The Void Stalker is an
Eldar Battleship for the
Battlefleet Gothic game of starship battles by
Games Workshop. Like all Eldar ships it follows their peculiar, by comparison to other Battlefleet Gothic fleets, method of movement, in terms that it moves in both Movement and
Ordnance phases, as well as benefitting from the immense maneuverability afford by the
Solar Sails that are fitted to all Eldar space craft.
Along with the Holofields that the Eldar have, which reduce the effectiveness of most weapons to the point that they are useless and highly unlikely to cause damage make it a surprisingly evasive target when its speed, phenomenal for a battleship in BFG (Usual movement is 20cm a turn, but due to the special rules, the Void Stalker can move up to 50cm per turn, as well as having no restrictions on turns).
This ship is also, as would befit a battleship, heavily armed. Powerful weapons batteries and four pulsar lances firing in the forward fire arc make a fusilade of fire that will easily cripple a standard Chaos or Imperial cruiser, and if one is very lucky with rolling to hit with Pulsar Lances, which bypass other ships shields, can inflict six hits per turn. When an Imperial Cruiser is crippled on four hits, and destroyed after eight, you can understand why many Imperial commanders are apprehensive to take on an Eldar fleet, not least because they lack the maneuverability to bring their weapons batteries (which are the most effective weapons against Eldar*) to bear.
In addition, (yes, by gods, there *is* more), the Void Stalker carries launch bays, meaning that it can either launch four waves of Darkstar bombers per turn, which are among the best bombers in the game (the only other that beats them are the Tau fleet's Manta bombers), damaging enemy ships on a 4+ roll on a six-sided dice, and Eagle fighters that on the same roll destroy enemy ordnance,be it torpedoes, bombers or fighters.
On the flip side of the coin, however, the Void Stalker shares the same weakness of all Eldar ships, and that is due to a lower armour value* it means that when they are hit, they are hit bloody hard. The addition of a special Critical Hit table to roll on for every 6 rolled to hit means that they can quickly be rendered crippled and ineffective if a crafty, weapons-battery-heavy opponent manages to maneuovre into a position where they can pummel the Void Stalker to splintered bits of wraithbone in one or two turns. Once crippled, its effectiveness is as close to nought as is possible, since due to its low armour value, as described, all Eldar ships cannot ram opponents ships to damage them since they smash themselves apart on contact.
To sum up, a deadly whirlwind of destruction in the right hands, a crafty tool that an Eldar Commander must use like a razor, slashing at a target before running out of range of retribution.
* A quick explanation is as follows: In Battlefleet Gothic, Weapons Batteries on a ship are given a value for each fire arc, plucking a figure out of the air, lets say a ship called "THE EXAMPLE" is firing at an Eldar ship, the "PRIDE OF IYANDEN", with five weapons batteries in its starboard fire arc, at 28cm range. The POI is heading toward TE, and the Imperial player looks on the weapons battery chart to see how many dice of that five he can roll to cause damage on the Pride Of Iyanden.
Looking on the table, since the target is coming at his batteries, it counts as closing, but since in space combat there are bound to some errors, and some shots will miss, we will say for sake of argument that he can shoot four points of damage at the eldar ship. But due to its Holofields, it causes a column shift to the right on the table. This now means that the eldar ship now no longer counts as heading towards the firing weapons batteries like a good stupid fowl on a turkey shoot, and instead now counts as moving sideways to dodge enemy fire more easily.
This now means that of that five, the Imperial player now can only roll three dice to try and inflict a hit. Since the Eldar armour value is four, and each dice must score 4 or more to score a hit, the Imperial player on average will score one and a half hits.
Against other weapons, the enemy may shoot as normal at the Eldar ship, rolling to hit, and so forth, but now as a result of the Holofields, the Eldar ship now has a saving throw against those hits of 2+ on a six sided die, eg, only 1 in 6 shots will actually hit the ship.
Information obtained from the Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook, Copyright 1999 Games Workshop, and the Void Stalker Rules partially both the Battlefleet Gothic website, (http://www.specialist-games.com/battlefleetgothic/assets/Eldar_Void_Stalker.pdf) and the Battlefleet Gothic: Armada rules supplement.