Hive Fleet Antona

Hive fleet Antona was first encountered and logged by the Space Wolves whilst returning from deep jungle combat training with the Emperor’s Hawks Chapter in the nearby Antona Australis subsector. The Sons of Russ discovered several massive crustacean-like organisms in an apparently dormant state. The few members of the first company aboard their strike cruiser mounted a quick and vicious teleport attack and disabled many of the hive ships enabling the fleet to finish them off from range, wiping out what they thought were the last of the alien creatures

Inquisitorial reports filed later indicated that the strike teams encountered many dormant tyranid organisms and were able to complete their mission with little resistance. This led Inquisitor Jaxson of the Ordo Xenos to theorize that the creatures had drifted from the intergalactic gulf a large distance inside imperial borders without prior engagement. This was a worrying discovery that a hive fleet had penetrated so far into imperial space without detection. Jaxson’s investigations put the tyranids' approach vector as coming from out of the galactic plane in a similar fashion to Hive Fleet Leviathan.

Two centuries later, The Emperors Hawks encountered a much larger hive fleet in the Coriolis system following a distress call from the 3^rd Lastrati Imperial Guard regiment. This new fleet bore strikingly similar characteristics to that seen earlier by the Space Wolves. With the arrival of the Hawks along with mysterious assistance from eldar of the Ulthwe craftworld, the hivefleet was repelled and the invaders driven out of the system. Upon closer investigation of xenos-samples captured by a Hawks kill-team, Jaxson confirmed the creatures were indeed of the same fleet encountered two centuries earlier, except this time they were very much awake. The similarity of this new fleets movements to that of the Leviathan attack meant there was still the possibility they were both part of a much larger hive fleet approaching from below the galactic plane. Such a fleet would pose a massive threat to the Imperium, leading Inquisitor Jaxson to permanently assign the Hawks of the Emperor on search and destroy missions in the sector. At this moment, roughly two-thirds of the chapter are on active deployment driving back the hive fleet. 

Battle reports indicate that this hive fleet composition is extremely varied. As yet, no bio-titans or larger creatures have been observed in the swarms, but they have been noted for the appearance of non-standard winged mutations among the ‘Hive Tyrant’ strains, which typically lead a deadly fast attack at the head of a swarm of gargoyles. The swarms Tyrant guard also appear to be a mutant strain, exhibiting enhanced height and whip-like appendages which can disable even an ork warlord in close quarters. Previous interactions with the hive fleet have shown its preference for night combat, using their dark camouflage to most use. Combat has been known in daylight hours, but it appears the swarm prefers to retreat to unknown sanctuaries (perhaps burrows) in daylight, only to reappear with greater ferocity in the early evening. The rapid appearance and retreat of this new hive fleet has created superstition among the local population who see them as the banshees in the night. Guard platoons have referred to them as ‘Ghostnids’, a term coined by Pvt. Johnson of the Lastrati 3^rd.