Introduce your Hive Fleet!

[hivefleetkarkinos]

First post here, so I thought I'd go for something fun...

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I'm creating a new army in 40K, I always love to create fluff for it, and name it according to my ideas! I think it would be interesting to hear what you've named your Hive Fleet and why, along with any stories or other points of interest.

I'll get the ball started...
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HIVE FLEET KARKINOS

Color scheme: Yellow and black carapace. Black flesh. Blue biolumenescant glow from exposed internal workings.

Fluff: Widely suspected to be an offshoot from Hive Fleet Hydra, Karkinos is named after the giant crab that assisted the Hydra in its battle against Hercules in ancient Terran legend, and which was the basis for the constellation 'Cancer'.

Like its progenitor, it has a tendency to cannibalise from other hive fleets that wander into its territory, but unlike Hydra, it tends to take only a small meal instead of a feast.

Karkinos has a worrying tendency to adopt and blend tactics and traits from other hive fleets. and this has led to speculation that Karkinos is simply gathering genetic information for unknown means.

Typically, attacks on settled worlds and satellites follow a unique pattern...

Either a single bio-ship or a small flotilla approach their target, far smaller in number than the average hive fleet. This often leads to them being underestimated or ignored, with a minimal response sent to drive them off or destroy them.

What the defenders are unaware of is that the ships nothing but genetic factories that, rather than responding by trading fire with the imperial ships, instead fires wave after wave of burrowing spores loaded with combat constructs into their hapless victims. Worse yet, those spores that do not consume the crew continue onward toward the unsuspecting world that expected only a few targets, and now finds themselves facing legions.

As the bio-ship continues to shed spores, expending even its own body until it is nothing but a whithered husk, the spores make landfall, delivering a tide of warrior beasts that quickly overwhelm the defenders, burrowing into the surface with tactics that appear to have been taken from Hive Fleet Jormungandr.

It is at this point where Karkinos deviates most from its bretheren.

Once the world's infrastructure and leadership are demolished, Karkinos alters its methods and begins rounds up any survivors, killing and maiming only those that resist.

These unlucky survivors are herded into vast underground caverns, where those with military rank and experience are forcibly implanted with the genestealer's parasitic DNA. Other survivors are allowed to exist in small, ragged communities that are periodically harvested whenever the population rises to a sufficient level, often with the assistance of their now implanted defenders.

As for the world itself, digestion pools are created at strategic points on the surface, and the periodic harvestings are used to construct massive vessels that echo the bio-ships which launched the initial assault.

Rather than travelling en mass, these gene-factories launch in every concievable direction, often flanked by their now loyal, cultlike Imperial bodyguard- scattering to the stars like the constellation of their namesake.

[midcornwallgaming]

Hive Fleet Chimera (aka The Black Swarm)

Dark brown exoskeleton/black carapace

Made up of splinter fleets from across the galaxy. Like locusts smaller splinter fleets join with near by fleets forming a mega fleet. They now make their way across the galaxy devourering anything in their path.

Being made up from many different hive fleets they have take on the adaptions from other fleets in which they use to attack unprepared systems.

[Threeshades]

The Apocryta Strain

Color Scheme: Red exoskeleton with bright yellow faces, as well as carapaces and claws in bright yellow with black patterns at the base, reminiscent of terran hornets

Initially an unremarkable kraken splinter fleet that drifted toward the galactic core along with many of its kind, the Hive Fleet Apocryta was observed heavily diversifying its bioforms, apparently experimenting more actively trying to drive its evolution forward. One result of this has been the development of membranous wings in some flying bioforms similar to those of insects, which frees up all of the six limbs of these species and makes them more efficient fighters. Another remarkable expression of Apocryta's evolution is the altering coloration of vanguard organisms such as genestealers and lictors which display black exoskeletons with bright red carapaces. It is not uncommon to see multiple organsims with wildly different physical features serving the same funcion in an attacking swarm, as though different experimental forms are pitted in battle to determine the most efficiently performing blueprints. Although its bioforms are quite diverse, Apocryta approaches battles with the typical strategies employed by its parent fleet Kraken, and prefers a quick and relentless mass advance.

