous fires rapidly melting it from the inside.
  • Living Ship: Their fleets consist of nothing but gigantic spacefaring monsters that seek to devour everything in their path.
  • More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Standard fare for the 'Nids, but none do it better than the melee-specialized assault creatures that charge enemy ships and start chewing them to pieces.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Their species is this in general by virtue of not being native to the Milky Way, but they're also this in the campaigns where they involve themselves in what should've been a standard scuffle between the Imperium, Abaddon's Chaos forces and the usual opportunistic raiders from Eldars, Orks and Co. The presence of the Tyranids in BFG2's campaign is entirely due to a stray tendril of the greater hive fleet Leviathan being severed by a stray warp storm, delivering the monsters to the opposite side of the galaxy just in time for the 13th Black Crusade.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The tiny Clutch-class escort vessels (the ones with nothing but jaws and teeth) are arguably the most dangerous escorts in the game. They're reasonably fast and immune to frontal ramming damage, which combined with their Rush movement can inflict disturbing amounts of damage to anything. They're particularly effective against isolated line ships that attack from a distance, like Chaos lance carriers, because once the little critters enter melee range there's next to nothing the ship can do to prevent them from chewing it to pieces. Even if it does manage to destroy one, the resulting spore cloud slows any non-tyranid vessel down by 50% and deals even more damage over time.
  • Stealthy Colossus: All Tyranid vessels, even the largest ones, are naturally stealthed until they enter the enemy's detection range. Justified by their not having exhaust-generating propulsion systems or other heat signatures that could give away their presence until visual contact is made.
  • Straight for the Commander: They are exceedingly vulnerable to this. While their synapse ship is still alive, all Tyranid vessels under its command will never have morale lower below 100. If it dies though, even the slightest bit of morale damage is enough to send the 'nids into a frenzied retreat.
  • We Have Reserves: Tyranid line ships have the unique ability to instantly, indefinitely and fully replenish their troops value within the current bracket. It makes them virtually immune to boarding assaults as any losses can be replaced quickly. Another ability allows them to restore one charge of every ability that uses charges, like boarding actions and launch bays, at the cost of 3 troops... which can then be regained via the former ability. This combination lets them spam all three of their ludicrously powerful boarding attacks without restraints and, if they have launch bays, across the entire map with little risk. Nothing like losing capital ships to boarding actions when you've barely left your deployment zone...

    Craftworld Aeldari 
  • Fragile Speedster: Downplayed. Their ships have the characteristic speed and firepower you would expect from the Aeldari, but they have superior armour and hulls to the Corsairs and Drukhari. This is balanced by being limited to smaller classes of ship.
  • Logical Weakness: The Craftworld fleets act defensively and rarely stray from the side of the mighty Craftworlds for long. Thus, they have no need for lumbering battleships, or anything larger than the equivalent of a battlecruiser.

    Drukhari Pirate Fleets 

General Tropes:

