Editing Imperial Navy Cruiser (section)

==In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 1 & 2==

Much like in-universe, the Cruiser will be the bread and butter of any Imperial Navy fleet. While having a [[Imperial Navy Battleship|Battleship]] is all good and well, any decent list out there will feature ''multiple'' Cruisers (of any flavor) simply due to their low point cost (one can get two Cruisers for the cost of a Battleship). Run with [[Imperial Navy Escort|Destroyer squadrons]] for maximum fun.

Though lacking standard prow weapons, and ostensibly focused on broadsides, Imperial Navy cruisers can be surprisingly deadly on a frontal charge. A full six-torpedo spread can devastate enemy ships, the heavy prow armour allows them to survive long enough to close to ranges where landing all six is reliably possible, and the forward ramming spur allows them to deliver a brutal follow-up to survivors. Most of your ships are reliable picks, and can be counted on to give a good account of themselves.

Nonetheless, there are winners and losers here.

The '''Lunar''' is, as on the tabletop, your standard cruiser. Its mixed-loadout of lances and macrobatteries means it'll always be effective but never efficient when considering any target, but it is one of your cheaper options. If you're good at micro and want to specialise your ships to take advantage of that you'll get better results elsewhere, but if you'd rather spend your clicks elsewhere, it's a solid choice. Generally, though, it takes long enough to take down shields that you might as well focus on specialized ships and choose your preferred range and ships which compliment that approach. A Jack of all Trades ship is okay but really only for assisting specialized ships. But, since those ships are more expensive and their effectiveness means you don’t strictly need a bunch of them, Lunars are a good mortar to their brick. On the other-hand, there are other general purpose ships than the Lunar in different flavors of deck combinations: launch bays, lances, and macro. Pick your strategy, your engagement range, and build your fleet on those factors.

The '''Dictator''' is your carrier option, but oddly enough isn't a particularly great carrier. Its batteries are short-ranged enough that it can't really hang back from a fight without sacrificing its guns, and if that's what you want you can save a few points and just take a Defiant. Instead, treat it as a fairly typical close-range ship of the line with some optional strike craft support, and you'll get far better use from it. Remember that you don’t have to use your attack craft on the same target as your guns. You can deploy them against other targets to assist other ships or as part of a greater attack craft wave.

The '''Gothic''' is your next option, and is both the cheapest and most specialised. A full lance broadside is devastatingly powerful against enemy hulls, and if you can knock out their generators, the Gothic can be incredibly points-efficient. The only issue is that its lances are unfortunately, as with most of the imperial navy, fairly short-ranged.

Your last two options are the '''Dominator''' and '''Tyrant'''. The '''Dominator''' is ''painfully'' close to perfect, with a very powerful broadside at close range. However, it's the only cruiser to sport a Nova Cannon and lack the spur, meaning that it can't pull off the torpedo-ram combo which is so effective at the ranges where it wants to fight.

The '''Tyrant''' has the opposite problem; its plasma macrobatteries have an extremely long range, but only make up half its battery complement, with the rest taken up by regular macros. At long range it just doesn't have the damage output to justify itself, and in close-range broadsides the weaker plasma means it can't really keep up with the Dominator, Lunar or Gothic. (However, astonishingly, although its broadside DPS is lower than the Dominator, because it's a bit cheaper you actually get more marginally more efficient 'pure' DPS out of it than the Dominator. This doesn't account for the Nova cannon or torps, but it's a surprise to see that the Tyrants would actually defeat an even point value of Dominators in a straight shooting slugfest. [[Just As Planned|Turns out Hyus N'dai knew what he was doing after all!]])

If their prow weapons were swapped, both of these ships would be significantly stronger, allowing the Dominator to be one of the most effective brawlers in the game while the Tyrant could justify staying at range with a combination of plasma macros and nova cannon shells. Take notes, [[Belisarius_Cawl|Cawl!]] (It would be nice if the close-range guns were replaced with launch bays, too - but then you'd basically be going for stripped-down [[Mars-class Battlecruiser]]).

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Battlefleet Gothic]]
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Imperial Navy]]
[[Category:Vehicles]]
[[Category:Ships]]

{{40k-Imperial-Ships}}