Stop pointing out because the Necrons have no biomass, the Tyranids won't eat them. It makes very little sense that way. Eldar Craftworlds have very little biomass since the whole planet is made of not-so-edible Wraithbone and the Tyranids still go after them. Fauna and flora only consist of a small portion of total biomass available on a planet. The Tyranids devour land and water until the planet is a dried, barren piece of rock. If a Necron Tomb World still have those, the Tyranids will still come and eat them. The inhabitants matter very little. The only exceptions are Chaos because the biomass might be tainted to the point the Tyranids would have to evolve further to even start to chew and Orks whose worlds are so overpopulated (there are overall more Orks than any other race, but they hold one-tenth worlds as the Imperium) that they might actually account for a larger portion of the total biomass available.

This also means that Tyranids prefer eating worlds unpopulated by intelligent species since they will encounter less resistance there.

Are you mad at someone specific, or are you just picking a fight with the internet?

The Tyranids are motivated by 2 goals:

1. Sheer biomass for energy and raw material
2. New genetic information to absorb

A living world fulfills both.
A dead tombworld fulfills neither. Sure, the Tyranids could process even the CHNOPS bound in nonliving substrates, but that takes energy so the net profit is lower. Furthermore the Hive Mind is intelligent enough to know from past experience (since it is stated the Tyranids have already fought Necrons before), that the Necrons fight back.

Thus it makes no economic sense for the Tyranids to put in such effort to fight against a fierce enemy for so little expected gain even if they do win in the end. It is a simple cost vs. gain analysis. It is this same economic calculation that leads to for example, Kraken splinter fleets bypassing heavily defended worlds in favor of picking off isolated agri-worlds, which offer high gain for little effort/risk.

The same could be said for Chaos corrupted worlds, however the latest Tyranids Codex depicts Hive Fleet Kronos as being bred specifically to counter and attack Chaos despite daemons providing no sustenance, because it seems Chaos was competing for the same living parts of the galaxy that the Tyranids wish to ultimately consume. Kronos was subsidized by Leviathan, by Leviathan leaving worlds specifically for Kronos to consume.

It could be that given enough time or if Necrons are later perceived as being a similar competitor then the Tyranids may turn their attention more to the Necrons, if only to ensure that the Necrons do not interfere with other Tyranid consumption elsewhere.

Please stop trying to make sense of the Tyranids from a how-biology-really-works standpoint, because nothing about them works (for a start, just try comparing the energy densities of living tissue and rocket fuel, then ask how they can ever get anything off a planet's surface). 40K is a fantasy setting, not sci-fi. It's Spelljammer with the grimdark turned up. It's not Asimov.

Tyranids avoid Necron tomb worlds because a wizard cryptek did it, not because of some logical real-world-biology reason.

Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

pm713 wrote:

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

This is the best thing I've read all week.

Think of them as an Iron supplement to the Tyranids' diet. Gotta get your vitamins and minerals.

Tyranids wouldn’t ignore Necrons or Chaos Daemons. In several accounts in codexes the Tyranids have fought them. In one case Tyranids killed so many humans that a Warp Portal opened up and Khorne Daemons poured out. By the account he Tyranids saw the Daemons as competing predators and attacked the Daemons even though they leave no biomass when killed.

Similarly Necrons will protect their world’s from attack regardless of who is there and Necron planets are not all lifeless rocks. There is fauna and such that they can devour. And Nids could feasibly start destroying Necron structures without realizing it, threatening the Tombworld stability.

pm713 wrote:
Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

Well the real answer is they have some tendril things that reach the fleet. There was a thread here that had some great pictures of that.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

Well the real answer is they have some tendril things that reach the fleet. There was a thread here that had some great pictures of that.

Capillary towers or something, right? What happens to them after they send up all the biomass? Are they left or eaten or destroyed or what?

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

Well the real answer is they have some tendril things that reach the fleet. There was a thread here that had some great pictures of that.

Capillary towers or something, right? What happens to them after they send up all the biomass? Are they left or eaten or destroyed or what?

Think the thread said both, depending on when the fluff was made.

Capillary towers Just dries up and die. The dead Capillary towers just left there.

Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Whenever I really think about the 'nids, I remember how disgusting they are! XD

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

 Desubot wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

Tyranids aren't the most sensible faction.

I think they use Rippers for grass but a cownid would be so much better.

Nids already have Cownid. It’s Haruspex now.

 Desubot wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

No more inefficient then spending months of energy raising livestock, feeding livestock, then consuming only part of the livestock. Modern western societies waste between 40-60% of the food produced through spoilage, etc.

Solidcrash wrote:
Nids already have Cownid. It’s Haruspex now.

In no way does a Haruxpex resemble a cow.

pm713 wrote:

Solidcrash wrote:
Nids already have Cownid. It’s Haruspex now.

In no way does a Haruxpex resemble a cow.

Better cow than paper weight.
In tabletop it’s rubbish. Maybe an cow can kill more than Haruxpex... it’s made a sense that Haruxpex good at eating grass and soil.
In lore, unlike tabletop version. It’s powerful, hunger and stronger than carnifex and hive tyrant.

If all necron worlds are able to build pilons and shut out the warp, that can be a biiiiig reason why the hive mind woulndt want to land on those worlds, it would be totally shut out.

 Formosa wrote:
If all necron worlds are able to build pilons and shut out the warp, that can be a biiiiig reason why the hive mind woulndt want to land on those worlds, it would be totally shut out.

That's always been my theory, too. Obviously something in the Necrons' technology disrupts the Hivemind, so the Tyranid swarm avoids their tombworlds. Especially the big Dyson Sphere.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
If all necron worlds are able to build pilons and shut out the warp, that can be a biiiiig reason why the hive mind woulndt want to land on those worlds, it would be totally shut out.

That's always been my theory, too. Obviously something in the Necrons' technology disrupts the Hivemind, so the Tyranid swarm avoids their tombworlds. Especially the big Dyson Sphere.

This. The only recorded example I know of is tyranids avoiding the Outsider's prison like the plague.
They've certainly attacked 'normal' tomb worlds - see Shield of Baal/Leviathan

I thought the Pylons only held back actual Warp Storms rather than stopping all forms of psychic powers?

bibotot wrote:
Stop pointing out because the Necrons have no biomass, the Tyranids won't eat them. It makes very little sense that way. Eldar Craftworlds have very little biomass since the whole planet is made of not-so-edible Wraithbone and the Tyranids still go after them. Fauna and flora only consist of a small portion of total biomass available on a planet. The Tyranids devour land and water until the planet is a dried, barren piece of rock. If a Necron Tomb World still have those, the Tyranids will still come and eat them. The inhabitants matter very little. The only exceptions are Chaos because the biomass might be tainted to the point the Tyranids would have to evolve further to even start to chew and Orks whose worlds are so overpopulated (there are overall more Orks than any other race, but they hold one-tenth worlds as the Imperium) that they might actually account for a larger portion of the total biomass available.

This also means that Tyranids prefer eating worlds unpopulated by intelligent species since they will encounter less resistance there.

Cost vs reward.

Necron worlds are hellishly defended and Necrons keep coming back, they take alot to kill and even then they phase out or there metal is immune to reuse. The amount of Biomass, vs the gain is often just not there.

Its easier to just bypass their worlds.
Also fleet assets, Necron ships are crazy powerful, so good luck fithing Necrons who zip in ernerialess drive in a slow bioo ship.

pm713 wrote:
I thought the Pylons only held back actual Warp Storms rather than stopping all forms of psychic powers?

Old fluff they completely shut out the warp, lock it out literally, new fluff your probably right, I think it may just be a meter of numbers, get enough of them and they lock it out or it may just be some other necron tech imbedded like a large scale gloom prism, not sure, all we know is necrons do have the ability to shut out the warp, just not how they do it.

It’s intetesting as necrons do appear to be the perfect foil to tyranids.

Necron pylons dampened warp phenomena but did not necessarily completely prevent them.

Cadia for example had tons of pylons but nonetheless daemons could still manifest and attack it. When Cawl fully activated the Cadian network of pylons in the Gathering Storm, it was enough to shrink the Eye of Terror ever so slightly, and when it was in activation, daemons disappeared or became weak while Saint Celestine's holy aura and light also diminished (since those supernatural abilities are also warp based). However the rebound backlash of the Eye of Terror overwhelmed and destroyed the pylons, showing that sufficiently powerful warp activity can still overcome the pylons.

In 40k, no faction has an automatic "I win" against the others. The pylons keep Chaos and psychic abilities in check, but they still have limits to what they can do. Similarly the fact that Tyranids have successfully clashed with and consumed Necron worlds before (since one of the Necron dynasties is canonically shown to have taken heavy losses against the Tyranids), it shows the pylons cannot complete block out the Tyranids' Hive Mind.

