I imagine it would lose a one on one fight quite heavily. Marneus Calgar managed to defeat the Swarmlord after all.
Throwing in help, maybe from a bio-titan, a few Zoanthropes or some ambushing critters, would help even the scales.
In terms of strategy Guilliman would probably have the advantage again. Tyranids are adaptable through the creatures they produce but they generally seem to rely on overwhelming numbers/force rather than complex plans.
SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote: I imagine it would lose a one on one fight quite heavily. Marneus Calgar managed to defeat the Swarmlord after all.
Throwing in help, maybe from a bio-titan, a few Zoanthropes or some ambushing critters, would help even the scales.
In terms of strategy Guilliman would probably have the advantage again. Tyranids are adaptable through the creatures they produce but they generally seem to rely on overwhelming numbers/force rather than complex plans.
SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote: I imagine it would lose a one on one fight quite heavily. Marneus Calgar managed to defeat the Swarmlord after all.
Throwing in help, maybe from a bio-titan, a few Zoanthropes or some ambushing critters, would help even the scales.
In terms of strategy Guilliman would probably have the advantage again. Tyranids are adaptable through the creatures they produce but they generally seem to rely on overwhelming numbers/force rather than complex plans.
Calgar did NOT defeat the swarmlord one on one. Calrger lost all his limbs and some other bits fighting the swarmlord and while he chewed through calgars honor guard they dragged away his trunk and now hes more robot than man.
As for strategy, the Swarmlord also managed to tactically out wit Calgar on every front. Hive fleets birth a swarmlord specifically when numbers are not cutting it and the hive mind deams it worth putting some more brain power on the field. The swarmlord is the total intellect, experience, and strategic acumen of every battle that every individual nid has ever fought on countless world for unknown thousands of thousands of years.
I imagine if a primarch called out the swarmlord he would do the same thing he did to the avatar of khaine. Call forward a small tidal wave of carnifex to drown him in living batterin rams and then ignore him.
Calgar did NOT defeat the swarmlord one on one. Calrger lost all his limbs and some other bits fighting the swarmlord and while he chewed through calgars honor guard they dragged away his trunk and now hes more robot than man.
As for strategy, the Swarmlord also managed to tactically out wit Calgar on every front. Hive fleets birth a swarmlord specifically when numbers are not cutting it and the hive mind deams it worth putting some more brain power on the field. The swarmlord is the total intellect, experience, and strategic acumen of every battle that every individual nid has ever fought on countless world for unknown thousands of thousands of years.
I imagine if a primarch called out the swarmlord he would do the same thing he did to the avatar of khaine. Call forward a small tidal wave of carnifex to drown him in living batterin rams and then ignore him.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. The first time the Swarmlord fought Calgar it won. They fought a second time on Ichar IV from which Calgar emerged victorious. Calgar had also learnt from the battles with Hive Fleet Behemoth and performed much better tactically. The Tyranids aren't the only ones who learn.
The Swarmlord could only swamp the Avatar with Carnifex's because a) the Avatar was stupid and b) the Tyranids had massive superiority anyway. In a more balanced fight it would be unable to so easily rush and destroy high importance targets with apparently nothing else intervening.
Priarchs mince it one on one, but the nids are not that stupid, they would lose the lord first time round then just throw gaunts at the primarch after, short of making the swarm lord a bio titan, all the primarchs have it beat in combat.
Midnightmullen wrote: I had a thought the other day. You know how the swarmlord adapts. What would happen if it came across guilliman? What would the hive mind do?
It depends on if you're looking at it from a strategical or 1v1 combat perspective. In both cases, I'd probably hand it to Guilliman. The Swarmlord might best him once or twice with an unusual strategy (as Corax did in simulations when they first met), but Guilliman was always one of the best when it came to sitting in the chair as a strategist. Definitely up there with Dorn, Perturabo, and so on.
In 1v1 combat, a Primarch usually smacks through anything that isn't either the Emperor, another Primarch, or the The Beast. I don't rate any Tyranid organism that highly.
I fear Guilliman would win because he has to*. The Swarmlord is basically immortal, so it can be killed any number of times without affecting the setting. In essence this makes the Swarmlord something of a named NPC, much like the often abused avatars of Khaine. For Bobby G however death is a more permanent state (actual death, not almost-but-not-quite death).
That said, a primarch getting roflstomped and subsequently nommed by rippers would probably lead to wide-scale riots, and riots are bad, mkay?
* based on what the swarmlord is I would expect it to be portrayed as at least near primarch-level in battles, but w/e. There's a reasonable disconnect in the fluff imo between how powerful I'd expect nids to be based on their descriptions and how they actually perform in battles (also fluff, tabletop is another can of worms).
SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote: I imagine it would lose a one on one fight quite heavily. Marneus Calgar managed to defeat the Swarmlord after all.
Throwing in help, maybe from a bio-titan, a few Zoanthropes or some ambushing critters, would help even the scales.
In terms of strategy Guilliman would probably have the advantage again. Tyranids are adaptable through the creatures they produce but they generally seem to rely on overwhelming numbers/force rather than complex plans.
It's all irrelevant. Fluff has tyranid organisms down to the microcellular level chewing up organic matter.
Ultimately, it can only learn one defeat at a time.
Against Guilliman, it's facing a fairly straight fight. He's strong enough to punch it to death. Then kick it to death. Then head butt it to death. He might use Kung Fu, he might use Judo Chop. Perhaps Jeet Kuhn Do (sorry, I'm pig ignorant in martial arts), then How Ye (the ancient north eastern art of unprovoked aggression, only to be used at the very slightest provocation), then the next time Buddhist Palm.
The Imperium knows what the Swarmlord is. Which means Guilliman knows. Prioritise it's destruction, then the other Hive Tyrants. After that, deploy your fancy plans to wreck the rest of the horde. Force it to learn as little as possible from each engagement,
It's all irrelevant. Fluff has tyranid organisms down to the microcellular level chewing up organic matter.
And yet Calgar killed the Swarmlord in their second bout. Tyranid microbes don't seem to be described as doing much against Space Marines. Or Guardsmen half the time.
Ultimately, it can only learn one defeat at a time.
Against Guilliman, it's facing a fairly straight fight. He's strong enough to punch it to death. Then kick it to death. Then head butt it to death. He might use Kung Fu, he might use Judo Chop. Perhaps Jeet Kuhn Do (sorry, I'm pig ignorant in martial arts), then How Ye (the ancient north eastern art of unprovoked aggression, only to be used at the very slightest provocation), then the next time Buddhist Palm.
The Imperium knows what the Swarmlord is. Which means Guilliman knows. Prioritise it's destruction, then the other Hive Tyrants. After that, deploy your fancy plans to wreck the rest of the horde. Force it to learn as little as possible from each engagement,
I'm unclear as to the Swarmlords fluff, but my thinking would be that it's largely irrelevant, as Tyranids are a hive mind. If the Swarmlord gets killed, the lessons of the battle are still learned and Tyranids just grow another Swarmlord.
Ultimately, it can only learn one defeat at a time.
Against Guilliman, it's facing a fairly straight fight. He's strong enough to punch it to death. Then kick it to death. Then head butt it to death. He might use Kung Fu, he might use Judo Chop. Perhaps Jeet Kuhn Do (sorry, I'm pig ignorant in martial arts), then How Ye (the ancient north eastern art of unprovoked aggression, only to be used at the very slightest provocation), then the next time Buddhist Palm.
The Imperium knows what the Swarmlord is. Which means Guilliman knows. Prioritise it's destruction, then the other Hive Tyrants. After that, deploy your fancy plans to wreck the rest of the horde. Force it to learn as little as possible from each engagement,
I'm unclear as to the Swarmlords fluff, but my thinking would be that it's largely irrelevant, as Tyranids are a hive mind. If the Swarmlord gets killed, the lessons of the battle are still learned and Tyranids just grow another Swarmlord.
Yup. And it's not that the swarmlord learns from the swarmlords fights. The swarmlord learns from every nids fights. All of them.
Tyran wrote: The Swarmlord isn't going to duel Guilliman, as neither would force a duel unless they are confident they will win it.
I dunno, Guilliman would definitely prioritise the Swarmlord and if necessary he'd take it down personally. No reason he wouldn't be confident he'd beat it in a duel. Although identifying and reaching it would be tricky. But hey, what's all that new technology for?
In a 1vs1 Guilliman would win. The first times. The Swarmlord would end adapting to his fight style and at some point, he'll just destroy him without a doubt. Guilliman has never been as good as a figther compared with his brothers. And I doubt that after 10.000 years Guillimand would change his fighing style to the degree the adaptability of the Swarmlord could be useless.
Or not, because Guilliman is a Primarch and as a Protagonist he can't lose or die.
As intelligent and experienced as the swarmlord may be, nothing in the hiveminds experience has ever come across something as powerful as a primarch in that size category. They have experienced lots of humans, lots of space marines. Seeing a primarch, the intelligent thing to do would be extrapolate their strength, speed, durability as a variation of regular humans or space marines. While that is the intelligent thing to do, and while infinite experience leads you to that conclusion, that conclusion is wrong.
All that experience is actually hurting the swarmlord, because all that experience leads it to believe the a primarch is a man, perhaps a superhuman man, but still a man. Primarchs are gods.
Tyran wrote: The Swarmlord isn't going to duel Guilliman, as neither would force a duel unless they are confident they will win it.
