Tim continues his short series on Antares spacecraft. This time, he looks at the ships of the New Ghar Empire. As might be expected, Ghar ships do not conform to the general classes of other factions as they are bent on one thing: the conquering and pillaging of worlds.
An overview on the ratings given here can be found in the article on the Algoryn.
Ghar Starship Design
Ghar ships are focussed towards two tasks: defending the core worlds of their empire and capturing and stripping resource-heavy planets. As such, they have less need of scouts than other factions, instead making greater use of slightly larger ‘picket’ vessels that monitor critical points of interest – the nodes that are so important in Antarean space. As a result, there is a big size difference between their picket vessels and other combat vessels – their military transports and destroyers – but intermediate sized cargo hulks and are common.
In Ghar society, the commanders and crew of cargo hulks are seen as being only a little above normal workers in status, a battlesuit trooper being regarded as far more deserving of honour. The full name of such ships is typically a keyword representing a role, followed by the words ‘<keyword> of Triumph over Humanity’ and a run of Roman numeral indicating the ship’s number in the class. The actual numbering system used is in Ghar script but we represent in Roman numerals for comprehension.
It was late in the 7th Age that the Ghar captured ships with GA drives and adapted them to their own designs. This has resulted in inefficient drives, able to power their larger ships, but having slow, ponderous mobility compared to other factions. Fartok has improved things considerably, but the designs are weak and leaky compared to the panhuman and Vorl factions.
To make up for lack of GA shielding, Ghar rely on heavy armour and secondary armour fields. This makes their ships bulky. Space on board is at a premium, but Ghar are used to small bunks and living in crowded conditions: the main corridors and feeder corridors on their ships are wide, however, to allow access for their battlesuited marines.
It’s worth reiterating the summary from the weapons article:
The thuggish ships of the Ghar do not conform to the panhuman Scout-Frigate-Cruiser-HC design approach but are based on heavy, slow and solid ships that can take a lot of punishment. They use ship scourers in an area defence mode or as relatively short-range anti-ship weapons. Their most feared weapons are their spinal QG bomb launchers and their disruptor bombs launched from rail systems. Almost all carry Ghar marines (in suits) who can help with repairs and most Ghar crew will fight. Acc is generally 5.
Under Fartok, the New Ghar Empire has incorporated a great many improvements into the Ghar GA drive designs. We show the old acceleration and new: all the ships now being contacted have the new drive ratings.
| Ship Type: | Cargo/ Transport | Combat | Survey/ Picket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Ghar | 30g | 40-50g | 55g |
| New Ghar Empire | 60g | 70-80g | 90g |
Representive Ship Class Stats
Ghar ships have just been refitted with new GA drives. Most ships have extra battlesuited marines (‘G’) on board, denoted by the ‘+’ number after the ‘Marines’ entry (Marines are allocated their own barracks already), and Ghar crew and ancilliary crew (‘g’) will always fight as if Outcasts (Res 4 and Str 4 in boarding actions).
Ghar ship scourers have multiple modes, one of which is a rapid-fire area defence mode, one a longer-range, fairly hard-hitting projectile and the other a rapid fire mode with numerous slugs that aim to overwhelm defences.
| Class: | Denial of Victory | Spoils of Victory | Bearer of Triumph | Imposition of Triumph |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type: | Scout/ Picket | Cargo Hulk | Troop Transport | Fleet Destroyer |
| Length: | 220m | ~500m | 475m | 450m |
| GA Drive: | 90g | 30g | 70g | 80g |
| Armour: | 12×13 | 12×13 | 16×17 | 15×16 |
| Fire Control: | Acc 5 | Acc 5 | Acc 5 | Acc 5 |
| Crew: | 5g | 4g | 7g | 7g |
| Marines: | 2G | 2G+5g | 5G+5G+5g | 4G+2g |
| Spinal Weapon(s): | Launch Rails: Disruptor bombs | – | Quantum Gravity shell launcher | Quantum Gravity shell launcher |
| Secondary Spinal Weapon: | – | – | 2×Launch Rails: Disruptor bombs | 2×Launch Rails: Disruptor bombs |
| Main Armament: | 3×Ship Scourers | 3×Ship Scourers | 4×Ship Scourers | 5×Ship Scourers |
| Secondary Weapons: | – | – | – | – |
| Tertiary Weapons: | – | – | – | – |
| Area Defence Systems: | (Ship Scourers) | (Ship Scourers) | (Ship Scourers) | (Ship Scourers) |
| Shuttles: | 2 | 4 | 6 | 3 |
| XCM: | – | – | – | – |
| Notes: | Small | 7×barracks (2 spare) | 10×barracks (0 spare) | 2×barracks (0 spare) |
Class Descriptions
The Denial Class class pickets are the most commonly seen vessels in the Ghar Empire. They are used as message boats between systems and as relay vessels posted at strategic nodes in each system to send lightspeed messages to Ghar vessels in and around such systems. Pickets like the Denial class are sometimes gathered together in numbers to defend against an Algoryn raid or may even group in packs of four or more to carry out raids into Algoryn space. In fleet actions, the lightweight pickets tend not to last long and are used as outlying scout or are given harassment tasks. Names: Denial of Victory over Humanity I to DoVoH CCXXX (others may be in existence).
The Spoils class cargo hulks are typical of the Ghar ships sent to retrieve resources from conquered worlds. Though lowly bulk haulers, they are still relatively heavily armed and a tough nut to crack. Names: Spoils of Victory over Humanity I to CCXV (others may be in existence).
In factions who do not face the Ghar, cruiser-sized ships are rare and frigate sized cruisers normally used for most patrol and defence work. In contrast, the Ghar rely almost completely on cruiser-sized vessels that are equipped for one thing only: total war and destruction. The Imposition class fleet destroyers are the ships that spearhead Ghar invasions of new systems and which are occasionally sent on detached duty to harass Algoryn shipping lanes and merchant vessels. Such destroyers are large and extremely heavily armed. Ship names: Imposition of Triumph over Humanity I to XXXV (other classes exist).
Whilst there are a number of designs of military transports, the Ghar’s Bearer of Triumph class are representative of the more heavily armed of such vessels. They could be said to form their basic line-of-battle vessels as they are large and heavily armed. Like many Ghar ships, though, they lack a lot of sophistication seen in the ships of other factions. Ship names: Bearer of Triumph over Humanity I to LXXV (other classes exist).
Antares Nexus 