Is the stuff about Necron Gauss weaponry making it impossible for Tyranids to recover biomass still canon? Shots from a gauss rifle used to make the targets atoms scatter to a point where the tyranids couldn’t re-harvest it and thus they avoided the necrons. That was back in 3.5, not sure about the current fluff.

 Nerak wrote:
Is the stuff about Necron Gauss weaponry making it impossible for Tyranids to recover biomass still canon? Shots from a gauss rifle used to make the targets atoms scatter to a point where the tyranids couldn’t re-harvest it and thus they avoided the necrons. That was back in 3.5, not sure about the current fluff.

yeah, im sure Gaus was a weapon working on Atomic level. what it hit was destroyed, as in utterly destroyed.

thus it depletes the bio mass left in the body. every shot represents a net loss in biomass,
and thats not counting the heavier weaponry and so.

pm713 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

Tyranids aren't the most sensible faction.

I think they use Rippers for grass but a cownid would be so much better.

If nids approached the galaxy from the mental perspective of sentience they would flat-out win with no contest. Nid behavior is more like how an invasive species of ant would behave, which is the only context in which an army like them could even work properly in the setting.

 Desubot wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

My personal theory is that the 'nids we see are a bioweapon invasion force that has the ultimate goal of removing threats to the Tyranid species. I think that the biomass they harvest when they take over a planet is the equivalent of battlefield salvage-they don't rely on it to keep fighting, it just helps make them stronger. I think they prefer to avoid Necrons because Necrons are a challenge that can be ignored if not provoked. I think the Tyranid plan boils down to eat everything that isn't Necron, use the biomass to make up for some of the casualties, then break all the Necrons.

The thing that is wrong about the tyranids is that one single tyranid has even less identity than one single necron.

Imperium has heroes like Yarrick and Trajann Valoris. Orcs have Ghazgkull and Snikrot. Eldar have Eldrad and the Phoenix Lords. Chaos has the likes of Kharn and Ahriman. Even Tau have... um, Farsight? And Necrons have their... individual tomb lord characters, right? Tyranids... have none of that interesting character based motivations.

Instead, tyranids have this supposed invincibility thing where they eat everything.

The nerve. Only the imperium is invincible, as a whole.

 Desubot wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

In truth most of the harvesting is performed by co-opted local plant life. Tyranid biology hacks it and sends it into overdrive. Minerals are leached at unsustainable rates, global temperature increased and the entire planet becomes a biological furnace designed to deposit everything of use on the surface. Digestion pools swell to the size of oceans and capillary towers grow out of areas rich in minerals into the atmosphere.

The mobile Tyranid feeder beasts are largely used to kill the things that won’t just sit there and be swallowed up, but are none the less useful because there might be useful information or genetics for the Tyranids to deploy later. That’s why things like Malanthropes exist; to understand why the prey put up such good resistance. In that way, the Tyranids have bag of genetic tricks they can call on to overcome any situation.

The whole thing may be horrendously energy inefficient, but I don’t think the Tyranids care. As long as they gain more energy than they spent, it’s a win for the Hive Ships and that’s all that matters. The whole cycle might well be a really inefficient way of existing, but there you go, that’s 40k. Even the faceless alien planet eaters have an element of tragedy about them. The Hive Mind is the largest, most complex sentience in the universe as far as we know, and for all it’s intellect and power it’s trapped in an unending cycle of violent feeding which it seems it cannot escape (assuming it wants to escape of course, though the few times words other than endless and infinite are used to describe the hunger it’s usually something like painful...)

 RedCommander wrote:
The thing that is wrong about the tyranids is that one single tyranid has even less identity than one single necron.

Imperium has heroes like Yarrick and Trajann Valoris. Orcs have Ghazgkull and Snikrot. Eldar have Eldrad and the Phoenix Lords. Chaos has the likes of Kharn and Ahriman. Even Tau have... um, Farsight? And Necrons have their... individual tomb lord characters, right? Tyranids... have none of that interesting character based motivations.

Instead, tyranids have this supposed invincibility thing where they eat everything.

The nerve. Only the imperium is invincible, as a whole.

I like that the Tyranid characters are just strange evolutions. The way it works now (you can get them in any fleet of your choosing) is just great.

Tyranids are only energy inefficient if you assume they depend on biological metabolism for their large scale energetic needs.

That is wrong. We are told that Tyranids are made of weirder stuff than biological matter in the Haemonculus Covens Codex. We know they are insanely energy efficient from the Genestealer Cult Codex. We also know that plenty of Tyranid organism are basically plasma reactors and Tyranids devour insane amounts of resources from a planet, not only biological ones. For example there is enough energy in the ocean to sustain our energetic needs as a civilization for millennia, and Hive Fleets drink oceans with each planet they consume.

And even if that is not enough, Tyranids can draw energy from the Hive Mind and the souls they devour.

I didn't know Tyranids ate souls. When did that happen?

pm713 wrote:
I didn't know Tyranids ate souls. When did that happen?

The Doom of Malan'tai did it but that's the only example I know of.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I didn't know Tyranids ate souls. When did that happen?

The Doom of Malan'tai did it but that's the only example I know of.

Neurothropes have been described as draining souls, or “soul stuff” was the actual term I think. It’s in SOB: Leviathan. Kronos is experimenting with this as well if you read into the few fluff snippets they have.

Neurothropes eat souls, and the novel Valedor has the Eldar tracking a tendril by the psychic footprint of devoured Eldar.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
Tyranids wouldn’t ignore Necrons or Chaos Daemons. In several accounts in codexes the Tyranids have fought them. In one case Tyranids killed so many humans that a Warp Portal opened up and Khorne Daemons poured out. By the account he Tyranids saw the Daemons as competing predators and attacked the Daemons even though they leave no biomass when killed.

Similarly Necrons will protect their world’s from attack regardless of who is there and Necron planets are not all lifeless rocks. There is fauna and such that they can devour. And Nids could feasibly start destroying Necron structures without realizing it, threatening the Tombworld stability.

Per Newcron fluff, maybe there's some crazy Lord or Overlord who still thinks he/she is still living flesh and is tending to their garden Tomb World. Occasional visitors include some uppity humans looking to colonize, those damn Orks again, some puny Exodite Eldar...

And then these new space locusts start showing up, eating everything. Everything that this Lord has toiled at for MILLENNIA.

Well, that Lord's not going to let eons of effort go to waste because some space bugs got the munchies, he/she's going to make SURE that they LEAVE and NEVER come back!

...so yeah, I can see why Tyranids wouldn't want to fight cuckoo Necrons.

Just a thought but what if Tyrannid navigation is psychic - being the shadow in the Warp and all - and the Necrons simply don't show up to them because they're nulls, all the advance forces like Genestealer Cults just see black holes when they try to look at Necron Tomb Worlds.

Tyranids avoid the Necrons because the Necrons easily kill the Tyranids.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Tyranids avoid the Necrons because the Necrons easily kill the Tyranids.

Most races. If you kill them you gain biomass and materials.
Necron metals are impossible or next to impossible to digest and they phase out yielding you little to no again. They are hard to kill also and have very powerful fleets. The loss of a hive ship, is a tad expensive.

There planets are slow to wake but once they do, there defences are formidable.

They basically are a higher cost. Lower reward planet to raid vs one of less advanced fleshy organics.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Tyranids avoid the Necrons because the Necrons easily kill the Tyranids.

Most races. If you kill them you gain biomass and materials.
Necron metals are impossible or next to impossible to digest and they phase out yielding you little to no again. They are hard to kill also and have very powerful fleets. The loss of a hive ship, is a tad expensive.

There planets are slow to wake but once they do, there defences are formidable.

They basically are a higher cost. Lower reward planet to raid vs one of less advanced fleshy organics.

Sometimes. I think it depends on how active that Necron tomb world is at the time, how many resources the Tyranids have at their disposal and what else is on the planet (or even in the system). A Hive Fleet would be much more likely to expend a lot of resources destroying a tomb world if the rest of the system is rich in biomass. Net gain overall. A lone tombworld with nothing else in the system is more likely to be a waste of time, and instead handled by whatever anti-Necron biotech the Tyranids end up deploying to fight the Necron once they become a greater threat (just as it has spawned Kronos as it’s first real anti-Daemon biotech).

Patriarch Phyrx wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Tyranids avoid the Necrons because the Necrons easily kill the Tyranids.

Most races. If you kill them you gain biomass and materials.
Necron metals are impossible or next to impossible to digest and they phase out yielding you little to no again. They are hard to kill also and have very powerful fleets. The loss of a hive ship, is a tad expensive.

There planets are slow to wake but once they do, there defences are formidable.

They basically are a higher cost. Lower reward planet to raid vs one of less advanced fleshy organics.

