The spreadsheet below is useful in helping to understand the different factions and what specifically they are good at and not so good at.
An Example to better understand my shorthand
Tyranid

• Moral: Fearless --> will never break
  
• Assault: 6.1-18.3 (10%) --> 6.1-18.3 troop damage depending on ship size with a 10% chance of crit
  
• Troops: 14-28 --> the range of troops inside the ship depending on ship size (exclude Escort)

Tau Protector

• Accuracy: Eff. (Exp) --> Typically will have efficient accuracy which options to get exceptional accuracy
  
• Shield: 200-600 --> Ship shields range from 200-600 depending on ship size (excluding Escort)
  
• Hull: 800-2000 --> Ship hulls ranges from 800-2000 depending on ship size (excluding Escort)

Tau Merchant

• Armor: 67 (83-50) --> 67 armor normally but some deviations to 83 and 50 on some ships
  
• Speed: 160-120 --> ship speed ranges from 160 to 120 depending on ship class (excluding Escort)
  
• Bomber Damage: 90 --> the total raw damage a single hanger of bombers

Reactor: the type of manuevers available

• 3x (25s) is the standard +300% which can be held for 25 seconds given a full charge
  
• 10x (4.5s), 180° is the standard eldar instant turn and 1000% speed increase for 4.5 seconds
  
• 20x (2s) is the tyranide lunge of 2000% speed increase for 2 seconds
  
• 9000u is the necron 9000 unit jump

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_jO_ShsKSyvb4myjh4n8PNye6y4R_GP95VqnuixHrtk/edit?usp=sharing
You can save the spreadsheet in order to modify it at your convience.

On the bottom of the spreadsheet is a second sheet of general statistics data along with the assumptions that I am making to calculate the overall effectiveness and effectiveness per cost of each ship.

It is also important to note that there is a list of abilities included and exclused from the calculations. The big abilities I am not facotoring in are:

• Tyranid Massive Claws
  
• Hull Regen
  
• Crital hit Immunity
  
• Nova

The specific per cost section of the spreadsheet is a percentage based on the avg of the top quartile (25%) ships.
What does this means:

• 100% effectively is the gold standard thus you can easily compare everyship easily vs this standard.
  
• The Damage at 13.5k per cost is based on the top quartile of damage at 4.5k. This is so you can compare if ranged damage is even worth while. 50% is more the gold standard for ranged combat
  
• above 112% is an outlier and are the best of class

Lastly, please and the guide.
I am constantly updated the information and a positive response will lend to more features for you to use.

Now battleships are big and powerful and most of all, just plain AWESOME!!! so why would go anything other than battlships? But sadly, most of the time they are traps...

The general thinking behind why you go battlships is the following senario:
If there are 2 fleets that have the same effective health and dps but fleet 1 consists of a single battleship while fleet 2 consists of 2 cruisers. The battleship will leave the battlefield victorious with roughly 25% health.

Except this is NOT a domination game and you will have an extremely hard time winning the victory points game with only 2 battleships. If you end the last major battle with only 2-3 ships (no matter the size) you can easily lose the game.

That being said, a battleship can play a solid role in the game. Specifically as the spearhead to a main engagement. Battleships should grab the enemies attention and fire in order to save your weaker ships. But again, you must leave the final battle with 3 or more ships alive or else you will lose the game. So please, if you take a battleship, let it die with honor.

This is the same thinking behind the battleship trap. Typically, escorts are less cost effective compared to ships of the line with some exception. Although after the main battles are done and most fleets are destroyed, 2 ships of any size is better than any 1 line ship making escorts more valuable.

1. you need a minimum of 4 escorts per fleet
2. if your faction has an escort that is as cost effective as your ships of the line. it is advisable to fill your roster with as many escorts as you can fit (i.e. Ork Onslaught, Tau Defender, Tau Castellan)
3. when fighting a stealthy enemy, keep your escorts behind your ships of the line. They become your most valuable resource.
4. send your escorts to capture victory points during main battle engagements. Capturing all 5 victory points can easily yield 800 victory points which often means victory even when you lose the main battle.

I have fought far to many enemies that say "well I won the battle..." as they lose the game to victory points.

I made a spreadsheet to help players understand the difference between lances and macro weapons.
Lances in general are not great. Their strengths are precise ranged fire and against 83 armor. sadly, ranged damage is generally overpriced and not a viable meta (outside of nova's). the heavy armor is also sparse and can be avoided by properly flanking the enemy, only against space marine and necron do you need armor peircing weapons (of which torpedos are the better/cheaper choice)

below is the information for the new beta lance damage which looks a lot better for lances

Speed plays one of the most important roles in the game. If you have the speed advantage, you can position yourself to maximum your damage while minimizing damage taken.

