I'm in the same situation as you, starting a Tyranid army after playing Tau and Chaos. I am also looking to build a gaunt horde style army, as it will just look great on the table to see a giant wall of nid's bearing down on you. Here are my thoughts on the issue, but I have minimal experience to back them up.

The idea is that you need your horde to be a credible threat, or else like you say they will focus on your fexes and warriors first, then just shrug off the waves of unsupported gaunts. The trick is to properly balance upgrades so that your cost per model is low enough to still be a horde, but at the same time be a credible threat.

Upgrades can loosely be looked at as doing one of three things: increase quality of attacks, increase quantity of attacks, and increase survivability. Now the beauty of a horde army is that your basic model cost is very low, so an alternative option to upgrading an individual models quantity of attacks and survivability is to simply buy more models. What throwing more models on that table cannot do is increase the quality (think WS, S) of your attacks. This is why I choose to focus upgrade points on increasing those attributes, and leave all others behind.

Now apply this to a hormagaunt. Toxin sacks look like a solid upgrade, since they increase S. However, upgrades that would increase their save are not taken. I'm still thinking about adrenal glands, but leaning towards no glands, since the idea is to tarpit a unit and win through attrition, not break them on the charge then eat another round of shooting.

For termagaunts, I'm going with fleshborers, as those seem to be the highest quality shots. You don't need spinefist accuracy or devourers larger number of shots, since you can address both of those issues with more gaunts.

Genestealers, definitely passing on the upgraded armor. The broodlord upgrade looks insane, will likely be a must take. This would mean keeping the stealers at their already scary baseline stat and just using them as cheap ablative wounds for the freakishly bad-ass broodlord.

So that's my long-winded way of saying you should take toxin sacks and fleshborers. At least that's how I'm going to start out assuming that point costs in the new codex don't drastically alter the value equation one way or the other. Comments and advice from actual Tyranid players would be valued.

 

Well Nidz are actually a poor example of a "Horde Army" in the strictest sense of the word, because you MUST have at least 3 Monstrous Creatures to provide synapse (unless you like your Ld6 Gaunts running on instinct) so as an army, it will always fall into the category of "tons on cheap units and a few hard units that will inevitably get all the attention turns 1 and 2" but that's just how the Nid army works.

If you don't want to do that, and simply run a "Pure" Horde list, then I would suggest Orks, which works perfectly fine with a Warboss, a Mek, and +infinity Boyz, so long as every squad Nob has a Power Klaw because S4 can hurt more or less anything in the game (Hello Auto-Hit-Rear-Armour-In-Combat-Rule) and anything that it can't, S8 'Klaws can. You also need to take up to 20 casualties before you even stop being fearless.

Gaunts, on the other hand, can't hurt vehicles, and possess no "Sergeant" that can. This means you need either 'Stealers (expensive) or Monstrous Creatures (Easy to target). I guess one solution would be to take multiple 'Nid Warriors instead, so you would have, what, 3 squads of 20-30 Gaunts and 9-12 Warriors? Gaunts handle infantry and Warriors have the equivalent of Powerfists/Rending Claws/Whatever.

Or you could try Deep-Striking Zoanthropes instead, but you still have the Synapse issue.

 

you MUST have at least 3 Monstrous Creatures to provide synapse (unless you like your Ld6 Gaunts running on instinct)

What are you talking about theoretically you do not need ANY Monsterous Creatures for synapse or otherwise. Warriors are HQ, Elites or Fast Attack, Zoanthropes are Heavy Support, Broodlord is Headquaters all of these are Synapse creatures and none have the monsterous creature special rule. Oh and Gaunts have Leadership 5 not 6.

Arkanor - Tyranid Monsterous Creatures are already Toughness 6.

Destroyer Hive - Hormagaunts are not useless, granted they are not as effective as many other things but when used with skill they can cause a lor of damage.

 

The 'Nids monstrous creatures look like they're going to be T6 for the most part, which could make them pretty damn durable.

 

The main mistake many make with haord armies is upgrades, with chaos you give them a smattering of useful upgrades. However, the problem with hoard armies is you can't do this, you need to keep units very light on points, maybe a single upgrade for nids, especially in the current dex (where you could give them all manner of stat boosts and points increases).

The aim is to have very few elite/expensive units, maybe one genestealer unit (they die easy they just hit hard) a tyrant and two fexes, then masses of hormagaunts. You really want at least 100 hormagaunts/gaunts. Something like a 70/30 mix in 1500 points. Spend about 500 of the 1500 on big things at an absolute max, then grab gaunts en masse for about 8-900 and maybe a stealer unit to take out big threats. You're working on a large volume of attacks bringing them down and enough numbers to survive enemy fire. Really, I think any hoard army with less than 100 models isn't doing its job and isn't going to get very far. I'm not a nid player myself, but I've seen them done effectively.

Remember, with any hoard army, as a general rule, focus on the standard troops, not the few specialised units. A few stealers, fex or two, a hive tyrant and then many a hormagaunt/gaunt, also never give hoard armies survivability upgrades, stick to minimal damage upgrades (power claw as mentioned) if you have to.

 

My Horde army only has 95 models at 1500 points, but 20 of them are Nobz, so it works for me! :laugh:

 

I disagree with you guys, upgrades are essential. Make different units fulfill different roles, such as leaping warriors with ST and RC, then a brood of gun Warriors with Twin Linked Devourers, +BS and +S. Then it's always good to throw in a Heavy Warrior with a Barbed Strangler.

Hormagaunts are useless as of now, but in the new codex if you give them TS they will get poisoned weapons with a re-roll on 1s to hit. Gaunts are going down quite a bit, so more units will be able to enter play. 'Stealers are nasty, I once took out a whole 11man Termie Assault squad, armed with Lightning claws and Lysander with these babies. (Of course, I had 27 of them and a Broodlord:grin

But carnifexes, Warriors and Hive Tyrants are skyrocketing in price, so even though the Gaunts are getting better for less, the MC are almost doubling in cost. Bye bye Carnifexes.

If you want a Horde army, go for Orks or IG. Happy hunting!

 

One question and one only you should ask yourself before collecting a horde force..... and its one I wish had asked and now ask before I buy a mini...

Can you do this justice?

Simply put.. and I run IG infantry full usually. I put down on average 150-200 minis per game I play... I paint about 12-15hrs a week.... I am now old and senile so don't have a life, but you might... Do you want to paint 100 odd plastic spacemen? Do you want to put together 100 odd plastic spacemen? I know it sounds good! I love infantry.... but and I speak from experience when I look at the box of unopened metal harlequins from 1987 that i still havent got around to painting... I say to myself.. YOU IDIOT STOP COLLECTING ARMIES THAT REQUIRE 200000000 hours to assmeble and paint! Then I go and buy another blister of something that will sit there unopened for 12 years.

If however you do decide to go horde....

pick something that your not using now and at the other end of the spectrum. If your an eldar player.... fast, flighty and wear pink pantyhose type then go for something heavy, slow and wearing black socks. I find it increases your understanding of the game and when you get some fool who you can't beat using one army style you have another army to use.

 

Funny thing about Nids and hordes as well... You can field twice their number in Imperial guardsmen easy with conscripts.

 

I quite like the idea of quite a few specialised warriors backing up a horde - a la nobz mob - provided you can get a decent number for what it would cost for MCs that do the job. Thanks everyone for your input.

No IG for me sadly, and Orks are no longer my thing.