LV strategy

[ThePiachu]

So recently I've played a few rounds on LV as xeno, and I think I came up with an interesting strategy for the map.

At the moment, the Marine meta is "secure nexus, bunker up hydro, rush tfort, ignore the rest". Which means 75% of the colony is not used or fortified. That could be exploited by xenos.

Early round, you want to send two drones to weed across the entire colony, and melt blast doors on everything but secure storage. Even if the caves go a bit neglected early on, that's fine. combat castes look for smallhosts and bring them into the hive, and also do the usual - smash lights, break APCs, cut through fences, fight tallhosts. You want to make swiss cheese out of those fences. Once you're done you should have prepared the battleground for your next step.

Far west in the colony there are some ruins that no marine ventures into, pretty much ever. Your first drone that matures should turn into hivelord, dig a tunnel there, and then hurry back into the hive to dig a tunnel through onto the other side. This will be your surprise beachhead. Let the marines land and set up in peace, while you rally a good amount of harassing forces in that ruin.

Before the fog goes down, send out harassers and a hero drone. By now you should have Marines un-clumped from their ball and maybe even a few stragglers around. Smash the floodlights. Harass and kill the humans. Make sure to drag them far away so their suit light won't give you away. All the while the hero drone will have the job of re-weeding the colony and melting any flares and guns with flashlights (or make the spitting sisters do it). You want the colony to get pretty dark pretty fast.

If you harass with enough forces, you will force the marines to draw some of their forces away from hydro. When the fog drops, rejoin with your main forces and push, all the while harassing with your runners and lurkers.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

so basically every LV strategy ever ? Sending drones past the fog to weed is not new, nor is sending out harassers (do you even know the H Y D R O R O A D meme ?)

The elephant in this "new strategy" of yours is that you think you can get a hivelord for the hive before T2 slots are all taken. Remember that Drones need 500 ticks to mature, which is enough for a Sentinel caste to get T3. With the Warrior and Lurker spam, how the fuck do you think you can get a hivelord safely before the fog drops ?

Also, you are clearly underestimating the marine's ability to scout, especially when they OOC and IC knows that they should scout for tunnels and blow them up (Once they've seen a beno and a tunnel). If your hivelord is stuck before the fog drop when the marines land, it's gonna get killed, and you basically just wasted a T2 for this "new strategy"

[zoboomafoo]

The meta of tfort to hydro to nexus is so ingrained it will never be broken. Like, ever.

[ThePiachu]

You can get Hivelord ~20 minutes into the round. This means it's before the Marines arrive at the planet. You have enough time to put down the tunnel and GTFO through the nearest hiding hole.

[Meatshield]

Are there caves west of the river? If so, it might be a good place for the Hive, and use tunnels, and then send xeno to the northern caves to fool the marines.

so basically every LV strategy ever ?

I have never seen the Hive use tunnels as integral part of the strategy (can all xeno use tunnels?). The most sophisticated Hive strat I have participated in was a simple "ignore the front, attack miles behind the front". Most Hive strats are very basic.

[ThePiachu]

There is a dinky shoreline to the west that isn't too well covered. Not big enough for a hive.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

My strat as queen:

Repel the tabelfort attack

Go to LZ1

walk into the 'fob' from the east

Disable alamo

Kill 40+ marines

[FGRSentinel]

Honestly the biggest meme strat you can pull on any map as benos is to leave a few sisters to fight on the front while the hive just quietly walks around the battle to LZ1, punches through when almost nobody's there, and ninja capture Alamo. If it works, you have a ton of confused marines halfway across the map being told the Alamo's been hijacked before running back and potentially a few minutes to rampage around Almayer without concern. Not sure if it'd be an acceptable strategy or if it'd get the queen in trouble, though.

[ThePiachu]

I think some staff did say that once Alamo lands, Xenos can attack it, hijack it and drive into Almayer at any point. Want to ninja with 50% of humans still on the planet? Go for it.

[Build_R_]

Hiding some xenos in the east jungles and then just rushing into the FOB works. The west side of the FOB is usually only accessible by nexus defenses + regular FOB defenses sometimes meaning you'd need to clear 3+ layers of cades to access the inner FOB. The east side however typically has 1 layer if any and is especially vulnerable when the Alamo is up.

[FGRSentinel]

Yeah, for some reason the marines like to "save resources" by using the Alamo as their eastern barrier on LV, which is actually stupid. The moment the Alamo lands all it takes is for the queen to charge in and hit the button, then all the marines are trapped planetside for ten minutes or so for the benos to slaughter at their discretion or simply to strand by taking the Alamo up.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

Yeah, for some reason the marines like to "save resources" by using the Alamo as their eastern barrier on LV, which is actually stupid. The moment the Alamo lands all it takes is for the queen to charge in and hit the button, then all the marines are trapped planetside for ten minutes or so for the benos to slaughter at their discretion or simply to strand by taking the Alamo up.

I'm not sure that timer is 10 minutes honestly. It seems permanent, and manual controlling the console inside the dropship doesn't work either. Tried and tested it twice, nothing.

[FGRSentinel]

The ten minutes is something I remember hearing. If it is permanent, however, the true LV strat would be to lock down Alamo and then slaughter every marine you could in an attempt to force them to redeploy via Normandy before locking that one down, which would be so heavily abused it would have a proper timer.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

The ten minutes is something I remember hearing. If it is permanent, however, the true LV strat would be to lock down Alamo and then slaughter every marine you could in an attempt to force them to redeploy via Normandy before locking that one down, which would be so heavily abused it would have a proper timer.

I'd be fine with this, becauee that would teach engineers to build where they are supposed to, now where they want to >:C

[misto]

stop wasting the time of hivelords and drones by telling them to make resin castles at tfort, because said resin castles will only get bombed, mortared and tank'd. the caves have been newly expanded. imagine all that resin wasted at tfort filling the caves instead. it would be a hell hole.

or at least that WOULD be a good strategy if people could THINK and have PATIENCE instead of following the ancient tradition of running out into the open at the tfort barrens to try to fight literally a hundred humans

[Survivor]

I'm not sure that timer is 10 minutes honestly. It seems permanent, and manual controlling the console inside the dropship doesn't work either. Tried and tested it twice, nothing.

There is a ten minute timer for launching the Alamo from the cockpit once it gets locked down, or at least was three months ago.