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What would motivate Tyranids to actually go out of their way to attack the Necrons? They don't have any biomass, do they? I can think of plenty of reasons as to why Necrons would attack Tyranids (conquering more worlds, eradicating them from a tomb world, etc) but why would the Tyranids seek out Necrons? The only logical reason I can think of would be if the Necrons were in the Tyranids way, stopping them from reaching another source of biomass. I just like to have fluffy reasons behind each of my games, and I'm struggling with explain Necron vs Tyranid games.

Overlords are sometimes known to take living prisoners, if only as bait to draw out another force. Quite possibly an Overlord has decided to take an entire regiment of IG prisoner, along with there weapons and vehicles. The amount of living organisms has drawn the attention of the Hive Mind who were on there way to a neighboring planet that contained living creatures.

Seems to sort of blend in with the fluff. Maybe expand upon that idea? Hoped that helped.

From what I remember of Tyranids, they consume pretty much everything except the bare rock of the planet - one would assume that includes things like structures/vehicles/weapons of whatever is on the planet.

I don't know why, as like you say it's biomass they're after, but it could be that the Hive Mind recognises the power of the Necrons and wants to eliminate another threat to its existence?

Raises interesting questions about what happens when the swarm begins to (try to) devour some of the more bizarre things of 40k like gauss weaponry, regenerating necrons, plasma weaponry cores, c'tan phase weapons, warp spider monofilament etc etc etc...

Well, if the Necrons were on a planet with biomass, then the Tyranids would likely attack the Necrons just because they were in the way.

Aren't necrons like living metal?

TH3FALL3N wrote:Aren't necrons like living metal?

That they are, but the nids don't need to be targeting the crons specifically. I'd say the most likely situation would be that the nids want a given agri- or death-world, and the Necrons just happen to be there too.

Tyranids have in the lore gone out of there way NOT to fight necrons, though whether this was from fear, no biomass to consume, or a necron device that redirected them away, is unclear. Necrons are the perfect counter to nids as far as fluff goes. But the hive mind wants to learn, so it could send a force to find out what this foe is capable of.

It's also possible that the Hive Mind, as a psychic entity, would recognise the potential threat necrons pose in their quest to seperate the Warp from reality. Remember Necron hate psykers?

Were they to succeed, it would probably kill the Hive mind outright. Given that the hive mind seems to have intelligence, it would aggressively attack necrons it knows to be working on that front. It would propably not even register necrons in general however.

This is also the same reason why Daemons and Necrons would ever fight.

I admit to not being an expert, but don't Nids also strip any sort of mineral or ore supply from a planet? This would suggest that they would indeed value, to some extent, metal.

Also, note that the Tyranid adapt based on their enemies, using previous experience to develop biomorphs for just about any situation. With this in mind, is it possible that the nids would hunt down Crons for the sake of battle experience and strategy tips?

Also, nids are rarely known to back down from a fight, even when the resources used are not equal to the biomass obtained. Prime examples would be Macragge (and hive fleet Behemoth tactics in general) as well as the Octavian system war with the orks. Nids will fight because there is an enemy capable of fighting back; we are more than just food, we are prey hunted for sport and sustenance.

Hopefully that gives you some limited starts to developing narrative in Necron v. Nid battles!

Metal is not entirely useless to biological creatures. Remember that human beings benefit from having trace amounts of metal (iron in your blood, for instance).

Not just iron, but calcium in your bones too. I'd imagine the bones of a tyranid hive ship would not be made from anything too similar to bone, and necron alloys might provide what's needed.

NOM NOM NOM......

Thats the only fluff you need to validate anything to do with the Nids.

Milisim wrote:NOM NOM NOM......

Thats the only fluff you need to validate anything to do with the Nids.

Yeah, but there's not much to NOM on your average Necron.
Some ideas:
1) The Necrons are out and about gathering some subjects for their reverse-biotransference tests / The Necrons are protecting a population that shows promise in those same tests.
2) Funky Necron device is messing with the Tyranid's goofy gravity hook thingie that they use for FTL. Hive mind sends in a team to shut it down so the fleet can continue.
3) The climate of the Necron tomb world has changed for the better, green stuff everywhere. Tyranids show up for a snack.
4) Tryazin the Infinite (or whatever his name is) has decided that he wants to create a diorama of the battle for Macragge and he's out collecting models.

Their mummy said they can only nom their humans if they finish nomming all their Necrons first

Well the Necron Codex offers up an easy explanation.