Despite its curious evolutinary experiments, Apocryta was considered a minor threat, until the Cicatrix Maledictum rent the galaxy asunder and swallowed the splinter fleet. Soon thereafter genestealer cult activity increased all over the south western half of the galaxy. Hybrids and purestrain genestealers of these cults displayed aspects of the Apocryta strain's characteristic vanguard coloration. These reports were soon followed by reports of relatively small scale tyranid invasions displaying the hornet-like colors of the vanished Hive Fleet. The fleet was apparently scattered across the hemisphere, and started picking up activity in unison. Since their genetic, physical and behavioural traits are recognizable, although they are no longer a coherent fleet, these remnants are now classified as the Apocrtyta Strain, and its existence is heavily covered up, as its current strength is unknown and public knowledge of its existence would likely cause panic.

[doberman]

Hive Fleet Craic-inn

Red Exoskeleton/ Purple Carapace

The fleet that will try any strategy once, regret it, forget it, do it again, travels randomly from planet to planet devouring the tastiest bits.

It has a craving for space puppies. It likes tough chewy meat.

Taking advantage of the fact that they will eventually overwhelm the planets defenses anyway, it's just a matter of time.

It is an experimental strategist.

The last planet faced nothing but large hordes of Devilgaunts, with spore mines everywhere. So many spore mines that you couldn't swing a feline type creature without hitting one.

Oh how the Hive mind chuckled!

Attachments:

[ziyousansz]

Sure, why not?

Designation: Hive Fleet Taniwha

Parent Fleet: Kraken

Colors: yellow skin, purple vents, red and teal carapaces.

Hunting style: hit and run guerrilla tactics.

Codenamed after the Maori shape-shifting creature often born from human mothers, Hive Fleet Taniwha favors vanguard organisms and feeder beasts more than most Kraken splinter fleets. It favors infiltration and subtlety over brute force, and makes extensive use of genestealers as shock troops.

As the last of the Tyrannic hordes at Lyanden met defeat, the fleet ships ushered out a synaptic message to the the splinters and tendrils just arriving: "hide." With the early ships wounded and dying, the later ships scattered as small splinter fleets, each out to rebuild themselves while hiding in the depths of space. Many clinged to the Eastern Fringes and the Ultima Segmentum.

One ship stalked north towards the Ghouls Stars.

Starved, tired, and weakened from the long journey, the fleet ship navigated dead worlds with little success. A few small moons held basic nutrients but nothing provided a wealth of biomass needed for rebuilding. After years of hibernation and cannibalizing all resources, the ship detected a world wealthy in biomass. It set upon a crash course for the planet.

Like a comet it fell, crashing into the forests with the last of its energy. The Norn Queens worked tirelessly assessing the environmental factors and assembling feeder organisms to begin the onslaught. In their current state, the creatures could not create the beasts for war against whatever was out there. Instead, it began seeding and burrowing in earnest, slowly spreading outward and downward. Rippers and gaunts dug out a trench for the ship to hide it amongst the lush tropical forest trees.

The first creatures spawned after feeder swarms were genestealers and lictors. The creature needed to know what the local prey was like. They seemed similar to the Lyanden forces that had slain the forward ships, but... different. More primitive. They tamed great beasts for war and labor. They tended the world's plant matter. They lacked the bone constructs of the familiar prey. There was a chance. As the creature set its lictors and stealers to begin stalking key prey, it began creating flying and burrowing beasts for the initial strike.

After months of harassing leaders and spreading fear, the strike came in the dark of night. The chief Exodite city was in disarray. The Devourer had come. It was a few weeks of rebuilding and consuming before the maiden world was once more a lifeless rock.

The splinter ship hovered above the desolate rock. It birthed a smaller second ship, and the two headed into the Ultima Segmentum.

