[Suicide Junkie]

For a decent barbarian horde strategy, try getting a race with no maintenance.
You can then build ships constantly, and when war does come, you can send thousands to fight.
With a stack of maintenance-free construction bases, you can build at any rate you have the resources to support.

One thing I like, is that you don't have to worry about ships running out of fuel or being crippled. They can take as long as they want to return home, and won't cost you anything. When they do arrive, you get to retrofit and return them to the fleet.

Also, with such large numbers of ships, you can make devastating use of long-reload weapons such as missiles and Null-space, overrunning your enemies in tactical faster than they can cut down your flood of ships.