I dunno, Guilliman would definitely prioritise the Swarmlord and if necessary he'd take it down personally. No reason he wouldn't be confident he'd beat it in a duel. Although identifying and reaching it would be tricky. But hey, what's all that new technology for?
Guilliman would be a fool to try to personally reach the Swarmlord in the middle of the swarm, because then he is getting the dozens carnifexes treatment.
Guilliman may be a beast of a beatstick, but he is more of a force multiplier than a beatstick (something reflected in his rules). He is too important to risk his life like that, specially for something that cannot be permakilled.
Exergy wrote: As intelligent and experienced as the swarmlord may be, nothing in the hiveminds experience has ever come across something as powerful as a primarch in that size category. They have experienced lots of humans, lots of space marines. Seeing a primarch, the intelligent thing to do would be extrapolate their strength, speed, durability as a variation of regular humans or space marines. While that is the intelligent thing to do, and while infinite experience leads you to that conclusion, that conclusion is wrong.
All that experience is actually hurting the swarmlord, because all that experience leads it to believe the a primarch is a man, perhaps a superhuman man, but still a man. Primarchs are gods.
How do you know? Tyranids come from another galaxy. They could have already devoured a number of primarch like beings.
Guilliman would be a fool to try to personally reach the Swarmlord in the middle of the swarm, because then he is getting the dozens carnifexes treatment.
Guilliman may be a beast of a beatstick, but he is more of a force multiplier than a beatstick (something reflected in his rules). He is too important to risk his life like that, specially for something that cannot be permakilled.
True enough, but since it's 40K they'd both be wading through the thick of it towards each other. I mean, why does the Swarmlord fight anyway? If it goes down, the Tyranid forces suffer massively until it gets reborn and it's not like other Tyranid organisms can't fight as well or better than it.
Insectum7 wrote:And not even the Daemon Primarchs are gods.
No but they are demi-gods and he has a point when he says that the Swarmlord is unlikely to correctly evaluate the threat a Primarch poses.
Honestly I would prefer more Chaos vs Tyranids fights than IoM vs Tyranids fights. Because that way the Swarmlord could kill Magnus or Mortarion or other Daemon Primarchs and not affect the rest of the setting.
The problem with Guilliman is that he is still mortal.
I would like to think that the Tyranids would respond with either vast numbers or they would unleash something new that the Imperium has never yet seen before (or only seen in the darkest of nightmares of a Space Hulk before death).
The Swarm Lord is only new to the battlefields, its a reaction to the Tyranids getting stronger and stronger opposition and also fighting deeper into the Galaxy. So there is ample resource within the Hive Fleets for new evolutions and other ancient threats.
Personally I'd like to think that the response is to reabsorb the Catachan Devils* back into the Swarm and unleash a newly evolved strain of them back into the Primarchs.
However the Swarm could very well unleash another few beasts and critters that we've never yet seen.
The SwarmLord clearly shows that the Hive Mind likes character mode... er... takes the individual strength and threat as serious as it takes the simple use of wave after wave of swarms. Why waste so much biomass on a single powerful enemy when you can breed a single powerhouse to take out that single threat and save all those swarming masses for other more viable targets.
*One of the old tyranid codex hints that its thought the devils are a very early exploratory strain of tyranids gone feral having been absent from the Hive Mind for so long
The SwarmLord clearly shows that the Hive Mind likes character mode... er... takes the individual strength and threat as serious as it takes the simple use of wave after wave of swarms. Why waste so much biomass on a single powerful enemy when you can breed a single powerhouse to take out that single threat and save all those swarming masses for other more viable targets.
It seems like more powerful organisms take exponentially more biomass to form regardless of their actual mass. Otherwise Hive Fleet Gorgon wouldn't have consisted of smaller creatures and every Tyranid force would just have that bio-titan which took down the Titan Legion on Gryphonne IV. Or a Swarmlord rather than reserving it for the hardest conflicts.
Tyranid powers and limitations are incredibly hard to pin down.
Tyranids are indeed strange.
If you look back at old Tyranids they were holding weapons - now they are more half fused to them. That along with the Swarm Lord suggests to me that whilst they are born and bred for war and rendered down after it - there is something else going on. Some individuality; some element that restricts what the hive fleets can produce.
Otherwise yes the Tryanids if they were purely bio-weapons would only need to breed a very limited number of Tyranids to achieve their end goals.
Indeed you could even say that as the Hive Fleets have invaded more and more they've become far more diverse as a whole. The carnifex was once the powerhouse of the army, with multiple weapon choices. Now its a kind of smaller powerhouse with specialist large units taking over in specific spots.
This raises the question of how much of this is pure Tyranid and how much is the result of genetic mixing, and other influences, as they invade the Galaxy.
there's also the angle that the Emperor acts like a huge beacon to them and some have even argued that he might even have more subtle influences over them
Could be the more they invade the more they change; the more they become like others.
And of course some of it is fluff bending over backwards to give us new fancy models.
The Tyranid weapons are different organisms that grow fused with the host. This is because is more easy to have a genetic "blueprint" for a creature, and then different blueprints for their weapons, than having a totally different blueprint for every combination of a creature and their weapons.
Galas wrote: The Tyranid weapons are different organisms that grow fused with the host. This is because is more easy to have a genetic "blueprint" for a creature, and then different blueprints for their weapons, than having a totally different blueprint for every combination of a creature and their weapons.
Look at some of the early generation Tyranids and you can clearly see that most hold their weapons as opposed to being born with them fused to their bodies. They've steadily become more and more physically fused with their weapons over time.
Galas wrote: The Tyranid weapons are different organisms that grow fused with the host. This is because is more easy to have a genetic "blueprint" for a creature, and then different blueprints for their weapons, than having a totally different blueprint for every combination of a creature and their weapons.
Look at some of the early generation Tyranids and you can clearly see that most hold their weapons as opposed to being born with them fused to their bodies. They've steadily become more and more physically fused with their weapons over time.
Oh yeah, the first generation of Tyranids was very different, I was talking about the actual tyranid fluff and models.
Yep though one fluff barrier Nids have had for ages is that nearly all the fluff is basically Imperial Reports on Tyranids. This leaves a huge scope for change because Tyranids are basically unknown and without any clear motivations.
I also note that Tyranids still have the whole hands-holding things even if they are getting more and more fused. If you look at a lot of claws/talons you can see the kind of hand-shape almost holding a sword or grasping around the base of a long finger that's become like a sword.
Overread wrote: Yep though one fluff barrier Nids have had for ages is that nearly all the fluff is basically Imperial Reports on Tyranids. This leaves a huge scope for change because Tyranids are basically unknown and without any clear motivations.
I also note that Tyranids still have the whole hands-holding things even if they are getting more and more fused. If you look at a lot of claws/talons you can see the kind of hand-shape almost holding a sword or grasping around the base of a long finger that's become like a sword.
Yeah, but thats because, if you look closely, those weapons, swords and many guns like the Tyranid Warriors ones, have actually eyes, because they are different organisms that live in symbiosis with the Tyranids that "carry" them. They are fused at "birth", but they are different organisms. Because they follow the "blueprint" structure of separating the weapons-creatures from the bearer-creature.
Exergy wrote: As intelligent and experienced as the swarmlord may be, nothing in the hiveminds experience has ever come across something as powerful as a primarch in that size category. They have experienced lots of humans, lots of space marines. Seeing a primarch, the intelligent thing to do would be extrapolate their strength, speed, durability as a variation of regular humans or space marines. While that is the intelligent thing to do, and while infinite experience leads you to that conclusion, that conclusion is wrong.
All that experience is actually hurting the swarmlord, because all that experience leads it to believe the a primarch is a man, perhaps a superhuman man, but still a man. Primarchs are gods.
tyranids are extra galactic. What they have encountered is unknown.
Tyranids appear to be reactive, and so far as we've seen actually incapable of predicting new threats.
Yes, there'll always be some tricks, tactics and strategies they encountered before arriving here. But it very much appears they can only evolve retrospectively, or at the very least focus any given mutation.
Consider the background, when they adapt to Pulse Weapons. When the Tau gave them a pasting, successive waves demonstrated ever greater resilience and eventually effective immunity to Pulse rounds.
To me that is good evidence they can't predict and size up a foe before they've engaged, otherwise, why waste the biomass if they had something that already works?
Now, whether the adaptation was a result of random mutation amongst their hordes, or a deliberate 'let's try X, then Y, then Z until it works', who knows? It could be a bit of both.
It seems perfectly possible that the Hive Mind works in a similar way to Techpriests. Observe, adapt, overcome, able to focus on even its smallest members should aberrant results or behaviour occur, and then work with that.
Another aspect is that as the Swarm and Hive Mind is vast it might just be that it prefers to continually trial what its got. Smashing what its currently evolved against enemies and only evolving strains when its really needed.
Evolution of new strains clearly takes some effort or some dedication/focus.
It could also just be a super fast survival of the fittest. Ergo there are new evolutions all the time; but they only become new "units" when they survive enough battles to move from a niche isolated specialist and into a mainstay of the Hive Fleet.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Tyranids appear to be reactive, and so far as we've seen actually incapable of predicting new threats.
Yes, there'll always be some tricks, tactics and strategies they encountered before arriving here. But it very much appears they can only evolve retrospectively, or at the very least focus any given mutation.
Consider the background, when they adapt to Pulse Weapons. When the Tau gave them a pasting, successive waves demonstrated ever greater resilience and eventually effective immunity to Pulse rounds.
To me that is good evidence they can't predict and size up a foe before they've engaged, otherwise, why waste the biomass if they had something that already works?
