Successful horde list?

[N.I.B.]

I'm looking at trying out a horde, against my knowing better (I usually don't enjoy it and I play too slow) but I just want to check that box for 9th ed and give it a chance.
What's the best we can do atm? Mass Termagants? Hormies and Broodlords? 6++ custom fleet? Leviathan? Anyone has had success in moderately competitive games with a horde, feel free to post your list.

[gribblybaby]

I’d be tempted to take Neurothropes

They’re very hard to kill so you could take while we stand we fight and reliably hope to get it.

And you could do a psychic ritual pretty reliably too. I’m fact take that and lictors and you’re basically always going to get all your secondaries. + in leviathan their fnp bubbles might come in handy in a horde list.

I have no experience doing hordes I think it seems loathsome but no-one commented all day so... yeah lol

[N.I.B.]

Thanks, I'm thinking Broodlords for characters, to have at least some kind of punch, plus they're psykers too.

Perhaps something like this?

custom battalion (6++, reroll advance rolls)

Broodlord - Resonance Barb, Psychic Scream
Broodlord - Onslaught
Broodlord - Catalyst

20 Hormagaunts
20 Hormagaunts
20 Termagants
19 Termagants
3 Ripper Swarms
3 Ripper Swarms

5 Zoanthropes - Catalyst
5 Zoanthropes - The Horror
3 Venomthropes
Lictor
Lictor

20 Gargoyles
Mawloc

Sporocyst - Dermic Symbiosis
Sporocyst - Dermic Symbiosis

2000pts

[gribblybaby]

Hmm what are the Sporecycts for?

Is think a second Mawloc or 3 biovores might be more fun

Fair enough on the reasoning with the Broodlords

With 2 Zoanthropes squads I guess it does make smiting a bit less reliable on a pack of neurothropes although the healing might be nice too lol.

Otherwise it looks good to me.

[hiveoverall]

6 hive guards work very well in hord lists, as you can block your opponent’s access to them with all your gaunts, hah hah. Also you need them to try to clear your opponent’s units sitting on objectives. Otherwise I like your list. I honestly don’t know what you could remove to fit them in. They don’t need to be kronos necessarily IMHO, because you would be using them to destroy weak units

i think the sporocysts deserve a try, but perhaps you could try with just one and remove another unit to fit the Hive guard. I think hive guard and not as good in non hord armies, because opponents can mess with them more easily 

[brianb9999]

So with about 100 gaunts, I would consider it more of a "hybrid" horde, although zoanthropes work well in this regard backing up the gaunts with synapse and sitting on midfield objectives just generally being annoying. I think if you want to go full horde, you need even more gaunts because of the volume of shooting of some armies out there, and further invest in protecting them with -1 bubbles (I've done the maleceptor gaunt horde in the past, not sure 2 CP is worth it to further protect gaunts). I've found hive guard to be quite useful, even outside of Kronos because it gives you some teeth, and they are great for clearing objectives for your large blobs of gaunts. I know you've used sporocysts in the past, but I have no experience with them so not sure how well they would work.

Regarding hive fleets, 6++ makes a lot of sense, and I've used pack hunters, hypermetabolic acceleration, and shrewd predators all with some success. As with most of my lists that include Hive Guard (or exocrines), however, I have to seriously consider if it's just better to run the whole thing as Kronos, or maybe shell out the CP for a separate detachment. I've played a few tournaments and one-off games now with the 6++, and I'm still not sold on it. It's definitely better than leviathan as there are no range restrictions, and all the multi-damage weapons out there effectively nullify the FNP on gaunts. It gets better the more models you have, and I know Erik Lathouros uses the 6++, but I think he's also still running 200+ gaunts. Side note, I tried my 210 gaunt list early on in 9th, and it took up nearly the whole deployment zone. Those smaller zones do make a difference.

Just for reference, here's what I ran at a local RTT in October and went 2-1 (beat guard and custodes, lost to white scars):

2000 pt battalion, adaptive exoskeletons and shrewd predators

Swarmlord: onslaught, psy scream
Broodlord: horror
Neurothrope: warlord, catalyst, barb

28 hormagaunts, unnatural reactions
27 hormagaunts, unnatural reactions
22 termagants
21 termagants
10 termagants
10 termagants

5 Hive guard
5 Hive guard
4 Venomthropes
Lictor

28 Gargoyles

The physiologies on the hormagaunts was a waste: I was thinking it might be nice in case guardsmen or some other light infantry would try to take midfield objectives, but that never panned out. Otherwise, the list did what I intended it to do, but unfortunately it just didn't have enough punch vs marines. While I think gaunt carpet has play, I'm not sure it can beat marines consistently enough, especially since we do have tools for it.

[N.I.B.]

Yeah I'm not sold on Hormies, I thought it could be nice to be fast out of the starting blocks but they have so little damage output.
Zoans are for home objectives so I can throw every other body forward.
Sporocysts are just to control movement and cover the board.

[winterman]

Same boat as you here, I like the idea of horde and feel its worth trying out, but damn is it painful to play for more than an RTT.

To me the baseline for horde list has to start with the master of horde play, Lathouras and his 9th ed iteration. Took 3rd at a GT awhile back.

Tyranids batallion: hivefleet (adaptive exoskeleton, shrewd predators
Broodlord (warlord) - mind eater, resonance barb, psychic scream 125
Broodlord, onslaught 125
Broodlord, catalyst 125
24x termagants 120
24x termagants 120
24x termagants 120
10x hormagaunts 60
10x hormagaunts 60

Tyranids patrol, hivefleet same as above
Old one eye
25x termagants 125
25x termagants 125
25x termagants 125
3x venomthropes 99
1x lictor 37

Genestealer cult patrol: twisted helix
Patriarch, mental onslaught, mind control 135
8x accolytes, hand flamers 80
10x accolytes, 4 rocksaws, cult icon 130
Sanctus, bio dagger 60 , -1cp dagger of swift sacrifice

Some notes (observations and from the interview)
Still the same basic idea as his 8th, surround killy characters with a bunch of bodies and use them as your killy power while you establish board control. Just has had to adapt to 9th ed rules and win conditions. He went for early lead strategy, then work to deny later on in the game. Goal was to keep primary score low but slight edge to the horde.

The list no longer tentacles out but with the board change and objective location, it doesn't have to. Still feel like managing coherency would be a nightmare for me, but he seemed to dismiss it as a limitation.

Shrewed predators. He mentioned he'd use more hormies if he had them because the ability to consolidate anywhere is extremely useful, more so with a 6" one. I really want to try that myself soon as they are one of my fav models and for me have been pretty good in 9th.

6+ inv was deemed more valuable than the FnP from Leviathan (which was a staple in his 8th ed versions) due to the multi damage/wound meta. Makes total sense. Plus you get a bonus adaptation and missing out on the Levi strat/power is not at a bummer at all.

He had good things to say about mind eater. While the free movement is nice I just do not know if I'd personally remember I had it in the rare times I actually get to kill a character. I mean with how often I forget to get free CP when my stealers killed characters for example. Makes total sense though, could easily swing a game with an unexpected full move out of phase.

GSC were just tool box additions that could put pressure on opponent backfield plus another killy character to control mid board. Could probably skip them if you wanted but I like what they bring to the table for very low cost. Should note too, this list isn't using a lot of CP during the game so triple detachment is probably just fine.

Sanctus with the knife is one of those things people dismiss, but with the free perfect ambush and the dagger+helix he ends up being like a much more useful lictor/mawloc in other lists.

For me personally I'd probably go with more Hormies, if nothing else just lower the model count a bit for my old mind and back.