Battleships/grand cruisers

You mean you've got that many blank hulls and want to know what classes to build them as? Makes absolutely no difference.

Remember, what your list is composed of plays a fairly small roll in BFG - at least, a much smaller roll than in GW's other games. BFG is a game about tactics. Take ship classes that interest you, and learn to use them properly.

General advice, though, is to take a variety of classes and of weapons types. While a list of just batteries or just lances or just ordnance is possible, it's fairly difficult to work with. Being heavy in one weapon type is fine, just make sure to have a little bit of everything. It'll pay off.

Also, you didn't mention anything about Escorts. I don't know if that means you don't have any, or if you were just leaving them out because they're irrelevant to your question. If the former is true, then I suggest you pick up quite a few. Imperial fleets (as with most BFG fleets) *need* Escort support. I go so far as to say that one squadron of 3-4 Escorts per two Cruiser-sized vessels or larger is a good rule of thumb. As above, a good variety works well. Cobras, though, are great little ships - I'd definitely suggest at least one group of 4 of them!

Hey Arklite. Welcome to the Imperial Navy!

I won't talk about all the ships, as I would be here all day. But I will give you a short summary of my favorite cruisers.

Lunar - All rounder
2x Lances, 6x Batteries on each broadside, Prow torps.
I make these the staple diet of my fleet, although they have no particular role and no particularly strong weapons compared to the other classes, they can fill a veriety of roles and are useful in numbers.

Dominator
With 12 weapons batteries and a nova cannon it can so a sick amount of damage. I stick a line of these babes behind my torp armed ships. Pull the enemy closer with the Novas and push them away with the torps. They will be forced to engage the front line, then you can bring your Dominators in and use their batteries to full effect.

A Dictator can be useful as a carrier. But it's expensive, and for the extra points I would much rather take a Mars.

Mars
An expensive ship. But with a Nova cannon and 2x 60cm lances it can be used as a support ship and dosen't have to risk it's hide to engage like the Dictator does. Carriers will always be expensive to Imperials, so you might be better off just investing in an Emperor. But this is still a solid ship, worth it's points IMHO.

Armageddon
Big lunar with nice 60cm weapons batteries. I usualy take one of these as my "group commander" for the Lunars, but like the Lunar - it has no particular advantages or disadvantages beyond its long-range lances.

I personally prefere a variety of ships in my fleet. I love the rules and feel of the cruisers, so I don't take escorts (this is a risky move that puts me a disadvantage a lot of the time, but I'm able to get around this by taking a lot of carriers). I also don't like taking multiple ships of the same class...I just think it's more fun this way.

My 1000 point list has the following:

Gothic class cruiser
Dictator class cruiser
Dominator class cruiser
Mars class cruiser

at 1500 I throw in a:
Dauntless class light cruiser
Emperor class battleship

I love the emperor class battleship. Its got 50% more hull points than a regular cruiser, twice as many shields, and 4 or 5 turrets on it (bombers wont be able to touch you). At 60cm it can hit someone with a strength 17 gun battery barage, and it can carry up to 8 squadrons of fighters/bombers/landing craft. Sure, it doesn't have any lances or torpedoes, but it's batteries are sick! in 1500 points, I'm able to pump out 16 bomber squadrons in one turn (plus a barage of lances, batteries, torpedoes, and a couple nova cannons).

I would HIGHLY recommend the Emperor class battleship to anyone looking for a battleship.

I actually have a list farily similar to Neferata's list. I DID build a Dictator, but sacrificed it in favor of a Lunar and a small squadron of four Cobra's. It is surprising how handy the nimble little torpedo ships are for flanking, in my opinion at least. I usually use the Imperious Upgrade on the Mars for the 1000 point list. I also notice Neferata's 1000 point list is a light cruiser's worth short?

I use:

1000 points

Lunar: 180
Gothic: 180
Dominator: 190
Mars: 270 (w/ Imperious Upgrade 285)
Cobras (4x) 120

1500 points add:

Emperor (w/ Sharks Upgrade): 350
Dauntless (Torpedo Variant): 110
Swords (3x) 105

I agree with Neferata that the Emperor is by far the easiest battleship to use, and I've heard it's better for newbies like myself. I will be toying with a Retribution next.

I don't know why people never take escorts. Sure, they're fragile, but they move fast, have decent weapons especially in squadrons (Swords! take swords!) and are great for irritating the flanks of the enemy. Usually I'll send them ahead of the rest of my fleet, deploy them off to the side a little pointing away and then use all ahead full in their first turn. From then on, they can engage whatever escorts the enemy has (decreasingly fewer and fewer all the time, tis a damn shame, tis) and then harry the rear of the other fleet. Battleships hate the little buggers and after a while even 3-4 swords can start to affect some of largest vessels that you will be presented with.

I have both battleships in the rulebook, and although the Emperor is a powerful vessel in its own right, I find particular merit with the Retribution. Although the Emperor will be nice to you and stop your escorts (if you bother with them, which you should) from being pummeled by assault boats the retribution can deal with the carrier before it becomes a problem. Even at range, a retribution can cripple a styx class heavy cruiser, rendering it rather helpless to the attack craft of a mars (which I always take, usually the Imperious with its upgrade if I can spare the points).

Lunar class cruisers are the mainstay of my fleet, as with most people, but 've been trying out squadroning them with a gothic class and the results have been a little varied but generally positive. So long as you fire the lances after the batteries you're laughing and with both of them having torpedoes you can rip right into the enemy's front line.

well ive managed to get my cruisers into a grouping im happy with having built them into squadrons of 4 either containing an overlord, a lunar, a gothic and a dictator or 2 mars a dominator and a gothic.

though very jack of all trades these squadrons have so far preformed fantastically in 1000 point games

the overlord squadron took on a 1000 point chaos fleet managing to destroy a Hades class heavy cruiser and crippling 2 slaughter class and not losing any victory points.

my teacher (we played this at the club at school) did call my rather mad for squadroning my entire fleet but it seemed to perform very well.

as for battle ships and escorts im looking at investing in a 6 strong squadron of swords (24 gun batteries *drool*) and an emperor class battleship (nothing like assault boats for smashing hostile escorts)