Morning Star

The Morning Star is a 580m long Holtzmann-Pattern Fast Response Assault Gunboat. It is one of the first ship types produced after the Liberation of Raakata. Widely using during the crusade through the Erebus gate, typically deployed from larger warp-capable carrier ships, and later as a cornerstone of the fleet's fast-response forces during the Greenskin Wars.  

The Holtzmann-Pattern

  The Holtzmann-Pattern is an aggressive design, more than 50% of the ship is given over to weapons, with a further 40% dedicated to engines and system redundancies. It's intended to be able to manoeuvre into optimal firing lines while evading enemy attacks and rapidly reposition across battlezones.    Internally it is cramped by Imperium standards. A minimum crew of 980 is required to run the ship (1230 max compliment), with a further capacity of up to 2,000 Assault troops can be carried in the mission-bays. It is a simple pattern, produced by STC units in the Raakata system just after the Liberation. The design is low-cost, easy to repair and maintain, but contains few to none advanced technologies or complex systems - this makes it fast and easy to manufacture without the need for many rare minerals.   Plasma drives and the void-shield arrays are designed to be modular, the hull can be opened to allow access to these modules. This allows for rapid refit, upgrade and maintenance of these critical systems, putting the ship back on the fighting lines much more rapidly than having those systems integrated. Similarly the weapons systems are not integrated into the ship, instead most of the fore-sections can open to space, allowing the guns contained there to simply fire out directly. This makes replacement and upgrading of weapons systems quick and simple.   The Holtzmann-Pattern lacks for auxiliary ship bays, having only two, and has relatively weak void-shields due to it's limited power-generation capacity. Due to these limitations, the Holtzmann-Pattern ship and it's variants are most often deployed in wolfpacks.  

Plasma sub-light Drive System

Powerful plasma stardrives allow the Holtzmann-Pattern high straight-line speed but little manoeuvrability. In ideal circumstances can cross 5 sectors squares per day (Travel map). Typical travel time from Mandeville Point to Star approx 3 weeks.  

Spacecraft

This vehicle may enter the atmosphere of suitable planets. While in the atmosphere it will operate as a Skimmer (and follow all the rules for a Skimmer). Operating in this way taxes the Plasma systems severely, it is recommended that this ship only operates in way for an hour before either landing or returning to space.  

Weaponry

All weapons are designed to be operated by dedicated gunners and weapons controllers. The Holtzmann-Pattern system ship has two large gundecks outfitted with multiple weapon batteries. The exact specifications vary and the loadouts are extremely customisable. Weapons systems are not linked to the ship itself, each gun is essentially an independent unit, operated and fired by dedicated gunnery crews wearing voidsuits.  

Void Shields

Void Shields absorb damage entirely (ignore Penetration). Once the total damage taken equals the shield rating, the Void Shield collapses. Roll a d100 at the end of each turn the shield is down (after the first): Each Round the shield gains a cumulative10% chance to restart at full strength.  

Cargo Transport

The Holtzmann-Pattern has enough storage space for the entire crew for 2 months without resupply. The majority of storage space is given over to magazines for the weapons.