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A Tendril wouldn't stop the Warp existing if it went into the Warp.

The Shadow is a veil between reality and the Warp that prevents the bleeding of Warp energy into Realspace.

Once you enter the Warp, that energy is everywhere and it is far more powerful than when drawn into reality.

Ships can travel the Warp by using Gellar Fields to essentially give themselves a reality bubble, the Nids don't have that. As soon as they go into the Warp proper and not just say Eye-space (or something similar) then its curtains for those bugs.

Tyranids are extremely resistant even to the physical effects of being submerged into the warp, it is one of those "Tyranid mysteries" that baffle xenobiologists that study the nids.

Admittedly individual nids likely wouldn't survive as they can be thrown out anywhere and space is mostly empty. But it is a current plot point that hive ships and fleets survive the experience just fine.

It could be they have “hardened” DNA, if indeed that’s how The Warp mutates, and it’s not something to do with Souls. Souls Tyranid organisms may not even possess.

We know that Kin are crafted with “hardened souls” which protect them against Warp influence and spontaneous mutation, so such things are therefore evidently possible.

 Tyran wrote:
Tyranids are extremely resistant even to the physical effects of being submerged into the warp, it is one of those "Tyranid mysteries" that baffle xenobiologists that study the nids.

Where is that a thing? Being subject to Warp based abilities and existing in un-reality are two very different things.

When the Rift first opened above Baal, those Nids in orbit ceased to exist.

I don't think the Warp kills through uncontrolled mutation. It seems to kill primarily by being a raging torrent of unbridled energy. Ships whose gellar fields completely fail are typically torn to shreds, not merely mutated. Even Chaos vessels can be destroyed this way, they also need shielding against the power of the Warp.

If Tyranid fleets can resist this, then they must have some kind of gellar field equivalent or (what I suspect) the Shadow in the Warp calms the Warp locally and provides gentle seas to sail in. I don't think they are merely incredibly tough, because they can still be destroyed by weapons fire in realspace.

I am pretty sure the Shadow in the Warp has been described as becalming the Warp before, hence why I think it is that which protects hive fleets.

It's not really just mutations though, it's all the various daemons and warp entities that can kill everyone on a ship. Anything mortal that they can latch on to they'll kill or otherwise terrorise.

The Shadow in the Warp that Tyranids project is simply a masking effect that stops those entities taking an interest.

Like various insects that can give off pheromones that basically say I'm not tasty so don't eat me.

 Haighus wrote:
I am pretty sure the Shadow in the Warp has been described as becalming the Warp before, hence why I think it is that which protects hive fleets.

It blocks astropathic signals and complicates Warp travel. When a world is surrounded it is hidden from the Astromican, which is how Navigators find their way in the Warp. Again, the Shadow doesn't affect the Warp itself, it just blocks the energies from being pulled into Realspace by Psykers and the connection needed by the Daemonic to allow them to manifest.
It's Flextape but for the bleed of Warp energy into reality. The Warp is still there, but the flow is stopped.

The Tyranids don't do Warp travel. They travel at sub-light in Realspace by manipulating the gravity well of a target system when attacking or using other means of propulsion when "drifting" between feeding grounds.

Interesting. I wonder how that might impact the targeting mechanism for warp missiles. That would be a useful weapon at starship scale that tyranids might have difficulty in countering.

What does the current lore say about tyranid psykers? Do they channel warp energies, or is it some kind of warp adjacent power coming from the hive mind?

A Vortex missile would still be a problem because it's not a slow draw on the Warp, it's a brick through a window. It punches a hole through reality to create a massive explosion of Warp energy. Vortex Torpedoes do exist but are extremely rare because they are very very difficult to make and very very dangerous to keep around. The Dark Angels had a big Vortex cannon on one of their Heresy-Era ships because they got all of the very cool and very dangerous Warcrimes toys from the Emperor.

As for Tyranid Psykers, they still draw their power from the Warp. The leading theory about the Shadow is that it is essentially the psychic "traffic" of the various Synapse creatures in a Tendril communicating with every single Tyranid creature in that Tendril. So that "traffic" doesn't effect the Tyranids because they are the ones causing it.

 Gert wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Tyranids are extremely resistant even to the physical effects of being submerged into the warp, it is one of those "Tyranid mysteries" that baffle xenobiologists that study the nids.

Where is that a thing? Being subject to Warp based abilities and existing in un-reality are two very different things.

When the Rift first opened above Baal, those Nids in orbit ceased to exist.

Actually no, the hive fleet in orbit was scattered by the Warp but it survived the trip. That has been stated by 8th, 9th and 10th edition codexes.

There is also that time the Eldar threw a Kraken Hive Fleet into the Warp only for it to reemerge later and make the plot of Valedor happen.

 Flinty wrote:
Interesting. I wonder how that might impact the targeting mechanism for warp missiles. That would be a useful weapon at starship scale that tyranids might have difficulty in countering.

What does the current lore say about tyranid psykers? Do they channel warp energies, or is it some kind of warp adjacent power coming from the hive mind?