Sometimes. I think it depends on how active that Necron tomb world is at the time, how many resources the Tyranids have at their disposal and what else is on the planet (or even in the system). A Hive Fleet would be much more likely to expend a lot of resources destroying a tomb world if the rest of the system is rich in biomass. Net gain overall. A lone tombworld with nothing else in the system is more likely to be a waste of time, and instead handled by whatever anti-Necron biotech the Tyranids end up deploying to fight the Necron once they become a greater threat (just as it has spawned Kronos as it’s first real anti-Daemon biotech).

True. The fleets evolve.
And value of systems vs reward worth thr losses.

However, adapting to necron tech.. Maybe the impirum did make anti phasing ammo for deathwatch. Unknown how effective but that does show someone can potentially find work around.

 jhe90 wrote:

Patriarch Phyrx wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Tyranids avoid the Necrons because the Necrons easily kill the Tyranids.

Most races. If you kill them you gain biomass and materials.
Necron metals are impossible or next to impossible to digest and they phase out yielding you little to no again. They are hard to kill also and have very powerful fleets. The loss of a hive ship, is a tad expensive.

There planets are slow to wake but once they do, there defences are formidable.

They basically are a higher cost. Lower reward planet to raid vs one of less advanced fleshy organics.

Sometimes. I think it depends on how active that Necron tomb world is at the time, how many resources the Tyranids have at their disposal and what else is on the planet (or even in the system). A Hive Fleet would be much more likely to expend a lot of resources destroying a tomb world if the rest of the system is rich in biomass. Net gain overall. A lone tombworld with nothing else in the system is more likely to be a waste of time, and instead handled by whatever anti-Necron biotech the Tyranids end up deploying to fight the Necron once they become a greater threat (just as it has spawned Kronos as it’s first real anti-Daemon biotech).

True. The fleets evolve.
And value of systems vs reward worth thr losses.

However, adapting to necron tech.. Maybe the impirum did make anti phasing ammo for deathwatch. Unknown how effective but that does show someone can potentially find work around.

Anti-Necron tech could come in lots of flavours.

Something that interferes with Living Metal, reducing it’s capacity to heal?

Ablative chitin designed to be “sacrificed”when hit with a Gauss weapon so that nothing vital is stripped away on the first hit?

Some sort of bio electric or psychic signal which prevents Necrons from transmitting their minds back to the tomb?

In the end it could just be done by the Hive Fleets quietly marking the locations of Tomb worlds and then smashing them with superior numbers after gorging on richer worlds. There is some fluff somewhere from Necron POV which talks about the Necrons’ biggest fear at the moment being that if the Tyranids are allowed to feed on humans, Orks and rich biospheres for too long there will be too many of them to stop even with all their reawakened tech. The Necrons are incredibly powerful, but they cannot combat galactic swarms... otherwise they would have wiped out the Orks long ago. Eldar, humans etc all breed too slowly, but Orks and Tyranids on sufficient scale can reproduce faster than the Necrons can kill them.

The Eldar (some of them at least) actually think that the Necrons will decide to let the Hive Fleets pass by and then rule what’s left. That would require a change in the bio transference policy though...

All speculation in the end

In Valedor one of the futures seen by the Eldar was that the Tyranids would consume almost everything and leave, then Daemons would rampage and kill everything else and die off and Necrons would rule the ruins for eternity.

 Duskweaver wrote:
Please stop trying to make sense of the Tyranids from a how-biology-really-works standpoint, because nothing about them works (for a start, just try comparing the energy densities of living tissue and rocket fuel, then ask how they can ever get anything off a planet's surface). 40K is a fantasy setting, not sci-fi. It's Spelljammer with the grimdark turned up. It's not Asimov.

Tyranids avoid Necron tomb worlds because a wizard cryptek did it, not because of some logical real-world-biology reason.

Just as a side point, human body fat (with no adaptations towards, well, rocket propulsion) has an energy density of ~37MJ/kg or 34MJ/L. Kerosene (used as aviation fuel and in some jet fuels, such as the first stage of the Saturn V rocket) has an energy density of 42.8MJ/kg or 37.4MJ/L, and hydrogen (also used in a variety of rocket fuel combos) has an energy density of 142MJ/kg or 9.17MJ/L.

Body fat: 37MJ/kg or 34MJ/L
Kerosene: 42.8MJ/kg or 37.4MJ/L
Hydrogen: 142MJ/kg or 9.17MJ/L

Not so different in many ways. Now, energy density is far from the only factor in rocket fuels, but the point stands that existing biomatter can store energy in similar densitis to rocket fuel, and in addition those rocket fuels are organic chemicals, or components of organic chemicals, which could be feasibly synthesised by a living organism.

'Nids achieving space is not impossible, just a difficult technical challenge that will probably be possible with genetic engineering in the next few hundred years for humans if we weirdly wanted to make a bio-rocket (which lets face it, is the kind of stupid science humans would want to do). Plausible but unlikely is actually pretty good by 40k standards.

Just found this quote from book...

“The tyranids were a threat to the necrons. They were life unfettered, anarchic, predictable only in their insatiable hunger. Their consumption of the lesser races proved problematic in the establishment of necron dynastic rule and the eventual goal of the imposition of lifeless order against a galaxy teeming with Chaos.”
Shield of Baal : The Silent King

Maybe it’s Necron who attack Tyranids instead of Tyranids go to dead planet with tomb world.

That makes no sense. Tyranids help massively with that goal.

I always saw Tyranid "Avoidance" of necrons less to do with any actual ingrained aversion and more due to circumstance. The only way a Tyranid fleet ever actually crosses a Necron planet is if they attempt to consume it in the wake of a greater prize. Necron's cannot be infested by Genestealers due to the lack of a biological body so the only engagements likely to occur is the harvesting of a necron planet by chance as the fleet moves on a more prosperous feeding ground, if Necron's actually decide to engage a tendril for their own purposes or if there is a foreign species on the world surface that has a cult infestation that draws the Tyranids to the planet, but this final point is still one of circumstance, rather than Tyranids actually favouring or avoiding necrons.

Tristanleo wrote:
I always saw Tyranid "Avoidance" of necrons less to do with any actual ingrained aversion and more due to circumstance. The only way a Tyranid fleet ever actually crosses a Necron planet is if they attempt to consume it in the wake of a greater prize. Necron's cannot be infested by Genestealers due to the lack of a biological body so the only engagements likely to occur is the harvesting of a necron planet by chance as the fleet moves on a more prosperous feeding ground, if Necron's actually decide to engage a tendril for their own purposes or if there is a foreign species on the world surface that has a cult infestation that draws the Tyranids to the planet, but this final point is still one of circumstance, rather than Tyranids actually favouring or avoiding necrons.

That’s normally how it works, but in the Red Scar region of the galaxy the Tyranids built up a huge fleet entirely to smash a stronghold of the Imperium (Baal and the Sanguinius bloodline) despite it being a toxic wasteland which would have been just as sensible to avoid in terms of biomass spent vs biomass gained. The Tyranids could simply be waiting for the right time to smash the Necron empires when they have enough biomass to be sure of victory even in the face of the various Necron advantages.

bibotot wrote:
Stop pointing out because the Necrons have no biomass, the Tyranids won't eat them. It makes very little sense that way. Eldar Craftworlds have very little biomass since the whole planet is made of not-so-edible Wraithbone and the Tyranids still go after them. Fauna and flora only consist of a small portion of total biomass available on a planet. The Tyranids devour land and water until the planet is a dried, barren piece of rock. If a Necron Tomb World still have those, the Tyranids will still come and eat them. The inhabitants matter very little. The only exceptions are Chaos because the biomass might be tainted to the point the Tyranids would have to evolve further to even start to chew and Orks whose worlds are so overpopulated (there are overall more Orks than any other race, but they hold one-tenth worlds as the Imperium) that they might actually account for a larger portion of the total biomass available.

This also means that Tyranids prefer eating worlds unpopulated by intelligent species since they will encounter less resistance there.

Tyranids have fought Necrons before. Just look at the infamous Blood Angels/Necrons team up. But as long as the planet has enough biomass and resources on them should lure the Tyranids, sentient biology or not. So yeah they probably should stop off at every tomb world with biomass and resources. But I think GW just doesn't really focus on them. But as jhe90 points out, taking a Necron world will involve losing biomass through casualties, but yields less reward than say a human world. So it could simply be a case of the Hivemind doing a cost benefit analysis and aiming for maximum net increase in biomass. We just don't read about it.

Tristanleo also makes a good point that Genestealer cults play a big part of Tyranid invasions and the Necrons would be immune to that, which is probably another factor why they are less attacked. If you want macro meta reasons it's probably because GW doesn't tend to do Xenos vs Xenos wars as much as those that involve the Imperium or Chaos.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Just a thought but what if Tyrannid navigation is psychic - being the shadow in the Warp and all - and the Necrons simply don't show up to them because they're nulls, all the advance forces like Genestealer Cults just see black holes when they try to look at Necron Tomb Worlds.

