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After seeing a couple of BFG games at my local gaming club I wanted to build a fleet.
In 40K I have Tyranids so they were the obvious option.
All the ships are being made from 40K bits.
But seeing I know almost nothing about the game at the moment Im not sure how to arm my ships.
Dont want to build 30 ships and then find out they are useless in game.

What advice could you give me?
How would you arm the Tyranid ships? And why?

Open to all thoughts, comments and ideas.

Thanks in advance.

'Nids aren't a simple fleet, but they have some advantages. Their escorts are exceedingly cheap, and their weapons are devastating at close range. Their longrange fire is less impressive, and their instinctive behavior means you have to plan carefully to avoid units being drawn off by intelligent opponents.

The common outlook on unit choice is minimal weapons to maximize numbers of ships (cruisers with single batteries, etc). Since the number of cruisers and escorts is based the number of hive ships, I like to create groups around hiveships with similar weapon loads.

Sounds like a good plan. Is it worth having launch bays on a Hive ship?
And how would you arm crusiers?

I've got a couple armament layouts (fleetlist aren't handy, but I'll try to give broad strokes)

One has hiveship with max launchbays and torps, cruisers have torps and pyro-acid, escorts have mostly pyro. This is a ranged loadout, or the nexus group of a larger fleet.

Another has claws and feeders in all prow slots, bioplasma everywhere else, and token launch bays on the hiveships. This is the close attack element for a larger force. If you're using bio enhancements, they get solar vanes too.

Third runs the middle ground. No torpedoes, but no feeder/claws where it can be avoided either. Mix of pyro and plasma in the broadsides, token launch bays again on the hives.

If you're running only one hiveship in the fleet, 2 or 3 bays is preferrable since they're your only source of intercepters. If you've got multiple hives, I think its better to max one for ordnance that can hang out in back and let the other have just a little so they aren't out in the cold if they can't reload.

Kraken escorts are disturbingly fun. The annoyance of your opponent as they shrug off ANOTHER salvo can be precious. With the firepower they are capable of, they are very much worth their points.

Both Kraken and Vanguard are good.
Kraken gets to Brace all the time, but Vanguard get spores.

Both are good in their own way.

I think Vanguard are best with the 'close combat' weapons as they will get close anyway.

Kraken get to be flexible with their choice.

The only cruisers i've used are 2 torpedo boats, just for kicks, I don't like them too much.

Hive ships, the most important model.
I go with 2-3 with Pyro up front and all bays on the side.
Multiple hive ships are like free-rerolls, provide ranged cover fire, and pump out lots of fighters (2x limit is still alot and prob. much needed).

The instinctive behavior is both a blessing and a curse and really depend on the ability of both players.
I know that there are uses it allowing a ship to go instinctive as it would have done whatever result anyway (saving a roll essentially).

Configure for melee combat - a common answer in Warhammer and 40K less common for BFG.

Underequip hive shipes, give them all tentacles grown them by the dozen and go straight at 'em.

If you have other fleets it makes sense to make Tyranids something different. Melee, in space, is different.

If you haven't found it already, here's a good guide for converting Nid BFG ships from 40k bits, for a significant savings.

http://www.dysartes.com/model/conversion/hivefleet.php