Swarmlord
The Swarmlord, (also known as Schwarmfuhrer) is one of the few Tyranid character with a little bit of personality. The Swarmlord is the supreme general of the Tyranid army, and also the most smart, cunning and experienced Hive Tyrant of the swarm. Wherever the hive fleet could not overwhelm the opposition with sheer numbers or standard tactics, it spawns the Swarmlord, and he gets shit done. And besides being a super-general, the Swarmlord is also a close combat monster and powerful psyker, capable of going toe to toe with the Despoiler himself.
He's also immortal, as his memories and personality are constantly saved by the hive mind and are placed in brand new shiny body if the previous one got blasted apart with massed melta fire. While the hive mind could potentially spawn a new Swarmlord without the previous one being slain, which could lead to multiple Swarmlords on different battlefields, no evidences of such cloning exists. However, if the Macragge Swarmlord is still alive, hibernating under the surface of the planet, there ARE at least two Swarmlords in the Galaxy.
He's something of an Ensemble Darkhorse on /tg/, well liked and thought of as incredibly badass. Shitting all over Calgar probably has something to do with it.
List of deeds
- First seen on Tyran, leading Hive Fleet Behemoth's final assault on a Mechanicum outpost. Not quite clear why, because the battle was pretty one-sided, although he could have been gathering more data about human warfare.
- Showed up on Macragge and kicked major ass, outclassing Marneus Calgar in both tactics and close combat. He cut off Papa Smurf's limbs, guts and one eye, but due to plot armor, failed to kill him. The honor guard managed to recover their Chapter Master while force-feeding their commander to the Swarmlord to buy some time. While the Ultramarines withdrew to the space, the Swarmlord led his forces to the polar fortresses to omnomnom the First Company and Ultramar PDF. And he succeeded. Unfortunately, the space battle for Macragge hadn't gone so well, mainly because the Imperial Fleet had the balls of steel Ultrasmurfs lacked; while the Tyranids won the planet, they lost the war. It's not quite clear what had happened to the Swarmlord, as his body was never found. It's possible that he's still under the surface of Macragge, waiting for a new hive fleet.
- It's likely that the The Great Beast, who lead Hive Fleet Kraken's invasion on Craftworld Iyanden was the Swarmlord itself. The Avatar of Khaine attempted to goad the creature in single combat during the fighting. However, the Swarmlord, not really knowing nor giving a damn about honorable duels and such, tricked The Avatar into getting shit kicked by twelve Carnifexes. It also avoided all Eldar attempts to assassinate him until the corsair prince Yriel finally managed to stab him in the face with a cursed spear. (If you look closely at the wording used, it's more likely to be a Hive Tyrant with Armoured Carpace. )
- Showed leading Hive Fleet Leviathan at the last years of M41, where he once planned end executed massive simultaneous attack on Hodur Sector, resulted in omnomnoming two dozens of imperial worlds (including one space marine chapter home world) in less then two months. Such a rapid and unstoppable Tyranid advance is rumored to be the main reason to force inquisitor Kryptman to launch his infamous mass-exterminatus cordon project and stolen-genestealer project to redirect Leviathan into an ork empire.
- Now he's rumored to be in the Octarius empire, pwning Orks. Not much known about his effort there.
On the tabletop
In game the Swarmlord is one of the most deadly and expensive HQs in the game. He can seriously buff his army and kill almost anything in close combat, but is as vulnerable to anti-tank fire as all Tyrants. There are only a couple HQ models outside Apocalypse, capable of killing an unbuffed Swarmlord in a challenge with a chance of or better than 50% - Primarchs,, Skarbrand, Abaddon and Draigo. If he buffed himself with the Biomancy powers Iron Arm and Warp Speed his odds improve and considering his four generated powers there is a good chance he would roll both. If you face biobuffed Swarmy on the tabletop the only way of dealing with him is to run the fuck away and try to blast him with things like lascannons. Give him a unit of Tyrant guard and he's damn near unstoppable.