Smallest warp capable imperial/chaos spacecraft

[Nicho]

Hi guys, im starting a black crusade Rp soon as the GM. Trying to think of methods of travel for my band of heretics and was curious to know what the smallest warp capable imperial/chaos space craft would be? Is there one that would only need maybe a dozen crew or would we be talking at least frigate size etc?

Cheers
Nicho

[TrooperTino]

In the old Inquisition war series the Inquisitor uses a rather small warpcabable vessel with only him, a navigator, an assassin and a squat. I don't think there was a definite size given, but it had some rooms, storage, was capable of holding all of them in stasis for very long, I would assume maybe around 300 metres but thats just my guess.

In the Souldrinkers series (warning eventual spoilers) there are imperial scout vessels which are warpcapable (when the SD penetrate the imperial cordon around the space that psyker controls with their xenovessels). The scout vessels are described as build around the warpdrive, so the WD makes up most of the room in a small warpcapable vessel, with lots of sensors, few crew, carmoflage, etc etc.

Maybe look those up, it was long ago I've read them but there are small warpcapable ships with a little description in there.

[Ordo Hydra]

There is the Ultio from the Horus Heresy book, Nemesis. So, there are small transport vessels that are warp capable. I think there was a Rogue Trader ship in the novel Eye of Terror that was just manned by two people... one was a semi-Rogue Trader and the other was his Navigator. So, quite a few examples in the books of small ships with Warp capabilities.

[Nicho]

Cool thanks for the help. Should be able to create a small ship for them to use quite easily then :-)

[arcass]

To add, I believe Grey Knights (ISBN 9780857870872) references a 2 personal (Navigator and Inquistor) warp capable ship that was dispatched to warn Vulcanis Ultor. I'll see if there is a description and if there is link page number.

Chapter 15 of the Grey Knight Omnibus(page 195):
"The craft she now flew... as responsive as a fighter"
"..sleek glossy black dart of a ship,..."
"..,the sole crwa members DuGrae and her Navigator."

[Idaan]

The fluff plainly states that the smallest Imperial warp-capable craft is 1km+ in length, not counting specialist and unique ships like the Null Ships sent into the Eye of Terror. That said, consciously or not, most writers break this rule, and with good reason - it's hard to write a story about a small space-travelling group of adventurers when they have a flying space cathedral with 5000 people onboard with them. You shouldn't feel too bad about doing the same, especially since Black Crusade characters wouldn't have any qualms about using Xenos spaceships or Daemon Vessels, like the ones built on Q'sal.

[MagosHereticus]

The fluff plainly states that the smallest Imperial warp-capable craft is 1km+ in length, not counting specialist and unique ships like the Null Ships sent into the Eye of Terror. That said, consciously or not, most writers break this rule, and with good reason - it's hard to write a story about a small space-travelling group of adventurers when they have a flying space cathedral with 5000 people onboard with them. You shouldn't feel too bad about doing the same, especially since Black Crusade characters wouldn't have any qualms about using Xenos spaceships or Daemon Vessels, like the ones built on Q'sal.

if we can call it a rule can we have a quote for it?

[Idaan]

There you go:

The void-faring vessels of the Imperium are far more than simple vehicles. With the smallest more than a kilometre in length, a void-ship bears a striking resemblance to an Imperial hive in miniature, with a population to match.

[The_Chaos_Seer]

There you go:

Problem is... 40K novels reference warp capable ships which are smaller. While Eisenhorn spent most of his time travelling around with Captain Prissy Pants, I do believe his Gun Cutter was capable of warp travel.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Stonerhino]

A Tau Manta is a mass produced FTL ship. They might not be common in the IoM. But other races have them or they might gain access to a more unique human ship.

What I do (Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader) is give the group access to a small non-warp ship and make them barter/purchase travel from Rogue Traders. The availibilty is the same as if they where looking for gear. Well as long as there is no actual Rogue Trader in the group.

But creating a small warp capable craft should be fairly simple.

[MagosHereticus]

There you go:

oh so it is a quote from the ultra new non gw stuff

[Idaan]

oh so it is a quote from the ultra new non gw stuff

No, just like all of RT background, this is based on fluff from older GW sources, BFG for example. It's just that I had the RT rulebook open as a searchable .pdf, so it was easy to find. I'm sure someone with a greater mastery of background nuances will be able find an older quote, as I have exams to study for.

EDIT: well, excepting the crew sizes and the size of the larger ships. But I recall the 1km figure being used even under the smaller scale, like Gordon Rennie's books.

[MagosHereticus]

No, just like all of RT background, this is based on fluff from older GW sources, BFG for example. It's just that I had the RT rulebook open as a searchable .pdf, so it was easy to find. I'm sure someone with a greater mastery of background nuances will be able find an older quote, as I have exams to study for.

