The Tabletop Space Cannon Project Part 1

Every since Games Workshop released their Battfleet Gothic: Invasion rules in 2002 I have wanted to use them. Invasion gave you rules that allowed you to combine Battlefleet Gothic's fleet actions, with Warhammer 40k's land based fire fights. These included actually fighting out a BFG boarding action on a custom made "starship interior" tabletop. Other missions allowed the out come of one game to effect your 40k or BFG Game.

One particular scenarion in BFG invasion is called The Deadline. The game starts off with a 40k battle. Two players, one acting as the defender and the other as the attacker. The defender (who has the smaller force) must defend 3 bunkers that house the exhausts/power generators for the the Macro Cannon - a Large Orbital Defense Battery... A Space Cannon.

The attacker must destroy as many of the three bunkers as they can before the scenario ends. After the battle, the two players then play through a BFG game. If the defender managed to save all three Bunkers then they get to fire the Space Cannon every turn at their opponent. If they only save two bunkers they can fire it every other turn, and if they only saved one then it can fire every third turn.  If all three of the bunkers were destroyed then the cannon is inoperable.

One of the future games of JADE's Curse of the Relictors Warhammer 40k Campaign will feature this Deadline battle, of course updated to use 8th ed 40k rules. But before we can do that, we actually need to construct a cannon that is worth fighting over. So I have assembled the various pieces above to help me do just that.

I have a barrel from a Nerf gun, several pieces from an Ikea lamp, two pieces of wood that used to be part of shelf, some plasticard a few pieces of styrofoam. I thick that should give me everything I need, and I have a few tools around the house to help with the process.

Now I am not much of a sketch artist, but this is more or less what I intend to make with all of those components. Essentially a large skyward pointing cannon, on a platformed base.

This will be my first major terrain project so I am pretty excited, and I am of course getting some help from the guys. As usual we will be posting regular updates as it gets built so follow along and see how it turns out!


Written by: Andrew Gregory