I agree that a swarm horde is likely not worth the points. I'm going to play Devil's advocate and see if I can make it work though.
First off, a horde only needs to be 30 models (not 40 - we naturally think 40 because of spears I think). Secondly, it can be supported by Bastiladons with Arks and Tehenhauin. This makes the unit properly Unbreakable, and gives him Ld10. If you take him as your general, that gives you Ld 10 coldblooded inspiring presence.
To get the full 3 Bastiladons, you'd need to run a 3000 point list, because that's the minimum size to fit 30 swarms and 3 Bastiladons - ironically 3,000 points puts you into Grand Army so you could actually take 6 Bastiladons but you don't have the points. The arks would give you on average 9 extra bases of swarms over the course of the battle, assuming no Bastiladon casualties.
The unit will be approximately 20" wide x 6" deep, so you could actually put a large chunk of the rest of your army behind it, knowing that they won't be taking any panic tests
You'll probably want to put some Saurus on the flank that Tehenhauin is on, for 4+ LoS, and the Bastiladons on the other flank and/or behind. For the rest of the list, you still have enough points in Lord to get a fully kitted out Slann, although then the Slann would be your general and not Tehenhauin. Life Magic is one possibility, granting your 150 wound unbreakable unit Regeneration and Toughness boosts.
Mathhammer time!
Let's take a look at one of the units that churn out huge numbers of attacks and are prevalent in the meta - the horde of Ogre Bulls. 18 bulls will generate 6 impact hits, 54 attacks and 6 stomps on the unit. On average that will be 32.5 wounds (or 27.5 if they didn't charge) losing 6 bases. In return you'll do 56 attacks back, which will result in 6 wounds after saves. You'll lose by a gazillion, but sit there Unbreakable. Your opponent will combat reform to ensure he is in base to base contact with Tehenhauin. Next turn Tehenhauin will likely take 3 wounds from 18 attacks and die. However, there is a slim chance that he will kill one of the Ogres in base contact first and survive. Either way, your unit is then suffering only 32 attacks from the Ogres which will result in 17 total wounds. In return you'll do 50 attacks back, which will result in 5 wounds after saves. If Tehenhauin is dead, then you're going lose another 8 wounds, for a total of 21 - 4 more bases gone. You can see that in this war of attrition the swarm is going to lose. You then need to be combo charging with your bastiladons to even up the odds, but bear in mind you're committing 50% of your forces to a single combat that you're still likely to lose.
Having gone through this thought exercise, I think the thing that prevents this from really working is the lack of supporting attacks. If the second and third ranks got full attacks, the story wouldn't be too different: 120 attacks back would turn into 20 wounds after saves, which still sucks but sucks less, and might give you the edge. You're still tying up > 1000 points taking out a unit that is worth roughly half the cost.
Want to try a really crazy alternative horde? Go with Ripperdactyls ;-)
~gwh
hehe i guess that rule is important. well then i guess i was getting ahead of myself. what about larger units of 6+ then? since they are unbreakable they really shouldn't care about ranks and just use the extra bases for meat shield. I think these would be great against elves because they can tarpit until something better hits the flanks. What say you oh wise ones?
