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The Tyranids are often made out to be an unstoppable force, with the few victories against them like the battles over Macragge, Iyanden, Valedor, and so forth probably being momentary setbacks for them and, depending on who you ask, the worst is yet to come. But do you think there were historical forces of the galaxy that could have put a stop to them? The united Imperium of Man with all 20 Primarchs still loyal and led by the Emperor? The Ork Empire under the Beast (or the ancient "Krork")? Dark Age of Technology-era Man at the height of its power? The ancient Eldar/Aeldari Empire that according to one Shadowseer could have laughed at most of the above and stomped them? The Old Ones? The Necrons with their BS Celestial Orrery*?

*Technically this is still contemporary, but I included it since I could see this posing a significant threat to the Tyranids.

The only forces that could stand to actually defeat the Tyranids deploying a full scale galactic invasion would be the Orkz. But that's because the Orkz have the numbers and the potential to beat everyone, they just would never come together to do it. Although we don't actually know the full potential of the Tyranid Hive Mind. As far as we know, all of the hive fleets we've seen so far might just be scouting forces.

Either way, through reality warping powers alone, the Orkz could do it with enough numbers. The only problem would be getting them together and on the same side all at once.

As Fafnir said - A united Ork force would do it. Under The Beast would be even better. As for the size of the Ork force that is required? Probably larger than what The Beast had at their disposal during their actual campaign. If all the Orks in the galaxy as of 999.M41 were to unite under a single banner, I'd wager that that'd be enough to do it.

As for other armies:

-- The Men of Iron could probably do it (assuming a reasonable number of STC Machines were active).

-- The largest of the Space Marine Legions (e.g. the Ultramarines) probably could do it, especially if they had the sort of support from the Imperial Army and Adeptus Mechanicus that was typical during the Great Crusade.
-- -- By the same token, either a unified force of the smaller Space Marine Legions or the unified force of all the Space Marine Legions could do it.

-- I think the main problem M41 Space Marines would have trouble is much the same reason that the Orks would struggle - Unification. Not to mention they'd probably need unanimous agreed upon unity and - much like the Space Marine Legions had - the appropriate support from the Imperial Army and the Adeptus Mechanicus.

-- The Eldar before the fall may have been able to do it, but I have no idea since I know nothing about Eldar fluff.

-- Unified Necrons could probably do it, especially since they have no souls, no psykers, and - generally speaking - achieve what psykers do through technology. But just like the Orks, unification is a [pipe dream (if not impossible).

There may be others, but I'm not sure.

In short - There are armies that could do it, but as of the 41st Millennium? There are too many ifs and maybes.

The modern US military, on a planetary scale. The only thing they lack is the ability to travel between planets and stop the orks on a galactic scale.

Ultimately, the Tyranids' main strenght is not their massive numbers, it is their adaptability. Winning a battle against Tyranids is a phyrric victory at best, for it means that the strategies, tactics or weapons you used to win that victory won't work a second time.
Therefore, the only forces that stand a chance against the Tyranids are those capable of out-adapting the Tyranids. If you can come up with tactics or weapons faster than the Tyranids can adapt to them, you stand a good chance of ultimate victory.

Also, the Necrons could win simply because they have so little biomass for the Tyranids to consume, robbing the Tyranids of their advantage of virtually endless numbers.

Anyone who says anything imperium of man has could win is out of their mind.

The only people with the advantages needed to actually win a war of attrition with the nids (and no matter who you are it IS a war of attrition) is the Necrons.

The orks are super numerous, but that is actually their disadvantage. The orks are currently embroiled in a massive war with leviathan and leviathan keeps bait and switching the battlefield while it devours and reuses the biomass. The orks loose numbers that take time to replenish. The nids gain back all the biomass of the fallen nids PLUS the biomass of any fallen orks and can pump out the next generation of nids as quickly as they can be devoured

Necrons on the other hand provide no biomass for the nids to grow their numbers. Cannot be fooled into giving up one battlefield to chance another, have weapons that can destroy the nids bodies on a molecular level and thus deny the nids easy access to the biomass, and have technology that can wink out stars as easily as you swipe your phones touch screen.