EDIT: well, excepting the crew sizes and the size of the larger ships. But I recall the 1km figure being used even under the smaller scale, like Gordon Rennie's books.

oh ok, i thought the rule of thumb was more to do with practical sized warp vessels than physically inability, ie bigger ship has a bigger engine, ive read all the old rt era stuff and bfg and execution hour/shadow point, and to me it seemed like yes a small ship can transition to warp and maintain a gellar field but it would take too long to get anywhere and wouldnt survive a long jump because it would be too flimsy for warp turbulence

[Scalebug]

Well... I see Idaans point there, but what that quote is saying isn't really that the minimum size of a warp capable ship is kilometres long, it is all about context; the ships that are referred to is the line ships of the Imperial navy and such, and they are this size...

Scattereed around background is plenty of smaller ships, as mentioned the protagonists vessel, and other ships in that book, of Eye of Terror; small enough to just have a crew of two, in cramped living space doubling as control deck, and capable of atmospheric landing itself, rather than using shuttles.

We don't see down to X-wing size ships mentioned though.

[Idaan]

Yes. And I never claimed that there are no smaller vessels, just that it's the general rule, and a 100m long warp capable ship should always be treated as something remarkable.

[Scalebug]

Ok, misunderstood you then.

[Connor MacLeod]

The Novel Angels of Darkness had a 500 meter strike vessel that was warp capable. Of course its engine performance was worse compared to other craft, and given its general Astartes affiliation it probably can be smaller than usual and pull that off.

Other than that the Rogue Trader in the novel 'Eye of terror' had a warp capable starship that was something like 90 feet (27 m) tall. Assuming a length/height ratio consistent with other Imperial starships we're talking 100-150m or therabouts (give or take 50 m or so.)

[Connor MacLeod]

There you go:

BFK has the Viper-class scout sloop which is explicitly smaller than a km. there's also some sort of warp-capable admech probe which is 100 meters in diameter in one of those suppelments (Lure of the Expanse, i think.) and they're both far smaller than a km, so you can't take that as an absolute. Rather it's more a context sensitive quote (relative to the Navy, to what is commonly available, what qualifies as a 'typical' starship, etc.)

[MarcoSkoll]

While Eisenhorn spent most of his time travelling around with Captain Prissy Pants, I do believe his Gun Cutter was capable of warp travel. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You are. Unless it's been changed in stories since the first Omnibus, the guncutter is never mentioned as being capable of warp travel, nor does it do so, even if it would be practical for them to.

oh so it is a quote from the ultra new non gw stuff

People say that as if that makes it a red-headed stepchild of some sort.

The FFG team work pretty closely with GW (in some cases, sharing the same writers!), and all their stuff does have to pass through an approval process.
The RT RPG book starts with a foreword from Alan Merrett that praises it very highly.

BFK has the Viper-class scout sloop which is explicitly smaller than a km.

It's not dramatically shorter than a km (950 metres), and they do point out that it's the smallest warp capable ship in the Calixian battlefleet.
The picture and space requirements also rather make it clear that it's as little ship as was possible to bolt to the smallest engine they could find!

The AdMech probe is also mentioned as having no crew, so can presumably dispose of everything that would be needed to keep them alive for weeks or months at void. Not hugely useful for anyone who wants to go anywhere.

~~~~~

Anyway, for my two cents - ships smaller than a kilometre are exceptionally rare and expensive to build, and doubtless bring with them their own problems.

Spending months on end at warp on a tiny ship with only a few crew would be a nice quick trip to going stir crazy. Not so much of a problem if you're already a loopy Chaos Marine, but not very practical for an Imperial vessel.

Limited cargo space. A small ship won't be able to move much cargo - or even necessarily an orbit-to-surface shuttle. It's important to note that building a warp capable craft to be able to land on a planet's surface would require extra engine power and a stronger frame, increasing the size of the vessel relative to its inhabitable space - not very practical.

Almost no defences. There are plenty of pirates or just bloody-thirsty xenos out there, so being in a ship sized in the same order of magnitude as the munitions most ships would carry is probably a one way trip to the gods.
(And their ability to fire back would be pathetic!)

it's hard to write a story about a small space-travelling group of adventurers when they have a flying space cathedral with 5000 people onboard with them.

Meh. Have it crewed by nameless chained slaves if you think it'll get in the way. Lording it over a kilometre long warship crewed by thousands of wailing unfortunates would be pretty enjoyable for most chaos characters.
They wouldn't ask the menials for help, and the menials would avoid getting in their way as far as possible, so they could stay background material.

And while you say "Space Cathedral", I say "Space is big. REALLY big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space".
Douglas Adams aside, a spaceship, even one a mile long, has a lot of space to not be noticed in.

[Monospot]

You know the advantage you have? You are the GM! Your universe....you can darn well make a small warp capable vessel up. Dont want a lot of crew? Demon-posessed cogitator engines or Dark Mechanicus servitors hardwired to the system. A mutant with the Navigator gene, and you are good to go. You can make that ship as big or small as you want. Space for Geller fields? Who needs em, we're Chaos (though, even if I were a chaos cultist, I'd still probably want them....).

Some people get so fixated on the published hulls that we forget that there are millions of worlds in the Imperium, and there is technology outside of the STC. The Mechanicus alone is known to have crazy technology the rest of humanity doesn't. There are still probably isolated human worlds out there that were untouched by the Crusade, or isolated again and *gasp* advanced technology.

Go crazy dude....your universe.