Warp Missiles or Vortex could prove pretty useful.

Warp Missiles are nasty against large, slow-ish moving targets because provided they hit? The emerge inside said target, then explode like a regular munition. This of course neatly bypasses external armour and shielding, and hopefully goes bang you really don’t want anything going bang near. For conventional warships that’s stuff like your reactor or equivalent, magazine or enginarium. Something which will just take it out of the battle in a single hit, even if it doesn’t completely wreck it. Trick here with Tyranids in Guess Where The ‘Urty Bits Are.

Vortex Missiles just Make Bits Go Missing, as it casts them into the Warp. Again these are nasty weapons, because they don’t really care about your external armour. And leave some area of now unarmoured and depressurised ship/bioship, giving conventional munitions a nice soft spot.

Thing is, we’ve no clear idea of the Imperium’s capacity to produce those. Certainly they seem rare enough not to be standard issue. And you may need to be a Bigwig to be allowed to use them, even if you have a supply. And you can be about as confident as confident can be that as soon as the Hive Mind realises which ship is packing them? It’s going to give some extra special slobbery hugs to that ship.

 Tyran wrote:
Actually no, the hive fleet in orbit was scattered by the Warp but it survived the trip. That has been stated by 8th, 9th and 10th edition codexes.

No, it didn't. The Tendril of Leviathan that assaulted Baal was cut in half by the Rift, with those caught within destroyed by its creation or by Daemons led by Ka'Bandha who was mad that something else was trying to steal the title of "Doom of the Blood Angels". Those that remained in Baal itself were then destroyed by the Indomitus Crusade when it came to rescue the defenders of Baal.
The remains of the Tendril that weren't destroyed by the Warp, Daemons, or the Imperium would then re-emerge after the Blackness to start feasting on the Red Scar once again during the Angel's Halo campaign.

There is also that time the Eldar threw a Kraken Hive Fleet into the Warp only for it to reemerge later and make the plot of Valedor happen.

Can't comment, never read the Valedor novel.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is, we’ve no clear idea of the Imperium’s capacity to produce those. Certainly they seem rare enough not to be standard issue. And you may need to be a Bigwig to be allowed to use them, even if you have a supply. And you can be about as confident as confident can be that as soon as the Hive Mind realises which ship is packing them? It’s going to give some extra special slobbery hugs to that ship.

Rare enough that a Deathstrike is supposed to be guarded by a whole infantry platoon and a single vehicle commanded by a Lord Commissar. The Torpedoes are rarer still and also have that problem of a misfire wiping out the very expensive and important ship they're being fired from.

 Gert wrote:

No, it didn't.

SCATTERED TO THE STARS
Leviathan’s enormous Baal invasion fleet is torn into a thousand fragments, and spat out across the vast expanse of the galaxy. Several hundred bio-ships tumble out of the void in the heart of the Maelstrom, andt here fall upon the piratical fleet of Huron Blackheart, master of the Red Corsairs. Another, larger host emerges in the midst of the Velis System, fearfully close to the heart of Segmentum Solar.

INEXPLICABLE PHENOMENA
The longer the scholars of the galaxy study the Tyranid menace, the more bewildered they become by the xenos’ weird interactions with the warp. In some ways, the Tyranids appear empyrically inert. The Ordo Xenos have pieced together records that show splinter fleets swallowed by warp rents, only to emerge from other immaterean phenomena in entirely different regions of the galaxy. Should most races’ craft be plunged through the warp like this they would likely emerge badly damaged or mutated, if they emerged at all. The hive ships appear unharmed by their experience, however, surging from the roiling tides of warp space as hungry and as deadly as ever. Worse, more than one such tendril has burst forth directly into the midst of a settled system.

It is as if codexes tell the bigger picture of the setting while novels are mostly limited to the scope and vision of individual characters.

Gert wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is, we’ve no clear idea of the Imperium’s capacity to produce those. Certainly they seem rare enough not to be standard issue. And you may need to be a Bigwig to be allowed to use them, even if you have a supply. And you can be about as confident as confident can be that as soon as the Hive Mind realises which ship is packing them? It’s going to give some extra special slobbery hugs to that ship.

Rare enough that a Deathstrike is supposed to be guarded by a whole infantry platoon and a single vehicle commanded by a Lord Commissar. The Torpedoes are rarer still and also have that problem of a misfire wiping out the very expensive and important ship they're being fired from.

Thing is, their relatively rare deployment doesn’t necessarily indicate they’re a scarce resource. They’re monstrously destructive, and you’ve said unless your careful it’ll be you on the receiving end of said destruction.

It could also be the warheads are comparatively common, the launch unit is comparatively common, but they’re just so incredibly dangerous you need something akin to a stasis field to prevent mishaps, and it’s there any scarcity really comes in, alongside only a relative handful of persons within the Imperium having the authority to sanction their use.

All just idle speculation of course, but I thought it was an interesting enough bit of pondering to bring it up.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is, their relatively rare deployment doesn’t necessarily indicate they’re a scarce resource. They’re monstrously destructive, and you’ve said unless your careful it’ll be you on the receiving end of said destruction.