Now, whether the adaptation was a result of random mutation amongst their hordes, or a deliberate 'let's try X, then Y, then Z until it works', who knows? It could be a bit of both.
It seems perfectly possible that the Hive Mind works in a similar way to Techpriests. Observe, adapt, overcome, able to focus on even its smallest members should aberrant results or behaviour occur, and then work with that.
To me, Abathur (This slug) is how I imagine the Hive Mind directing the evolution of the Tyranids fleets
"Look at flesh. See only potential. Strands, sequences, twisting, separating, joining. See how it could be better. Never perfect, Perfection goal that changes. Never stop moving. Can chase, cannot catch"
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Tyranids appear to be reactive, and so far as we've seen actually incapable of predicting new threats.
Yes, there'll always be some tricks, tactics and strategies they encountered before arriving here. But it very much appears they can only evolve retrospectively, or at the very least focus any given mutation.
Consider the background, when they adapt to Pulse Weapons. When the Tau gave them a pasting, successive waves demonstrated ever greater resilience and eventually effective immunity to Pulse rounds.
To me that is good evidence they can't predict and size up a foe before they've engaged, otherwise, why waste the biomass if they had something that already works?
Now, whether the adaptation was a result of random mutation amongst their hordes, or a deliberate 'let's try X, then Y, then Z until it works', who knows? It could be a bit of both.
It seems perfectly possible that the Hive Mind works in a similar way to Techpriests. Observe, adapt, overcome, able to focus on even its smallest members should aberrant results or behaviour occur, and then work with that.
I don't think it's an inability to preemptively adapt or predict. It's a lack of need.
The Nids don't see anything in the galaxy as an actual threat. A loss on a planet is inconsequential. The nids are not even all here yet, and the last major hive fleet to arrive was capable of traveling across the galactic disk without entering it and then nearly split the galaxy in two with simultaneous attacks.
Each major hive fleet to arrive has been exponentially larger then the last. If there really is another hive fleet coming that is bigger than leviathan and it shows up as a single large hammer blow that plows strait across the galaxy there is nothing any race or faction in the galaxy can do to even slow it down.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Tyranids appear to be reactive, and so far as we've seen actually incapable of predicting new threats.
Yes, there'll always be some tricks, tactics and strategies they encountered before arriving here. But it very much appears they can only evolve retrospectively, or at the very least focus any given mutation.
Consider the background, when they adapt to Pulse Weapons. When the Tau gave them a pasting, successive waves demonstrated ever greater resilience and eventually effective immunity to Pulse rounds.
To me that is good evidence they can't predict and size up a foe before they've engaged, otherwise, why waste the biomass if they had something that already works?
Now, whether the adaptation was a result of random mutation amongst their hordes, or a deliberate 'let's try X, then Y, then Z until it works', who knows? It could be a bit of both.
It seems perfectly possible that the Hive Mind works in a similar way to Techpriests. Observe, adapt, overcome, able to focus on even its smallest members should aberrant results or behaviour occur, and then work with that.
I don't think it's an inability to preemptively adapt or predict. It's a lack of need.
The Nids don't see anything in the galaxy as an actual threat. A loss on a planet is inconsequential. The nids are not even all here yet, and the last major hive fleet to arrive was capable of traveling across the galactic disk without entering it and then nearly split the galaxy in two with simultaneous attacks.
Each major hive fleet to arrive has been exponentially larger then the last. If there really is another hive fleet coming that is bigger than leviathan and it shows up as a single large hammer blow that plows strait across the galaxy there is nothing any race or faction in the galaxy can do to even slow it down.
Until Morty shows up and hands out Mortal Wounds like Oprah haha.
"You get a Mortal Wound, and you get a Mortal Wound, and you get a few dozen!"
Exergy wrote: As intelligent and experienced as the swarmlord may be, nothing in the hiveminds experience has ever come across something as powerful as a primarch in that size category. They have experienced lots of humans, lots of space marines. Seeing a primarch, the intelligent thing to do would be extrapolate their strength, speed, durability as a variation of regular humans or space marines. While that is the intelligent thing to do, and while infinite experience leads you to that conclusion, that conclusion is wrong.
All that experience is actually hurting the swarmlord, because all that experience leads it to believe the a primarch is a man, perhaps a superhuman man, but still a man. Primarchs are gods.
tyranids are extra galactic. What they have encountered is unknown.
They could have exprienced all sorts of things, but they didnt exprience humans. When they did start seeing humans, all of them fit within a real of parameters for strength, endurance, accuracy, skill, etc. After combating millions of them that would only strengthen their confidence in their knowledge of humans. But although a primarch looks human, their abilities do not fit on the human scale, they far exceed it.
All the experience tyranids have built up will convince them that a primarch cannot do something, that X action or troop will be more than sufficient to deal with it. But because primarchs fall on another scale, it never will be the correct action or enough force.
Primarch are blatantly not human. Look the model of Guilliman, compare it to a guardsman or even to a Space Marine and the size difference is insane. The Tyranids would probably equate a Primarch to a Daemon Prince as that is the closest thing in size IIRC.
Tyran wrote: Primarch are blatantly not human. Look the model of Guilliman, compare it to a guardsman or even to a Space Marine and the size difference is insane. The Tyranids would probably equate a Primarch to a Daemon Prince as that is the closest thing in size IIRC.
And yet Alpharius and Omegon routinely pass for normal humans.
The scale of the new models is dumb and makes no sense, is not supported by fluff. GW just started making huge models, because bigger models sell for more $$.
Tyran wrote: Primarch are blatantly not human. Look the model of Guilliman, compare it to a guardsman or even to a Space Marine and the size difference is insane. The Tyranids would probably equate a Primarch to a Daemon Prince as that is the closest thing in size IIRC.
And yet Alpharius and Omegon routinely pass for normal humans.
The scale of the new models is dumb and makes no sense, is not supported by fluff. GW just started making huge models, because bigger models sell for more $$.
Alpharius and Omegon are small enough to pass as large astartes, not normal humans.
Tyran wrote: Primarch are blatantly not human. Look the model of Guilliman, compare it to a guardsman or even to a Space Marine and the size difference is insane. The Tyranids would probably equate a Primarch to a Daemon Prince as that is the closest thing in size IIRC.
And yet Alpharius and Omegon routinely pass for normal humans.
The scale of the new models is dumb and makes no sense, is not supported by fluff. GW just started making huge models, because bigger models sell for more $$.
Alpharious and Omegon were the absolute smallest of the primarchs by a large margin and were still bigger then all but the biggest of astartes. The other primarchs were MUCH bigger.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Tyranids appear to be reactive, and so far as we've seen actually incapable of predicting new threats.
Yes, there'll always be some tricks, tactics and strategies they encountered before arriving here. But it very much appears they can only evolve retrospectively, or at the very least focus any given mutation.
Consider the background, when they adapt to Pulse Weapons. When the Tau gave them a pasting, successive waves demonstrated ever greater resilience and eventually effective immunity to Pulse rounds.
To me that is good evidence they can't predict and size up a foe before they've engaged, otherwise, why waste the biomass if they had something that already works?
Now, whether the adaptation was a result of random mutation amongst their hordes, or a deliberate 'let's try X, then Y, then Z until it works', who knows? It could be a bit of both.
It seems perfectly possible that the Hive Mind works in a similar way to Techpriests. Observe, adapt, overcome, able to focus on even its smallest members should aberrant results or behaviour occur, and then work with that.
Exergy wrote: As intelligent and experienced as the swarmlord may be, nothing in the hiveminds experience has ever come across something as powerful as a primarch in that size category. They have experienced lots of humans, lots of space marines. Seeing a primarch, the intelligent thing to do would be extrapolate their strength, speed, durability as a variation of regular humans or space marines. While that is the intelligent thing to do, and while infinite experience leads you to that conclusion, that conclusion is wrong.
All that experience is actually hurting the swarmlord, because all that experience leads it to believe the a primarch is a man, perhaps a superhuman man, but still a man. Primarchs are gods.
A god is only a god until he is killed by another being. And then he's a corpse.
As for the Swarmlord fighting RG, I'd agree with the majority. Swarmie will lose for a bit, but will adapt and grow and eventually either force RG to retreat, or be devoured. Considering the Swarmlord is SUPPOSED TO BE primarch like, I'd say a duel between the two in fluff terms might be an interesting and entertaining match. On the table it's sadly meh. How I long for the days of his Sabres making Invuln saves reroll if they were successful.
This is of course considering a major Hive Fleet Incursion vs the Indominus Crusade. I'd be a bit worried about any Custodes falling and being devoured, providing even greater Biological ammunition that can quickly be adapted and used against the Crusade. Second that for Primaris DNA/organs.
As for the Swarmlord fighting RG, I'd agree with the majority. Swarmie will lose for a bit, but will adapt and grow and eventually either force RG to retreat, or be devoured. Considering the Swarmlord is SUPPOSED TO BE primarch like, I'd say a duel between the two in fluff terms might be an interesting and entertaining match.
I don't recall the Swarmlord ever being portrayed as comparable to a Primarch, especially not in combat.
Because of the way Tyranid Lore is written I think Tyranid players, despite all the victories Tyranids have, tend to always feel a bit underpowered and abit like the big evil thing in a hero story.
Always beaten at the last punch; always not the underdog but the under appreciated and always a little faceless.
Swarmlord is the Face of tyranids currently; its the only real character of note that GW has allowed us to have and to keep. Most others are either small scale (Red Terror or Old One Eye) or were niche and for all their deadly aspiration were written out - eg the Parasite of Mortax.