It is. The Horus Heresy novel Pharos covers this.

Big E caused everything to go wrong confirmed.

 Duskweaver wrote:
Please stop trying to make sense of the Tyranids from a how-biology-really-works standpoint, because nothing about them works (for a start, just try comparing the energy densities of living tissue and rocket fuel, then ask how they can ever get anything off a planet's surface). 40K is a fantasy setting, not sci-fi. It's Spelljammer with the grimdark turned up. It's not Asimov.

Tyranids avoid Necron tomb worlds because a wizard cryptek did it, not because of some logical real-world-biology reason.

Nids use space elevators. The send down huge tendrils to suck up pooled biomass.

If they ever wanted to get a whole section of biomass from ground into space they could either use psychic powers, or make biological helium balloons.

I mean, I'll crack a crawfish open and eat the tiny bit amount of meat in it before I start chewing on tin cans... Hell, I'll eat a mushroom or two before trying out a burned rock.

Seems like like... which restaurant would you go to? The one that burned down last week, or that one across the highway that is open and just busy enough to show that the food is good? Sure, there might be a rat you could kill in the burned down one, maybe even a hobo for some good old cannibalism! Or you could get a rib rack across the highway.

It's not so much that there's effort above normal involved, it's more that the Nids might lose way more biomass than they'd gain in trying. moreso even that just waiting for the next planet. It's more like being offered "one apple if you lift a few thousand heavy objects and put them over there" versus, "there's a plate of spaghetti half a mile down the road"

The Tyranids make no sense.

They'd be better off eating the CHNOPS from a nebula and never touching a planet ever.

They just don't make sense.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The Tyranids make no sense.

They'd be better off eating the CHNOPS from a nebula and never touching a planet ever.

They just don't make sense.

But what if they like the taste?

Or, given that they're animals, it's entirely possible they are simply not aware of such possibilities. Or they are and just happen to *also* eat planets. Or they are programmed to do so, by a creator. Or there is some odd agenda of theirs, perhaps trying to make extinct all sentient species so that they never have a predator.

Or the actual answer, which is just that the Nids are a metaphor for Mother Nature (and how she's a bitch), and we're overthinking this.

Tyranids does leave few planet alone!
Look at planet called Solemnace.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Solemnace

It seem very rare to see Tyranids avoid Necron. And in Necron codex there are lore about Tyranids unable to pinpoint the bio rich-planet, Tyranids might be to near-miss the planet instead of ‘avoid’.

 Selym wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The Tyranids make no sense.

They'd be better off eating the CHNOPS from a nebula and never touching a planet ever.

They just don't make sense.

But what if they like the taste?

Or, given that they're animals, it's entirely possible they are simply not aware of such possibilities. Or they are and just happen to *also* eat planets. Or they are programmed to do so, by a creator. Or there is some odd agenda of theirs, perhaps trying to make extinct all sentient species so that they never have a predator.

Or the actual answer, which is just that the Nids are a metaphor for Mother Nature (and how she's a bitch), and we're overthinking this.

Don't think of the nids as concious, thinking beings like we are. Think of them as an invasive insect on a galactic scale. There are countless ways the nids could not only 'win' and mow through the galaxy, but do so easily. Those don't happen because the nids don't have sciences, objective reasoning, or the like.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The Tyranids make no sense.

They'd be better off eating the CHNOPS from a nebula and never touching a planet ever.

They just don't make sense.

But what if they like the taste?

Or, given that they're animals, it's entirely possible they are simply not aware of such possibilities. Or they are and just happen to *also* eat planets. Or they are programmed to do so, by a creator. Or there is some odd agenda of theirs, perhaps trying to make extinct all sentient species so that they never have a predator.

Or the actual answer, which is just that the Nids are a metaphor for Mother Nature (and how she's a bitch), and we're overthinking this.

Don't think of the nids as concious, thinking beings like we are. Think of them as an invasive insect on a galactic scale. There are countless ways the nids could not only 'win' and mow through the galaxy, but do so easily. Those don't happen because the nids don't have sciences, objective reasoning, or the like.

I still maintain that the Nids are a metaphor for nature. Their invasions are way more like a natural disaster than an actual invasion, like getting into a punchup with a tornado. Sure, there are factors that a tornado could "use" to become more powerful, but it's a tornado so it either does or does not, and you'll be thankful it's at least not actively malicious.

Only one who have witness void space intergalactic are The Silent King... He saw something horror out there and return to milkway galaxy.. Only if he would tell us what going on in intergalactic out there.

Codex:Necron

When a Necron is destroyed beyond repair it just phases out to be repaired on It's designated Tomb World. While it would be a problem if a Tomb World itself was being attacked, Tomb Worlds have what are known as "Null Fields" protecting them so strong that no Warp energy can manifest inside of them. As such any Tyranids would be cut off from the Hive Mind upon entering such a field.

The fact mentionned above that the pylons disrup psychic energies and that necrons are immune to genestealer cults is actually something to be reckoned with: the genstealer link to the hive or the psychic signature of a word is what allows the hive mind to notice it. If you think of it like a gargantuan scanner then there simply is no little red light for some necron tomb worlds and the tyranids miss it.

Plus how powerful the necrons are against tyranids and the fact that they can't be scavenged is something to take in account for the space bugs. So it makes sense that the tyranids should avoid the necrons since they are such a hard nut to crack.

On the other hand now the necrons are very likely to knock out tyranids where and whenever they can, because ruling a galaxy of barren worlds is way less fun.

Except that we know of multiple Tomb Worlds that have been destroyed by the Tyranids. Null Fields are a nice advantage, but not a definitive one, they will not stop a Hive Fleet by themselves.

Necron worlds are hard targets, but not unbreakable ones.

Actually its better to think of them as a doomsday weapon- a bioengineered plague. They are programmed to target living biomass to support their biomass, but much of their energy and manufacturing requires nonbiological activities.

They are a sort of slow moving Exterminatus, targeting organic life, that may have evolved somewhat since their original release.

According to the theory that it was created by the ancients then? If so it would be more consistant if they did have a go at necrons since the ancients hated they're guts and engineered species to counter them.

The thesis of an unregulated evolution and the fact that it should fezst on biomasse can hold true but it would be strange that they avoid or miss the necrons then, wouldn't it?

They could be a bioenginereed plague but not ancient-made. Why ancient made ? And then it make more sense

I agree with the "space plague" line of thinking. It really is just good to think of them as intergalactic space locusts with a unifying gestalt consciousness that consume biological matter (the more complex the better) and use it to both sustain themselves and to reproduce. Kind of terrifying actually. There are real life analogues to genestealer cults, like the fungus that takes over ant brains, and wasps/spiders that lay their eggs inside a live victim, which then has it's brain chemistry altered to perform behaviors that increase the chances of the eggs surviving.

w1zard wrote:
There are real life analogues to genestealer cults

True, but terrestrial animals don't (yet) figure out how to accelerate to over 11km/s to get off the planet, and don't have the option of consuming astronomical bodies to supply vastly greater quantities of materiel. Even just floating through space with a huge permeable "sail" could slowly absorb vast quantities of materiel more effectively than warring with intelligent species.

I don't think logic of any sort really holds the Nids up, but they work perfectly as a fictional representation of how mother nature is a bitch, and are an excellent contribution to making the universe seem like it is actively malicious to mankind (and that's what Grimdark is all about after all). The 40k universe hates humans. It has it out for us. So much that it will defy all logic and probability and have an extra-galactic natural catastrophe, that could have happily spent eternity consuming *any other galaxy* (as it is probable that 40k is the exception for difficulty of conquest), that could have targetted the actual best choices for living biomass (Orks), and that could have just contented itself with eating actual astronomical bodies for hundreds of thousands of years without even encountering inhabited 40k worlds (space actually is that big), actually head straight for the heart of the Imperium.

That's some really bad luck right there.

400-800 billion stars in the galaxy, humans have only managed to hold under a million. If the Nids acted on logic, humans might never even notice they were there.

Pharos did it

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
According to the theory that it was created by the ancients then? If so it would be more consistant if they did have a go at necrons since the ancients hated they're guts and engineered species to counter them.

The thesis of an unregulated evolution and the fact that it should fezst on biomasse can hold true but it would be strange that they avoid or miss the necrons then, wouldn't it?

Not the Ancients- they are extra galactic. Think Star Trek "Doomsday Device" but in the form of a bioweapon seeking out destruction of other biological organisms.

Attrition wise, they’re something you go after when you’re desperately desperate.

Gauss Weapons are essentially disintegrators, so the Hive Mind will rarely recover it’s own biomass.

Their foes phase out, so can’t be consumed piecemeal - you only get your snackycakes when the Tomb Complex is knackered - and sometimes not even then, if it has functioning dolman gates.

