Many however still serve in Reserve fleets, ready to return to front-line duty if the need is dire enough. Their place in Imperial fleets have instead been replaced by Battlecruisers, which are far easier to maintain. With many of the complex systems that went into their construction now either lost or no longer easily replaced, the vast majority of Grand Cruisers have since been removed from active duty. The designs of Grand Cruisers are ancient, with many of them predating the Great Crusade. Or they should be, but somehow the Vengeance and its variants are almost the size of an Emperor-class battleship despite one ship missing one third of the other’s decks. And given some of those Grand Cruisers are two-thirds the size of battleships with all the cost savings of that length and massive difference in volume would result in, you could probably build several for the cost of one Battleship. Lore-wise, a couple Grand Cruisers could duel a battleship and win.
Smaller than a Battleship, a Grand Cruiser was still heavily armored and shielded, could still mount Battleship-grade weaponry, and yet still be faster and more agile than those great behemoths. The Grand Cruiser is a warship type used by both the Imperial Navy and the Fleets of Chaos.
