Editing Imperial Navy (section)

==== Destroyers ====

The most common warship class. Their tasks range from scouting to shuttling VIPs or fighting in fleet engagements in large squadrons. Most pirates use these speedy, nimble vessels to prey upon transport ships. The Navy usually deploys them in squadrons of four. Instead of a WWII or modern analogue, the destroyers of the Imperial Navy are like those of the First World War: ocean-capable torpedo boats that swarm enemy ships.
*'''Basic:''' Usually mounts Prow Torpedoes and a Macrobattery/Laser.
**'''Cobra Destroyer:''' The PT-Boats of the Imperial Navy. Small, fast, and lightly armed, their one purpose in life is to fire shoals of torpedoes from 3-4 ship squadrons. A great part of the Imperium's military advantage (in fluff and [[Battlefleet Gothic|on the tabletop]]) comes from all the torpedoes they can fire at the enemy, and the Cobras are a big part of that.
**'''Infidel Raider:''' Was meant to replace the Cobra, but the plans [[Blood Ravens|were stolen]] by Chaos. Armed with Prow Torpedos and a Macrobattery like its predecessor, though some Chaos fleets upgrade them to Heavy Raiders by adding another Macrobattery. The Falchion was developed from the redevelopment. Both ships are almost twice the size of the Cobra they are meant to replace. Guess someone realized PT boats aren’t that useful if your extremely long-ranged and fast enemy just slaughters them.
**'''Iconoclast Destroyer:''' If there ever was a Guardsman of starships, the Iconoclast is it. A destroyer so shitty the Navy doesn't want it, the Iconoclast mounts 1-2 macrobatteries and is used by Rogue Traders, Chaos and Pirates. Notable for being one of the few ships to have a forward placed bridge, likely due to the smoke-stack like pylons along its spine. It actually has good firepower for its size and is effective at killing enemy attack craft, torpedoes, and destroyers. So, not actually shitty at all until a Sword shows up to kill everyone.
*'''Torpedo-boat:''' Why waste space on pop guns?
**'''Viper Destroyer:''' Given GW's naming conventions, it was inevitable somebody would do this. Not to be confused with the Sloop below, this is a variant of the Cobra where the remaining guns are replaced by torpedoes. Weak against escorts but deadly in numbers against capital ships. Use [[Boarding Torpedo|Boarding Torpedoes]] for hilarious results. Since a Cobra has one gun and it’s useless, we can only assume either Tzeench or self-lobotomy was involved when the navy decided to focus on the Cobra instead of the Viper.
*'''Lance-boat:''' Rather rare among Raiders, as most use their Prow slots for Torpedoes.
**'''Apostate Heavy Raider:''' A variant of the Infidel. Somehow those heretics managed to shove a full sized Lance into a Dorsal slot, which only Light Cruiser and bigger can normally manage.
**'''Idolator Raider:''' Also known as the "WTF is this" ship, the Idolator is the lovechild of a Infidel, a Firestorm and Xenotech. Has a prow lance and a macrobattery.
*'''Other:''' Mostly weak scouts.
**'''Viper Scout Sloop:''' Smallest warp-capable ship in mass production. It is an exceedingly fast scout ship with ridiculously powerful realspace engines and high-tech auspex scanners. In support of Naval Operations these vessels would burn into enemy territory at high speed, collect as much information as possible and then warp back to friendly territory. Unfortunately they are so specialized that they can't do much else apart from that.
**'''Rudense "Class":''' A small ship designed post Gathering Storm to be as fast, heavily armed, and densely armoured as possible, which they do with aplomb. You may ask yourselves, why are they not used in more regular combat roles? Well, the answer is that they are a specialised orbital insertion ship - designed to get as close to the atmosphere of a heavily defended planet as possible, drop it's cargo of primaris marines into the top layer, and get out of there. Whilst this may seem too specialised to be practical, few enemies are ready for half a company of marines dropping in to their base unexpectedly. (Nb - the class hasn't been formally named yet but the only example of it thus far was named the Rudense).
**'''Claymore Corvette:''' Designed entirely around escorting vulnerable transports and protecting them against light raiders in order to allow true Frigates to accompany more valuable ships such as Battleships, Battlecruisers and Cruisers. The Claymore Corvettes are easy to mass produce and maintain and are exceedingly common in the private sector, as they are simply a discount Sword. It’d be nice if someone bothered using them to protect troop transports.