The Necrons are conquering Slave Worlds, they aren't DESTROY ALL LIFE anymore.

imark789 wrote:What would motivate Tyranids to actually go out of their way to attack the Necrons? They don't have any biomass, do they? I can think of plenty of reasons as to why Necrons would attack Tyranids (conquering more worlds, eradicating them from a tomb world, etc) but why would the Tyranids seek out Necrons? The only logical reason I can think of would be if the Necrons were in the Tyranids way, stopping them from reaching another source of biomass. I just like to have fluffy reasons behind each of my games, and I'm struggling with explain Necron vs Tyranid games.

Well Necron assaulting Tyranid is easy...defending Tombworlds, protecting "subject" races, Crypteks who specialize in studying life (like Szeras) wanting to experiment on them and needing test samples.

Tyranids attacking is likely more difficult, but here's some ideas I came up with:

1. The tombworld in question also has a sizable human/kroot/tau/orc population on it. That population actually has a rather large Genestealer cult, who just happened to reach critical mass. The Necrons, being awoken by the Tyranid onslaught, decide to repel the invaders (the other species are cataloged as a non-threat to be cleansed later). Since the Necrons represent the major resistance on the planet, the Tyranids decide to focus on them.

2. Szeras (or another Cryptek) led a force to capture Tyranids for his (its?) studies. His forces managed to capture a creature that had the ability to communicate their distress to the Hive Mind (Hive Tyrant? Norn Queen? Maybe even an immature Hive Ship). Regardless, the other Tyranid forces in the area follow the beacon of the captured creature back to their tombworld.

3. The Hive Mind remembers encountering a race similar to the Necrons previously (unchanged Necrontyr who crossed outside the galaxy while in stasis perhaps?) and sends a probing force to see if the Necrons are the same creatures or not.

4. After encountering a Necron force, the Tyranids determine that some element that they use (perhaps in their construction, or maybe in their weapons) is more effective than another element they are currently using, and since the only way to get it seems to be from eating Necrons...

I realize several of these were already mentioned, but it should give you an idea.

I'd say it probably has more to do with necron getting in the way. Tyranid can't gain by attacking necron, but they can lose by necron attacking them, so it would make sense to sweep away enemies, even if there was no immediate benefit.

As for how they'd actually meet, the most obvious is that a tyranid force was attacking somewhere that just happened to be a tomb world. The tyranid come for the food, and stay for the fight.

daveNYC wrote:

Milisim wrote:NOM NOM NOM......

Thats the only fluff you need to validate anything to do with the Nids.

Yeah, but there's not much to NOM on your average Necron.
Some ideas:
1) The Necrons are out and about gathering some subjects for their reverse-biotransference tests / The Necrons are protecting a population that shows promise in those same tests.
2) Funky Necron device is messing with the Tyranid's goofy gravity hook thingie that they use for FTL. Hive mind sends in a team to shut it down so the fleet can continue.
3) The climate of the Necron tomb world has changed for the better, green stuff everywhere. Tyranids show up for a snack.
4) Tryazin the Infinite (or whatever his name is) has decided that he wants to create a diorama of the battle for Macragge and he's out collecting models.

Except Tyranids aren't there to eat the Necrons (or humans, or Orks, or whoever else is unlucky enough to be inhabiting the planet). There's far, far more to eat from the planet itself. Minerals, liquids, gases (even the atmosphere). They strip a planet down to bare bedrock, leaving absolutely nothing living behind. Those guys defending the planet? A pittance of what they took from the planet itself. Even a so called 'dead' tomb world is still going to have things the Tyranids can turn into biomass, let alone tomb worlds on fertile planets.

The whole point of sending in attack waves is to make sure there's no one there to destroy key Tyranid structures, like digestion pools, capillary towers, spore chimneys, etc. All of which are critical to the digestion of a planets resources, but can be destroyed, hampering the process.

Necrons can now have Empires that include subject races.

Failing to defend them would likely offend the sensabilities of the Overlords (they ae arfter all now Tomb Kings in Spaacccceeee) as well as showing weakness to other Necron rivals

The Tyranids want to eat the Necron Living Metal and break it down to create super Living Metal Carnifexs and Trygons

Maybe the Tyranids have to think they are a threat?

Also, what's to say that the necron aren't the aggressor here?

The necron have their own agenda, and perhaps killing or enslaving nearby tyranid tendrils makes sense to that end.

Nids couldn't get bio mass from Necrons because necrons phase out upon death or explode.