It could also be the warheads are comparatively common, the launch unit is comparatively common, but they’re just so incredibly dangerous you need something akin to a stasis field to prevent mishaps, and it’s there any scarcity really comes in, alongside only a relative handful of persons within the Imperium having the authority to sanction their use.

All just idle speculation of course, but I thought it was an interesting enough bit of pondering to bring it up.

Rare in manufacture, rarer in deployment. Vortex weaponry is absolutely a scarce resource because it's not simple to make. Compared to say an Imperator Titan or Emperor Battleship, they are less rare but those are also not the same scale of equipment.

The Asuryani (Craftworlders) have much more common "Vortex" weaponry because their base tech level is superior to humanity. D-Cannons are the same principle but more controlled because they are more advanced. The Imperium just shoves a Nuke full of Warp energy from Psykers then hopes that it doesn't blow up before reaching deployment.


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 Tyran wrote:
It is as if codexes tell the bigger picture of the setting while novels are mostly limited to the scope and vision of individual characters.

Could you have been any less smug about that?

That’s not how I understand Vortex stuff to work? Rather it’s seemingly derived from Warp drives. In essence it’s throwing a somewhat unstable Warp Drive at the enemy and sending it critical. No psykers required?

Online sources seem to support, but of course 40K has many, many sources which can be contradictory.

Combine a warp missile guidance and propulsion system with a vortex warhead, and you’d be able to make all kinds of gribbly things lose a lot of important gribbly bits

Then again, might as well just make a million plasma torpedoes instead perhaps and brute force it.

It's all Dark Age tech but the Munitorum: Vortex Missile book states that they are constructed by channeling psychic energy into a warhead that is then attached to an ICBM.

The Grenade is just "Dark Age Tech" that gets built or discovered sometimes.

They are the same as a critical Warp Drive but then what's the difference between a hand grenade and a malfunctioning combustion engine? Both blow up, one is just supposed to and has a triggering mechanism.

 Tyran wrote:

It is as if codexes tell the bigger picture of the setting while novels are mostly limited to the scope and vision of individual characters.

Or - as seems to be common - the writers that came later decided that the original outcome wasn't grimdark enough, and retconned it.

It also gets messy because even lore writers miss-remember parts or they interpret things differently. Especially when much of the source material is either very short statements that gloss over a complicated situation with a general answer.

Another element that's tricky is the unreliable information source element. Characters in-world can have impressions, ideas, theories and so forth which can be utterly wrong or missguided or mistaken or whatever. They might make conclusions that sound finite and factual, but are in reality false.

This can make it confusing when you then read one reference and get an impression of how something works only to read another with a very different feel and viewpoint.

Eumerin wrote:

Or - as seems to be common - the writers that came later decided that the original outcome wasn't grimdark enough, and retconned it.

While often true, Devastation of Baal and the 8th ed Tyranid codex were released at the same time.

 Tyran wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

Or - as seems to be common - the writers that came later decided that the original outcome wasn't grimdark enough, and retconned it.

While often true, Devastation of Baal and the 8th ed Tyranid codex were released at the same time.

Someone had to come up with it first. It makes more sense that the novel author was the one who originated it. Presumably notes were left in whatever passes for a lore database at GW when the rough draft was being circulated through whatever review processes GW has. The Codex author then found the lore bit in the general collection of Tyranid notes, "adjusted" it, and included it in the codex.

Largely speculation on my part, but imo it seems like the most probable order of who did what.

I would definitely put codexes above BL novels for authority in reference. There seems to be all sorts of haphazard occurences and hyperbole in the novels that don't square very well with a long history of codexes and rules over multiple game systems. I think the BL authors are pretty free to write what they think is a good story, and favor that over accuracy or consistency.

Codices are definitely (as far as GW is concerned that is) made to be more "objective" information as it is mostly an introductory summary of the faction

Are the nids aware of the webway? If the eldar could lure a hive fleet to pass close to a big webway gate they could slingshot a big asteroid from another webway gate into the hive fleet giving them no time to respond

Who knows! I’m sure the Hive Mind will have some level of awareness, at least insofar as some Prey That Fight can pop out of nowhere to attack in surprising numbers, and disappear just as quickly. But whether it has any comprehension of what the Webway is? I honestly don’t know.

But I’ve a feeling at some point they did breach the Webway?

mrFickle wrote:
Are the nids aware of the webway? If the eldar could lure a hive fleet to pass close to a big webway gate they could slingshot a big asteroid from another webway gate into the hive fleet giving them no time to respond

I wonder whether such an instance of nids ending up in the webway wasn't narrated in 7th codex harlequins. Memory could be treacherous however, that would need to be checked.

There have been some Tyranid incursions into the the web way. It happens in Valedor and it happens again in the 4th Tyrannic War.

Do they explain how they got there, or is it “oh good there’s some rogue Nids in here, fantastic” type stuff?

In Valedor the Eldar forgot to close the door.