Swarm boarders would be neat. Taking inspiration from a certain show, Swarm assault ships could be fast, spear-shaped creatures that'd ram and stab themselves into their targets before unloading a torrent of 'marine' buggers into the victim, through the armour hole they hopefully created. Nevermind the vague sexual undertone.
Yes i am talking about a queen and 5. 2 did let me board and capture her. . . might be something to fix for later editions if its not intended for that too happen. . . really hope I will be able to get some tech at least for losing 17 of 20 marine brigades and officers(from a role playing point of view, I would imagine volunteers for ground forces and fighter pilots both should be significantly down considering their massive losses of late)
Could you please clarify your losses? At first you said a marine division (which is 4 brigades or 12 battalions) and then you said 17 brigades, which is 68 (!) marine battalions.
Or did you mean marine companies? To drop whole battalions with any reasonable degree of success and not too much readiness loss, you'd need a very fast
and large assault ship.