Are grand cruisers and battleships worthy?

[FireStorm20]

I have just unlocked grand cruisers in my imperial campaign and im pretty disspointed. They dont have that much firepower,(maybe apart from Avenger , which seems tough only good at short range), they cost alot, and dont have torps. All in all i went back to my BC Overlords, which imho are much better for their price. And looking at battleships, its even worse, as they cant use the fast turning, i dont see myself using effectively torps without fast turning.

So am i overlooking something, or its better to use the smaller ships?

[Deep One]

Well in multiplayer it is fun sometimes to take 6 of the cheap GCs and just swamp the enemy in a huge amount of hp and guns.

[a great big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ truck]

Originally posted by ████ Blockmongo ██:

Well in multiplayer it is fun sometimes to take 6 of the cheap GCs and just swamp the enemy in a huge amount of hp and guns.

It's also a ♥♥♥♥ build that only works vs bad players

[Deep One]

Yes, obviously.

[Namelesswanderer]

Depends.

One thing to note is that Battleships are actual tanks in that they do not suffer from Crits as much as say a Cruiser class. Later in the game you'll notice cruisers getting crits more and more. Hence the incentive to at least have one battleship in the fleet.

So as the fight goes on...your cruisers and smaller ships will be suffering critical hits while your battleship just tanks it and keeps on going. It can make quite a difference.

As for Grand cruisers...it depends on your style.

I prefer a balanced approach with nova cannons and fighter cover since fighters/bombers can do some damage to your ships so Exorcists are a good choice to bring instead of Emperor class which have the same squadron loadout but are faster. Fighters are good for scouting, locating the enemy, and stopping bombers.

I tend to use Apocalypse battleships because they are powerful lanceboats that can easily crit enemy warships as I usually have 2-3 Dominators (which are heavy macro cannons).

[Uporcpine]

Give Spire a Retribution and he can kill anything with Micro Warp Jump> Melta Torps+Ram Combo

[Nightbringer]

In campaign, it is best to use a lot of smaller ships and special abilities to weaken overwhelming enemy numbers. I had Titan once and it was horrible due to how badly it fits into fleet composition. I also made use of Battleships. As people had said, use lighter ships behind bigger ones. I would line up my Adeptus Mechanicus cruiser line and would bombard with Nova Cannons and then I would use my Imperial Navy Battlecruisers to rush into enemy formation, torpedo them and to board and be boarded in return. This would enable my light cruisers and cruisers to not take any meaningful damage. As people had mentioned previously, Avenger and other high tonnage ships are good for their huge shields and health values which helps them not to be critted or boarded. They also board far better in return. Given that Avenger costs only 199 points, that is a bargain type ship. I used Mars as flag ship for Spire for a long time and while that ship has everything far better than Avenger, it also costs 260 resources and is a lot more fragile than an Avenger. It is designed to fight at stand off distances where Avenger is more of fleet screen.


Yet, I would advise to take Avenger only when short for points for other ships. One ship top of Avenger, cannot recall its name, is far better at broadside damage than Avenger which is just budget version ship. Same stands for BB, Retribution is most effective ship in a game. Its massive tonnage makes it extremely good ramer, especially with its bonuses. Also, 8 torpedo hits at close range with a ram can nuke the ship. It is very good ship.

[Cosmic Cat]

Battleships are super tanky! Especially if you use brace for impact, then it takes ages to destoy one! The only problem with them is to avoid aoe stuff, like meteors and some story aoe-attacks (since they're super slow and you can't turn them around fast).

[FireStorm20]

Thanks guys for the opinions, will try out some of the ideas

[HeathenSW]

In Imperial campaign Retribution spam is quite good. With 1650 limit you can have 5 of them and some random spares at the same time. It's literally a tank line.

[Ashantai]

Battleships I find useful, especially the Retribution. Fully upgraded it's surprisingly agile. If you have micro warp jump it's even better. For Spire's fleet the combination of ram, torpedoes and heavy guns is fantastic.

Grand cruisers I agree though. I prefer battlecruisers as they have the lances and front firing weapons. It might be worth taking the Exorcist for the (cheaper) 4 bays though for support.