Alien Hives Firefight Tactics

Alien Hives

Setting:	Grimdark Future
Games:	Grimdark Future, Grimdark Future: Firefight
Species:	Alien
Version:	v2.50

Note: as v2.50 is in constant development the following might not be accurate.

Why Play Alien Hives

The alien hives are capable of switching between hordes of chittering gnats and hulking monstrosities. To maximize your army involves finding a sweet spot between these two areas, as both have very visible weaknesses - the mobs can get blasted to oblivion and the big guys become very attractive to anyone with Deadly.

Pros:

A hybrid between hordes and super tough monsters
Plenty of ways to block spells

Cons:

You've got a lot of units to keep track of
Your army has issues with quality with the best only being at 3+
Your hordes are incredibly fragile

Army Special Rules

Pheromones: Two units within 12" of this unit get to suffer a wound when they fail their next morale check, at which point they count as if they (and anyone within 12" of them) had automatically passed it. Again, this is why you grab lots of grunts: so you can sacrifice them for morale.
Psychic Barrier: The unit in question can now block psychic spells as if it had Psychic 2. This turns into a +2 bonus to block if the unit could already cast.

Psychic Spells

Fear (4+): One enemy unit within 12" suffers -2 on their next morale roll.
Psychic Blast (4+): One enemy unit within 12" takes one hit with AP 2 and Deadly 3. Bad news for any solo units.
Infuse Life (5+): One friendly unit within 12" gets Regeneration when they suffer their next hit. An absolute godsend for your softer units.
Shriek (5+): Two enemy units within 12" suffer an 3 AP 2 hits each. Pretty much built to give you breathing room without being Psychic Blast tiers of deadly.
Animate Flora (6+): A setpiece within 6" of the caster can be moved anywhere within 6" or removed from play. This is especially helpful in keeping your gunlines alive or exposing the enemy.
Overwhelm (6+): One enemy model within 12" takes 3 AP 2 hits. If you wanted to focus fire on Shriek, this can be more reliable damage than Psychic Blast.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

Veteran Warrior: A Hero Hive Warrior for all intents and purposes. Its upgrade list is more in line with that of a warrior while retaining Tough 6. This means that it will also lack heavy weapons and has a lesser AP game, but you remain just as versatile as the basic warrior, as well as having Psychic Barrier and Pheromones as options.
Snatcher Veteran: A super Soul-Snatcher, though cheaper than the Veteran Warrior by a decent margin. This guy loses out on the AP on his claws (though they have Rending) as well as Fearless, but you are far more mobile between Scout, Ambush and Strider. You can make it a budget Psychic if you want a cheap caster and you can buy some extra attacks, but they lack Rending.

