What to Get Next?

[Faultie]

So, after years of having not played, I have decided to get into BFG again. Unfortunately, I have only got 250pts worth of ships: a flotilla I made after Execution Hour came out and BFG Magazine had the "how to" article for the Punisher.
I have:
Arbites Punisher Strike Cruiser (180)
Sword Frigate (35)
Sword Frigate (35)

Working my way up to 1000pts of Imperial Navy, what would you guys suggest? I'll definitely want a Battleship, correct? What else?

[Edit] So-so pictures now attached.

[Bung]

Cruisers.
You will need 3 to be able to have 1 Battleship in your Fleet.

3 Cruisers or 2 and one (1) Grand Cruiser for Classes you need to ask a Navy Player, i own only a Chaos and Necron Raiding Fleet.

[the_killer23]

You NEED more escorts if you're going to run them. Any competent enemy will send a pile of A-Boats towards those Swords, killing them on a roll of 2+

[Faultie]

You NEED more escorts if you're going to run them. Any competent enemy will send a pile of A-Boats towards those Swords, killing them on a roll of 2+

Yikes! I had no idea! At 35pts, I thought the Swords were escorts.

Looks like I'll need something smaller. What would you suggest? Cobras? Falchions?
The Strike Cruiser has fighters, but something else is needed, I suppose?

[Masked Thespian]

I think the_killer23 is referring to escorts in general as opposed the the ship type Escort. He's right that Bombers will overwhelm Escorts, like Swords, completely. Ergo, you will need a carrier ship to launch Fury Interceptors (aka Fighters) to protect them.

Alternatively, he could be recommending that Escorts work best in larger numbers, so having only two Swords wouldn't be enough.

[Faultie]

Ah. Okay.

I've only got 2 Escorts right now because I've only got 1 major warship. I assumed that escorts would come with more big ships. At 250pts, though, I think 2 is plenty (the Punisher's got 2 turrets and fighters for support.) As I go up, I'll need more.

So are Swords good as escorts? Would Firestorms, Falchions, or something else be better?

[the_killer23]

Swords are great all-rounders. Firestorms...ehh, you could just get a lance Dauntless. Don't let the 4+ armor of Cobras put you off, you need all the torpedoes you can get. Falchions are somewhat of a cross between a Sword and a Cobra, with both torps and WBs.

[ThePov]

Going to the OP, you probably don't want a battleship until 1500 points, at minimum. At 1000 points, a battlecruiser should work as a flagship (Mars is always good, I say). Even at 1500, if you can take a Grang cruiser, it may be easier than a full blown battleship. Battleships need a LOT of support to work well.

[the_killer23]

It's generally cheaper to buy a box of chaos cruisers and IN cruisers and build grand cruisers out of that.