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Do they even have a presence? I know from the fluff and books about Thunderhawks but do they have any other ships like smaller fighters?

I know there was a small-ish fleet list for them... Don't they get Battle barges,a couple 'escort' class ships, and a few other toys?

Don't know about fighters... Not sure I can see a Space Marine in full armor crammed into an X-Wing or Starfury.

Yes, there is a fleet list for Space Marines.

You can find all the info you need on the GW website here.

There are rules for the Space Marine fleet in the Imperial Fleets PDF. They are made up of Battle Barges, Strike Cruisers, and three types of escort ships (as well as the other Imperial escorts).

Their ships with carrier bays can launch Thunderhawk gunships, rather than fighters or bombers.

In some fleet lists, it is possible to mix Space Marine and Imperial Navy ships. It's all in the PDF.

Thanks for the info. I took a gander and was pretty impressed with what I saw. Actually, I might collect some Nid ships instead. Those look pretty awesome.

One of the great things about Nid ships is that you easily can make them yourself using bitz from the 40K Nids.

Make a good plan beforehand and start making gribbly spaceships!

Space Marines get two types of capital ship the Battle Barge and the Strike Cruiser. there are some rules for mofidied versions of each vessel and I have seen rules for inclusion of ancient (read chaos) ships in a Space Marine fleet.

Space Marines either use normal Imperial escorts with a price increase and some special rules that are not really worth the 5pts more you pasy and a line of advanced escorts which again have similarities to Imperial designs but are superior to the ships they mimic. such as 5+ armour fro the Cobra equivalent, , increased speed or increased range. Again thee escorts are superior but the pricetag is questionable.

The bulk of the points should always be spent on capital ships for Space Marines, especially because the real stock advantage the fleet has is a universal 6+ armour. This brings into question why you would want escorts at all, as all thery do is give enemy batteries and torpedoes something to shoot at.

some escorts is good for a fu element but keep them side and rely on cheaop and very effective strike cruisers play to your strength and slow just about all the enemies non lance arsenal.

Bombardment cannon are nasty but the fleet has no lances per se, except on the escorts and they are not worth it for the function they bring.

I do not recommend Space Marines as a default fleet, what they offer is the opportunity to take something widely different, and work well as an swap out third of fourth fleet in a collection. But to experience BFG you needcto collect something else first.

Ironically in BFG Imperial Navy, Eldar, Orks and Chaos are the standard, and Space Marines are one of the gimic lists.

Space Marine specific escorts are great, having 6+ armor and superior speed. But Orlanith is correct, they are a very touchy and have very specific strengths. They're not the Jack-of-all-trades they are in 40k

They dont have 6+ armour, thart is the problem. With their lighter armour you give an opponent something to shoot his batteries at while the lances fire at the capital ships. for Space Marines to prosper they must eliminate this problem by taking no escorts, or very few escorts deployed elsewhere. this measn that the battery firepower of the neemy fleet, and the torpedoes too are alrgely neutralised and the advantage holds.

The only other option is to take an escort fleet and rely on a handful of strike cruisers for ordance support. Thunderhawks are good assault boat eliminators because they lremain 50% of the time and theri carriers are fairly cheap. yes a Space Marine escort fleet does work, but you have few of the actual advantages of Space Marines and the +10pts for the equivlanet imperial navy ecort, or +5pts if you take the standard designs, well that is a heftly price to pay.

So frankly I would go back to a standared Imperial escort fleet if that is what you want.

Take strike cruisrrs and battle barges in whartever ratio suits you. Take only as many escorts as you need to give your fleet the variety you want, or to eliminate thoughts that you are minimaxing the fleet. If that means none take none and go entirely with capital ships.

Please remember that strikes cruiserrs are versatile multirole and cheap, you can afford a fair few of them. if you look at the force breakdown for the Armageddon campign strike cruisers were by dfar ther most commonly deployed capital ship. far outnumbering the cruiser squadrons of the Imperial navy. Now most were there primarily to drop of marines, but no doubt they were themselves ready to fight.
Feel no guilt about spamming trike cruisers to form a fleet it appears the Imperium of Man has precisely the same idea.