So I think there is a big desire to have the Swarm Lord take something big down that will be writtne about as a huge victory for Tyranids. A big prize that's visible (as opposed to the countless worlds taken and consumed )
Right now the biggest achievement everyone remembers is that Tyranids ate Squats
As for the Swarmlord fighting RG, I'd agree with the majority. Swarmie will lose for a bit, but will adapt and grow and eventually either force RG to retreat, or be devoured. Considering the Swarmlord is SUPPOSED TO BE primarch like, I'd say a duel between the two in fluff terms might be an interesting and entertaining match.
I don't recall the Swarmlord ever being portrayed as comparable to a Primarch, especially not in combat.
I disagree. In size he could be considered to be. In skill, he definitely could be considered to be (in lore he's a monster that fights in lightening fast strikes/paries, and he's got a 2+ WS on the table). Tactically, he's comparable to any of them, though as it's been said, most tyranids strategies are reactionary, allowing for different tactics to be used. In the psychic arena, I can concede there, as just being innately a psyker doesn't really compare to most primarch level psykers. But, he is the Tyranid equivilant to a Primarch at this time. If he ever gets an updated bit of fluff or rules, we shall see from there.
As for the Swarmlord fighting RG, I'd agree with the majority. Swarmie will lose for a bit, but will adapt and grow and eventually either force RG to retreat, or be devoured. Considering the Swarmlord is SUPPOSED TO BE primarch like, I'd say a duel between the two in fluff terms might be an interesting and entertaining match.
I don't recall the Swarmlord ever being portrayed as comparable to a Primarch, especially not in combat.
I disagree. In size he could be considered to be. In skill, he definitely could be considered to be (in lore he's a monster that fights in lightening fast strikes/paries, and he's got a 2+ WS on the table). Tactically, he's comparable to any of them, though as it's been said, most tyranids strategies are reactionary, allowing for different tactics to be used. In the psychic arena, I can concede there, as just being innately a psyker doesn't really compare to most primarch level psykers. But, he is the Tyranid equivilant to a Primarch at this time. If he ever gets an updated bit of fluff or rules, we shall see from there.
The Swarmlord is absolutely not the equal of Primarchs. Primarchs are unrivaled in 40k as there is basically nothing that can match them besides another Primarch. The only thing that ever managed to match a Primarch's power and beat them was the Beast, which was the single most powerful Ork in all of recorded 40k history. The point of Priamrchs and the reason of their creation by the Emperor is that they have no real equal. The closest thing the Eldar have to one is the Avatar of Khaine, and it has never fared well when they clashed with Primarchs, and the closest thing Chaos has to them is the favored Greater Daemons of the Gods. And while Ka'bandha won his first clash- the rematch didn't go so well for him (plus it was Ka'bandha which butchered the entirety of Leviathan and saved the Blood Angles, probably taking out an incarnation of the Swarmlord in the process). Plus while Guilliman isn't the most physically adept of his brothers like Russ or Sanguinius, he is currently throwing about the Emperor's Sword which has proven to end just about anything it's pointed at.
But really something beaten by Marneus Calgar should never, ever be in the same weight class as a Primarch. If you want to throw something at Guilliman to give him a peer fight, bring a Bio-Titan.
As for the Swarmlord fighting RG, I'd agree with the majority. Swarmie will lose for a bit, but will adapt and grow and eventually either force RG to retreat, or be devoured. Considering the Swarmlord is SUPPOSED TO BE primarch like, I'd say a duel between the two in fluff terms might be an interesting and entertaining match.
I don't recall the Swarmlord ever being portrayed as comparable to a Primarch, especially not in combat.
I disagree. In size he could be considered to be. In skill, he definitely could be considered to be (in lore he's a monster that fights in lightening fast strikes/paries, and he's got a 2+ WS on the table). Tactically, he's comparable to any of them, though as it's been said, most tyranids strategies are reactionary, allowing for different tactics to be used. In the psychic arena, I can concede there, as just being innately a psyker doesn't really compare to most primarch level psykers. But, he is the Tyranid equivilant to a Primarch at this time. If he ever gets an updated bit of fluff or rules, we shall see from there.
The Swarmlord is absolutely not the equal of Primarchs. Primarchs are unrivaled in 40k as there is basically nothing that can match them besides another Primarch. The only thing that ever managed to match a Primarch's power and beat them was the Beast, which was the single most powerful Ork in all of recorded 40k history. The point of Priamrchs and the reason of their creation by the Emperor is that they have no real equal. The closest thing the Eldar have to one is the Avatar of Khaine, and it has never fared well when they clashed with Primarchs, and the closest thing Chaos has to them is the favored Greater Daemons of the Gods. And while Ka'bandha won his first clash- the rematch didn't go so well for him (plus it was Ka'bandha which butchered the entirety of Leviathan and saved the Blood Angles, probably taking out an incarnation of the Swarmlord in the process). Plus while Guilliman isn't the most physically adept of his brothers like Russ or Sanguinius, he is currently throwing about the Emperor's Sword which has proven to end just about anything it's pointed at.
But really something beaten by Marneus Calgar should never, ever be in the same weight class as a Primarch. If you want to throw something at Guilliman to give him a peer fight, bring a Bio-Titan.
I really enjoy that people say it butchered the entirety of leviathan. Leviathan spans the galactic disk. Twice.
Nothing has ever faced more than a fraction of leviathan because leviathan is currently fighting everyone. And the Nids that were about to wipe the BA out of existance were not "butchered". They disappeared.
The primarchs are not the is all to end all of living entities. A heirophant would annihilate a primarch 1 on 1. A dmonatrix wouldn't even be a competition. The swarmlord is absolutely their equal. Especially because it can be modified, tweaked, and enhanced and come back each time until the thing is purpose built for destroying them.
As for the Swarmlord fighting RG, I'd agree with the majority. Swarmie will lose for a bit, but will adapt and grow and eventually either force RG to retreat, or be devoured. Considering the Swarmlord is SUPPOSED TO BE primarch like, I'd say a duel between the two in fluff terms might be an interesting and entertaining match.
I don't recall the Swarmlord ever being portrayed as comparable to a Primarch, especially not in combat.
I disagree. In size he could be considered to be. In skill, he definitely could be considered to be (in lore he's a monster that fights in lightening fast strikes/paries, and he's got a 2+ WS on the table). Tactically, he's comparable to any of them, though as it's been said, most tyranids strategies are reactionary, allowing for different tactics to be used. In the psychic arena, I can concede there, as just being innately a psyker doesn't really compare to most primarch level psykers. But, he is the Tyranid equivilant to a Primarch at this time. If he ever gets an updated bit of fluff or rules, we shall see from there.
The Swarmlord is absolutely not the equal of Primarchs. Primarchs are unrivaled in 40k as there is basically nothing that can match them besides another Primarch. The only thing that ever managed to match a Primarch's power and beat them was the Beast, which was the single most powerful Ork in all of recorded 40k history. The point of Priamrchs and the reason of their creation by the Emperor is that they have no real equal. The closest thing the Eldar have to one is the Avatar of Khaine, and it has never fared well when they clashed with Primarchs, and the closest thing Chaos has to them is the favored Greater Daemons of the Gods. And while Ka'bandha won his first clash- the rematch didn't go so well for him (plus it was Ka'bandha which butchered the entirety of Leviathan and saved the Blood Angles, probably taking out an incarnation of the Swarmlord in the process). Plus while Guilliman isn't the most physically adept of his brothers like Russ or Sanguinius, he is currently throwing about the Emperor's Sword which has proven to end just about anything it's pointed at.
But really something beaten by Marneus Calgar should never, ever be in the same weight class as a Primarch. If you want to throw something at Guilliman to give him a peer fight, bring a Bio-Titan.
I really enjoy that people say it butchered the entirety of leviathan. Leviathan spans the galactic disk. Twice.
Nothing has ever faced more than a fraction of leviathan because leviathan is currently fighting everyone. And the Nids that were about to wipe the BA out of existance were not "butchered". They disappeared.
The primarchs are not the is all to end all of living entities. A heirophant would annihilate a primarch 1 on 1. A dmonatrix wouldn't even be a competition. The swarmlord is absolutely their equal. Especially because it can be modified, tweaked, and enhanced and come back each time until the thing is purpose built for destroying them.
It did destroy Leviathan as far as we know. Firstly Leviathan doesn't actually "span the galactic disk", those tyranid maps show the path of their travel and not their actual size (otherwise with that much mass they would literally form a black hole and be incapable of moving), but the fleets are small things that exist at the tips of the arrows. Unless there's some splinter fleets as far as we know Leviathan is now a planetary skull structure made by Ka'bandha and his friends.
And secondly the Swarmlord absolutely is not a counter to a Primarch and your "it'll come back better and stronger" is a load of crap unsupported by any hard evidence in 40k. It got crumped by Calgar in a duel after it had already fought Calgar and won on a prior occasion. That it even dies to a horde of marines is evidence enough that it isn't on the same tier of power as a Primarch. Sure the fluff says "but it will adapt!!!", but assuming that goes on forever is a no-limits fallacy, and the Swarmlord is taken down by far humbler things with consistency. Thirdly a Hierophant is a fight, not a certainty. It's entirely possible for a Primarch to kill one considering that they are peer/superior entities to the most powerful Greater Daemons and have actually fought Imperial titans before. The fluff is quite clear on how outlandishly powerful Primarchs are, what with them seeing supersonic and hypersonic munitions move in slow motion, shaking off artillery shots, having flesh akin to power armor in durability, and having the strength to throw a stone hard enough to turn it into a marine-killing weapon. And that of course is before you enter into the realm of psychic nonsense the Primarchs bring with them, peaking with Magnus trading shots with a Space Marine fleet and surviving orbital bombardments with this sorcerer-enhanced psychic shields before he used telekinesis to smash two cruisers in high orbit into each other.
