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I'm about to play a Crusade with Tyranids. I've never played Tyranids before. I want to have fun, so I'm playing with a Tervigon and a bunch of hormagaunts and termagaunts. I won't be relying too much on big bugs. We're starting at 500 points and increasing 100 points a week.

What's the, arguably, best hive fleet for horde gaunts?

What are some other support characters or units that might be useful?

Hive fleet Hydra is the codexes themed horde subfaction. With both the faction ability and stratagem requiring you to attack units in melee with a lower model count than your own, and the psychic power working much better when you have a lot of little gribblies around. Given that those abilities are in the fight phase though, this fleet is definitely more about hormagaunts than termagants.

Other fleets have plenty to offer too. For instance Gorgon's poison 4+ ability benefits quite nicely from the high volume low strength you get from horde infantry, plus it works on both melee and shooting. Kraken's speed would help to get your horde into position on objectives, or into your opponents lines. Jormungandr improves your survivability, with dense cover and a halved model count when determining blast weapon hits.

As for supporting units, Venomthropes might be handy to keep your models on the table a bit longer. Plus they're not too shabby in combat in the current book.
A few warriors may be a good idea to provide some extra synapse support and some harder hitting attacks where needed.
A parasite of mortrex is a useful utility piece. Its ability to turn off the enemies Objective Secured ability is perhaps a little less relevant with a horde list as you're probably outnumbering them anyway, but it can still be useful. It's still a very fast synapse creature with character protection. Allowing it to jump up to support a squad which is about to take some damage while staying reasonable safe. Plus the potential for your army to get a 9" consolidation move with its synaptic imperative + hydras adaptive trait is kind of fun.

Kinda depends on what you want to focus on. If you go hormagaunt (melee) heavy you want kraken for the extra ap.
If you go termagant (ranged) heavy then depends on their guns, kronos works great for fleshborers but devourers want to be gorgon.

Also our crusade upgrades and agendas usually work better on melee than on ranged.

And of course what comes after the gaunts? Our codex isn't really build to just spam gaunts. They are objective holders and takers, and hormagaunts in particular can have some great damage output if you want to spend a lot of CP on them. But eventually you are going to need warriors and raveners and monsters. So when picking a fleet you have to consider what eventually you will be bringing.

Parasite is a great unit to take with Alien Cunning for securing objectives and doing some actions. 16 inch move is great (i also run mine with gestation sac for more rippers)

zoanthropes are great for smite damage and give you access to an invulnerable save for your army for a round

Personally i like running a screamer killer carnifex or two, its a huge distraction for your opponent to deal with and shreads almost anything it comes in contact with.

How do you kit out Screamer Killers?