Problem is necrons are too split on whether they even give a gak enough to fight the nids. .

The beast and his advanced warggh stands a chance. They had entire battle moons and some very very big orks.

Dark age of tech mankind maybe, they had crazy tech.

Peak necron and eldar empires maybe but tmit would have to one of the empires at height.

The old ones certainly could, they engineered whole races to adapt and combat to a threat. They could have engineered a perfect soldier to fight against the nids

The unified necrons certainly could. With no biomass, being immune to genestealers, and having such devistating weapons it wouldnt be difficult.

The prefall eldar certainly could. The ability to concentrate their forces anywhere they wanted and only fight battles that overwhelmingly favor them would attrit even the nids down. They also fought their battles with constructs that wouldnt leave biomass for the nids to eat.

DAoT humans probably could. Fighting with advanced tech and men of iron.

Big E with all his primarchs probably could. The plot armor is strong.

H R Giger and his legal team. Or maybe the Borg.

On a more serious note- Daemons..They don't have biomass, as I understand it?

looking at how Nids are currently in the fluff, and all the fluff from previous books etc.

Necron Empire, when the crons were at there height.... yeah lol.... nids, it wouldn't even be a challenge for them.

The space marines legions and united imperium, seriously, again this wouldn't even be a struggle, just send the ultrmarines at them, nids have shown that as little as a chapter can stop them, lets see them deal with 650,000 ultramarines lead by RB.... or the World Eaters.

DAOT Humans, same as crons

Pre fall Eldar at there height.... same as above.

I love how so many people put the Orks (with the Beast as prime example) and Mankind as capable and have dounts about the Eldar..

Considering the fact the Eldar consider the Beast as a minor Threat Ork compared with past ones, on the same way they look at the Men of Iron issue with mankind as a minor battle.

Brings quite a colourful note to imagine at what lvl did the Ancient Eldar Empire and the Necros fought each other in the War of Heaven compared with those minor threats.

None of those could stand a chance. It has been explicitly mentionned in both the core rule book of the last three editions and in the last 4 Codex Tyranid. The only chance of the galaxy to defeat the Tyranid is if they ALL unite against them: the Imperium, all the orks Empire, the Taus, all the Eldars, the Necrons, down to all the minor xenos civilisation.

The Necrons are frequently mentionned as offering no biomass, which is true, yet Tyranid will devour them. The alloy of their bodies will be used to create stronger bones, teeths, claws and chitine armors. It will be used to create richer blood. Their power source will fuel more powerful synaptic brains, provide heat, etc. The world on which they stand will provide the biomass. Animals, plants, mushrooms, lichens, bugs, down to unicellular organism will provide the biomass.

It took the entire fleet of a Segmentum to defeat Behemoth (the battle on Maccrage itself is comparatively meaningless) and they did it by the skin of their teeth. Behemoth was ten time smaller than Kraken, which is itself ten time smaller than Leviathan. These are nothing but the scouts.

There is a reason why the Time of Ending starts with the first apperance of a Hive Fleet. It will end with them too.

epronovost wrote:
It took the entire fleet of a Segmentum to defeat Behemoth (the battle on Maccrage itself is comparatively meaningless) and they did it by the skin of their teeth. Behemoth was ten time smaller than Kraken, which is itself ten time smaller than Leviathan. These are nothing but the scouts.

There is a reason why the Time of Ending starts with the first apperance of a Hive Fleet. It will end with them too.

And this sums up why I hate Tyranid fluff. It is still nice to believe that there are forces within the Galaxy (in the material Galaxy or in the Warp) than can defeat them since - for me at least - it balances out the ridiculousness of the idea that the Tyranid forces are unfathomably huge and undeniable unbeatable.