Now numbering ships in the hundreds, Hive Fleet Taniwha is found skulking about the southern and eastern sectors of the galaxy in search of prey.

[jymmy]

Hey, this idea looks super-fun! It would be awesome to upload also the scheme of the hive fleet. I thought about using a painting online program like www.dakkadakka.com/core/painter.jsp?i=3 to upload the scheme (I thought it would be better than uploading photos of the miniatures to avoid that people with complexes about their painting skills could become discouraged). the bad things is that it only let you paint zoanthropes. Here I go.

Designation: Hive Fleet Tarasque

Parent fleet: Behemoth

Colors: Purple exoeskeleton/flesh, black carapace, blue biolumenescant glow from exposed internal workings/vents.

History: When the hive fleet Behemoth attacked the system of Ultramar and got defeated, a good number of the creatures that conformed it got dispersed and went into hidding. Years passed and they survived in complete isolation from the guidance of the Hive Mind. During this time, they turned into no more than feral beasts, with no other purpose than just thrive. Most of these tyranids remained in slumber until got awakened by the colonists that began to repopulate the areas that were obliterated by the invasion of Behemoth. The first of these creatures was the carnifex knowed as Old One Eye, but other large organisms followed. Once in motion, they were completely unable to return to their previous state and began to search for potential preys. In a short time, the lesser organisms congregated around the most powerful ones, that naturally stablished as "Alpha Leaders".

But the fleet was condemned to an unavoidable oblivion, as they were in a space sector mostly inhabited due to the destruction caused by the last tyranid invasion. Without a method for feedeeding themselves, they began to grow weak, and in need of alternative methods to obtain energy. But it was not the end. The swarm discovered in the sorrounding planets clusters of an extrange blue crystal, that resonated with energy. This glowing crystals were a powerful source for nourishment. It also generated some kind of field that nulified the psychic interferences generated by the warp. In amid of this silence, the few Synaptic creatures that survived in the system were able to communicate between themselves and started to form a bond. Soon, the tyranids creatures of the sector began to join into broods and form swarms, and in no time a new Hive Fleet emerged. 

This Hive Fleet grew dependent of the strange crystals that energized it, which associate with its oddly behavior, different from other Hive Fleets. Instead of searching for living preys, this swarm crave for blue crystals. Scientists of the Adeptus Biologicus has identified this material as the same used by necrons to build their weapons, which explains its potential to isolate all kind of warp influence, just like the Pilons of Cadia did. It also explains the extrange movements of the tendrils of this splinter fleet.

The Hive Fleet Tarasque is usually after Necron Tomb Worlds, which tend to be ignored by the rest of Tyranid Swarms. This permits the Hive Fleet Tarasque to avoid the competition for resources with the rest of its kind. The pure energy that is contained in the bodies of these creatures preserve their tissues and prevent the deterioration of its genetic material, what makes possible for this fleet to recycle continously the same organisms. It means that the Hive Fleet Tarasque is traped in an evolutionary closed circle, since it makes imposible the intake of new genetic material. This can be checked at first sight by the prevalence of primitive live forms which compose their broods. The Hive Fleet Tarasque is self-sufficient, but in constant need of crystal. It grew undomitable for the Hive Mind, but the ancient concience stopped time ago from trying to regain control, as it knows that the genetic material of Tarasque is wasted and useless for being assimilated by larger Fleets, in addition, the fleet chases threats that possess none of the nourishment that the other hive fleets require.

The imperial populace unfortunate enough to live in a planet objective of this Hive Fleet (usually minning stations) could send little data before being overrun and let to rot. The footage shows that the attack pattern of Tarasque devied from the original behavior employed by Behemoth to be more like the used by Kraken Fleets. The creatures from Hive Fleet Tarasque store insane amounts of energy in their insides, and are impulsed to run at frenetical speeds towards the enemy. To the observer, it might seem that the swarm tries to destroy the enemy in a hurry to win its price, such is their addiction. Certain creatures has consumed such an ammount of crystal that are starting to show properties that are similar of that the material consumed and are able to create a shadow in the warp much deeper than other tyranid organism. The scientists compare this trait to the one from the recently discovered Hive Fleet Kronos.