Rippers, an important stage in pre-digestion are tied up with Scarabs, further postponing your dindins.

They don’t panic. Ever.

They don’t breathe, so your microspores are of little use, as there’s no infection to weaken the defenders.

And the Shadow In The Warp means nothing to them. No general foreboding. Still able to communicate effectively.

So why bother? It’s a poor use of your ultimately finite resources. Yes, you’ll likely wind up scoffing it all in the end - but very much risk a negative balance, having expended far more biomass than you harvested.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another thought....

Nids do well because they so rarely leave any survivors to pass on tactical hints and tips on how to tackle the squad.

That’s not something easily achieved against Necrons, because they self-repair and come back. So a battle on Day One can be lost by the Necrons, but learned from, and adapted to on Day Two.

If they learn quick enough, than after each engagement, just turn the Gauss on any corpses. Apply a total scorched earth policy. Nothing left for even the tiniest gribbly to get something down it’s neck.

That all helps the Hive Fleet spend its fleshy bounty faster and faster.

It’s even doubtful that fog clouds of spores would affect Necrons one jot - I’d imagine there’s plenty technological trickery in even the humble Warrior to be able to switch between different bands of vision.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

So why bother?

Tomb Worlds are threats, better to destroy a Necron Tomb World than let it hinder and even threaten the Hive Fleet's advance.

The same logic drives Kronos to attack Warp Rifts, as even though it gets no material benefit from fighting Chaos, each Daemon World destroyed is one less headache in the future.

I guess I can give in to the thesis of Mankind's utter bad luck then? It is true that the whole 40k universe is about just every single things wants to get us, so tha's just for the grim dark.

However the term "biological weapon" is incorrect if we go that way, unless if we assume they've been created by somebody (maybe in their former galaxy?)

All hypothesis left aside, the fact that the necrons are a real threat is actually enough to justify two opposed behaviours: either try to take them out in the first place, or grow enough to be sure to attack with overwhelming number, which the necrons actually worry about as we mentionned. However, since the hive spirit is said to be extremely cunning, it can't have been left unnoticed to him that the Imperium would probably finish them off if they went for the first option and chased the necrons. Instead it would be logical that the go get the food that we are and eliminate the threat we could be beforehand, and only when they have grown enough turn to the necrons while being sure they won't get a triangle war. I think you could then make it logical that the necrons should be ignored in the frst place.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I guess I can give in to the thesis of Mankind's utter bad luck then? It is true that the whole 40k universe is about just every single things wants to get us, so tha's just for the grim dark.

However the term "biological weapon" is incorrect if we go that way, unless if we assume they've been created by somebody (maybe in their former galaxy?)

All hypothesis left aside, the fact that the necrons are a real threat is actually enough to justify two opposed behaviours: either try to take them out in the first place, or grow enough to be sure to attack with overwhelming number, which the necrons actually worry about as we mentionned. However, since the hive spirit is said to be extremely cunning, it can't have been left unnoticed to him that the Imperium would probably finish them off if they went for the first option and chased the necrons. Instead it would be logical that the go get the food that we are and eliminate the threat we could be beforehand, and only when they have grown enough turn to the necrons while being sure they won't get a triangle war. I think you could then make it logical that the necrons should be ignored in the frst place.

The problem is that the Necrons aren't ignoring the Tyranids. There are plenty of examples in which Necron forces have attacked the Tyranids to the point that there are memes of the Necron-BA bromance.

To the Hive Mind, the Necrons cannot be ignored. Sure small Hive Fleets and splinter fleets will avoid Necron worlds as they do not have the power to overwhelm those defenses. But large fleets like Leviathan? That's a hammer big enough to shatter Tomb Worlds.

Of course, the current mess with Chaos may change the calculus once again, as everyone is kinda tied with the immaterial forces of corruption.

Tyran wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I guess I can give in to the thesis of Mankind's utter bad luck then? It is true that the whole 40k universe is about just every single things wants to get us, so tha's just for the grim dark.

However the term "biological weapon" is incorrect if we go that way, unless if we assume they've been created by somebody (maybe in their former galaxy?)

All hypothesis left aside, the fact that the necrons are a real threat is actually enough to justify two opposed behaviours: either try to take them out in the first place, or grow enough to be sure to attack with overwhelming number, which the necrons actually worry about as we mentionned. However, since the hive spirit is said to be extremely cunning, it can't have been left unnoticed to him that the Imperium would probably finish them off if they went for the first option and chased the necrons. Instead it would be logical that the go get the food that we are and eliminate the threat we could be beforehand, and only when they have grown enough turn to the necrons while being sure they won't get a triangle war. I think you could then make it logical that the necrons should be ignored in the frst place.

The problem is that the Necrons aren't ignoring the Tyranids. There are plenty of examples in which Necron forces have attacked the Tyranids to the point that there are memes of the Necron-BA bromance.

To the Hive Mind, the Necrons cannot be ignored. Sure small Hive Fleets and splinter fleets will avoid Necron worlds as they do not have the power to overwhelm those defenses. But large fleets like Leviathan? That's a hammer big enough to shatter Tomb Worlds.

Of course, the current mess with Chaos may change the calculus once again, as everyone is kinda tied with the immaterial forces of corruption.

The thing is that even if they do need to fight back when they are attacked, hence why confrontations with the necrons are possible, they will probably try not to engage themselves into a fight by their free will. They do defend themselves, but ignores the crons if they aren't tied in by the robots.

 Selym wrote:

I don't think logic of any sort really holds the Nids up, but they work perfectly as a fictional representation of how mother nature is a bitch, and are an excellent contribution to making the universe seem like it is actively malicious to mankind (and that's what Grimdark is all about after all). The 40k universe hates humans. It has it out for us. So much that it will defy all logic and probability and have an extra-galactic natural catastrophe, that could have happily spent eternity consuming *any other galaxy* (as it is probable that 40k is the exception for difficulty of conquest), that could have targetted the actual best choices for living biomass (Orks), and that could have just contented itself with eating actual astronomical bodies for hundreds of thousands of years without even encountering inhabited 40k worlds (space actually is that big), actually head straight for the heart of the Imperium.

That's some really bad luck right there.

400-800 billion stars in the galaxy, humans have only managed to hold under a million. If the Nids acted on logic, humans might never even notice they were there.

They only have the power to manipulate biological matter through complex genetic processes. Inorganic matter means absolutely nothing to them. That is, they need matter of at least the complexity of a simple cell to do anything with it.

As for humans only being able to hold a million stars, source? There are a million worlds in the Imperium sure, but there are probably more than one world in some systems, and I bet there are plenty of "mining systems" that have no habitable worlds, but are still claimed in the name of mankind. Hell, I'll bet there are a lot of systems the Imperium doesn't even exploit that we still claim as "ours". Your numbers of stars in the galaxy is also incorrect, it is currently estimated at 250 billion with a maximum possible at 400 billion.

w1zard wrote:

 Selym wrote:

I don't think logic of any sort really holds the Nids up, but they work perfectly as a fictional representation of how mother nature is a bitch, and are an excellent contribution to making the universe seem like it is actively malicious to mankind (and that's what Grimdark is all about after all). The 40k universe hates humans. It has it out for us. So much that it will defy all logic and probability and have an extra-galactic natural catastrophe, that could have happily spent eternity consuming *any other galaxy* (as it is probable that 40k is the exception for difficulty of conquest), that could have targetted the actual best choices for living biomass (Orks), and that could have just contented itself with eating actual astronomical bodies for hundreds of thousands of years without even encountering inhabited 40k worlds (space actually is that big), actually head straight for the heart of the Imperium.

That's some really bad luck right there.

400-800 billion stars in the galaxy, humans have only managed to hold under a million. If the Nids acted on logic, humans might never even notice they were there.

They only have the power to manipulate biological matter through complex genetic processes. Inorganic matter means absolutely nothing to them. That is, they need matter of at least the complexity of a simple cell to do anything with it.

As for humans only being able to hold a million stars, source? There are a million worlds in the Imperium sure, but there are probably more than one world in some systems, and I bet there are plenty of "mining systems" that have no habitable worlds, but are still claimed in the name of mankind. Hell, I'll bet there are a lot of systems the Imperium doesn't even exploit that we still claim as "ours". Your numbers of stars in the galaxy is also incorrect, it is currently estimated at 250 billion with a maximum possible at 400 billion.

