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I am writing some fluff and need to know a bit about how many imperial warships might patrol a system or cluster. I don't mean a Battlefleet like the ones that might assemble to protect Cadia, Macragge, Terra or go on crusade just someting that would patrol a couple of imperial systems/destroy an upstart planet. A useful start would be if a BFG player told me what makes up their army for a medium size game. Thanks for any help, anything would be useful as this is a facet of 40k lore i know very little about.

1-2 Cruisers and 1/2 a dozen or so escorts.

Templar is right. An average battle will be something like 500-750 points for each fleet. And that leaves us with exactly what Grey Templar said. It depends on the types of vessels you pick of course, but this is the general idea.

And in the fluff, it is also how an imperial patrol would be organised. One or two cruisers make the heart of the fleet and are escorted by a few smaller and faster vessels like frigates or destroyers. Battlecruisers and battleships only leave their docks for big fleet engagements. You would never see those monsters on regular patrol.

For an average patrol, I would put my money on a Lunar or Gothic cruiser (the most common designs in the IoM) as a flagship, with a Dauntless-class light cruiser and two or three escort squadrons (an escort squadron usually have 3-4 vessels, but it can go up to 6 vessels).

I hope it helps for your fluff .

VERY helpful Cheers Guys!

Also, the BFG rulebook points to carriers being preferred for patrols, presumably so that they can use their fighters and bombers as extended search and recon craft. So, ship classes such as the Dictator-class crusier and Exorcist-class grand cruiser are well suited to this duty; in fact, these two classes are specifically portrayed as being assigned to long-range patrols.

Another question, what are the bombers/fighters that imperial vessels carry called, i cant imagine thunderbolts/marauders are much good in space.

Thunderbolts and marauders are sometimes used, but the primary is the Fury Interceptor.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fury_interceptor

Marauder bombers would be used against space ships, the Furies are for enemy fighters and torpedos.

Marauders are often replaced by starhawk bombers for space engagements.

Starhawks are simply bigger, faster, carry a heavier load-out of plasma bombs and missiles and are more heavily defended (they have various close-defense lascannon turrets dotted on their hull) than marauders.

Starhawks can also be modified to carry a limited amount of anti-ship torpedoes.

But they are much more expensive, which means that many sub-sector fleets can't afford them and still use marauders in space engagements.