The tyranids from Hive Fleet Tarasque show a purple exoesqueleton, and a black carapace, probably to camouflage better in the dark sands of the tomb worlds. The vents and membranes of the organisms glow with an intense blue, as they irradiate the energy from the assimilated crystals. This is most evident in the larger organisms, which shows a bright blue in their oral cavities, in comparison with the smaller ones, wich shows mostly a red tongue.

So, this is it! Waiting for your fleets! It would be fantastic if the ones that already posted added images with www.dakkadakka.com/core/painter.jsp?i=3 from their fleets!

Here is mine!

[jymmy]

It´s very cool how we each can come with such a different flavor for our little devourer bugs! Love how Karkinos harvest its prey, while Apocryta subsists within spread cults or Taniwha rely on vanguard organisms to overcome their lack of resources!

[stonehorse]

Designation: Hive Fleet Ogre.

Parent Fleet: Unknown.

Colors: Dark Green Chitin, Bone Carapace, Purple organic parts.

Hunting style: A worrying disregard to injury, and a higher than usual reliance on larger Tyranid organisms.

Previously a Hive Fleet of little concern that entered the Galaxy around the same time as Leviathan. It was at first thought to be a tendril of Leviathan, until it was discovered that it is in fact a Hive Fleet that has been shadowing every major Tyranid Fleet so far to enter the Galaxy. While those that it has been shadowing have been the main focus of Imperial attention, Ogre has been preying on undefended agri-worlds exclusively, while also siphoning a small part of the biomass consumed by the Hive fleet it shadows.

This has not only allowed Ogre to be unchallenged as it gathered size, but also to gain a disproportionate amount of Biomass to other Hive Fleets. It has also adopted all adaptions of the Hive fleets. It has been speculated that the vast reserves of biomass the fleet has is the reason it uses large Tyranid Organisims as other Fleets use Termagants. This flippant disregard to conserving its resources is reasoned to also explain the lack of concern for injury.

This tactic while brutal, is also one that is unsustainable. It has been speculated that Hive Fleet Ogres stratagy may lead to its undoing.

[goldfireendymion]

Designation: Hive Fleet Gorynych



Parent Fleet: N/A.

Threat to the Galaxy: Unknown, believed to be a new major fleet on par with Kraken, Behemoth and Leviathan. The majority of the fleet has yet to show.

Colors: Blue carapace with white streaks and feathering, leader creatures feature yellow-green markings on this area which glow with bio-luminescence. Grey-White chitin with greenish recesses. This varies somewhat across the hive fleet but the majority of creatures have white chitin, some having more greyish or bone hues to this part of their body. They also feature striking bright green and yellow bio-weapons which drip with acid and leak fumes. Smaller organic recesses and gill vents are colored a usually a darker green then bio weapons and exposed flesh sacs and other soft organic tissues.

Notable Enemies: Hive Fleet Gorynych is the only known hive fleet which actively seeks out and destroys necron tomb-worlds, often using extraordinary amounts of orbital weapons not often utilized in other hive fleets due to the lack of ways of gaining back biomass due to the complete destruction of the planet. Their adaptations to thrive in colder areas, often even going as far as to partially terraform worlds they land on into icy hellscapes for biomass consumption, make deployments of Valhallan Ice Warriors and Space Wolf astartes very common as a counter attack against these tyranid fleets, due to the regiment and chapter being well versed in these fighting conditions.

Specializations and Unique Adapations: Hive Fleet Gorynych is a unique hive fleet in its strangely territorial and defensive strategies, often initially targetting a system with plentiful biomass across many planets. After the biomass of the system has been absorbed, the hive fleet will convert the richest world into a horrific organic death trap, similar to the massive organic structures created by Hive Fleet Tiamat. It periodically will sent false signals towards neighboring systems, luring xenos and humanity alike to a grisly end when investigating these signals.