Going with Wizard on this, I dont think one million worlds is a hard number, more a general "the imperium has a million worlds... or more... or less.... were not sure right now" also that number clearly doesnt include worlds with humans on them that have been lost to imperial records, warp storms etc.

w1zard wrote:

 Selym wrote:

I don't think logic of any sort really holds the Nids up, but they work perfectly as a fictional representation of how mother nature is a bitch, and are an excellent contribution to making the universe seem like it is actively malicious to mankind (and that's what Grimdark is all about after all). The 40k universe hates humans. It has it out for us. So much that it will defy all logic and probability and have an extra-galactic natural catastrophe, that could have happily spent eternity consuming *any other galaxy* (as it is probable that 40k is the exception for difficulty of conquest), that could have targetted the actual best choices for living biomass (Orks), and that could have just contented itself with eating actual astronomical bodies for hundreds of thousands of years without even encountering inhabited 40k worlds (space actually is that big), actually head straight for the heart of the Imperium.

That's some really bad luck right there.

400-800 billion stars in the galaxy, humans have only managed to hold under a million. If the Nids acted on logic, humans might never even notice they were there.

They only have the power to manipulate biological matter through complex genetic processes. Inorganic matter means absolutely nothing to them. That is, they need matter of at least the complexity of a simple cell to do anything with it.

As for humans only being able to hold a million stars, source? There are a million worlds in the Imperium sure, but there are probably more than one world in some systems, and I bet there are plenty of "mining systems" that have no habitable worlds, but are still claimed in the name of mankind. Hell, I'll bet there are a lot of systems the Imperium doesn't even exploit that we still claim as "ours". Your numbers of stars in the galaxy is also incorrect, it is currently estimated at 250 billion with a maximum possible at 400 billion.

To the planets you can add various outposts here and there that logically ultimatly raise the alarm.

However be careful of the necron compound: it is called organic metal. While it has to be extremely hard to make profit of it, it might not be completly unusable to the hive. This requires diggin into it and is a hypothesis, but still. Altought gauss weaponry does mean on the other hand that the fallen tyranids will not be fully recovered.

I'd like to again push forword the hypothesis that it might be a kind of strategic choice for the Hive spirit, that does not wish to engage in a fight where it would be so weakend that the Imperium could then maul them down. Instad they might want to secure their position beforehands. As for the time span descirbed in the fluff, the necrons' strength is not ignored but since they are awakening, it leaves enough time to get the job down against other foes. This could also be one reason why whereas the Chaos Deamons are dealt with by Kronos, as they are an already strong and ready to fight menace, no fleet has yet evolved to have a go at the necrons.

Again pure suggestion here, but it is the most logical reason why tyranids would ignore the necrons whereas they are dangerous (granted logic is applicable to 40k at all)

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
To the planets you can add various outposts here and there that logically ultimatly raise the alarm.

However be careful of the necron compound: it is called organic metal. While it has to be extremely hard to make profit of it, it might not be completly unusable to the hive. This requires diggin into it and is a hypothesis, but still. Altought gauss weaponry does mean on the other hand that the fallen tyranids will not be fully recovered.

I'd like to again push forword the hypothesis that it might be a kind of strategic choice for the Hive spirit, that does not wish to engage in a fight where it would be so weakend that the Imperium could then maul them down. Instad they might want to secure their position beforehands. As for the time span descirbed in the fluff, the necrons' strength is not ignored but since they are awakening, it leaves enough time to get the job down against other foes. This could also be one reason why whereas the Chaos Deamons are dealt with by Kronos, as they are an already strong and ready to fight menace, no fleet has yet evolved to have a go at the necrons.

Again pure suggestion here, but it is the most logical reason why tyranids would ignore the necrons whereas they are dangerous (granted logic is applicable to 40k at all)

I agree. The most likely theory behind the nids not attacking tomb worlds is that the hivemind realizes that it would lose more than it gains by doing so, and that it is much better served by going after easier to attack Imperial worlds. I think if all of the food sources nearby were consumed, the nids would turn and attack the necrons because they are ultimately a threat to the hivemind. Until that happens there are simply better targets.

w1zard wrote:

 Selym wrote:

I don't think logic of any sort really holds the Nids up, but they work perfectly as a fictional representation of how mother nature is a bitch, and are an excellent contribution to making the universe seem like it is actively malicious to mankind (and that's what Grimdark is all about after all). The 40k universe hates humans. It has it out for us. So much that it will defy all logic and probability and have an extra-galactic natural catastrophe, that could have happily spent eternity consuming *any other galaxy* (as it is probable that 40k is the exception for difficulty of conquest), that could have targetted the actual best choices for living biomass (Orks), and that could have just contented itself with eating actual astronomical bodies for hundreds of thousands of years without even encountering inhabited 40k worlds (space actually is that big), actually head straight for the heart of the Imperium.

That's some really bad luck right there.

400-800 billion stars in the galaxy, humans have only managed to hold under a million. If the Nids acted on logic, humans might never even notice they were there.

They only have the power to manipulate biological matter through complex genetic processes. Inorganic matter means absolutely nothing to them. That is, they need matter of at least the complexity of a simple cell to do anything with it.

As for humans only being able to hold a million stars, source? There are a million worlds in the Imperium sure, but there are probably more than one world in some systems, and I bet there are plenty of "mining systems" that have no habitable worlds, but are still claimed in the name of mankind. Hell, I'll bet there are a lot of systems the Imperium doesn't even exploit that we still claim as "ours". Your numbers of stars in the galaxy is also incorrect, it is currently estimated at 250 billion with a maximum possible at 400 billion.

To address the point of nids eating non-living things:

If you lick a chunk of iron, you actually consume a small quantity of iron. That then gets processed through your body in exactly the same way as if you had found some iron in a steak. If you had some serious need for a ton of iron, you could actually just straight up eat iron. It's not healthy for humans, but if you were to engineer processes in, say, a huge bioship that could distribute that iron as needed to various systems and inhabiting organisms (which we do anyway, on a smaller scale, with billions of microorganisms), then you could eat an asteroid to cure iron deficiency. Take that on a large scale, and you'll find a heck of a lot of raw materials that can be processed in such a fashion far more efficiently than by finding those materials in animals.

But what of organic compounds, I hear you ask. Organic compounds are not just permanently recycled through living organisms, (though that does happen a lot), they are produced by simple microorganisms taking in the raw materials surrounding them and processing them into more complex arrangements. These are then eaten by more complex organisms, who repeat the same sort of function. Bacteria > tiny creatures > plants > bigger creatures > plants > bigger creatures again > whatever topped the food chain. There is nothing to stop the nids creating a spacefaring biocycle that eats whatever the universe has to offer.


Then to address the million worlds thingy:

The IOM has supposedly "a million worlds". If they are counting an average of more than one planet per system, that'll give them less than 1,000,000 significant worlds. If they then placed outposts on ten million other systems, that gives them maybe 11,000,000 systems of note. Given 400 billion stars in the galaxy, maybe half of those have non-stellar bodies around them. We'll call it at 200 billion edible systems, for an estimate.

200,000,000,000 / 100 = 2,000,000,000
2,000,000,000 / 100 = 20,000,000

The IOM therefore would be touching less than 1 percent of 1 percent of all edible systems, or 0.01%. The odds of the nids picking our galaxy is already small, and the odds of them being a high-profile threat if they followed logic is ridiculously low, unless they grew to numbers that would be visible from Andromeda. At which point the entire galaxy is buggered anyway.

 Selym wrote:

Then to address the million worlds thingy:

The IOM has supposedly "a million worlds". If they are counting an average of more than one planet per system, that'll give them less than 1,000,000 significant worlds. If they then placed outposts on ten million other systems, that gives them maybe 11,000,000 systems of note. Given 400 billion stars in the galaxy, maybe half of those have non-stellar bodies around them. We'll call it at 200 billion edible systems, for an estimate.

200,000,000,000 / 100 = 2,000,000,000
2,000,000,000 / 100 = 20,000,000

The IOM therefore would be touching less than 1 percent of 1 percent of all edible systems, or 0.01%. The odds of the nids picking our galaxy is already small, and the odds of them being a high-profile threat if they followed logic is ridiculously low, unless they grew to numbers that would be visible from Andromeda. At which point the entire galaxy is buggered anyway.

Again, please stop misrepresenting numbers. There is an estimated 250 Billion stars in the milky way, not 400 billion. 400 Billion is the maximum upper bound and is extremely unlikely to have that much.

I could easily say that for every system with a habitable planet, the Imperium still claims and defends 100 systems. This actually wouldn't be too far off the mark as habitable planets are relatively rare from what we actually know about the universe, and entire systems would probably be strip mined to supply the Imperial war machine. This means roughly 100,000,000 systems are inhabited/claimed by the Imperium out of 250 Billion total. Still not a lot, but that is (1/2,500). Every time the nids invade a system that is a (1/2,500) chance it is an imperial controlled system. With the amount of systems a splinter fleet invades, they would run across humans very quickly, and their finely tuned instincts for seeking out more biomass would take over.

