Imperial Starships: Executioner-class Artillery Cruiser

ST/HP: 7,000

Hand/SR: -5/6

HT: 12

Move: 1/50 (+8)

LWt.: 370,000

Load: 20,000

SM: +13

Occ.: 75,000 ASV

DR: 4000/2500*

Range: NA (3 jumps)

Cost: $280B

Loc.: Gg4t

Stall: 0

*the Executioner-Class artillery cruiser has 4000 DR on the front and 2500 on the rest of the vehicle; it also has a force screen with 7,500 DR (ablative); it generally deploys its force screen angled forward for a total of 15,000 frontal DR and 3750 DR elsewhere.

Notes

Imperial Support Ship Electronics:

• Capital-Scale Tactical Ultra-Scanner: 1000-mile scan, 100-mile imaging/bioscan; 360°;
  
  
• Targeting Megacomputer: +5 to hit target with a scan-lock.
  
  
• Night Vision Sensors: +9 nightvision, ×8 magnification (up to +3 to aimed attacks, if the vehicle aims for three turns).
  
  
• Large Holographic Radio: 10,000 mile range; “conference” sized holographic projector. All communications encrypted.
  
  
• Large FTL Communication Array: 30-parsec range.
  
  
• Hyperdrive: Rating 2; 3 jumps.
  
  
• Fusion Reactor: 50-year lifespan.
  
  
• Security: Simple Electronic Locks and security cameras at regular intervals.
  
  

Imperial Cruiser Personnel and Facilities

• Command Crew: Captain (rank 5); General (rank 7+); Executive Officer; up to 2 tactical officers (ECM/Sensors), up to 2 comm officers; up to 2 navigators; up to 7 engineering officers; up to 2 pilots.
  
  
• Facilities: War Room (+1 Strategy); Navigation Room (+1 Navigation); 100-bed hospital; 1 operation theater; Briefing Rooms; Gym/Training facilities (50-man capacity each).
  
  
• Food and Accommodations: Total life support for up to 2000 (actual crew complement is closer to 1,500) and carries sufficient provisions for the entire crew for a month.
  
  
• Lifepods: 200 (main body; sufficient room for 800 people); 20 (command bridge; sufficient room for 80).
  
  

Imperial Cruiser Complement:

• Starfighters: 5 squadrons of 25 (each) Imperial Fighters in any configuration; generally 3 squadrons of Javelin-Class Interceptors (75), 1-2 squadrons of Peltast-class Strike Fighters (25-50), and 0-1 squadrons of Tempest-class Light Fighters (0-25). It takes two minutes to launch a full squadron.
  
  
• Starfighter Refuel/Rearmament Capacity: The craft has sufficient fuel to fully arm and fuel starfighters for up to 5 sorties.
  
  
• Soldiers: up to 250 imperial troopers (one “company,” led by a Captain (Rank 4)); more often 100 to 150.
  
  
• Materiel: Room for up to 25 Sentinel-Class dropships or assorted Hunter-class hovercycles; generally left to cargo (about 500 tons of cargo)
  
  
• Cargo: Up to 500 additional tons.
  
  

Imperial Artillery Cruiser Armaments

• Spinal Pulsar Super-Cannon: the Pulsar super cannon needs at least 10 seconds to recover from firing, and has such an enormous power-requirement that it drains a dedicated energy bank; it takes one hour to recharge a single shot. If using the Psi-Wars Action Vehicular Combat, consider requiring the cannon to “cool down” between turns (1 minute is considerably longer than 10 seconds, but it also takes time to line up shots).
  
  
• 4 radially mounted Super-heavy blaster turrets (All turrets face forward and some combination of left or right and top or bottom; no more than 2 can attack any specific direction at once except for front and back, which all four may attack; Total RoF 12);
  
  
• 4 radially Plasma Flak Turrets (All turrets face forward and some combination of left or right and top or bottom; no more than 2 can attack any specific direction at once except for front and back, which all four may attack);

Weapon	Dmg	Acc	Range	Ewt	RoF	Shots	ST	Bulk	Rcl
Pulsar Super-Cannon	6d×600(3) burn ex	6	1000 mi/ 3000 mi	14kt	1/10	10	M	-10	3
Super-heavy cannon	6d×120(5) burn	9	170mi/500mi	5000t	1	NA	M	-10	2
Plasma Flak	6dx10 burn	NA	2000/6000	100t	20	NA	M	-10	1

Look and Feel

The Executioner-class artillery cruiser is the latest starship to come from the Imperial Combine shipyards. It carries the galaxy’s most advanced weapon (by modern standards) and it is capable of dealing truly staggering damage. A single blast is powerful enough to cripple an unshielded dreadnought, and to catastrophically destroy anything smaller. The Empire intended to use them to defeat the Hammer of Caliban; this attack failed, but the Empire suspects an upgraded version might be sufficiently powerful that, with enough attacks, the Hammer might be disabled. The Executioner remains a useful arrow in the Imperial Navy’s quiver, as it can erase major battleships from the theater of combat, and has sufficient power to punch directly through lighter planetary screens.

The Executioner has a striking profile for an Imperial ship. Seen head-on, it seems to have a diamond shaped profile. Thick, reinforced carbide armor dominates the front of the craft and shields the barrel of the pulsar, which glows ominously when it charges. Along the sides, a super-heavy turret mounts each “side” of the diamond. The bridge rests atop the diamond, just over the singular launch tube/hangar bay, and the engines burn from behind the craft.

On the interior, more than half of the vehicle is taken up by engineering, including its fusion reactor, hyperdrive core, its hyperium tanks, etc. These lie to the back of the vehicle, with sprawling technical corridors and surge protectors scattered through the whole of the ship, which means technicians crawl across the ship. The pulsar super-weapon takes up the front half of the ship, and is itself 30 feet across. A complex array of stabilizers, energy banks and maintenance tubes surround the weapon. The rest of the vehicle, its accommodations and hangar bay, if themselves into the space made available by these two prime concerns, except for the bridge, which sits in a superstructure atop the rest of the vehicle. While not as extensive a set of facilities as found in an Imperator-class dreadnought, they’re sufficient for the needs of a cruiser.

The Executioner-class artillery cruiser, despite its name, is meant primarily for short-duration missions (its name extends from the fact that it is smaller than an Imperial dreadnought, but it is roughly the size of most battleships and serves a similar role). Its primary function circles around its super weapon, which it can deploy from extremely long ranges. Its super-heavy blasters can join in as well, and the Executioner prefers to fight at these long ranges, adjusting its force screen to defend it from frontal attacks, depleting a targets screens with its super-heavy blasters, and then eliminating the target with its pulsar; after this, it seeks out a new target with its tactical ultrascanner and rotates to do the same. It also has sufficient dropships and fighters that it can lend at least token assistance to a dreadnought. If it loses its range advantage, however, it lacks the speed and agility to maneuver in response to other capital ships, and lacks enough of a fighter screen to deal with a concentrated attack, and thus requires some measure of support from other ships.

In general, Executioners deploy to fleets; either numerous executioners will join Imperator-class dreadnoughts to assist in a planetary invasion or a major engagement against other starships, or it might deploy as a single vessel escorted by a fleet of Dominion-class cruisers, offering capital-crushing firepower and planetary bombardment to a fleet more accustomed to handling corvettes.

Typical Names

Executioner-Class Artillery Cruisers tend to have ominous names that reference fire, apocalypse, natural catastrophe, or the idea of legal execution.

Example Names: Moon-Breaker, the Guillotine, the Iron Reaper, Leto’s Vengeance, the Purifier, the Rain of Fire, the Vindicator