Wouldn't the Necrons sort of be a "hard counter" to a nid invasion? They could just ignore them, let them die out, and rule what's left. Hell, one could do it on its own. Is there any fluff examples of a nid attacking a necron?

the was the old fluff that Nid fleets are flying in a wide arc around Necron worlds

 Lance845 wrote:

The orks are super numerous, but that is actually their disadvantage. The orks are currently embroiled in a massive war with leviathan and leviathan keeps bait and switching the battlefield while it devours and reuses the biomass. The orks loose numbers that take time to replenish. The nids gain back all the biomass of the fallen nids PLUS the biomass of any fallen orks and can pump out the next generation of nids as quickly as they can be devoured .

Unless therrs another area other then the Octaria Empire where Orks and Nids were fighting then the above is not what's happening. When Ghazzy appeared to reinforce the Octaria Orks they wiped out all the nids. Not only did the Nids fail to collect any Ork biomass they also loss all the biomass the nids dedicated to the invasion. Meanwhile, post fight, Orks that died have multiplied, billions of Orks pour in regularly drawn by Ghazzy Waaaagh signal and the Orks that fought and survived are bigger and stronger. They rebuilt up everything and there is so many Orks concentrated together that the weirdboyz got overwhelmed and let off a massive psychic ping felt by all psykers across the galaxy and flickered the Astronomicon. Yes a whole new tendril is coming drawn by that ping but it's certainly no bait and switch, it's the Orks winning Kryptmann's gambit.

epronovost wrote:


The Necrons are frequently mentionned as offering no biomass, which is true, yet Tyranid will devour them. The alloy of their bodies will be used to create stronger bones, teeths, claws and chitine armors. It will be used to create richer blood. Their power source will fuel more powerful synaptic brains, provide heat, etc. The world on which they stand will provide the biomass. Animals, plants, mushrooms, lichens, bugs, down to unicellular organism will provide the biomass.

The whole nid fluff revolves around Biomass, which is rather silly. Humans need biomass, any organism that could harness energy directly; photosynthesis, fusion, or whatever; would not. Plants dont need to consume biomass, they need water and carbon, inorganic compounds.

My answer heavily depends on what is actually true:

- Nids are just "refugees" from another galaxy - in this case, they are comparable to any other major historical force and can be eventually defeated for good by any unified enough faction(s).

- Hive Fleets are only avant-garde of a larger migration from another galaxy, AFTER Nids have devoured it. In this case, Nids are already so numerous, that even Necrons could not stand a chance, because it doesn't really matter if they leave any biomass when defeated, as there will be constant supply of biomass in form of Nid's intergalactic fleets. In this case, Nid's victory is only a matter of time and any faction(s) can only delay what's inevitable. Gaunts simply "mature" faster than humans or orks, so eventually "defenders" numbers will start to decline.

As to Daemons, if I understand the nature of Warp entities correctly, then after all living things in this galaxy will be devoured, Daemons will simply perish? So their strenght will also decline with decreasing numbers of defenders still alive?

 IllumiNini wrote:


And this sums up why I hate Tyranid fluff. It is still nice to believe that there are forces within the Galaxy (in the material Galaxy or in the Warp) than can defeat them since - for me at least - it balances out the ridiculousness of the idea that the Tyranid forces are unfathomably huge and undeniable unbeatable.

I tend to agree that the Tyranid ultimate irresistable strength is a bit of a weakness in design. I also think that their lack of individuality of Tyranids is also a weakness. Frankly they should have developped more on the Genestealer Cults and parasitism instead of the all devouring monsters from behond.

nou wrote:
My answer heavily depends on what is actually true:

- Nids are just "refugees" from another galaxy - in this case, they are comparable to any other major historical force and can be eventually defeated for good by any unified enough faction(s).