Humans need iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, chromium, potassium and selenium among others. Who knows what a tyranid needs? Who knows how common these elements are scattered about the galaxy? Maybe the necrons have a high percentage of some necessary element the tyranids crave. Eating crons might be like popping vitamins!

Bloodfrenzy187 wrote:Nids couldn't get bio mass from Necrons because necrons phase out upon death or explode.

Phase out to where? eventually they'll have nowhere to run...

Phase out to where? eventually they'll have nowhere to run...

There are millions of Tomb Worlds, and probably tens of millions of monoliths, not to mention the hyper-dimensional facilities the Necrons have secreted away in all sorts of places. The Tyranid have absolutely no capability to access these sorts of places.

Again - the Tyranids don't care if the Necrons phase out and run to another Tomb World. It's exactly what the Tyranids want anyway. They're there for the planet, not the Necrons on it. The Necrons running to another Tomb World allows the digestion of the planet unencumbered.

The whole 'they're here to devour us all' tag that Tyranids have is because for the mast part, organic organisms live on planets. The Devourer of Worlds is there to eat the planet. The people on it are getting eaten because they're in the way.

Right but, here's the thing...

Having a hyper-dimensional fortress anywhere in the galaxy allows the Necrons who deploy it to then project force to another point. So the Tyranids attack Planet A, and kill off the few awakened Necrons there. They phase out to Hyper-Dimensional Fortress B.

All of a sudden, the Tyrandis are mandible-deep in scarab swarms as glowing green portals start opening up across the horizon, each one disgorging a monolith, ten thousand Necron warriors, and the other miscellaneous Necron war-machines, some far-distant Necron Lord having been alerted to the risk by his warriors phasing back to the Hyper-Dimensional Fortress.

Heck, the Deathmarks can shoot people from those pocket-dimensions, and there's nothing the Tyranid can do about it. On a long enough time-line, a pack of Deathmark Assassins could wipe out an entire invasion fleet on their own.

DOOMBREAD wrote:Well, if the Necrons were on a planet with biomass, then the Tyranids would likely attack the Necrons just because they were in the way.

Pretty much.

It isn't just easily recognizable animal forms that the Tyranids eat. They're consuming everything biological. Which might just be part of what the Necrons were standing on. Which, of course, the Necrons aren't going to want the Tyranids to eat and would fight to stop them.

 Psienesis wrote:
All of a sudden, the Tyrandis are mandible-deep in scarab swarms as glowing green portals start opening up across the horizon, each one disgorging a monolith, ten thousand Necron warriors, and the other miscellaneous Necron war-machines, some far-distant Necron Lord having been alerted to the risk by his warriors phasing back to the Hyper-Dimensional Fortress.

Only ten thousand warriors? That is nothing for an invading Tyranid force.

Tyranids vs. Necrons represent "Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object". Reading the fluff in the Nid Codex the only reason Macragge was saved was because the Imperial Battlefleet basically halted the deployment of Nid troops. Only a tiny fraction of what they had made it to the planet's surface. The Imperial Battlefleet basically forced the Nid ships into retreat so they couldn't support the ground forces. EVEN THEN the Ultramarines barely held on. The entire first company was destroyed and along with Titans from the local Legio. It is described that the Tyranids pulled down the Titans like a swam of ants overwhelming a lion. All that was accomplished with a small fraction of the original forces Hive Fleet Behemoth had available.

Personally I see the Necrons being beaten into warp-retreat on every planet that the Nids fight them on. They just don't have the numbers to fight the Nids. Even if a Necron Warrior were able to kill 100 Gaunts before he went down himself it doesn't matter... the numbers are still in favor of the Nids. Same thing described in Starship Troopers (the book... not the movie). A power armored Mobile Infantry Trooper might kill hundreds or thousands of arachnids before he went down but still the bugs were winning the war.

A Necron force can't defend a whole planet at once... while the forces they have are busy fighting the rest of the planet is being gobbled up. It only takes about a week to do it... all the Nids have to do is keep the Crons on the defensive until the planet is consumed. Then the Nids retreat and move on with their stolen biomass while the Necrons are left with a rock.


To the OP...
I'd imagine that the Eldar could have a hand in directing a Tyranid Hive Fleet toward a Necron world. I haven't read the recent Necron Codex but I imagine that it wasn't changed that the Eldar are the oldest enemies of the Necrons. The Eldar could pull a Kryptman and deposit genestealers on a Necron planet with the same idea... have the Hive Fleet home in on their ancient enemies.