Optimal Imperial Navy Build

[Gekko]

Know the game is fresh, but anybody got any imperial navy builds idea? Besides Nova cannon spam or human torpedo play?

[NoneSuch]

for 2v2s i've not yet found a fleet setup im comfortable using. I want 3 big ships and escorts but don't have enough points )_=

[Magni]

IN is by its very nature a very flexible force that can be tailored in most directions. The old standby is still the IN Old Guard build, with emphasis on forming up a deathball that closes in on the enemy while softening them up and disrupting formations via torpedoes and nova cannons before putting in the boot with massed medium-short-range broadside fire, while carriers are mostly relegated for a support role in providing scouting, fighter cover and picking off enemy stragglers.

Highlights of the roster for me so far:

Escorts:
- Cobra Widowmaker: Your best disposable scout if you want to reserve fighter squadrons.
- Falchion: Small deathsquads of these can be surprisingly effective at picking off weak enemies, and they're a decent screen.
- Sword: The old standby if you want a screening force that requires next to no micro.

Light cruisers:
- Dauntless: Still your all-purpose fast light cruiser of choice, beats out the two Voss-prow gunships by a mile IMO.
- Defiant: Super-cheap carrier? Hell yeah. This thing renders the Dictator all but obsolete given it provides the same amount of strike craft capacity for ~50 points less. Yes, it's more fragile, but it's also faster and you want to keep your carrier away from the fighting anyway. The lesser secondary armament isn't really meaningful especially given that even the Dictators' macrocannons aren't really enough to be a deterrent against anything closing in.

Cruisers:
- Lunar: The mainstay of the Imperial Navy's cruiser line in the fluff, and for good reason. Solid all-rounder that will serve you well in just about any situation.
- Dominator: A nova cannon and vicious close-range firepower. Just be aware that it's the only cruiser without a ramming spur.
- Gothic: Rather niche, but this boy really shines vs Space Marines and Necrons in particular.

Battlecruisers:
The gunship BCs are IMO both rather outmatched by the Vengeance. I'd personally take the Armageddon between the two.
- Mars: Good battlecarrier/long-range support ship. Still got only the same capacity as the Defiant, but also comes with a nova cannon and respectable stand-off firepower to back up its strike craft.

Grand Cruisers:
These are all fantastic IMO. They have mobility and turret values on par with cruisers and BCs, hit as hard as battleships in boarding actions and fall between the two in terms of resilience. They also all got ramming spurs, so in a frontal ram the only thing that hits even harder is going to be the freakin' Retribution itself.
- Exorcist: This thing is basically two Dictators bolted together, minus the torpedo tubes. The smaller of your two supercarriers, faster and cheaper than the Emperor and with enough of a broadside (identical to the Dominator!) to give cheeky escorts and cruisers that try to rush it down a nasty surprise. Very good value for its points.
- Vengeance: This is my personal mid-long-range broadside monster of choice. Thick shields, lots of hp, no prow weapons or armor. Sit around at 13.5-18k on Lock On! and volley away those big plasma+lance broadsides all day. Think of it more as a smaller, cheaper battleship with cruiser-like mobility rather than a super-sized cruiser. This bad boy can throw around enough long-range firepower to rival actual BBs.
- Avenger: Ho boy. 10 points more than a Dominator, which means it is DIRT CHEAP for a Grand Cruiser. It doesn't have the Dominators' prow armor or nova cannon. OTOH, it's short-range broadside firepower is even greater (half damage per salvo per battery compared to the Dominator, but it has double the batteries and they fire faster; this also means more consistent DPS at medium range and more resilience against weapons crits), as are its boarding and ramming attacks. This thing is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face, and can wreck an inordinate amount of face for its cost.

Battleships:
You're basically never going to field more than one of these and they're all decent to good in their own niche, though they really need to be supported and used together with their fleet to truly shine. Never take one of these just because you can, you absolutely need a plan on how to fit them into your overall fleet strategy.
- Retribution: A brutal wrecking ball in a melee and can do some nice work at longer ranges. Great centerpiece "tank" to your fleet because almost nobody other than perhaps Orks, Nids and maybe Space Marines can afford to let it just roll up into brawling range unscathed, so its mere presence can act as a distraction. Oh, and if you chose the power rams upgrade this thing will make FREAKIN' ORKS cry when you get off a ram.
- Oberon: The long-range jack-of-all-trades support ship. Basically a really fat Mars-class, with a mix of 18k range macrocannons and lances, a nova cannon and enough strike craft to protect or scout for itself. Suffers from being a bit too unfocused overall IMO, but it's a pick that will never entirely dissapoint, either.
- Emperor: Your big boy supercarrier. Unfortunately kinda overshadowed by the Exorcist bringing the same amount of strike craft on an extra-beefy cruiser frame with cruiser speeds, all at a significant points decrease. The long-range macros don't really offer enough to make up for it unfortunately, so I'm kinda iffy about the Big E these days.
- Apocalyse: The cheapest BB of them all (only slightly more than a Vengeance and cheaper than an Exorcist!) and perhaps the most pure of purpose. That purpose being to sit at 18k distance on Lock On! orders to throw around a broadside laser disco inferno and the odd nova cannon shell. Necrons and Space Marines in particular will absolutely hate you for bringing this thing to the party.

[Gekko]

Excellent, thanks m8

[Takoita]

I haven't found an escort type that can quite match orkz' Savage (or whatever the name is for the one with biggest guns), but both good old Sword and Firestorm seem to perform reasonbly well.

Dauntless light cruiser, while somewhat lacking in durability, can deal with basically anything, as people have already noted above. That's a build idea right there, pick a flagship of your choice and then stock up on these. It's quite feasible to bring eight of them with a cruiser, or maybe even whole nine at the same time. Just don't put them into a single control group, dividing them into at least two or three would work better, IMHO.

Same goes for cruisers, Lunar in particular. Simplistic perhaps, and maybe not fluffy in terms of battlegroup composition, but having all your ships be the same kind of ship and equipped to handle all comers can really save some precious seconds when playing without the benefit of pausing the game.

Battlecruisers and grand cruisers start to get more expensive, but you also start getting more tools per ship to use. Like, say, going full Exorcist. While picking a carrier only fleet puts it at a risk of overspecialising, this one is more likely to work out then stacking full on Defiant - less ships to control, more durable, packs a better wallop, while still not being too slow or having too few bays to make it worthwhile.

Yes, picking only one or two ship types seems like a shame in a list with so many choices, but it seems to work out better when the fleet is built around a single focus. And in case of imperial navy, few, if any, factions can pull off the focus of 'solid all-rounder' quite as well.