- Hive Fleets are only avant-garde of a larger migration from another galaxy, AFTER Nids have devoured it. In this case, Nids are already so numerous, that even Necrons could not stand a chance, because it doesn't really matter if they leave any biomass when defeated, as there will be constant supply of biomass in form of Nid's intergalactic fleets. In this case, Nid's victory is only a matter of time and any faction(s) can only delay what's inevitable. Gaunts simply "mature" faster than humans or orks, so eventually "defenders" numbers will start to decline.

It depends how much energy they used crossing dead space for millennia. The nearest galaxy is 2 million light years from here. The galaxy is only 50,000 light years across. The hive fleets are slow, with humanity first sighting the first 'nid scouts in the 35th millennium and arriving in force in the 41st millennium. How long did they suffer in dead space? 100,000 years? Longer? What percentage of their fleet was just fuel for the trip?

It also depends how many directions they spread in. If they conquered a galaxy and then set off to conquer other galaxies, they probably didnt send everything at 1 galaxy. Lifeforms tend to spread all over, have multiple children and hope some of the survive. They probably split their forces into 5-10 groups and then sent them in different directions.

 Exergy wrote:

nou wrote:
My answer heavily depends on what is actually true:

- Nids are just "refugees" from another galaxy - in this case, they are comparable to any other major historical force and can be eventually defeated for good by any unified enough faction(s).

- Hive Fleets are only avant-garde of a larger migration from another galaxy, AFTER Nids have devoured it. In this case, Nids are already so numerous, that even Necrons could not stand a chance, because it doesn't really matter if they leave any biomass when defeated, as there will be constant supply of biomass in form of Nid's intergalactic fleets. In this case, Nid's victory is only a matter of time and any faction(s) can only delay what's inevitable. Gaunts simply "mature" faster than humans or orks, so eventually "defenders" numbers will start to decline.

It depends how much energy they used crossing dead space for millennia. The nearest galaxy is 2 million light years from here. The galaxy is only 50,000 light years across. The hive fleets are slow, with humanity first sighting the first 'nid scouts in the 35th millennium and arriving in force in the 41st millennium. How long did they suffer in dead space? 100,000 years? Longer? What percentage of their fleet was just fuel for the trip?

It also depends how many directions they spread in. If they conquered a galaxy and then set off to conquer other galaxies, they probably didnt send everything at 1 galaxy. Lifeforms tend to spread all over, have multiple children and hope some of the survive. They probably split their forces into 5-10 groups and then sent them in different directions.

According to fluff they travel in dormant/frozen state and "physically correct" interstellar travel requires no fuel at all after achieving escape velocity. And even if they split forces from one galaxy onto dozen others, even tiny fraction of entire galaxy biomass is enough for Tyranid forces to outnumber entirety of other military forces, because they entire population is "enlisted". And Tyranids "recycle" their own casaulties as well as enemies, so their numbers grow in time unless enough annihilation-level-events occur during campaigns. And if what fluff states about military prowess of the Hive Mind is to be taken as truth, Hive Mind would not send forcess to weak to eventually conquer it's target. And "timetable" of inevitability is not really relevant, only "flow rate" of Hive Fleets appearing in 40K galaxy matter.

But because how IoM-centric 40K is, I suppose the only plausible answer to "who can stop Tyranid invasion" is united SM chapters/IoM

 ProwlerPC wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

The orks are super numerous, but that is actually their disadvantage. The orks are currently embroiled in a massive war with leviathan and leviathan keeps bait and switching the battlefield while it devours and reuses the biomass. The orks loose numbers that take time to replenish. The nids gain back all the biomass of the fallen nids PLUS the biomass of any fallen orks and can pump out the next generation of nids as quickly as they can be devoured .