As for the Swarmlord fighting RG, I'd agree with the majority. Swarmie will lose for a bit, but will adapt and grow and eventually either force RG to retreat, or be devoured. Considering the Swarmlord is SUPPOSED TO BE primarch like, I'd say a duel between the two in fluff terms might be an interesting and entertaining match.
I don't recall the Swarmlord ever being portrayed as comparable to a Primarch, especially not in combat.
I disagree. In size he could be considered to be. In skill, he definitely could be considered to be (in lore he's a monster that fights in lightening fast strikes/paries, and he's got a 2+ WS on the table). Tactically, he's comparable to any of them, though as it's been said, most tyranids strategies are reactionary, allowing for different tactics to be used. In the psychic arena, I can concede there, as just being innately a psyker doesn't really compare to most primarch level psykers. But, he is the Tyranid equivilant to a Primarch at this time. If he ever gets an updated bit of fluff or rules, we shall see from there.
The Swarmlord is absolutely not the equal of Primarchs. Primarchs are unrivaled in 40k as there is basically nothing that can match them besides another Primarch. The only thing that ever managed to match a Primarch's power and beat them was the Beast, which was the single most powerful Ork in all of recorded 40k history. The point of Priamrchs and the reason of their creation by the Emperor is that they have no real equal. The closest thing the Eldar have to one is the Avatar of Khaine, and it has never fared well when they clashed with Primarchs, and the closest thing Chaos has to them is the favored Greater Daemons of the Gods. And while Ka'bandha won his first clash- the rematch didn't go so well for him (plus it was Ka'bandha which butchered the entirety of Leviathan and saved the Blood Angles, probably taking out an incarnation of the Swarmlord in the process). Plus while Guilliman isn't the most physically adept of his brothers like Russ or Sanguinius, he is currently throwing about the Emperor's Sword which has proven to end just about anything it's pointed at.
But really something beaten by Marneus Calgar should never, ever be in the same weight class as a Primarch. If you want to throw something at Guilliman to give him a peer fight, bring a Bio-Titan.
I really enjoy that people say it butchered the entirety of leviathan. Leviathan spans the galactic disk. Twice.
Nothing has ever faced more than a fraction of leviathan because leviathan is currently fighting everyone. And the Nids that were about to wipe the BA out of existance were not "butchered". They disappeared.
The primarchs are not the is all to end all of living entities. A heirophant would annihilate a primarch 1 on 1. A dmonatrix wouldn't even be a competition. The swarmlord is absolutely their equal. Especially because it can be modified, tweaked, and enhanced and come back each time until the thing is purpose built for destroying them.
It did destroy Leviathan as far as we know. Firstly Leviathan doesn't actually "span the galactic disk", those tyranid maps show the path of their travel and not their actual size (otherwise with that much mass they would literally form a black hole and be incapable of moving),
Except Leviathan didn't enter from the side of the galaxy like the others. It came up from the bottom of the galactic disk all at once. So every single point on the map where you see Leviathan is a place where leviathan showed up all at once. The lore talks about how it showed up in 2 long lines cutting off whole sections from communication because of the shadow in the warp. It showed up looking like a pair of jaws closing over a section of the galaxy.
So no. All of leviathan was not fighting the BA. A huge section of leviathan is also fighting the orks, while another section has been making a b line for Terra with a couple dozen SM chapters and IG fleets working together to slow it's advance.
but the fleets are small things that exist at the tips of the arrows. Unless there's some splinter fleets as far as we know Leviathan is now a planetary skull structure made by Ka'bandha and his friends.
With every planet consumed the fleets grow bigger and leviathan has not been stopped AT ALL besides this single blurb about the BA. The skull structure was made of xenos skulls. Not Nid skulls. Also... keep in mind, the individual fighting organisms are nothing. Unless the Hive Ships corpses can be found someplace that group of leviathan hasn't been destroyed. It's just gone.
And secondly the Swarmlord absolutely is not a counter to a Primarch and your "it'll come back better and stronger" is a load of crap unsupported by any hard evidence in 40k. It got crumped by Calgar in a duel after it had already fought Calgar and won on a prior occasion. That it even dies to a horde of marines is evidence enough that it isn't on the same tier of power as a Primarch. Sure the fluff says "but it will adapt!!!", but assuming that goes on forever is a no-limits fallacy, and the Swarmlord is taken down by far humbler things with consistency. Thirdly a Hierophant is a fight, not a certainty. It's entirely possible for a Primarch to kill one considering that they are peer/superior entities to the most powerful Greater Daemons and have actually fought Imperial titans before. The fluff is quite clear on how outlandishly powerful Primarchs are, what with them seeing supersonic and hypersonic munitions move in slow motion, shaking off artillery shots, having flesh akin to power armor in durability, and having the strength to throw a stone hard enough to turn it into a marine-killing weapon. And that of course is before you enter into the realm of psychic nonsense the Primarchs bring with them, peaking with Magnus trading shots with a Space Marine fleet and surviving orbital bombardments with this sorcerer-enhanced psychic shields before he used telekinesis to smash two cruisers in high orbit into each other.
I can't seem to find any story of calgar actually beating the swarmlord. Just that the Ultramarines took the planet back but no mention of what happened to the swarmlord. So, like OOE, he's probably dormant somewhere on Ultramar until more hive ships show up to support it. Got a link to back that up?
Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.
None of the primarchs have had to deal with the shadow in the warp yet. Lets not kid ourselves, as much as I am sure the primarchs have the iron will to muscle through it, I doubt very much they can manifest much of anything since deamon enhanced magnus got shut down by a few sisters of silence. A heirophant would masacre RG 1 on 1 on the table and in the fluff.
SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote: I don't recall the Swarmlord ever being portrayed as comparable to a Primarch, especially not in combat.
Probably not in official fluff, but in the early days of 6th edition Swarmlord with Biomancy was able to beat up the 30k Primarchs on the table top fairly easily (Horus was the only one that gave him problems - it was still a fairly even fight despite Swarmy being half the cost). His old table-top statline was also fairly similar to that of a Primarch as well which furthers the comparison.
I can't seem to find any story of calgar actually beating the swarmlord. Just that the Ultramarines took the planet back but no mention of what happened to the swarmlord.
It was in the 6th edition Tyranid codex under Kraken's invasion of Ichar IV. Just a small blurb about a rematch between the two on page 17 with Calgar winning after a lengthy duel. I vaguely remember reading elsewhere that the only reason Calgar "won" the duel at all was due to his honor guard yet again biting the blade for him and getting slaughtered to a man so he could get in a back-strike while Swarmy was distracted.
That said, with Guilliman out and Calgar languishing as a finecast model I could see round three ending with Swarmlord finishing the old chapter master off. He isn't needed anymore and it saves GW the hassle of making a new kit for him.
Lance845 wrote: The skull structure was made of xenos skulls. Not Nid skulls
Sadly that one was blatantly Tyranid skulls, with the implication it was constructed from trophies taken from ground swarms. The tendril itself is MIA and will probably end up ejected in an inconvenient place like the Kraken tendril in Valdor, but other tendrils of Leviathan are confirmed to still be active in the rulebook. We will see what the Tyranid codex itself brings...
The original swarmlord fluff had it crush Calgar. Outmaneuvering his forces and countering his tactics at every turn, before tearing him apart in close combat. Followed by Calgar only escaping by feeding the swarmlord half of his honour guard while he was loaded into a thunderhawk.
Then the next set of marine fluff came out, and tweaked things so that the 'nefarious' swarmlord just got a few good tricks in, with its forces killing hundreds of guardsmen while the heroic ultramarines blasted chunks out of them. Then the swarmlord + a pile of tyrant guard and warriors went and kicked over a stranded Calgar, before getting chased away by axe wielding honor guard. Some followup fluff had Calgar punch out the swarmlord in a one on one combat rematch.
It's just codex writers one-upping each other. Giving a different twist on events to make their faction look more awesome. Plus probably a bit of Matt Ward being salty about someone beating up his pet armies boss.
Overread wrote: Because of the way Tyranid Lore is written I think Tyranid players, despite all the victories Tyranids have, tend to always feel a bit underpowered and abit like the big evil thing in a hero story.
Always beaten at the last punch; always not the underdog but the under appreciated and always a little faceless.
Swarmlord is the Face of tyranids currently; its the only real character of note that GW has allowed us to have and to keep. Most others are either small scale (Red Terror or Old One Eye) or were niche and for all their deadly aspiration were written out - eg the Parasite of Mortax.
Yeah, that's a problem of being an always-attacking-force-always-destroying-what-it-conquers force. Same thing happens to the Orks. It's how it goes.
As for the Swarmlord being the Face of Tyranids, it's problematic exactly because it's the face of the Tyranids. Tyranids don't really have a face. It being defeated means nothing. How many times have Greater Daemons or Avatars of Khaine been unceremoniously vanquished? It's what happens when you have an essentially undying enemy. It sucks but... don't play Tyranids because of the 'characters'. The Swarmlord itself almost contradicts the fluff. And it's unlikely to ever kill an important character who can't be resurrected.