  • Achilles' Heel:
    • Enemy lances and their own engines, again. Drukhari vessels rely on speed to survive like any Aeldari ship, so they're utterly screwed the moment something disables their propulsion. Even a mere light critical hit at the wrong moment usually spells doom for them.
    • Since Drukhari ships are equipped with cloaking devices instead of proper shields, anything that marks targets for a prolonged period (such as an escort's sonar pulse or the Emperor's Tarot) will leave the drukhari exposed and vulnerable.
  • Dirty Coward: Being opportunistic raiders with no greater cause or agenda beyond their own personal desires, Drukhari crews have poor morale and are therefore prone to fleeing the battlefield as soon as the odds turn against them.
  • Fragile Speedster: Even moreso than other Aeldari fleets, as their stealth-granting shadowfields don't confer the same defensive benefits as normal holofields - a Drukhari ship is essentially unshielded, and if stealth fails that ship will be torn to shreds very quickly.
  • Glass Cannon: Their devastating firepower is matched only by their fragility.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: If a ship of theirs doesn't rely on a Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon, it's likely to carry an array of guided missile launchers instead.
  • Out of Focus: Despite being in an alliance with the Aeldari Corsairs and the Craftworld Aeldari (both of which have multiple voiced characters in the campaigns), very few Drukhari characters make an appearance, and the ones that do never survive the mission that introduces them.
  • Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Drukhari empire runs on slavery, and capturing more slaves is one of the primary goals of every raiding fleet they send out. In gameplay this allows them to replenish their ship's troops count by performing successful boarding actions, representing their abducting the enemy crew to press into service as cannon fodder.
  • Space Pirates: In case their faction name wasn't enough of a hint, Drukhari fleets are mainly known and feared for raiding shipping lanes and poorly defended worlds for slaves, shits and giggles. They virtually never participated in greater conflicts before GW's new direction for the WH40K franchise pushed them into an alliance with the rest of the Eldar race. True to form, most campaign missions that involve them are about stopping their disruptive space piracy.
  • Spikes of Villainy: They're generally regarded as the second-most evil faction after the Forces of Chaos, and their ships are covered in nasty-looking blades and spikes all over.
  • Stealth Expert: The Drukhari have no shields or holofields or indeed any kind of damage mitigation, and unlike the rock-solid Necrons, their ships are armoured with wet tissue. They make up for this with stealth and hit'n'run tactics. A Drukhari fleet resembles a submarine wolfpack more, striking isolated ships in a devastating mass attack and then fleeing back before facing retaliation.
  • Stealth in Space: Drukhari fleets employ Shadow Fields that turn their ships invisible once fully charged, and charging them is done by speeding away, which they do constantly. If you don't bring enough escort ships into a fight against Drukhari, or lose them too quickly, the pointy ears will tear you to pieces from outside your detection range and there's little you can do about it.

    Mechanicus Forge Fleets 

General Tropes:

  • Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: They're the most gimmicky of the three Imperial factions. Whereas Astartes fleets simply get close enough for boarding assaults (Power) and Navy fleets are easily played Jack of All Stats (Balance), Mechanicus fleets offer the widest variety of special abilities, all of which require some skill and practice to use effectively, but without them the AM fleets aren't worth much due to their subpar firepower.
  • Beam Spam: AdMech ships in BFGA 2 are much more lance-heavy than Imperial Navy vessel.
  • Bottomless Magazines: One of their admiral abilities in BFGA 2 gives their normally 3-shot Nova Cannons unlimited uses for the price of increasing their cooldown by 10%. It only works for the flagship, though.
  • Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: The Mechanicus really like their Nova Cannons. Everything from their cruisers upwards carries one, and their commander in the Imperial campaign has a skill that buffs these weapons even further.
  • Long-Range Fighter: Complementing the Navy's brutal mid-range firepower and the Astartes' close-range boarding assaults, the Adeptus Mechanicus prefer to use their advanced targeting systems to provide withering fire support from very far away. Their Nova Cannons also have a significant minimum range that forces them to keep their distance if they want to make regular use of their signature weapon.
  • Machine Monotone: Unsurprisingly for an organization composed entirely of Cyborgs, their characters and ship crews uniformly talk this way.
  • More Dakka: Their ships focus on heavier, longer-ranged firepower than normal Imperial vessels but tend to lose effectiveness the more the distance closes. They're at their best when they can pelt the enemy with Nova Cannon blasts and devastating broadsides from afar while the Imperial Navy gets up close and personal. The sequel turned them into more of a Beam Spam faction instead.
  • Promoted to Playable: BFG:A 2 turned the Mechanicus from a set of Imperial ship upgrades into a fully playable faction with their own ships, skills and characters.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Adeptus Mechanicus has always put its own agenda before that of the greater Imperium, which the game reflects by giving them a hefty -25 bravery reduction, making them much more likely to flee the battlefield if things don't go in their favor.

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