Imperial Navy Light Cruiser

Don't under-estimate this.

The Light Cruiser is a class of warship used by the Imperial Navy. Smaller than true Cruisers, they are nontheless much more heavily armed and armored than an Escort, with some classes having the speed to keep up with the latter. Compared to their bigger cousins, Light Cruisers are much easier to build and operate.

Light Cruisers serve as the flagships of Escort patrol squadrons, as they secure the space lanes of Imperial space against raiders. Likewise during times of war, Light Cruisers can also serve as raiders, striking quickly into enemy-held territory, then quickly getting out.

During fleet actions, they can also serve as heavy escorts to larger warships, where their greater firepower compared to Escorts can actually contribute to the battle outside of just torpedo boats or just being dedicated to destroying said torpedo boats.

Think of it this way: you know how sections of guns or lances on a Lunar-class cruiser get swapped out when it’s a different class? A light cruiser is basically one of those sections as its own ship. Which is as pretty darn useful as it sounds, but more fragile. Much like how two Lunars can rival the firepower of a battleship but not survive the fight without more support.

Light Cruiser Classes

Basic

Dauntless

The fastest Light Cruiser class available, the Dauntless is also quite versatile thanks to its weapons load-out of weapons battery broadsides, prow-mounted Torpedo tubes, and and front-facing Lance batteries. Woe to the foolish skipper that underestimates a Dauntless due to its size, and few ever live to make that mistake twice. It’s a faster, up-gunned Endeavor-class with a bit of lance, basically. Like an anti-light cruiser light cruiser.

The Battlefleet Gothic: Armada games give you two variants of the Dauntless, where one gets the Lance battery, and the other gets the Torpedo tubes.

Carrier

Defiant

Captain's first carrier.

A carrier variant of the Endeavor, the Defiant-class replaces the Macro batteries with a pair of small Lance turrets and Launch Bays. As such it is the smallest ship capable of providing Fighter, Bomber, or Assault Craft support. It can even go into silent running stance like other light cruisers.

A versatile class, its usefulness is hampered by its lack of defensive firepower. This relegates it to a support role in fleet actions, usually accompanied by other Light Cruisers to defend it.

Also, the Defiant is somewhat common. Perhaps the sizes of space battlefields means that having more numerous, smaller carriers ranging around to extend the reach of attack craft is more important than wet navies’ preference for fleet carriers. It does make sense.

This class is an escort carrier. In space.

Lance-boat

Endurance

Half of a Cruiser still hits as hard.

Less common than the other Endeavor variants, the Endurance-class retains the light Macro turrets and Torpedo launchers of its parent class, but exchanges the Macro batteries with a Lance deck. Less effective on its own, it's normally paired up with an Endeavor to bring the effective firepower of a true Cruiser to bear.

Ordinance-boat

Endeavor

The OTHER half of said Cruiser.

Coming with Macro turrets and batteries, plus Torpedo launchers as standard, the Endeavor-class is much more heavily-armed and armored compared to the Dauntless. On the flipside, it's also much slower, which makes it less capable in the anti-piracy role compared to its contemporary. This means that outside of fleet engagements (where they take the role as heavy escorts) Endeavors are normally found as the flagships of convoys instead.

Both the Endurance-class and Defiant-class are built off the same hull as the Endeavor.

In Battlefleet Gothic

Cheaper than a regular Cruiser, Light Cruisers are used to bulk up ship numbers without sacrificing firepower by bringing Escorts. One can bring two Light Cruisers for the points of a single Battlecruiser.

Just a fair warning though: the weapon ranges of the Light Cruisers are fairly short especially compared to regular Cruisers, so plan accordingly.

In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 1 & 2

Just like on the Tabletop, the Light Cruisers in the video games are an economical way of filling out one's fleet, gaining a fast-moving unit without losing out on formidable firepower.

As far as actual in-game utility goes however, the Dauntless variants see much more use, due to their faster speeds.