Unless therrs another area other then the Octaria Empire where Orks and Nids were fighting then the above is not what's happening. When Ghazzy appeared to reinforce the Octaria Orks they wiped out all the nids. Not only did the Nids fail to collect any Ork biomass they also loss all the biomass the nids dedicated to the invasion. Meanwhile, post fight, Orks that died have multiplied, billions of Orks pour in regularly drawn by Ghazzy Waaaagh signal and the Orks that fought and survived are bigger and stronger. They rebuilt up everything and there is so many Orks concentrated together that the weirdboyz got overwhelmed and let off a massive psychic ping felt by all psykers across the galaxy and flickered the Astronomicon. Yes a whole new tendril is coming drawn by that ping but it's certainly no bait and switch, it's the Orks winning Kryptmann's gambit.

This... has not happened yet. In fact, the same rumors that talked about fall of Cadia talked about a story ark that is supposed to be coming out that is a conclusion to/expansion on the Octaria fights. The Nid sources that talk about that fight talk about how they are constantly switching the battleground so the feeder organisms can consume all the dead and replenish. The hive fleet over the planet is swelling with so much biomass from the constant fighting that nid splinter fleets are breaking off and hitting other planets with Nids that are bigger than what most people generally expect because of the way they have adapted to fighting the growing orks.

In conclusion... no?

IllumiNini wrote:

epronovost wrote:
It took the entire fleet of a Segmentum to defeat Behemoth (the battle on Maccrage itself is comparatively meaningless) and they did it by the skin of their teeth. Behemoth was ten time smaller than Kraken, which is itself ten time smaller than Leviathan. These are nothing but the scouts.

There is a reason why the Time of Ending starts with the first apperance of a Hive Fleet. It will end with them too.

And this sums up why I hate Tyranid fluff. It is still nice to believe that there are forces within the Galaxy (in the material Galaxy or in the Warp) than can defeat them since - for me at least - it balances out the ridiculousness of the idea that the Tyranid forces are unfathomably huge and undeniable unbeatable.

Join the club. I always feel the Tyranids are perhaps the most boring of the factions. They have no intrigue, no motivations (Other than food) and no discernable weaknesses that could be exploited by others - at least cultural weakness such as the Imperium, Eldar or Orks may possess. Their only weakness is simply cutting off the food, which hardly intrigues you

nou wrote:

*snip* 'Nids are just "refugees" from another galaxy. *snip

That right there is so deliciously grimdark that I'd love GW to make it canon. As I said above, I consider Tyranids rather boring in that they have no motivation or variation, but the Tyranids themselves are terrifying - parasitic insects that consume all before them, stripping whole systems off all life and leaving only darkness in their wake - but add in the proposition that even such abominations such as they may be fleeing something far worse, some unannounced horror yet to be seen - now that's the pure, unadulterated stuff of nightmares.

I don't like the fluff that tyranids seem to be immune to attrition. So their organisms consume their own dead, plus the dead of their fallen enemies... and that means they end up ahead of where they were before the fight? Only if they harvest their dead and respawn them with 100% efficiency, which isn't possible in reality, and in my opinion shouldn't be possible in the 40k lore.

I don't think it has ever been explicitly said they recycle with 100% efficiency in energy and mass. Normally there are tropic level losses in energy, which on Earth is about 90% loss between levels. That is why for example it takes 10 tons of plants to create 1 ton of herbivore flesh, and in turn it takes about 10 tons of herbivore flesh to create 1 ton of carnivore flesh. So similarly it may take 10 Termagant corpses consumed to recreate 1 Termagant.

However, the Tyranid consumption ecosystem as written back in 3rd edition does get energy inputs from the sun and from geothermal sources, so it is not a closed system. The Tyranid flora apparently has high efficiency photosynthesis, fast growth, and sucks nutrients from the soil quickly. When these Tyranid plants are consumed by Rippers and other consumers it is essentially an energy input, as these Rippers in turn can then be broken down to drive the generation of actual Tyranid combat organisms. The Tyranids access geothermal energy by getting suicidal creatures to drill downwards. We know that extremophile bacteria can thrive in such geothermal springs or hotspots on Earth. Rapid growing Tyranid versions of these would again be another form of energy input when these are consumed to feed the rest of the Tyranid ecosystem.