As for their biggest achievement, wiping out a faction is leagues better than anything anyone else has done. Aside from that they're consistently written as at the least a sector ending threat as opposed to say, the Orks.
Carnikang wrote:I disagree. In size he could be considered to be. In skill, he definitely could be considered to be (in lore he's a monster that fights in lightening fast strikes/paries, and he's got a 2+ WS on the table). Tactically, he's comparable to any of them, though as it's been said, most tyranids strategies are reactionary, allowing for different tactics to be used. In the psychic arena, I can concede there, as just being innately a psyker doesn't really compare to most primarch level psykers. But, he is the Tyranid equivilant to a Primarch at this time. If he ever gets an updated bit of fluff or rules, we shall see from there.
Size means nothing. In skill, he was beaten by Calgar. He's no way near on the level of a Primarch. Tactically he has the massive advantage of real-time control of everything. That one I will grant you but he's still been proven to be beaten by the Imperium which had smaller forces so... either his tactical prowess is lacking or Tyranids need a huge numerical advantage to defeat forces used to them. This is probably really important. The Tyranid victories tend to be against enemies who aren't used to Tyranids or who they massive overpower. Take away those advantages (or even the not-used-to-part) and they tend to lose.
Wyzilla wrote:It did destroy Leviathan as far as we know. Firstly Leviathan doesn't actually "span the galactic disk", those tyranid maps show the path of their travel and not their actual size (otherwise with that much mass they would literally form a black hole and be incapable of moving), but the fleets are small things that exist at the tips of the arrows. Unless there's some splinter fleets as far as we know Leviathan is now a planetary skull structure made by Ka'bandha and his friends.
While you're correct that people often overestimate the size of the Tyranids I definitely think you're mistaken about Leviathan being entirely destroyed. Only the splinter fleet attacking Baal is suggested to have been wiped out (or disappeared through the Warp).
Strat_N8 wrote:Probably not in official fluff, but in the early days of 6th edition Swarmlord with Biomancy was able to beat up the 30k Primarchs on the table top fairly easily (Horus was the only one that gave him problems - it was still a fairly even fight despite Swarmy being half the cost). His old table-top statline was also fairly similar to that of a Primarch as well which furthers the comparison.
Comparing different rulesets is unfair. You can't used the table-top rules for 30K and plonk them in a 40K ruleset or vice versa and expect it to work out as it should.
SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote: Comparing different rulesets is unfair. You can't used the table-top rules for 30K and plonk them in a 40K ruleset or vice versa and expect it to work out as it should.
Perhaps, but it didn't stop people from running the two against each other before 8th edition dropped. Even discarding the different rulesets, in 8th edition Swarmlord's stats currently sit between Guilliman and the Daemon Primarchs released thus far. He might not be a direct Primarch equivalent (his offense and defense are weaker), but he is fairly close.
Perhaps, but it didn't stop people from running the two against each other before 8th edition dropped. Even discarding the different rulesets, in 8th edition Swarmlord's stats currently sit between Guilliman and the Daemon Primarchs released thus far. He might not be a direct Primarch equivalent (his offense and defense are weaker), but he is fairly close.
Fair enough. Not much of a table top fan to be honest. Fluff-wise though I think it's very firmly in Guilliman's favour.
But then in true Tyranid fashion the Swarmlord could try Bio-titans so there's that. I mean, I really don't get the idea of Tyranids needing a character. Aren't they the anti-character race?
Perhaps, but it didn't stop people from running the two against each other before 8th edition dropped. Even discarding the different rulesets, in 8th edition Swarmlord's stats currently sit between Guilliman and the Daemon Primarchs released thus far. He might not be a direct Primarch equivalent (his offense and defense are weaker), but he is fairly close.
Fair enough. Not much of a table top fan to be honest. Fluff-wise though I think it's very firmly in Guilliman's favour.
But then in true Tyranid fashion the Swarmlord could try Bio-titans so there's that. I mean, I really don't get the idea of Tyranids needing a character. Aren't they the anti-character race?
I don't know if I would call it that. They do have genetic variants that act like leader beasts, and are usually solitary aside from subordinates (Red Terror, Old One Eye, DeathLeaper, Broodlords, etc.). That and in the lore, variant/evolutionary mutations have happened surronding other Hive Tyrants and Warriors, coming out to appear as characters, despite being just another chasis with a fancy new biomorph and a little extra exp. The Swarmlord could just be a leader of leaders, and as such is afforded greater autonomy from the Hive Mind because of it's sheer mental and psychic might combined to make it unique. Yet not, as it's supposed that the Swarmlord can be present in many places at once across the galaxy if need be.
They're faceless bodies, but there are always some sort of characterizations with them.
Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.
Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?
Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.
Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?
One, maybe two, as they won't be physical adaptations, but mental ones. Lore states that the Swarmlord is able to deflect bullets/shots fired at it, and that translates into striking as well. A creature that can move that quickly with that size, in combat with a smaller opponent, learning each time it's defeated, will win given enough time to adapt it's strategy.
Going back through the Horus Heresy, how many Primarchs has Guilliman fought? 4? He lost two of those three engagements, and may not have actually battled Omegon/Alpharius in the last. It can be assumed... that he's not the best fighter among them, even though he would still be a considerable fighter. That may have some bearing in the duel, as the Swarmlord is an exemplary fighter. The loss at Ichar IV is very interesting, where Calgar beat him... is the duel ever detailed? It only states that Calgar won in an epic duel.
Where as we know the general details of his first encounter with the Swarmlord, and Guilliman's encounters with his brothers in acute detail.
I'm not saying that makes it not an issue, but that it's suspect and I'm genuinely curious if that was just more Ultra-PLOT-marine armor or not.
Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.
Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?
Except the lore does have them adapting like that. If you deploy bioligical weapons or poisons the next wave is adapted to be immune to it.
When the tau used tons of pulse weaponry, they adapted to make those weapons less and less effective until the tau had to switch to ballistics and missiles.
When the nids were all caged up on Anphelion they grew wings to fly over and burrowers to go under.
They adapt to hard counters when it's the easiest option. They don't bother adapting Termagants to kill single marines. That's not the Termagants job. The swarmlord is already basically ready to go toe to toe with a primarch. I think it would probably loose the first round. But if you think the swarm wouldn't bring him back with adaptations ready to go or a whole new beast whos purpose built for the task you need to read more about what the nids do.
Except Leviathan didn't enter from the side of the galaxy like the others. It came up from the bottom of the galactic disk all at once. So every single point on the map where you see Leviathan is a place where leviathan showed up all at once. The lore talks about how it showed up in 2 long lines cutting off whole sections from communication because of the shadow in the warp. It showed up looking like a pair of jaws closing over a section of the galaxy.
So no. All of leviathan was not fighting the BA. A huge section of leviathan is also fighting the orks, while another section has been making a b line for Terra with a couple dozen SM chapters and IG fleets working together to slow it's advance.
It would actually do you well to bother to read the codices instead of making stuff up.
Spoiler:
Firstly Hive Fleet Leviathan did not invade from both above and below the galactic plane, it came from "below", entering the galaxy with 13 tendril fleets. Secondly it is easy for Leviathan to be destroyed in one battle despite having so many splinters, 1) GW doesn't care and writes what it want, and 2) they may have simply concentrated together like Behemoth. And it's not as if killing a Hive Fleet actually eliminates all Tyranids with those color patterns, as Hive Fleet Behemoth even still has splinter fleets flying about in eastern space. But until we get more information it looks as if Leviathan is indeed toast.
With every planet consumed the fleets grow bigger and leviathan has not been stopped AT ALL besides this single blurb about the BA. The skull structure was made of xenos skulls. Not Nid skulls. Also... keep in mind, the individual fighting organisms are nothing. Unless the Hive Ships corpses can be found someplace that group of leviathan hasn't been destroyed. It's just gone.
You don't seem to get that none of this matters unless GW decides it does/n't matter. They're prone to completely ignoring things, especially when it concerns the Nids considering they're often treated as nothing more than NPC's.
I can't seem to find any story of calgar actually beating the swarmlord. Just that the Ultramarines took the planet back but no mention of what happened to the swarmlord. So, like OOE, he's probably dormant somewhere on Ultramar until more hive ships show up to support it. Got a link to back that up?
Battle of Ichar IV, Calgar squares off with the Swarmlord and kills it with his bare fists. I also forgot about the Cassius novel, Chaplain Cassius also faced down and killed the Swarmlord as well on another occasion.
Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.
None of the primarchs have had to deal with the shadow in the warp yet. Lets not kid ourselves, as much as I am sure the primarchs have the iron will to muscle through it, I doubt very much they can manifest much of anything since deamon enhanced magnus got shut down by a few sisters of silence. A heirophant would masacre RG 1 on 1 on the table and in the fluff.
Sisters of Silence actually have better feats than the Shadow in the Warp, considering a handful of Sisters of Silence is all you need to kill a Greater Daemon. A couple Sisters of Silence completely nukes a Greater Daemon's psychic abilities and physically weakens it, and a couple Custodes and Grey Knights working together can bring it down with some casualties sustained. That an all blanks are not created equally, blankness exists on a sliding scale with the most powerful blanks causing the most powerful daemons to literally run in terror.
Simply put with Nids, they're the underdog when it comes to literature. If anything with a name comes up against Nids it's pretty safe to bet that the other guys is going to win as Tyranids are just not a favored faction at all by GW, just look at how the Baal showdown got swept under the rug with little ado about anything. if the Swarmlord meets Guilliman it's extremely safe to say it will become a literal footnote.
Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.
Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient. How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?
One, maybe two, as they won't be physical adaptations, but mental ones. Lore states that the Swarmlord is able to deflect bullets/shots fired at it, and that translates into striking as well. A creature that can move that quickly with that size, in combat with a smaller opponent, learning each time it's defeated, will win given enough time to adapt it's strategy.
Going back through the Horus Heresy, how many Primarchs has Guilliman fought? 4? He lost two of those three engagements, and may not have actually battled Omegon/Alpharius in the last. It can be assumed... that he's not the best fighter among them, even though he would still be a considerable fighter. That may have some bearing in the duel, as the Swarmlord is an exemplary fighter. The loss at Ichar IV is very interesting, where Calgar beat him... is the duel ever detailed? It only states that Calgar won in an epic duel. Where as we know the general details of his first encounter with the Swarmlord, and Guilliman's encounters with his brothers in acute detail.
I'm not saying that makes it not an issue, but that it's suspect and I'm genuinely curious if that was just more Ultra-PLOT-marine armor or not.
It's Calgar in pre 8th edition, of course it involves plot armor. This is the same Codex that features Calgar taking on several companies of Night Lords and wiping them out with feudal peasants.
Except Leviathan didn't enter from the side of the galaxy like the others. It came up from the bottom of the galactic disk all at once. So every single point on the map where you see Leviathan is a place where leviathan showed up all at once. The lore talks about how it showed up in 2 long lines cutting off whole sections from communication because of the shadow in the warp. It showed up looking like a pair of jaws closing over a section of the galaxy.
So no. All of leviathan was not fighting the BA. A huge section of leviathan is also fighting the orks, while another section has been making a b line for Terra with a couple dozen SM chapters and IG fleets working together to slow it's advance.
It would actually do you well to bother to read the codices instead of making stuff up.
Spoiler:
Firstly Hive Fleet Leviathan did not invade from both above and below the galactic plane, it came from "below", entering the galaxy with 13 tendril fleets.
Except Leviathan didn't enter from the side of the galaxy like the others. It came up from the bottom of the galactic disk all at once.
It would do you well to bother to read the text your quoting.
Secondly it is easy for Leviathan to be destroyed in one battle despite having so many splinters, 1) GW doesn't care and writes what it want, and 2) they may have simply concentrated together like Behemoth. And it's not as if killing a Hive Fleet actually eliminates all Tyranids with those color patterns, as Hive Fleet Behemoth even still has splinter fleets flying about in eastern space. But until we get more information it looks as if Leviathan is indeed toast.
Except they specifically have stories where that doesn't happen. Again, Leviathan is currently all over the place. The orks are still duking it out non stop with leviathan. IoM is still holding off splinter of it trying to slow it's advance.
With every planet consumed the fleets grow bigger and leviathan has not been stopped AT ALL besides this single blurb about the BA. The skull structure was made of xenos skulls. Not Nid skulls. Also... keep in mind, the individual fighting organisms are nothing. Unless the Hive Ships corpses can be found someplace that group of leviathan hasn't been destroyed. It's just gone.
You don't seem to get that none of this matters unless GW decides it does/n't matter. They're prone to completely ignoring things, especially when it concerns the Nids considering they're often treated as nothing more than NPC's.
While true, GW chooses to ignore whatever they want with each new release. Everything is still valid until something contradicts it. Since all of Leviathan was not at Baal there is no reason to now think it was.
I can't seem to find any story of calgar actually beating the swarmlord. Just that the Ultramarines took the planet back but no mention of what happened to the swarmlord. So, like OOE, he's probably dormant somewhere on Ultramar until more hive ships show up to support it. Got a link to back that up?
Battle of Ichar IV, Calgar squares off with the Swarmlord and kills it with his bare fists. I also forgot about the Cassius novel, Chaplain Cassius also faced down and killed the Swarmlord as well on another occasion.
See others responses above.
Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.
None of the primarchs have had to deal with the shadow in the warp yet. Lets not kid ourselves, as much as I am sure the primarchs have the iron will to muscle through it, I doubt very much they can manifest much of anything since deamon enhanced magnus got shut down by a few sisters of silence. A heirophant would masacre RG 1 on 1 on the table and in the fluff.
Sisters of Silence actually have better feats than the Shadow in the Warp, considering a handful of Sisters of Silence is all you need to kill a Greater Daemon. A couple Sisters of Silence completely nukes a Greater Daemon's psychic abilities and physically weakens it, and a couple Custodes and Grey Knights working together can bring it down with some casualties sustained. That an all blanks are not created equally, blankness exists on a sliding scale with the most powerful blanks causing the most powerful daemons to literally run in terror.
Have you read the story about the nids fighting deamons? The shadow blankets the entire plaet and most deamons wink out of existence just because the nids are on the other side of the equator. Named greater deamons get torn through like tissue paper.
Simply put with Nids, they're the underdog when it comes to literature. If anything with a name comes up against Nids it's pretty safe to bet that the other guys is going to win as Tyranids are just not a favored faction at all by GW, just look at how the Baal showdown got swept under the rug with little ado about anything. if the Swarmlord meets Guilliman it's extremely safe to say it will become a literal footnote.
It's true. Nids get beaten in the fluff by forces that should have no chance against them all the time. It's what happens when everyones codex is a big circle jerk about their victories.
I would say the Swarmlord is a threat to any Primarch. It has the skills, the psychic and physical might and the weapons to kill a Primarch. Of course, it will never happen in any of the fluff since Primarchs are too important for the storyline to be killed by any ennemy, but a battle against Guilliman and the Swarmlord would be an impressive duel that would leave the victor battered.
The main advantages of the Swarmlord over a Primarch are his weapons. His four blades are basically designed to cut through armor and powerfields and destroy the soul of its victims. These swords are thus one of the rare few weapons in the Tyranid arsenal that can kill a Primarch. The fact that the Swarmlord has also lightining fast reflex and four arms is also non-negligeable against a target that's much more imposing than a Space Marine and not particularly agile and graceful.
In resume, I think to two measure up nicely one to the other, but that Primarchs have an edge over the Swarmlord, provided they don't make a habit of fighting him. In that case, The table will turn pretty quickly.
Overread wrote: Right now the biggest achievement everyone remembers is that Tyranids ate Squats
And that they are written in deus-ex-machina-unbeatable-monster style. Tyranids are so boring because as it is by fluff fighting them is meaningless. You are going to lose anyway when the real fleet comes rather than these tiny scout fleets that are already good enough to give imperium run for money.
Frazzled wrote: Unless you play Eldar or necron or demons or orks. Also Tau and Imperium if they crank up the tech.
Plus there's no proof of other fleets.
Imperium doesn't even need to crank up the tech, in the Adeptus Mechanicus or Skitarii codex (forget which it is), there's a Forge World that came under attack by a Splinter Fleet. They beat the nids at attrition warfare because the Admech could recycle the mechanical parts of its slave troops faster than the nids could recycle the organic matter.
Frazzled wrote: Unless you play Eldar or necron or demons or orks. Also Tau and Imperium if they crank up the tech.
Plus there's no proof of other fleets.
Imperium doesn't even need to crank up the tech, in the Adeptus Mechanicus or Skitarii codex (forget which it is), there's a Forge World that came under attack by a Splinter Fleet. They beat the nids at attrition warfare because the Admech could recycle the mechanical parts of its slave troops faster than the nids could recycle the organic matter.
And Leviathan already ate Gryphonne 4, which had defenses comparable to Mars.
Tyran wrote: Goku vs Superman depends on the version, because Superman is the type of character that used to be able to pull of super powers out of his ass.
That and "Superman" is multiple different characters in multiple canons and timelines of very different levels of power.
The Nids don't see anything in the galaxy as an actual threat. A loss on a planet is inconsequential. The nids are not even all here yet, and the last major hive fleet to arrive was capable of traveling across the galactic disk without entering it and then nearly split the galaxy in two with simultaneous attacks.
Each major hive fleet to arrive has been exponentially larger then the last. If there really is another hive fleet coming that is bigger than leviathan and it shows up as a single large hammer blow that plows strait across the galaxy there is nothing any race or faction in the galaxy can do to even slow it down.
And yet it's been stated multiple times that nids will avoid tomb worlds, I wonder why they do this if they do not see anything as threatening.
Also the line that Hive Fleets x, y and z are just scouts and there's 10^1000000 super evolved nids just waiting to arrive is as credible as the counter argument which argues the hive fleets represent the sum total of what amounts to a race of refugees fleeing some unknown extra-galactic threat.
The schizophrenic fluff behind races like nids and crons is probably deliberate, likely the fog of war in a narrative featuring humanity as the POV character. It does lead to really annoying rabidness among fans of these two factions though.
The Nids don't see anything in the galaxy as an actual threat. A loss on a planet is inconsequential. The nids are not even all here yet, and the last major hive fleet to arrive was capable of traveling across the galactic disk without entering it and then nearly split the galaxy in two with simultaneous attacks.
Each major hive fleet to arrive has been exponentially larger then the last. If there really is another hive fleet coming that is bigger than leviathan and it shows up as a single large hammer blow that plows strait across the galaxy there is nothing any race or faction in the galaxy can do to even slow it down.
And yet it's been stated multiple times that nids will avoid tomb worlds, I wonder why they do this if they do not see anything as threatening.
Also the line that Hive Fleets x, y and z are just scouts and there's 10^1000000 super evolved nids just waiting to arrive is as credible as the counter argument which argues the hive fleets represent the sum total of what amounts to a race of refugees fleeing some unknown extra-galactic threat.