The magical number to properly kite an enemy is 50%! you need to move at least 50% faster than the enemy in order to keep the ideal range while firing your side weapons.
The reason for this is because you need to fly at a minimum 45° angle away from the enemy for your side weapons to be able to shoot back. Granted you wont fly perfectly and will need to spend some time flying directly away to account for inefficiencies.

This means that against the most common speed (160) you need a ship with at least 240 speed (preferably 280) in order to continuously kite the enemy. This is particularly important vs Ork and Tyranid cruisers because this is their common speed and both are scary at close range.

Only 4 factions can truly field a ranged fleet, Imperial Guard, Mechanicus, Chaos, and Tau. Of which only the Chaos has a light cruiser with the envious 240 speed.


Another important aspect of the game is the faction propulsion types can lend to a total average increased speed. the chart above highlights this bonus.
For example, the eldar propulsion engins lend to a 116% increase in total speed. If they activate reload stance, this bonus increases another 29%.

Launch bays are a love/hate kinda of weapon. They kind of such is a lot of scenarios but are really nice at the right time.

First lets talk Fighters, they fulfill the following roll:

• Protect your ships from torpedoes, assault boats, and bombers
  
• Effective scouts and spotters
  
• Destroying enemy defensive turrets to allow your torpedoes, assault boats, or bombers to attack
  
• Act as meat shield for bombers, assault boats, or torpedoes

Bombers more simple, they damage enemy ships. They are particularly good at killing escorts (if you can spot and catch them).

Assault boats are also simple, they deal troop damage to enemy ships.

So what is the role of hangers? what are they good at? and what are they bad at?

• Launch bays generally have very low DPS per cost and you will not win a decisive all in engagement. If you are playing with a lot of hangers, you have to play the long game, the escort game. Split up your fleet and win by victory points.
  
• Having 1 or 2 launch bays if you fleet can be very helpful at counter certain enemy builds (space marine boarding torpedoes, Tau seeking torpedoes, Ork or Tyranid assault boats)
  
• Launch bays are particularly good in boarding fleet (Space Marine, Tyranid, Ork). they are a necessary addition to hulk enemy ships fast enough to kill a fleet. For example, a single launch bay will do roughly 4 troop damage on a 60 second timer and a light cruiser will do 6 troop damage on a 90 second timer. 1x launch bay = 1x light cruiser in terms of enemy troop damage per second.
  
• If you want to use launch bays for attack, remember that you must overwhelm the enemy defensive turrets. This usually means that you must take multiple launch bay ships to provide meat shields for your assault boats or bombers.
  
• Torpedoes can also be an effective meat shield for your bombers or assault boats.

The only viable meta that extensively uses launch bays effectively are from the boarding factions with assault boats (Ork, Tyranid, Space Marine). In particular, Ork are very strong with launch bays because their fighta also perform hull damage making them a 2 for 1 deal.

Lastly, launch bays are generally very weak in most circumstances because you must overcome the enemy defensive turrets before dealing whatever damage you want to the enemy. This usually means that you want to go all in with launch bays because the first 2-4 bays will be used as meat shields for the rest.

WIP

WIP

Necron appear to have a lot of weaknesses at first glance and their strengths are a bit hidden.

• Necron weapons have 100% accuracy all ranges. Thus DONT stay within 4.5k range, stay near your maximum range of 9k so minimum damage dealt to your ships
  
• Necron weapons have great focus fire potential. Focus on one target at a time, dont spread your fire between multiple ships.
  
• Boarding actions have a 60% critical hit chance. While you wont hulk enemy ships, you can damage their systems.
  
• Doom Scythes fighters deal hull damage. 3 Doom Scythes fighters can kill an enemy escort if he is by himself and alone. This can give you an escort advantage over your enemy.
  
• Starpulse is a more effective defensive weapon compared to an offensive weapon because it does not ignore armor (i.e. it only deals 80 damage vs 67 armor or 40 damage vs 83 armor). Its primary use should be killing torpedoes or launch bays. Its secondary purpose is killing escorts or dropping an enemy shield to lightning strike a ship.
  
• Hull Cauterization is AMAZING!!! more below

Hull Cauterization is truly amazing and has ridiculous potential. In an ideal world with the hull regen stance healing 3 health per second while only losing 1 max health per second. Necron can fully heal their complete health 3 times over! Reallistically, you wont get this ideal but you can get 1 to 1.5 complete heals if played properly. This makes a weak 1600 hull ship more like 4000 hull. Combined with their 83 armor, Necron become the kings of toughness.