Organisms of Hive Fleet gorynych are unique in their composition, often the larger creatures are much more resilient then one would traditionally expect of that particular bioform, with redundant organs and reinforced chitin to aid in their extreme durability. They do not field as many gaunt-genus organisms as other hive fleets, favoring immense numbers of the synaptic creatures known as Tyranid Warriors, only fielding the smaller gaunts with tervigon support, or in the case of Gargoyles, shrikes to escort them. The horde of these elite, and even tougher, bioforms often completely throw off traditional anti-tyranid tactics, forcing their enemies to play a losing game of adaptation against them.

Unique Organisms: In addition to commonly reoccurring forms such as the Swarmlord and Old One Eye, Gorynych is notable in it's unique leader organism, named by the foes of the Hive Fleet simply as Zmey. A creature similar to the Dagon Overlord, Zmey is a horrificly adapted Hive Tyrant with unique weaponry and is notable for being extremely hard to destroy. Imperial Guard regiments often note firing baneblade cannons at creatures matching the description of Zmey, only for the shell to glance off of an invisible force field, or the explosion to only send the Tyrant into a berserk charge into the front lines. The creature is noted to possess an extended headcrest similar to a Zoanthrope, a unique biocannon which seems to be an enlarged, bio-plasma enhanced version of a Deathspitter symbiote, as well as a unique scything talon or bonesword like adaptation for close combat.

HOMEBREW RULES FOR THIS FLEET (NOTE: THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE BALANCED AT ALL):

Hive Fleet Trait: Reinforced Chitin and Redundant Organs: GORYNYCH units which are not Termagants, Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Gargoyles, Spore Mines, Mucolid Spores, Meitoic Spores, Rippers or Sky Slashers add 1 to their toughness.

Hive Fleet Warlord Trait: Enhanced Warp Shielding: The Warlord has a 5++ Invulnerable Save. If the Warlord already has an invulnerable save, add 1 to it's invulnerable save. (EG, Hive Tyrants would have a 3++)

Hive Fleet Relic: Dragon's Breath: GORYNYCH MONSTER only. Ranged attack, 8" range, Assault 2d6, S8, AP-3, D1. This weapon automatically hits its target. Any unit that takes an unsaved wound from this weapon adds 1 to their result of their morale roll.


Zmey Stats: Hive Tyrant with +1 Toughness (T8, T9 with the adaptation), +1 Strength (S7), 2+ Ballistic Skill, +1 attack.

Weapons: Dragon's talons: Melee, Sx2, AP -5, D D6. The user of this weapon subtracts 1 to To Hit rolls made with this weapon.

Bioplasmic Deathspitter: 24" ,Assault 8, S8, AP -3, 3 damage.

Warlord Trait is Gorynych Warlord trait.

375 points, 16 PL

Only one per army, no bio-artefacts. Character.

[Rheaf]

Nov 19, 2017 17:55:50 GMT midcornwallgaming said:

Hive Fleet Chimera (aka The Black Swarm)

Dark brown exoskeleton/black carapace

Made up of splinter fleets from across the galaxy. Like locusts smaller splinter fleets join with near by fleets forming a mega fleet. They now make their way across the galaxy devourering anything in their path.

Being made up from many different hive fleets they have take on the adaptions from other fleets in which they use to attack unprepared systems.

I'm using the same fleet name and a similar color scheme. Chimera just works for some flavorful reason to have multiple bonuses.

[sidedisc]

Hive Fleet Gigelorum

Colour Scheme: A bone/ivory streaked carapace, dark purple hued skin, with fleshy coloured weapon symbiotes/ innards. A deep red almost black blades are common on monstrous organism



Fluff: Designated Gigelorum after the ancient terrain Scottish mythical creature. Unknown if a splinter fleet or a new emergence as it was first spotted on the Eastern Fringe, traversing planets that have only recently been re-inhabited after Behemoth's invasions.

