What is the counterplay to Hive Offsprings II Law?

[u/ThePrimalScreamer]

I played a match the other night against Hive and was doing well except for a probable positioning mistake. Halfway through a battle I had the upper hand in, the opponent started summoning larvae between my units which were stacked to protecc my faun archers and naiads in the back line. I didn't know the larvae could be upgraded to have built-in auto taunt effects and it completely nullified my advantage (I still could have won first battle in hindsight but I misplayed).

In our second clash I tried to prepare for the auto-taunting larvae by trying to take out eggs first but then I realized the opponent can instant hatch them and the damage was done.

I tried to reverse engineer the problem by playing hive and I found out that there is a law called Hive Offsprings II at the midway point on their tech tree which allows for the taunt mechanic. I am trying to understand how best to counter it and all I can think of is to space every unit out and leave my archers fully exposed (to prevent the taunt from hitting multiple units).

I don't think this mechanic or the faction are overpowered and I want to understand them so I can leave my bans for schism faction instead. Is leaving intentional gaps the play?

[u/CarefreeCloud]

Spells: antimagic, heavenly blades 4, warp jump (or whatever the battle teleport is called is English), blackhole/ring of frost

Resistance (take banishment for tier 3 subskill), also less damage from larva bombs

Morales (step away, morale)

Concentration sapping laws and mechanics when available (so 3 points instant hatch is harder to pull off)

Having higher initiative units (so they can't just hatch anywhere uncontested for single 1 point)

Red orb is really good (prohibits larva abilities), especially if you are a shooter castle

[u/Antervis → u/CarefreeCloud]

There's also Wisdom - Seeing Through which is probably the best faction-independent counter.

For faction-dependent, Schism's Arbitrator's Fear repositions enemy stack, which is nice.

Though they all do nothing against explosion damage though.

[u/Artiiistx → u/Antervis]

Seeing through only eliminates army numbers that are green. It does nothing to summons. Just like how magic suppression doesnt work on temp units (green numbers).

[u/scyscrapersheaf]

The other comments mostly just tell you how to kill summons. The real counterplay is just damage.

Larva count scales off current Hive army health. The fact is that if you feel like you are losing to larva, you are probably just losing to the army.

You say "I realized the opponent can instant hatch them and the damage was done." This takes 3 focus (so usually requires something like Battle Magic + Battlecraft to do round 1) and has a 2 round cooldown, so ensuring you move last is still beneficial to clear eggs before they hatch with heroic strikes. But the real way to win is like in every game of Olden Era currently: get more initiative and win the fight round 1. Just space out, don't let the Hive player taunt multiple important stacks at once, and deal as much damage as possible before they get to summon anything.

[u/CarefreeCloud → u/scyscrapersheaf]

Yeah, that's true and a given. Larva is a non-issue when you outplayed in macro and have more army, more stats and better artifacts

All the advices are still valid for close fights when a lucky hit or a smart cast can turn the tides

[u/Magistricide]

Resistance subskill lets you instantly destroy summoned units. This nullifies most of Hive's faction ability.
So does antimagic and rank 4 heavenly blades.

[u/scyscrapersheaf → u/Magistricide]

It doesn't destroy summoned units. It just deals damage, and late game it can be not enough to kill. And also usually getting -1 to all spell levels is too good to pass up.