Hull Cauterization completely changes Necron game play.

• Dont go for that all out brawling decisive battle. skirmish the enemy, fight a bit, then run away.
  
• Always have an escape plan. This usually means saving your teleport jump and staying near a cloud so you can teleport into the cloud when you get damaged.
  
• More ships are a lot better than less ships. (i.e. 2 ships can heal at a rate of 6 hull per second compared to a 1 ships which only can heal at 3 hull per second). This makes reapers or Cairns a lot weaker. they cant run away as quickly and your fleet cant heal as quickly.

Necron ships are very expensive and not that impressive in raw damage or stats. Any successful Necron play with leverage their strengths as much as possible to achieve victory.

1. The stealth Necron strategy and build with Shrouds or Khopesh
2. The more straight forward Scythe build with Harvesters or Reapers

Specific ship build:
4x LC Khopeshes
7x ES Jackels
Overall strategy follows the standard stealth strategy above

Why 4x Khopeshes vs 4x Shrouds:
1. Shrouds have the ability "shrouded hull" which is nice except any competent enemy will have enough escorts to pop your shrouds. That being said, both ships have stealth stance which is more reliable and fulfills the job.
2. Shrouds have a bit more damage (~22%) compared to Khopeshes. Except the Khopeshes have 50% more health compared to the Shrouds making them ~28% better in overall stats.

Personally, I think that the 28% better stats of the Khopeshes is significantly better than the "shrouded hull" ability making it the winner.

Specific ship build:
3x C Scyth Harvesters
5x ES Jackels

Why 3x C Harvesters vs 3x BC Reapers:
1. 1x Harvester + 1x Jackel = 1x Reaper in health and DPS. The difference is speed, harvesters have 240 speed vs the reapers 200 speed. With 240 speed you can succesfully kite a 160 speed enemy in order to stay that perfect 4.5k-9k range where you have maximum DPS and reduce damage from enemy macros by 25%.
2. Escorts are extremely important in the game and you get more escorts by taking Harvesters with no compomise in overall damage and total fleet health.

Overall, Reapers would be better in your straight up deathball "me go smash". but lets assume people are smarter than that.

Ork generally have 2 major weaknesses:

• They are slow with a 160 speed standard which includes most of their escorts. This combined with a lack of adaquate ranged firepower means that they must close the distance and brawl it out.
  
• Orks have horrible leadership and will most of the time flee from the battlefield before dying

Any strategy should lend itself to overcoming these weaknesses

• Orks have the highest DPS ships for their cost: specifically escort Onslaughts and Rok
  
• Ork accuracy is a surprising advantage because "locked on" stance accuracy bonus is additive thus a 50% chance to hit increases to 70% (or a net 40% increase in damage). This means that Orks should almost always use "lock on" stance which will most often yield a 40% increase in damage along with a 100% increase in critical hits.
  
• Ork fightas are amazing because they are both the Ork bomber and fighter combined (dealing 1 damage every 3 second per fighter)
  
• Ork can perform a lot of boarding damage although you need hangers and torpedos for a full boarding fleet

Specific ship build:
2x Big Roks
4x Basha Ordzgargdaka
7x Onslaughts
Specific Abilities:
Sooper Zapps (too pierce holofields)
Shocking Zapps (too slow the enemy down)

It generally goes something like this:
Step 1: Charge enemy
Step 2: Use Basha as meat shield for Roks
Step 3: Get Roks in close range
Step 4: Roks murder everything
Step 5: If you have successfully kept your onslaughts alive then win the game (if you failed to keep them alive then you lose)

Why Roks:
Roks have a large number of advantages over the standard Ork ships

• They have 83 armor everywhere making them as health efficient as other ships. 83 armor also has a side benefit of taking damage slower which lowers the rate of moral damage (mitigating one of the major Ork weaknesses)
  
• They are immune to critz which again reduces moral damage along with stopping the enemy weapons from dealing pure damage ignoring your 83 armor.
  
• They have decent ranged dakka with a few Zzap to prox your Shocking Zzap Upgrade to slow the enemy
  
• They have amazing DPS per cost making them great brawlers

It is important to note that Rok are weak vs:

• Hanger because they have low turrets per cost
  
• Boarding action because they have low troops per cost
  
• armor piecing weapons (but not crit weapons)

I have had the most success with this specific build because it is well rounded and can fight every enemy. I have only lost a handful of games.

