Well, a more or less 1000 point stating fleet could go as follows:
1 Dictator: provides you with some torps and a fighter screen. I got the advise of taking 4 fighters as independent units in my first games, and so far they have been doing great in nullifying enemy ordenance
I would give you the same advise.1-3 Lunars/Gothics. Those are great. At least IMO. They have worked very well for me. Making some number crunching I have found that 6 weapon batteries +2 lances or 4 lances are always better in parallel engagements with armour 5 or 6 over a 12 broadside firepower, the most you can get in regular 8 hit point imperial cruisers (dominator). I will send you the statistics if you want in an excel doc. SO against chaos in a broadside engagement they will fare better than the dominator.
1 Dominator: if you want to test the nova cannon this is your ship. plan B is to get a Mars instead of the dictator and the dominator, getting both the nova cannon and the aircraft cover, but I don't really like that shiop. A thing about personal preferences, I guess. And me sucking at guessing as well, so taking a nova cannon is worthless for me following the main rulebook
The overlord and Armaggedon are other options if you want a fairly good grand cruiser instead of the Mars. Good firepower all around, even if it is not incredibly astonishing
Good firepower ships for 235 points.So in general I would go for any combo of those below for a stating test fleet for 4-8 battles:
GRAND CRUISERS:
Mars (take no dictators, then)
Armaggedon
Oberon
CRUISERS:
Dictator
Gothic
Lunar
Dominator
ESCORTS:
I find Cobras to be specially effective, but in general I would take whatever the rest of your fleet lacks: either firepower (swords) or lances (firestorms)
There we go, from newie to newie
Regards,
Xavi