The idea that Tyranids don't use any inorganic materials is wrong. Just because they don't have visible riveted plates of metal on them doesn't mean they don't use those inorganic elements in their biology:

Strangle-vines tightened their grip on the ruins of an Imperial outpost, rendering steel and plastic down to their constituent parts ready for absorption.

p. 42, 3rd edition Tyranid Codex

Curving tusks of adamantium-laced chitin sprout from the Tyranid's head, allowing it to effect a devastating charge.

p. 33, 4th edition Tyranid Codex

However the Tyranids are not purely about just quantity of materials. They are also after genetic material, which they will not get by chomping lifeless asteroids.

Asking why don't they just be harmless autotrophs instead of being predators towards whole planetary ecosystems, is like asking why lions and tigers on Earth don't just eat grass or photosynthesize and make food from sunlight, water, and air when there is so much of it around them. Predators exist because it is a valid strategy to survive and it provides energy in a concentrated form. Autotrophs like plants or herbivores like cattle spend all their time either rooted to the ground photosynthesizing or spending nearly every waking hour grazing.

The Tyranids are a mobile predatory ecosystem that is as much about seizing new genetic resources as quantity of biomass. That's why as a first preference they go consume worlds infected by their Genestealer Cults, because they don't just want lifeless places with organic compounds.

Asking the Hive Mind why it eats others instead of making its own food is like a bacterium asking the same of human. The question may well be meaningless or irrelevant to the Hive Mind. Just as you don't care about the concerns of the bacteria on the food you eat, the Hive Mind does not care about the protests of the individual creatures consumed by its fleets. If the original primordial Tyranids were predators, then being a predator may well be their fundamental nature and the question of "Why?" may have either never occurred to the Hive Mind or dismissed as irrelevant.

Iracundus wrote:
snip

I actually didn't know that Tyranids used inorganic material like that, that is actually really cool to learn. I had thought that all they were after was biological material (aka biomass).

Biological material is made of plenty of inorganic material. We are far more than only carbon. The iron and oxygen in our blood, the calcium in our bones, and of course, the majority of our body mass comes from water, which is an inorganic compound.

The amount of metals in the human body is relatively trace. Even one of the most common, iron, amounts to only about a nail's worth distributed across the entire body. You don't literally eat a nail, but you get the iron in all the other food consumed.

For a Tyranid hive fleet, what counts as a trace amount could still add up to many hundreds of thousands of tons, ultimately spread out among all the ships that constitute the fleet. A few tanks and bases dissolved down and absorbed is the hive fleet getting its trace elements.

However it is fair to assume that the consumption of inorganic elements will require more work and time, and is bound not be as interesting as a world of squeeshy orks or humans. Especially when said inorganic elements has the potential to send you back crying to where you came from with absurd amounts of matter desintegrating firepower. So tye choice for a tyranid hive fleet is easy to make.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
However it is fair to assume that the consumption of inorganic elements will require more work and time, and is bound not be as interesting as a world of squeeshy orks or humans. Especially when said inorganic elements has the potential to send you back crying to where you came from with absurd amounts of matter desintegrating firepower. So tye choice for a tyranid hive fleet is easy to make.

Agreed.

Iracundus wrote:
The amount of metals in the human body is relatively trace. Even one of the most common, iron, amounts to only about a nail's worth distributed across the entire body. You don't literally eat a nail, but you get the iron in all the other food consumed.

For a Tyranid hive fleet, what counts as a trace amount could still add up to many hundreds of thousands of tons, ultimately spread out among all the ships that constitute the fleet. A few tanks and bases dissolved down and absorbed is the hive fleet getting its trace elements.

Tyranids have a far greater amount of metal in their bodies than human beings. Unlike us or any other life form, Tyranids actively reinforce their bodies with metallic composites.

Take ants. Give them a hive mind and the ability to lay eggs for new types of ants the utilize genetics they have consumed to better overcome problems. Obviously the ants will take over the planet in short order, but nothing about that will make them realize the merits of sustainable farming or that re-engineering smallpox would cripple human resistance.

One snippet from the Necron codex actually mentions this.

Page 56, the writeup about Ghost Arks talks about the Charnovokh dynasty which has been besieged by Tyranids on the eastern fringe:

The Overlords of the scattered Charnovokh holdings were swift to realise that where the Tyranids consumed all living tissue, much of the mineral bounty of their prey worlds were left behind.

It goes on to say how they changed their tactics to utilize fleets of Ghost Arks to comb over old battlefields, patching together the broken remains of Necrons and putting them back into service.

Wow that excerpt manages to violate both Tyranid fluff and older Necron fluff. I'm impressed.

I mean, we know what Tyranid consumption does to a world, it not only strips any biomass of it, but also all its atmosphere, all its oceans and a notable percentage of the crust.

But also, Necron stuff comes with inbuilt teleporters to teleport back to the Tomb World in case of terminal manfuction, or in the worst cases disintegrates the Necron. It was both a plot point and a game mechanic that Necrons do not leave remains.

I've never heard of the disintegration part. I thought if you damaged a Necron enough their corpse just stayed there unless someone else moved it.

pm713 wrote:
I've never heard of the disintegration part. I thought if you damaged a Necron enough their corpse just stayed there unless someone else moved it.

They do have acces to such mechanism in order to prevent their secrets from being studied by anyone else.

Honestly I doubt it matters considering everyone elses technologies.

Didn't they self destruct if too far gone at one point in the fluff? And the Imperium were trying to develop a net that stopped communication with the teleporters. I might have misremembered but it was in an old white dwarf when the necrons were new.

pm713 wrote:
Honestly I doubt it matters considering everyone elses technologies.

Well the eldars would be very much interested in it, so ould the taus. The orks don't give a gak and the imperium lags way too far behind though.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Honestly I doubt it matters considering everyone elses technologies.

Well the eldars would be very much interested in it, so ould the taus. The orks don't give a gak and the imperium lags way too far behind though.

Eldar can't use it because all their technology is psychic and if they wanted it they would've taken it ages ago. The Tau probably have no clue how any of it works considering they're about the Imperiums tech level at the moment.

It's entirely possible that they are scavenging parts left behind after phase out. A necron gets its arm or leg cut off, then finished with a seperate blow and has the body phase out but leaves the limb behind. Given how much Nid weaponry is based around physically shredding opponents it isn't hard to imagine. Also afaik the extent to which phase out affects vehicles or canoptek machines (that as of newer fluff aren't Necrons proper) or even structures, deactivated tech, or turrets.

Obviously it COULD be violating fluff and would be far from the first thing, but it takes a decided unwillingness to use imagination to say so outright off such little information

pm713 wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Honestly I doubt it matters considering everyone elses technologies.

Well the eldars would be very much interested in it, so ould the taus. The orks don't give a gak and the imperium lags way too far behind though.

Eldar can't use it because all their technology is psychic and if they wanted it they would've taken it ages ago. The Tau probably have no clue how any of it works considering they're about the Imperiums tech level at the moment.

But it could still be a great way to improve counter tactics, the use of scavenging technology is not only to mimic it.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's entirely possible that they are scavenging parts left behind after phase out. A necron gets its arm or leg cut off, then finished with a seperate blow and has the body phase out but leaves the limb behind. Given how much Nid weaponry is based around physically shredding opponents it isn't hard to imagine. Also afaik the extent to which phase out affects vehicles or canoptek machines (that as of newer fluff aren't Necrons proper) or even structures, deactivated tech, or turrets.

Obviously it COULD be violating fluff and would be far from the first thing, but it takes a decided unwillingness to use imagination to say so outright off such little information

I guess it depends how the pasing-out works. Is the referential point something akin to a "core" inside the Necron's body ? If that's the case, a separated limb won't get phased out. But, since Necrons are made of the so-called "living metal" which has these regenerative and overall weird abilities, can't we imagine that it is actually this metal's signature that is used as a signal for phasing-out and therefor even a torn limb will be phasing out with the main body ?

Engrenages wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's entirely possible that they are scavenging parts left behind after phase out. A necron gets its arm or leg cut off, then finished with a seperate blow and has the body phase out but leaves the limb behind. Given how much Nid weaponry is based around physically shredding opponents it isn't hard to imagine. Also afaik the extent to which phase out affects vehicles or canoptek machines (that as of newer fluff aren't Necrons proper) or even structures, deactivated tech, or turrets.

Obviously it COULD be violating fluff and would be far from the first thing, but it takes a decided unwillingness to use imagination to say so outright off such little information

I guess it depends how the pasing-out works. Is the referential point something akin to a "core" inside the Necron's body ? If that's the case, a separated limb won't get phased out. But, since Necrons are made of the so-called "living metal" which has these regenerative and overall weird abilities, can't we imagine that it is actually this metal's signature that is used as a signal for phasing-out and therefor even a torn limb will be phasing out with the main body ?

Thing is, as far as necron dephasing tech we can only assume things as the fluff, if i'm not mistaken, gives extremely tiny info about it. But your hypothesis since possible.