The schizophrenic fluff behind races like nids and crons is probably deliberate, likely the fog of war in a narrative featuring humanity as the POV character. It does lead to really annoying rabidness among fans of these two factions though.
Tyranids have eaten Tomb Worlds, Behemoth even ate the territorial heart of a Necron Dynasty.
And while a number has never been given, a giant hive fleet always has been implied multiple times and outright mentioned in a few rulebooks.
And then there is Hive Fleet Horror that implies that the Tyranids are universal.
And we've also had implications, repeated ones at that, that Tyranids are universal refugees running away from something scarier. Don't read too much in to it.
I don't know if I would call it that. They do have genetic variants that act like leader beasts, and are usually solitary aside from subordinates (Red Terror, Old One Eye, DeathLeaper, Broodlords, etc.). That and in the lore, variant/evolutionary mutations have happened surronding other Hive Tyrants and Warriors, coming out to appear as characters, despite being just another chasis with a fancy new biomorph and a little extra exp. The Swarmlord could just be a leader of leaders, and as such is afforded greater autonomy from the Hive Mind because of it's sheer mental and psychic might combined to make it unique. Yet not, as it's supposed that the Swarmlord can be present in many places at once across the galaxy if need be.
They're faceless bodies, but there are always some sort of characterizations with them.
I don't think of any of them as characters though. Aside from the Swarmlord and Patriarchs (which admittedly I had forgotten about) they don't have personalities or anything. They're used as stand-ins for characters but since they can die and be reborn they're likely to lose in fluff pieces against actual characters. The autonomy of the Swarmlord is weird and not very well explained. Why is it the only one allowed such autonomy? Does it risk Tyranids breaking off?
Tyran wrote:Tyranids have eaten Tomb Worlds, Behemoth even ate the territorial heart of a Necron Dynasty.
I think people get confused with the avoidance of the Dyson Sphere the Outsider was implied to be in. I don't recall them avoiding normal Tomb Worlds. Regardless I think recent editions have shown the Tyranids to be a much greater threat to the Necrons than they were previously. Their sheer numbers seem to give even Necron technology trouble.
One internally inconsistent battle between a Hive Fleet and a piddly four Greater Daemons. One could just as easily say that Ka'bandha wrecking Tyranids in the Baal System demonstrates what happens when Tyranids fight Daemons.
Games Workshop aren't going to have a situation whereby one faction will always dominate another faction.
Melissia wrote: And we've also had implications, repeated ones at that, that Tyranids are universal refugees running away from something scarier. Don't read too much in to it.
Do you havw the quotes? Becauae I only remmember one instance of the universal refugees theory.
Melissia wrote: And we've also had implications, repeated ones at that, that Tyranids are universal refugees running away from something scarier. Don't read too much in to it.
I've always interpreted the hive fleets to be like real world locusts;
The ones at the front of the swarm are running from the ones at the back. The ones are the back are chasing the ones at the front. They only slow their cannibalistic stampede when they come across an alternative food source.
Tyrannids are giant army ant locusts.
Regarding the Tyrannid numbers: It is very easy to be hyperbolic but accurate at the same time. Sure there may be billions of tyrannids, but that number is dramatically reduced when you consider every weapon is an organism. Every piece of ammo is an organism. Every other piece of equipment or random device is an organism. Even something as simple as a termagaunt could potentially be dozens (or hundreds?!) of organisms!
It would be like including every bolt round as an individual when counting the number of space marines in the galaxy.
Tyran wrote: The Swarmlord isn't going to duel Guilliman, as neither would force a duel unless they are confident they will win it.
Why not? The Swarmlord's principal use is as a force multiplier, to maximise strategy and control over the swarm but other Hive Tyrants and Dominitrixes are able to do such a thing.
What you're describing is simple risk vs reward. For Guilliman, the risk is death and dooming the Imperium to inferior leadership and demoralisation, with the reward being killing the Swarmlord but not ending the threat entirely.
For the Swarmlord, the risk is death, and reabsorbtion back into the Hive. The reward is completely breaking the enemy morale and leadership, absorbing the incredible biomass and enhancing the swarm's physical and intellectual prowess unfathomably, and destroying the biggest threat to the Tyranid race from its greatest enemy.
Tyran wrote: The Swarmlord isn't going to duel Guilliman, as neither would force a duel unless they are confident they will win it.
Why not? The Swarmlord's principal use is as a force multiplier, to maximise strategy and control over the swarm but other Hive Tyrants and Dominitrixes are able to do such a thing.
What you're describing is simple risk vs reward. For Guilliman, the risk is death and dooming the Imperium to inferior leadership and demoralisation, with the reward being killing the Swarmlord but not ending the threat entirely.
For the Swarmlord, the risk is death, and reabsorbtion back into the Hive. The reward is completely breaking the enemy morale and leadership, absorbing the incredible biomass and enhancing the swarm's physical and intellectual prowess unfathomably, and destroying the biggest threat to the Tyranid race from its greatest enemy.
Seems like a no brainer to me.
Because the Swarmlord is a force multiplier, not a beatstick. If the Swarmlord wants Guilliman dead, it will send something with far better odds, like a bio-titan. You don't expose your king to kill another king unless you are sure the gambit will work or have nothing better than the king left.
One internally inconsistent battle between a Hive Fleet and a piddly four Greater Daemons. One could just as easily say that Ka'bandha wrecking Tyranids in the Baal System demonstrates what happens when Tyranids fight Daemons.
Games Workshop aren't going to have a situation whereby one faction will always dominate another faction.
The full story isn't "a piddly four Greater Daemons". The artifact once unleashed pours massive amounts of deamons out of the warp from all 4 factions being lead by the 4 greater deamons. Find other examples in the lore of how horrible it is for anyone to fight against a full blown deamonic incursion lead by all 4 groups of deamons and then call it "piddly".
Carnikang wrote: I don't know if I would call it that. They do have genetic variants that act like leader beasts, and are usually solitary aside from subordinates (Red Terror, Old One Eye, DeathLeaper, Broodlords, etc.). That and in the lore, variant/evolutionary mutations have happened surronding other Hive Tyrants and Warriors, coming out to appear as characters, despite being just another chasis with a fancy new biomorph and a little extra exp. The Swarmlord could just be a leader of leaders, and as such is afforded greater autonomy from the Hive Mind because of it's sheer mental and psychic might combined to make it unique. Yet not, as it's supposed that the Swarmlord can be present in many places at once across the galaxy if need be.
They're faceless bodies, but there are always some sort of characterizations with them.
I don't think of any of them as characters though. Aside from the Swarmlord and Patriarchs (which admittedly I had forgotten about) they don't have personalities or anything. They're used as stand-ins for characters but since they can die and be reborn they're likely to lose in fluff pieces against actual characters. The autonomy of the Swarmlord is weird and not very well explained. Why is it the only one allowed such autonomy? Does it risk Tyranids breaking off?
I think it has to do with the fact that the Hive Mind is the collective mental consciousness of the Hive. Synapse Creatures have more Autonomy than the lesser beasts who need synapse, but the 'characters' have even greater Autonomy. Then again, Old One Eye, and the Red Terror, need Synapse to function with the Hive Fleet. The Deathleaper requires it for in battle coordination, but functions well on it's own outside of the influence of the Hive Mind. Most Lictors and Genestealers function fine outside of the Hive Minds influence as well.
Going back to Old One Eye, on Maccrage still as far as I know. He 'leads' the lesser Tyranids that still infest parts of that world, but he's not mentally strong/intelligent enough to function as a conduit of the Hive Mind. He's Autonomous, but he's not when a part of the swarm.
The same could be said of the Swarmlord, but he's also autonomous within the swarm. It could function without them, not just because of synapse being innate, but because it has a wealth of knowledge to work with, because it's the oldest. It's mentally stronger and more adept. This allows for flexibility on the fly, while with other Tyrants it would be a slower adjustment as they absorb the changes. Thinking on it, a lot of Tyrants should function closer to the Swarmlord, if they'd survived battle for centuries of experience to accumulate, for that to be passed on as their conscious is reabsorbed and used in another body. It's weird that they haven't made not of that. Tyrants that survive continually as a physical being seem to absorb information and grow in cunning, using better tactics. But it's like a hard reset when they get turned into slurry.
Maybe the Swarmlord is the Hive Mind's answer to that, a back up file of the entire swarm's knowledge. It only needs one creature to do this, and to act as the guiding conscious within it's bounds. Giving this Autonomy to more creatures would likely create more diverging thoughts/tactics, but would it create such a division to create another faction within the swarm? And what if it has? What if it's already happened and it's a change of thought process within the swarm, requiring it to consume the entirety of the rest of the Hive Mind to change it? What if that's what's happening with Hive fleet Hydra? They've bypassed ripe worlds to attack other Hive Fleets.
What if the Refugee Theory AND the Tiny Portion Theory are both right? What if what we've seen is not just a bunch of smaller hive fleets running, but a splinter of the Hive Mind that has diverged and begun to think differently, and lost the battle to control the Tyranid Race as a whole. The rest follow, devouring the splinter Hive Mind, and absorbing all of their knowledge and biomass that has been gathered thus far?
It's been theorized, and is pretty likely considering how often tyranids are engaged in battles, that they spawn multiple swarm lords at the same time. Just never more then one at a time in a single conflict.
Aside from that they're consistently written as at the least a sector ending threat as opposed to say, the Orks.
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