Hive Fleet Acheron

Whilst mucking about with my “GrimDark 40K” army lists, I stumbled into my Tyranid/Alien Hive army lists. It’s been over a year since I even looked at any of them, and looking at them now (with the advantage of now having played several OPR/GDF games) I realize my old Tyranid/Alien Hive army lists are unwinnable. These old Tyranid/Alien Hive army lists were naturally based on my WH40K 5th-Edition lists, back when our group played 5th-Edition. Back when melee combat was viable for winning battles. Not viable for playing games with the GrimDark Future rules that we use now…

A few things that our group has observed with GrimDark Future rules is that in GrimDark Future, melee combat is just not as effective as ranged combat. This is due to rules such as units disengaging after melee combat (and thus allowed to be shot at with ranged weapons), and the substantial “nerfing” of melee weapons and units across multiple factions. I play to have a good time with my close friends, but I also play to not look like an idiot for my unit choices and army rosters. A melee-focused army in a GrimDark Future game is more than likely to be shot all to hell, so the challenge is to build a viable, lore-compliant SHOOTING army for the Tyranids (and all other factions: not sure how I’m going to fix Orks for GrimDark Future games…)

Anyhow, back to the ‘Nids, I’ve built a new GDF army list for them, dropping the nerfed melee Genestealers and replacing them with a TON of ranged Termagants instead. For a spoiler unit, I’ve added in a flying horde of Gargoyles to ambush onto the objectives in the last Round, added a Tyrannofex for tank-hunting, and an Exocrine for artillery. That’s essentially what our games of “GrimDark 40K” have been – three rounds of long-range artillery fire, then a fourth and final round of the remaining units rushing to seize the objectives. Hopefully my new Tyranid/Alien Hives army lists will serve that strategy well. Stay tuned to find out, and thanks for reading. 🙂

Post-Script: Being an obsessive fan of the Alien(s) franchise (I even like AvP and AvP: Requiem – don’t judge me 😉 ), I decided to go with a xenomorph-inspired paint-scheme: gloss black with faint dark-blue highlighting. I also devised a lore/background for Hive Fleet Acheron – Hive Fleet Acheron is an “experiment” being conducted by Hive Fleet Moloch as it invades the Ghoul Stars. Unlike most Tyranids, Hive-Fleet Acheron is unusual in that it concentrates on ranged combat instead of melee combat. As the ranged lethality of its prey increases, Hive-Fleet Acheron has learned that it must also adapt in order to survive, and in this case adaptation means a pivot to ranged weaponry.