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750pts, 1500pts, 2000pts or 3000pts is common.
There is little reason to even collect beyond three thousand points as in that size fleet you can have all you want and need, if you want anything more start a new fleet.
For Imperials you have five assets to choose from, and you want to mix between the five in a ratio that suits you. Note that you dotn need all five elements, three of the five is good enough:
1. Emperor Class battleship.
In a class of its own for many reasons. It is listed herere because it manoeuvers differently to anything else, its slow and crucially has no prow armour. To offset that is has awesome leadership bonuses, defences firepower and carrier assets. Its the only ship with long range wide arc batteries, essential against eldar, its also your only source of Shark assault boats, which is not esentuial but can be useful.
2. Torpedo prow gunships.
From the Lunar up to the Retribution, they all work more or less the same, advance under the cover of the prow, fire a huge salvo of missiles and then turn to line and duke it out at short range. To get this to work you need plenty of gunships, not one or two. Ensure a mix of lances, batteriex and carrier bays. Lunars and dictators are all you really need, overlords help for range. The Mars is not efficuient but is fun as a backstop as it can perform most roles, but it belongs in thr Nova Cannon section.
3. Dauntless.
So cost effective, only ork Kroozers get cheaper hulls per points. use them to flank or as a second wave, use them in squadrons with lances for maximum firepower, or singly with torpedoes. It is important to remember this, multiple torps wont really help as lances are more rerliable, sinlge lances wont help as you dont get a good enouggh fire volume to do real damage wheras torpedoes at least have the potential to do massive damage. ion this note you can supplement a torpedo Dauntless with Cobras, mainly because a full squadron of six yields a huge salvo of 12 torpedoes. using Cobras in less than that is a waste really.
4. Nova Cannon. Use Dominators and Mars as a reserve force advanceing slowly and firing nova cannon as they go. Supl;lement this with Nova cannon armed lunars if you wish, but not a battlership. Battleships belong on the line, and really are better off with torpedoes where they fulfill their role better.
the Dominator is the principle nova cannon vessel because it is cheap and has good battery firepower. This is useful for killing ork escorts and eldar that zip behind your lines.
The Mars is useful as a reseve ship becasue it can fill in on so many roles. While inefficnet as singel Mars is a valuable assets to plug gaps in your line and to patch weaknesses.
5. Frigate swarm. Finally your frigates, while Cobras are situational supports or stand ins for torpedo Dauntless the frigates are worthy intheir own right. There is two ways to use them, in pairs or in squadrons iof six.
Pairs are used to manoeuver in tight dformation with a cruiser in a triangle. They are used to boost turret defences and to add extra round firepower against flanking vessels.
Squadrons of six are used offesnsively, dont be afraid to mix Firestorms and Swords for offensive squadrons, or take six of either. Defensive pairs should be swords however.
Dishonourable mentions: Dont bother with Falchions, or Defiant light cruiser clases, except the carrier. Dont spam Mars no matter how cool and versatile they appear andavoid Gothics and Tyrants, the Lunar class is better as it provides split assets everywhere so the enemy cannot hamper your fleet by cherry picking the more dangerous of the two ship types in the line.
Yes Tyrants are good against Eldar, but BFG is supposed to be played without tailoring to your opponents fleet, capital ships are too big and important two 'swap out', you take all you have. Tailoring fleets also imbalances the game as some combos are grossly unfair.
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