As a race, they are outstanding. They have numerous assets that are best-in-class at what they do:
Best Cruiser-Killer: Tikrit Heavy Cruiser. IMHO, the best pure attack craft in the game. Defensively challenged is an understatement, but the amount of damage it can deal is staggering. This ship could very well be the reason why Maneouver to Shield Them was removed. Fast and mobile for a Battle-level hull. Devastating under Concentrate All Firepower.
Best Medium Carrier: Garasoch CVA. It's a close-run thing between this and the Brokados; the offensive capabilities and the extra 2 Thorun is what I like, but you could argue the other way just as well.
Best Cheap Bombardment Craft: Jashakar Tae. It's the new Hermes with Flash Missiles. Nasty.
Best Brick: Khatrik So Assault Ship. Killing this at Raid level is a pain. It's even moderately dangerous when the Anti-Ship Missiles are armed.
Follow this up with a very competent fleet list:
-- Cheap scout? Check. The Jashakar Vi is a mainstay of your fleet; buy several.
-- Good raid ship? Check. The Targrath is not best-of-the-best, but it's high up the list. Some people even prefer the Omelos instead; that means that it's a good ship, too. Both are very -- perhaps excessively -- destructive for their priorities.
-- Good war ship? Check, in spades. Take either the Mankhat or the Mishakur. The Mishakur is Rambo with a chaingun; whatever it points its main batteries at, typically is badly hurt or dies outright. The Mankhat is more of a bombard and melee craft which has survivability issues at War priority but, when positioned well with scout support, can kill many craft in one turn.
--- Wanna take a planet? You have spectacular anti-planet and anti-base capabilites with your assault fleet. It's like fish in a barrel. Any adrift ship is also DOA against an assault fleet.
Unfortunately, you have a few downsides....
--- Good skirmish ship? Not so much. This is the big hole in the Dilgar fleet. The Ochliavita just doesn't match up against the rest of the Galaxy's Skirmish ships, such as the useful Maximus, the dangerous Vorchan, the capable Chronos, any of the Narn options, the raft of good Drazi ships, or the Vree Xixx/Xirr/Xorr. The Rohric is good, but it runs into another problem
--- Never, ever, mix the Assault Dilgar with the Fast Dilgar. You'll lose. Trust me on this one. Both ways can win, but pick one or the other. Both isn't a wise choice.
--- Defense? What's that? You'll quickly learn that your only defense is Thoruns escorting your heavy ships. It's a good use for them, though, so use them to allow your Targraths and Tikrits to get shots.
Tactical basics:
Your most powerful SA is CAF. It magnifies your AP weaponry brilliantly. Scouts to give you second chances at CAF make it better.
Pentacons are fun, and the Ochliavita Ki is nasty in them, but killing the Ochliavita Ki isn't hard, and you gave up a lot of initiative turns to get it. It had BETTER be worth it.
Give your Anti-Ship missiles a chance. A good pass might be Bombard on Turn 1, CBD and Heavy Bolters turn 2, CAF with Pulsars, Bolters, and reloaded Missiles turn 3, hope no enemy survives to turn 4. This plan only valid if you can invalidate a goodly hunk of his firepower by keeping long range (Centauri is a good fleet to use this against).
Always plan out how you're going to overload any ship with Interceptors early on in the turn.
Lead your targets like a Quarterback. Your armament gets very very thin as soon as you can't get your F weaponry to bear.
There will be significant opponent whining the first time MoD goes nuts on an opponent's ship. They'll eventually learn to do anything --- anything --- to get out of F arc. But for their first experience against you, roll away.
First run the fast fleet; it's more forgiving. Get into the slow Assault Dilgar (Khatrik So, Rohric, Wahant) later. They're also good ships, but take a lot more planning and patience.