Required Build:
7x Basha Urd Unki
6x Onslaughts
Abilities:
Kommando Training (to keep your escorts alive and the enemy guessing where you are)
WAAAGH!! (to increase your boarding crit chance to 100%)

Alternative build: repalce Basha Urd Unki with Deadnot Urd Unki
Personally, I like the Basha because you have more versatility and flexability with the 7 smaller 2x launch bay squadrons vs the Deadnot Urd Unki 5x launch bay squadrons of death. Although, The Bashas does not have a single dakka on their ship and the Deadnots have at least some dakka to finish the enemy off.

It generally goes something like this:
Step 1: launch waves of fightas at the enemy to kill escorts and rek turrets
Step 2: force the enemy to come to you with your waves of fightas
Step 3: launch mass salvos of normal torpedos at long range (perferably 20-40k range) to harass the enemy and force them to waste boost
Step 4: as the enemy makes the final approach launch a final wave of boarding torpedos
Step 5: Pop WAAAGH!! ability and board the enemy with your ships. Ramming the enemy is also very effective, even against higher weight class ships.
Step 6: Loot all empty enemy ships for more Teeth. and win the game because hangers absolutely rock vs escorts.

This strategy is very fun and suprisingly effective although it does have some major weaknesses. A good necron will starpulse your fightas and torpedos giving him a chance of winning. If an enemy plays great meta play in early game, he can completely negate all early attempts to damage his ships and close the distance to you (usually ending in your death).

Overall, a solid strategy but not unbeatable.


Required Build:
5x Hammer Sma'ka
15x Onslaughts
Abilities:
Red Wuns go Fasta (to increase big red button speed by +130%)
Shocking Zzaps (to slow the enemy down so you can catch him)

It generally goes something like this:
Step 1: Use the Hammer Sma'ka as Vanguard (except flag ship) and charge the enemy
Step 2: Smash into the enemy with Hammer and hulk an enemy ship or two
Step 3: Set Onslaught to lock on stance and rain Ork Dakka on the enemy
Step 4: Clean up rest of the enemies with onslaughts and capture points for victory

Why Onslaught vs more typical Ork Line Ships?

• Onslaught have great stats per cost across the board (better than line ships)
  
• All their damage can target a single ship allow for unprecedented focus fire.
  
• They have a bow mounted weapon with 83 front armor. This can drastically reduce damage taken (and thus moral damage) if you position your fleet properly and dont get flanked (too badly)
  
• with lock on stance, their guns reach 13.5k range with a 45% chance to hit so great chasing damage.

Overall, it works well but is the most common and most expected Ork Strategy so I generally dont like it.


Skills

• Statis Bomb: Maximum distance of 13.5k, explodes after 15 seconds. speed of all ships squadrons and projectiles within 2,500 unit radius is reduced to 90% for 20 seconds
  
• Nova Kannon shot: range from 6k to 25k, 2k effect area, qty 3 blasts of 100 to 50 damage ingoring armor, 30 moral damage, area of effect has random dispersion
  
• Shokk-attack Mega Kannon Shot: range from 6k to 25k, deal 6 troop damage
  
• Kraktor Kannon Shot: range of 12k, moves target in any direction to a max distance of 1,234 units depending on target tonnage. (great at messing up torpedo lines and ramming enemy ships into each other).

Upgrades

• Sooper Zzaps: While on lock on stance, Zzap guns have a 50% chance to ignore shields and Holofields
  
• Annuver Bridge: Stances an be used even when deck is damaged (Line Ships)
  
• Kustom Sheelds: Shields regenerate 25% faster.
  
• Waagh Songs: When using Rally, affected ships are fearless for 30 seconds.
  
• Shockin' Zzaps: Reduces target ship's current (and maximum) speeds by 50% for 2 seconds when hit by Zzap guns.

Specific level 10 faction upgrades

• Ork Watch Team (Pirates): Escort and Light cruisers get 9,000 more vision (but not stealth detection)
  
• Flash Gits (Bad Moons): Ship's accuracy is improved by each range tier (basically +20% better accuracy for macros) (flag ship)
  
• Sneaky Lootas (Death Skulls): Each boarding action does 5 hull damage to the target.
  
• Ard Boys (Goffs): +1 crew per crew tier (3 more crew per ship) and +5% crit chance on boarding.
  
• Red Wuns go Fasta! (Evil Sunz): +130% speed when using Big Red Button and 5 degrees/second better turning
  
• Kommando Training (Blood Axes): All ships start the battle stealthed (like Tyranids)