Whatever might be the secrets of necrn technology, it can only be useful to learn about them through scavenging, especially for their sworn enemies the eldars. On the contrary I wonder what the hive mind could make out of it. Maybe not much since "living metal" isn't to have DNA, which would be necesary for the nids to adapt: it's not like weapons and tactics where the answer is more relevantly formed troops and weapons to specifically counter a menace.

That's another hypothesis to further yours.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Honestly I doubt it matters considering everyone elses technologies.

Well the eldars would be very much interested in it, so ould the taus. The orks don't give a gak and the imperium lags way too far behind though.

Eldar can't use it because all their technology is psychic and if they wanted it they would've taken it ages ago. The Tau probably have no clue how any of it works considering they're about the Imperiums tech level at the moment.

But it could still be a great way to improve counter tactics, the use of scavenging technology is not only to mimic it.

That is a good point.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's entirely possible that they are scavenging parts left behind after phase out. A necron gets its arm or leg cut off, then finished with a seperate blow and has the body phase out but leaves the limb behind. Given how much Nid weaponry is based around physically shredding opponents it isn't hard to imagine. Also afaik the extent to which phase out affects vehicles or canoptek machines (that as of newer fluff aren't Necrons proper) or even structures, deactivated tech, or turrets.

Obviously it COULD be violating fluff and would be far from the first thing, but it takes a decided unwillingness to use imagination to say so outright off such little information

I was thinking the Necrons might be able to deliberately do it to rapidly reassemble units in the field. Maybe it's quicker if they do it that way than if they phase them back to the tomb world for repair?

As for the Tyranids leaving minerals behind, they consume a lot but then again a lot is still left so it's all relative. It's entirely possible that they can't use Necron materials and as such left them (and perhaps they would change their behaviour if the war goes on for sufficiently long and seek to break them down further with acid/whatever even if they can't absorb them).

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's entirely possible that they are scavenging parts left behind after phase out. A necron gets its arm or leg cut off, then finished with a seperate blow and has the body phase out but leaves the limb behind. Given how much Nid weaponry is based around physically shredding opponents it isn't hard to imagine. Also afaik the extent to which phase out affects vehicles or canoptek machines (that as of newer fluff aren't Necrons proper) or even structures, deactivated tech, or turrets.

Obviously it COULD be violating fluff and would be far from the first thing, but it takes a decided unwillingness to use imagination to say so outright off such little information

I was thinking the Necrons might be able to deliberately do it to rapidly reassemble units in the field. Maybe it's quicker if they do it that way than if they phase them back to the tomb world for repair?

As for the Tyranids leaving minerals behind, they consume a lot but then again a lot is still left so it's all relative. It's entirely possible that they can't use Necron materials and as such left them (and perhaps they would change their behaviour if the war goes on for sufficiently long and seek to break them down further with acid/whatever even if they can't absorb them).

Straiht out of memories, phasing out is used primarly to protect the necron remains until they are teleported back to the necopole in order to be repaired. Thus it doesn't occur that they dephase if they actually are able to repair right away on the battlefield. Phase are also used by canoptek wraith so that the can operate and maintain the tomb worlds fully operationnal without having to strip it off: instaad the go directly through the walls. The sam goes for some weapons that by dephsing for very short times literrally ignore the victim's armour and retakes shape within the victim.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's entirely possible that they are scavenging parts left behind after phase out. A necron gets its arm or leg cut off, then finished with a seperate blow and has the body phase out but leaves the limb behind. Given how much Nid weaponry is based around physically shredding opponents it isn't hard to imagine. Also afaik the extent to which phase out affects vehicles or canoptek machines (that as of newer fluff aren't Necrons proper) or even structures, deactivated tech, or turrets.

Obviously it COULD be violating fluff and would be far from the first thing, but it takes a decided unwillingness to use imagination to say so outright off such little information

I was thinking the Necrons might be able to deliberately do it to rapidly reassemble units in the field. Maybe it's quicker if they do it that way than if they phase them back to the tomb world for repair?

As for the Tyranids leaving minerals behind, they consume a lot but then again a lot is still left so it's all relative. It's entirely possible that they can't use Necron materials and as such left them (and perhaps they would change their behaviour if the war goes on for sufficiently long and seek to break them down further with acid/whatever even if they can't absorb them).

Straiht out of memories, phasing out is used primarly to protect the necron remains until they are teleported back to the necopole in order to be repaired. Thus it doesn't occur that they dephase if they actually are able to repair right away on the battlefield. Phase are also used by canoptek wraith so that the can operate and maintain the tomb worlds fully operationnal without having to strip it off: instaad the go directly through the walls. The sam goes for some weapons that by dephsing for very short times literrally ignore the victim's armour and retakes shape within the victim.

I have two qestions on this phasing thing:

1) Why don't the parts just fall through the ground?
2) When phasing weapons enter a target through its armour, what happens to the displaced/replaced matter, and why does that effect not happen to the weapon?

 Selym wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's entirely possible that they are scavenging parts left behind after phase out. A necron gets its arm or leg cut off, then finished with a seperate blow and has the body phase out but leaves the limb behind. Given how much Nid weaponry is based around physically shredding opponents it isn't hard to imagine. Also afaik the extent to which phase out affects vehicles or canoptek machines (that as of newer fluff aren't Necrons proper) or even structures, deactivated tech, or turrets.

Obviously it COULD be violating fluff and would be far from the first thing, but it takes a decided unwillingness to use imagination to say so outright off such little information

I was thinking the Necrons might be able to deliberately do it to rapidly reassemble units in the field. Maybe it's quicker if they do it that way than if they phase them back to the tomb world for repair?

As for the Tyranids leaving minerals behind, they consume a lot but then again a lot is still left so it's all relative. It's entirely possible that they can't use Necron materials and as such left them (and perhaps they would change their behaviour if the war goes on for sufficiently long and seek to break them down further with acid/whatever even if they can't absorb them).

Straiht out of memories, phasing out is used primarly to protect the necron remains until they are teleported back to the necopole in order to be repaired. Thus it doesn't occur that they dephase if they actually are able to repair right away on the battlefield. Phase are also used by canoptek wraith so that the can operate and maintain the tomb worlds fully operationnal without having to strip it off: instaad the go directly through the walls. The sam goes for some weapons that by dephsing for very short times literrally ignore the victim's armour and retakes shape within the victim.

I have two qestions on this phasing thing:

1) Why don't the parts just fall through the ground?
2) When phasing weapons enter a target through its armour, what happens to the displaced/replaced matter, and why does that effect not happen to the weapon?

These are good questions. The fluff is unfortunatly very elusive about that stuff, mostly because it isn't possible in real life so far, thus they fail to provided a logical and satisfying explanation.

Maybe they don't fall through the ground because they ignore things like gravity? So if (with a weapon for example) you push them on purpose, they might, otherwise they just stay where they are. However then why don't necrons just fly about and how do they move under another force (such as the one your grip would apply)? Why don't they get stuck or mixed with the atter they might respawn into as far as the weapons are concerned? Still quite hard to tell.

Secondly, the idea with the weapons is maybe is that they kind of phase out of existence the time they need to go past the armour, and when they get back to existence they work just as usual. It is generally stated that those weapons "flicker in and out of existence". If anymatter is taken out that way, it surely is also either desintegrated, or also displaced to another dimension.

Once again the all phasing stuff is explained as what it does and why it's used for, but not in tems of "scientifc" explanations on how it works. Actually, it even has to do more with pseudo technological sorcery. But that's 40k in its most typical fashion.

Phasing is techno sorcery so there is no real world explanation of how it does what it does, or even what its limitations are.

Harlequins also use phasing in their Harlequin's caress weapon, which allows the user's hand to pass through armor and pluck out the target's heart. Somehow the Harlequin's arm still functions despite part of it being phased out and sticking through the target's armor, yet the hand has to then be able to phase back in enough to rip out the heart, then phase out to pass back out through the armor again. How does the device or Harlequin know what parts or when to trigger or not trigger phasing? No idea. Presumably through its controls, which for the Eldar are likely mental/psychic triggers. Necrons would use their own control systems obviously.

Iracundus wrote:
Phasing is techno sorcery so there is no real world explanation of how it does what it does, or even what its limitations are.

Harlequins also use phasing in their Harlequin's caress weapon, which allows the user's hand to pass through armor and pluck out the target's heart. Somehow the Harlequin's arm still functions despite part of it being phased out and sticking through the target's armor, yet the hand has to then be able to phase back in enough to rip out the heart, then phase out to pass back out through the armor again. How does the device or Harlequin know what parts or when to trigger or not trigger phasing? No idea. Presumably through its controls, which for the Eldar are likely mental/psychic triggers. Necrons would use their own control systems obviously.

Didn't know about Harlequins using it.