It's been a while since I played, even though
BFG is my fave
GW game of all time, but here goes...
First, which ruleset are you planning to use?
BFG never really had a 2nd edition, but it did go through a fair bit of rules evolution.
In the 1.0 version of the rules, ordnance (torpedoes and attack craft) was potentially unlimited, but could run out permanently if you rolled badly. This made carriers a bit too powerful. Also, nova cannons were guess range weapons.
Various articles in White Dwarf added early versions of stuff like Ork Hulks, Space Marines and Eldar battleships. This early stuff was eventually collected in Warp Storm.
In the mid-2000s there was a '
BFG 1.5' release, with an updated rulebook (with some clumsy editing) and a short cheat sheet
FAQ. If you have a rules PDF it's probably of the 1.5 update. Ordnance now became limited--you couldn't have more attack craft counters on the table than you had launch bays--but could no longer randomly run out. This balanced the carriers versus the rest of the game. Also, nova cannons became scatter weapons, which didn't make all that much sense from a realism standpoint but did tone them down a bit for balance purposes.
Most of the important stuff from White Dwarf and the magazines up to that point was collected into Armada. I think a couple of rules bits and bobs slipped through the cracks, though--like combining turret fire (against incoming torpedoes and attack craft), and how you navigate asteroid fields (which was accidentally left out of the updated 1.5 rulebook due to aforementioned sloppy editing).
In 2010 the 'FAQ2010' was released--it's ridiculously exhaustive and covers a lot of fiddly edge cases that you only need to worry about after you get used to the game. It also did a lot of tournament-ish stuff, like making all torpedo salvos the same physical size on the tabletop. The biggest change here was to make assault boats only insta-kill escorts on a 4+ rather than a 2+.
Several fleets also received updates around this time, in the 2010 Compendium. I'm a bit wary of them, because by this point the fans were filling in gaps and weaknesses in the existing fleets, which started to make things feel a bit too samey. It's not a big deal, though.
Big changes weren't really possible at that time because
GW was still overseeing development. (
IIRC the rules committee wasn't allowed to make a ship worse, only better, to ensure that sales wouldn't be affected. For instance, they could decrease the points cost but not increase it.) Because of this a few people started working on
BFG: Revised, which was a complete fanmade revamp. I never looked closely at it because I liked the official rules just fine, so I can't say much about it
---
It's worth keeping in mind that the game was originally balanced for Imperial Navy vs Chaos. Orks, Eldar and Space Marines were meant as cool bonus extras that were a bit imbalanced compared to the two core fleets. As the years passed, players naturally wanted every fleet to have an equal chance on the table. Some fleets became more viable in later versions of their lists, e.g. Space Marines, but at the cost of fluff (Marines aren't really meant to fight ship-to-ship in the first place).
Eldar, Necrons and Tyranids are perennial bugbears. Some people find the weird Eldar movement rules annoying and unbeatable--I'm personally fine with them, but I don't have much experience with Eldar. Some people find Necrons overpowered (which was intentional, but they have a victory point table to balance this). Tyranids have a complicated flowchart of behaviour that can make them a bit cumbersome to use. Generally speaking, though, nothing is
particularly broken, and anything that feels underpowered or overpowered is probably that way for fluff reasons.
---
Now for your fleet...
That's a good solid Imperial Navy lineup. And a big one, too. (I generally find 1250-1500pts the sweet spot for a game of
BFG, but then again I'm a famously slow player.)
Three cruisers, a battlecruiser for your flagship and maybe an escort squadron makes for a good-sized game by itself. In fact you can have a perfectly decent game of
BFG with just two cruisers per side.
My first suggestion would just be to throw stuff on the table and play a few games--even if that means playing both sides solo to get the hang of the rules. Ship selection does matter, but less so than army list choice in something like
40K. Your strategy on the board is more important: planning where your ships will go several turns ahead, concentrating fire from several ships onto one opponent to actually deal damage rather than just knock their shields down, crossing the enemy's T, getting your crippled ships clear to disengage before the enemy can blow them up, and so on. The best fleet roster in the universe won't save you if the enemy fleet broadsides you up the tailpipe.
As for specific ship choices... when I did up my
BFG fleets I went for a kind of 'Studio army' approach with at least one of everything, so I'd have plenty of variety, rather than trying to make a competitive list. So my thoughts here aren't particularly tournament-esque.
Generally speaking, Imperial Navy ships need to work as a team (often in pairs) to get stuff done. Chaos ships on the other hand have the firepower and speed to go haring off on their own (only to get shot to pieces because of their weaker armour). The exception on the Imperial side is the Dictator, which can operate independently thanks to its torp + attack craft combo.
I seem to recall Tyrants having the same appearance modelwise as Dominators, so you could just count the Tyrant with nova cannon as a Dominator. Doms are great ships and it's worth having at least one. If your fleet is based in the Ultima Segmentum, Dominators are fluffy as they're a common ship choice out there.
I'd keep your two Lunars with novas. Lunas work best in pairs anyway, staying close to each other and combining their fire.
Three Gothics is indeed a bit over the top, but I recommend having at least one--it's great for administering the coup
de grace to crippled ships. By that point the board is usually full of blast markers interfering with weapon battery fire, but the lances can zap anything in range, orientation and debris clouds be damned. I once had two Ork kroozers trying to disengage with one hull point remaining per ship. My opponent's Gothic sailed between them, aimed its lances port and starboard, and scored a double kill.
And Mars class battlecruisers are just all-around legendary.
As for escorts, you'll probably find the Swords to be the most useful. Firestorms are best used as additions to Sword squadrons--say one Firestorm accompanying three Swords, like a special weapon in a trooper squad. Cobras I haven't seen used much, but they're quite nasty when they combine fire into a large torp salvo.
Depending on how obsessed you are, and whether or not you feel comfortable chopping up
OOP models, you could always turn a couple of spare cruisers into hulks/wrecks. Often a destroyed ship in
BFG will keep on drifting--sometimes on fire!--so it can be fun to have a hulk model to replace a ship with. I wouldn't do this unless you're sure you like the game and aren't planning to resell the fleet, though...
Hope that helps. It's a great game--hope you like it.
