I have just got some Hive ships for Gothic and are looking for some advice on the best way to play them, and how the hive mind works. I have read the rules but its confused me.

Any help.

Cheers

What exactly are you confused by? the way the instinctive behaviour works or something else?

instinctive behaviour works by the hive ship being able to roll a leadership test for themselves or any other ship within 45cm if failed you have to follow the table. if you have multiple hive ships with 45 of the same ship and fail the first test you can re-test against the other hive ship.

instinctive behaviour sorta forces you to bunch up a bit to get em moving the way you want, which makes you an easier target for torps so put out some fighters and then start on a attack wave. most nid weapons are fairly close range so you need to move towards the enemy as fast as you can so you can start to hit them. the nids are fairly random when it comes to army selection, so depending on what weapons you pick for your ships depends on how you need to play.

Also try looking on the specialist games forums you might find what you are after there if you do a search for bfg/nids