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Thread: A Guide to Hive Defence - No Metarush For You

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    A Guide to Hive Defence - No Metarush For You

    A Guide to Hive Defence - No Metarush For You


    Prelude
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    So for a year now I noticed a trend in how Xenos set up their hive defences and it always tend to lead to a cycle of things to come.

    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Recently, I have observed that the xenos were not only coordinating nor preparing well but eventually get stomped so much they try unfeasible tactics to fight marines. One of which involves metarushing the LZ1 in Big Red With the Hive set up in Marshalls (Queen dead by 12:33, later jobbanned I was told).

    It's like the xenos forgot how to...defend themselves. So when the coordination and preparation gets thrown out of the window, marines are allowed to take a walk into the hive and get xenos mad over 'metarush', which in most cases arent even metarushing. At the pace they go, it's more like pushing. In fact, the way marines push is even slower now. There are, as I said, times when marines push at 12:33 or 12:35 and they can still end the game by 12:50.

    So here is the guide I made, which the style is written to encourage and help new queen/xeno players get creative with their style of defending the hive. It is not made to make your thinking rigid. So it should cover the basics.

    Principles & Concepts
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    Hive Defence has many methods. In principle, they can be deduced to:
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Your Objectives to Hive Defence should be simple:
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Drone castes are very important in Hive Defence. A breakdown shows their usefulness(Including a Boiler a Praetorian which are not Drone Castes):

    Spoiler Spoiler:


    The more drone caste you have, the stronger your hive defence is and the more likely you are to survive. But the more drone caste you have, the less likely you are to win a Shipside battle. So balance is very important here.

    All else are mere tools to play(That includes boilers)

    Methods and Styles
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I think this is best explained by breaking down the principles. Note: How you play can combine many of these principles depending on your Hive Composition and your play style. This guide does not aim to make you rigid where you stick to one principle at a time.

    Mobility
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Attrition
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Deception
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Battlefield Preparation
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Maturity
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Ground Control
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Strategy, Tactics, Courage and Robustness
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Population
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Teamwork and Coordination

    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Scenarios
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Just as Military History provides basis of context and understanding of Military Principles and development of warfare, here are some case examples for study. If you want more, observe more and laugh at FFs.

    Case No 1.(Game Ended 12:46 on LV)
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Case No 2. (Prison; Same tactic and strategy on 2 games so it's 2 games on this case)
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Case No 3. (Prison; Windhealer CO)
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Screenshots for Illustrations
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Make Checkered Stickies as ONE HEDP Nade can remove all stickies in a radius. Spreading them out saves time and is equally efficient as well as reducing the exposure of your stickies to a single nade. This is your general go to pattern for stickies.
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Another good example why checkered stickies are better is because of this. When marines were pushing and clearing the stickies they just clear a path to walk to and leave the surrounding behind. This forces marine reinforcement and retreats to deal with them in masses and everyone has to gamer on 1x1 paths.
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    Stickies like these are discouraged cause one Incen or HEDP nade can wipe all your hard work of stickies off, and it is quicker to clear them with flamers with their 4-5 tile range. Whereas with the Checkered stickies shown above, the flamer can hit at least 2-3 depending on where it hits.
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    4x4 blocks like these with 2x2 paths gives xenos some room to fight with decent cover. Marines can only be slowed if xenos are around. But don't expect marines to be effectively slowed if there are no checkered stickies. Remember this build is very situational. But in image 2 these are quite ideal in slowing down marines. You can do 2x3 structures(rectangle) and put stickies, but prepare to get out of there because very likely they will have to bomb that place to push
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    This here is a list of all known FFs from nades, explosives, you name it. Notice that they always happen during crowded situations. So when I say the more crowded they are the more they would FF, it wasnt some random statement I made in thin air. You might as well call this animal science.
    Spoiler Spoiler:


    I hope this guide helps
    Last edited by Casada_Radio; 02-08-2020 at 09:37 AM.

  2. #2
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    This looks like a great guide and as a marine main, I've gotta say that these are the exact tactics and structures we struggle with defeating.

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    Unlike the Marines. Xenos have a far better chance to conceptualise and enact grand strategy on the battlefield, especially if the Queen knows what she is doing.

    Marine Command can only do so much, and as the game drags on the Marine cohesion can start to fall apart, in my mind the Marines are not well built to long, protracted, engagements.

    That is why, whenever I see a 'meta rush win' I'm oft apprehensive to dismiss the round as a Marine Meta, and instead ask how did the Aliens respond to the Marines? Which I think this guide does well in posing this question to the player.

    All in all, a great guide.
    This is war, survival is your responsibility
    Captain Alan Bentway
    Synthetic: Nicholas
    Hunter Kwei Ikthya-de

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    Great post to be honest. I feel many xenos don't understand or forget that if an SO is watching a marines helmet cam and they see a xeno devour a marine and bring him all the way to the hive then he's going to report the hives location to the XO/CO who will in turn tell all the marines essentially. That's why you'll see drone/hives building 'random' nests near the front line where the potential to lose the host to advancing marines is greater but ensures the queen/hive location to be a mystery.

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    Quality post, Hivelord main approved.

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    Drone plasma slave approved. Bigger hives now!

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    So I was supposed to update this with screenshots as requested for better illustration but the original hivelord guide was somehow lost or deleted, which I originally planned to link to this guide. Since that is no longer possible I had to build up PROPER Screenshots and find some good ones in the old forums. This will take time, apologies.

    Also I may do a thorough review later since this is not up to date with the latest perma nesting change simply because I am also waiting for Xeno Structures to come and see how it goes.

    I will post the screenshots slowly whenever possible.

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