Infantry

Grunts: Very basic horde unit with only one shot/attack on a 5+ at a pitiful 12” range. They are cheap though, and can serve as good chaff or to add some activations if you’re taking lots of big boys. They have a surprising number of upgrade options, including a couple melee upgrades (although I find these to be better when saved for assault grunts, you will get much more mileage from them).
- Shooting: They can get one special weapon, three of which are of particular interest. The Bio-Shredder is a cheap option, but a 6” range means you might fire it once the entire game. The Shock Gun provides some needed AP2, but on a 5+ won’t hit often. The Bio-flamer is appealing, with a 12” range and 6 attacks you may get some use out of it. The Acid Gun faces the same issue with its 6” range compounded by also only one shot, and finally the Bio-rifle is a good choice for units which plan to hold objectives. It offers a very cheap AP1 sniper which can remove special weapons from enemy units. In my opinion the Bio-flamer or Bio-rifle are the best all around choices. As for the rest of the squad, here you get three upgrade options, Bio-pistols which give them an extra attack for 5 ppm, Bio-spikes which upgrade their shots to AP1, and Bio-carbines which give a longer 18” range and triple the shots, but at nearly double the unit cost. For an objective-sitting squad, carbines may be a good choice, but also increase the threat potential. Otherwise, for general purpose, either the pistols or spikes are solid choices, or you can also just keep them cheap and run them plain. If their main purpose is to server as chaff, then that’s probably the way to go.
Assault Grunts: Angrier stabby Grunts. This guy gets an extra attack in melee and are Fast for a decent bit more. They can grab some melee upgrades such as doubling their attacks, adding Rending, AP2, or Deadly 3. They can also take Furious and/or Poison for 10pts. However, they’re just as squishy as Grunts and more expensive, so be sparing with upgrades. That said, AP2 attacks are not to be ignored on such a cheap unit, especially if you also grab Furious (with Fast, if you’re good with positioning, you should get the charge most of the time).
Winged Grunts: A grunt with the same upgrade options, but now with Flying and Ambush for 55pts. Due to their increased price these are less of a chaff unit, and can serve two main roles. One is to be a late-game objective grabber, where they are protected from a turn or two of shooting. In this case giving them a rifle can be a good choice. The other is to harass backlines, which will only be useful if your opponent has fragile long-range units. In that case, running them with pistols and a flamer can result in a lot of dice being rolled. In either case however, this is a specialty unit which should only be used in situations where that ambush is useful and something like Swarms or winged Warriors aren’t the right tool.
Soul-Snatcher: Your elite melee unit. While far more costly than the Assault Grunt, your weapons are also Rending and you have Scout so you can make an alpha strike. This also makes them great for nabbing early objectives. If you buy the upgrade, you can also make them Psychic, though a limited one.
Hive Swarm: Fairly tough for the price and can be given Ambush and a 12” A6 Poison gun fairly cheaply. Again, there are two main roles here; objective holder or cheap suicide unit. For 65pts you can get a unit which can appear on any objective, and requires likely a full unit’s or more to deal with. That can draw fire away from your Grunts, or make your controlled objectives harder to shift. Alternatively, for 20 pts you can drop them in next to whatever unit you need to deal with and drop 18 dice on them, but with only 6+ quality don’t plan on hitting much.
Hive Warrior: The elite. Each of them is modestly tanky with a 4+ save and Tough 3, so they can hold their own in any situation. It also helps that they also have both choppy and shooty options. You can also grab wings, which gives them a boost to mobility that's bolstered by their toughness. Also helpful is access to both Pheromones and Psychic Barrier, both very potent boosts for your army depending on what you're facing.
Ravenous Beast: Pure elite assault type. This guy lacks any shooting and only two sets of 3 attacks with AP 1, so you'll be needing to make use of Fast and Strider to avoid fire. You have only two options for upgrades: Tunnel Attack so you can grab Ambush and then rush in on an enemy, or Scout so you can start fighting immediately. The choice between the two ultimately boils down to when you want these guys to begin slicing into the competition.
Venom Floater: Your floating cover generator. Sure, they have Tough 3 and Stealth for protection and 6 poisoned attacks to make them effective in combat with their Hive Warrior statline, but their Shrouding Mists granting Stealth to certain units is way more useful.
Synapse Floater: Synapse Floaters are actually pretty durable for artillery. They still have a 4+ save and Tough 3 with Stealth, but they also get to use Regeneration to tank even more. But their real role is being a backup Psychic, a role they can serve alongside their ranged blast.
Hive Guardian: The toughest of the goons. A 2+ save and Tough 3 means that he won't be going any time soon. you can strap him up with deadlier melee weapons so you can screen the potential threats to your Heroes in a variety of ways. You could also grab either the Heavy Shock-Gun for its AP 2 and Blast 3 for mob removal or the Bio-Harpoon for AP 4 and Deadly 3 so you can kill most anything with Relentless to capitalize on a good roll.

Alien Hives Firefight Tactics

Contents

Why Play Alien Hives

Army Special Rules

Psychic Spells

Unit Analysis

Heroes

Infantry

List Building & Tactics

General Advice

Tactics

See Also

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Alien Hives Firefight Tactics

Why Play Alien Hives

Army Special Rules

Psychic Spells

Unit Analysis

Heroes

Infantry

List Building & Tactics

General Advice

Tactics

See Also

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