Gigelorum is a seeder fleet. Often bombarding a prey world from afar with spores only to pull away after the initial wave has been destroyed.

Assuming it was a smaller fleet that couldn't extend the resources for a battle of attrition, it's prey was very wrong. These initial bombardments are often a rouse. The fleet has incorporated microscopic spores that upon detonation spread into the atmosphere, where it breeds and slowly descends to the planet. These spores are absorbed by the prey world, spreading into all organic material.

Instead of killing off the hosts, it actually appears to help them. Bolstering health, vitality, enabling longer life and encouraging higher birth rates. In this way worlds enjoy a wealth and prosperity unlike any they have enjoyed in millennia. Fauna swells where once it was barren, the civilisation of the planet blooms.

However, these spores are actually just cultivating the planets for more biomass. When the spores and their hosts have bred to critical mass Gigelorum reappears signaled by these synaptic spores. At the first touch of the shadow of the warp, they become aggressive, reacting to the Hive Minds will and attacking the hosts bodies.  The prey falls gasping in their own viscera, breaking them down from the inside.

More often than not, the second wave of Gigelorum faces little or no resistance. As such, there is few reports of its tactics, and what there is are conflicting. Often stating the Hive fights one way, but others claiming another.

[shirriandemon]

Hive Fleet Inko-Turso
Yellow exo-skeleton purple carapace

Hive Fleet Inko-Turso is named after a beast of legend from old Terran Scandinavia. This hive fleet rose from the ashes of a tendril of hive fleet behemoth attacking an ork infested imperial planet that was thought destroyed by an exterminatus force. It's bioships were destroyed and the planet was bombarded until no life remained, or so they thought.
The Norn Queen, sure of their destruction, ordered that the feeder organisms gather as much biomass as possible and drag it as far underground as they could. Ripper swarms guided by this new command began burrowing deep tunnels while warrior organisms ran enemy combatants into traps and herded human and ork alike to their doom in these tunnels. The rippers dragged the victims down into the crust of the planet while the bishops in orbit sold their lives for valuable minutes but soon enough the bombs began to fall.
The ripper swarms were able to survive this but remained underground for many more months feeding on the corpses of those they had captured. Soon they noticed that the greener of the limbs stored in the crust would release spores that would grow into new prey organisms. The ripper swarms, sustained off of these ork farms began to grow soon reestablishing their link to the hive mind and using these ork farms nursed a young bioship and finally fed their own bodies to the nacsant ship before it took off from the planet. This young ship ambushed unguarded trade ships and used their crews to sate it's growing hunger. It did this for many hundreds of years until what started as an infant hive ship managed to grow into a small fleet. When it finally found trade ships no longer satisfied their hunger it turned its reach to nearby planets. It relied heavily on Genestealer Cults to weaken these isolated planets but in recent years have grown to full fleet strength.

Hive Fleet Inko-Turso at first relied more on brute force than any visible tactics but this seems to be changing as the presence of more leader beasts are being noted among their swarms.

They are now turning their attention to fringe t'au empire planets. No further data at this time

[angelwing]

Designation: Hive Fleet Kraken splinter fleet, Imperial designation WH40KVN8

Parent Fleet: Kraken

Colors: yellow green skin, red vents and weapons, bone white carapaces.

Hunting style: er, whatever is in the random cases I select to make an army list with...

Background: Far back when only two hive fleets with no majority identifying colours were known to the Imperium, this fleet splintered from kraken in the aftermath of the Ichar 4 incident. In the years since, it has absorbed biomass from many ages of hive fleet iterations until it has swollen beyond reason, sanity and the owners common sense. His masters, hiding in the dark spaces compel him to absorb every version of each unit known to Imperial scholars, paint them and unleash them upon the prey species. After a period of darkness, the Norn Queens have breed new genetic instructions allowing the swarm to be organized and fight as never before. The magos biologus have collected this new information into a 'codex', now in its 8th printing, to be issued to all commanders so that they may better understand the foe. Not that it will help them.