Ok, so after a fair bit of time reading, searching, reading more and generally just trawling for information I found this
thread over on B&C; I think it is probably one of the key stone pieces of information I/we would need to start building a Crusade Fleet list. It contains a huge swathe of Heresy era ship classes broken into designation and sometimes focus.
It also includes all references to where the information was taken from and appears pretty solid, most of the latest information coming from Horus Heresy Book III which contains a large section on the fleets of Heresy. While I am not going to repost the entire sections here, I think it would be useful to repost a chunk of the information in a slightly different format to assist in the formation of a possible list. Some of the ship classes are cross overs with the known old school classes from regular BFG, other Classes can piggy back the rules of existing classes especially the Marine/Legion ones along with some of the more focused classes using similar doctrined BFG classes.
Something I would really like to avoid is the creation of new stats, starting down that path can only end in tears. I would rather rename existing Classes to help them fit in with the 30K fluff to make it a far easier to get into and get accepted by the local community (and hopefully wider?).
So as it stands we have a list of; Battleships/Battlebarges, Grandcruisers, Cruisers and Escorts. The Grandcruisers appear to be the equivilant of the Battlecruisers. There are 5 Battleships, 2 Grandcruisers, 3 Cruisers and 2 Escorts all with cross overs (they are existing classes in BFG), with another 4 Cruisers and 4 Escorts with known focuses which will help identify potential substitutes from the BFG range.
The below list is formated as such:
BOLD & CAPITALISED - An existing Class exists in BFG
Blue Text - Identified in fluff as Legion exlcusive, note that this does not mean Legion didnt use others
Battleships
(Battle Barges appeared to be a generic name given once under the command of Legion)
DESOLATOR
EMPEROR
RETRIBUTION
VICTORY
WARSPITE (use Battle Barge rules)
BasileusDictatus
DominusGlorianaGoliath
Imperator
Ironclad
LegatusMortis Rex
Tiamat (Shield Bastion?)
Grandcruisers
AVENGER
VENGEANCEDagon
Inflexible
Maelstrom
Cruisers
(Strike Cruisers are legion exclusive Classes designed for boarding and planetary assaults)
HADES
LUNAR
OLYMPIA (use Marine Strike Cruiser rules)
SILURIAArmiger (fast, Lance focused)
Bellerophon (Heavy Assault Cruiser)
Cardinal
Crusade
Crusader (main line, weapons batteries focused)
Eclipse
Hellfire (Lance Cruiser)
Tetsujin
Escorts
COBRA, Destroyer
HAVOC, Firgate
SWORD, FrigateBaron
Harpy
Sceptre
Spectre (Warp Runner)
Stalwart (Minekeeper [not Sweeper, maybe a dployer?])
Symphalia (Warp Runner)
Thor (Ordinancer)
Thunderbolt, Heavy Frigate
Vigil, Siege Frigate
So apart from the obvious match up of existing classes, I would be reliant on other people with more knowledge of the game than myself to try and match up rules to other 30K fluff classes, probably the focus specific ones would be the easiest at this point in time.
Next question is what would the minimum number of ship options be to get a reasonable list?
