Homegrown Hive Fleets!

[Evil Eye]

There's plenty of homebrew Space Marine chapters, Chaos warbands and so on, and obviously it's fun to share ideas for "your dudes". So I thought we should get a thread going for Tyranids to do something similar! Share your Hive Fleets, their fluff, unique bioforms and colours, etc. Pictures welcome but by no means necessary!

 

I just got done messing about with Dawn of War's colour editor, so I've got a fair few to share...

 

Hive Fleet Goliath (AKA my tabletop fleet):

A terrifying new threat emerging from the Halo Stars, cutting a bloody swathe through Segmentum Obscurus, gorging itself on poorly defended worlds and growing with remarkable speed to a truly enormous size. Mercifully kept in the Imperium Nihilus (at least for now) by the Great Rift. Notable for unstable genetics, resulting in extremely fast evolution and greater than usual biodiversity, but with high levels of mutation.

The name, of course, is taken from the Biblical giant (and fits the "very large monster" motif of hive fleet names). The colours have evolved to their current state since 2009 when I first got started in this hobby.

Hive Fleet Aswang:

A fleet of unknown origin, possibly a splinter tendril from an existing fleet. Unusually seems to itself splinter frequently, with no less than three Aswang tendrils recorded with vastly different colours and bioforms. The first (notable for its incredibly flamboyant colours and use of unusual bio-plasmic weapon symbiotes) appeared some time in early M.42 in Segmentum Pacificus, and has plagued the area ever since. The second (with dark reddish-brown patterning and a focus on large swarms of gaunts, rippers and other small organisms) split off from the main fleet and has infested the Bala-Bala system, devouring one world and causing an endless meat grinder on two others. The third (characterized by a lilac colouration and extensive use of fungal poisons) split off from the Bala-Bala conflict and rampaged through multiple undefended worlds before reaching the industrial world of Cauldron, where it has been fighting in a standstill to this day. All tendrils are known for being extremely difficult to exterminate even by Tyranid standards, due to rapid reproduction and incredible resilience- Bala-Bala Prime has been thought cleansed at least three times, and every time the swarms have reappeared even stronger than before.

This Fleet's name is taken from the Aswang, a cannibalistic vampire creature from Filipino mythology (and used by the Spanish to turn the natives' trust against their often albino shamans, but that's another story). The three tendrils so far have their colours loosely inspired by tropical fish (the purple and green one), cockroaches (the brownish red one) and, uh, Sucy Manbavaran (the lilac and purple one).

Hive Fleet Jiangshi:

A Hive Fleet known for its extreme aggression and slow but almost unstoppable expansion, Jiangshi has been stuck in a cannibalistic war with Aswang in the Bala-Bala system; Bala-Bala Tertius has been completely overwhelmed by the two Tyranid swarms. Whilst Jiangshi is far larger and has a plethora of advanced bioforms, Aswang's sheer durability has flummoxed the bigger fleet- no sooner has a pocket of resistance been consumed than another, previously cleansed area of the planet once again erupts with Aswang warrior-beasts.

Named after a Chinese undead creature, and given suitably spooky colours. Jiangshi more or less exists because I thought the idea of Tyranid cannibalism was weirdly intriguing.

Hive Fleet Karkinos:

A splinter of Kraken, Karkinos is notable for its use of extremely old evolutions of Tyranid bioforms, some of which were thought to have been extinct by the battle of Macragge. They are also known for predominantly using larger creatures in combat.

Oh no! The galaxy has crabs! Yeah, this was dreamt up as an idea for both a crustacean inspired colour scheme (hence the name) and also an excuse for justifying using older models- or new ones converted to look like old ones- in a Tyranid army.

[Xenith]

Great idea, here's mine:

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++HIVE FLEET JABBERWOCKY++

Variably known as Jabberwock, or more colloquially as 'The Consuming Wraith", this Hive Fleet appears to be a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Leviathan sheared from the main body of the swarm in the wake of the Devastation of Baal, and is actively battled by the Sons of Sanguinius, the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters across the Red Scar area of Imperium Nihilus to this day.

Like Leviathan, whose synaptic links and apparent communication between leader beasts and the swarm were more powerful than that seen before, Jabberwocky appears to be a further stage of this evolution - whether the fleet was a later more psychically resonant tendril of Leviathan arriving after the main body of the fleet, or the fleets response to the cicatrix maledictum is currently unknown, however what we do know is that these monsters are far more psychically capable than similar breeds seen in other fleets, capable of organising and strengthening the horde, all the while unleashing potent psionic blasts to ravage anything in their path.

Like it's parent fleet, Jabberwocky contacts with Jabberwocky seem to be sporadic and in multiple locations across the Imperium Nihilus, suggesting it arrives from the underside of the galactic plane. More disturblingly are reports of similar beasts with advanced psychic abilities in the Imperium Lux. In all cases, Jabberwocky appears to target worlds with high human populations and encroaches upon many Hiveworlds - those it takes, it digs in like ticks making the diffucult to dislodge and almost certainly requiring Astartes intervention. This makes it a threat not just to the population of these worlds, but to the imperial war effort as a whole - if the manufactorums shut down, from where comes the materiels that power the Imperoum of Man?

Jabberwocky is disctinct from it's parent fleet Leviathan from it's varied patternation, with light blue exoskeleton and white carapace in place of violet carapace and light exoskeleton - possibly an adaptation to icy climates of cityfighting in Hive Worlds.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Xenith