Tyranids may not be immune to attrition but they utilize resources on a scale beyond most other races. Even Orks are reliant on a technological economy, as they still use guns and ammunition, which still requires Grots to mine and refine the raw materials. No, a Tech-Priest mistakenly believing their gear only works because of belief does not make it so, as evidenced by the fact that human Ork Hunters on Armageddon were able to use captured Ork guns. Tyranids use all the unproductive lands like barren wastelands and tundra that other races leave unutilized, as even those lands have biomass that can be used and harnessed. It appears it takes far less time for the Tyranid flora to establish itself in an area and start leaching it dry of nutrients than it takes for humans to establish a productive mine for example.

War detritus is also digested. The 3rd edition Tyranid Codex described Tyranid flora breaking down the steel and plastic ruins of an Imperial outpost for absorption. By contrast, the Tyranid dead are effectively useless to the enemy, save perhaps as firewood. Tyranid dead cannot be used as food because again the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex describes them as being infested with smaller Tyranid organisms (like mites or bacteria) that sicken anything that consumes them.

A human without technology does not pose much of a threat to a Tyranid. An Ork without weapons poses more threat but Tyranid combat organisms still generally are superior or more numerous. All the technological societies require civilians to support their war production, whether this be Grots or hive city workers, and discrete fixed infrastructure like factories and mines. The Tyranids don't really have this supply vulnerability for their on-planet forces. Rather they appear to be more decentralized. Sure there are digestion pools but destroying one does not appear to break supply chains in the way that destroying a critical factory can for other races.

Pretty much all the major victories against Tyranids in the fluff have ultimately boiled down to defeating them in space and then mopping up remaining disorganized ground forces, not defeating them in a face to face ground war because once they make planetfall, they start utilizing the entire planet's biosphere's energy content. Unless all Tyranids are completely wiped out on the surface (which is extremely hard to do), they hide away until they regenerate new forces in out of the way hard to monitor places. Eventually they either wear down the enemy or grow to sufficient size that they can overwhelm the enemy. That is precisely what they did on Gorala in the 5th edition Tyranid Codex to defeat the Orks.

Daemons fought Tyranids and were noted as struggling due to the effect of the Hive Minds shadow in the Warp.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
I don't like the fluff that tyranids seem to be immune to attrition. So their organisms consume their own dead, plus the dead of their fallen enemies... and that means they end up ahead of where they were before the fight? Only if they harvest their dead and respawn them with 100% efficiency, which isn't possible in reality, and in my opinion shouldn't be possible in the 40k lore.

If they win, devour everything on the planet including their own dead and the enemy dead they end up ahead because they've eaten gained biomass. In space even if they boarded and eat the crew of enemy ships they may well lose biomass overall.

Iracundus wrote:I don't think it has ever been explicitly said they recycle with 100% efficiency in energy and mass. Normally there are tropic level losses in energy, which on Earth is about 90% loss between levels. That is why for example it takes 10 tons of plants to create 1 ton of herbivore flesh, and in turn it takes about 10 tons of herbivore flesh to create 1 ton of carnivore flesh. So similarly it may take 10 Termagant corpses consumed to recreate 1 Termagant.

It's plied in at least one place. I forget what codex but it states that when Tyranid Hive Fleets cross paths they tend to fight and consume each other and that the winner essentially becomes the size of both combined.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
I don't like the fluff that tyranids seem to be immune to attrition. So their organisms consume their own dead, plus the dead of their fallen enemies... and that means they end up ahead of where they were before the fight? Only if they harvest their dead and respawn them with 100% efficiency, which isn't possible in reality, and in my opinion shouldn't be possible in the 40k lore.

If they win, devour everything on the planet including their own dead and the enemy dead they end up ahead because they've eaten gained biomass. In space even if they boarded and eat the crew of enemy ships they may well lose biomass overall.

Iracundus wrote:I don't think it has ever been explicitly said they recycle with 100% efficiency in energy and mass. Normally there are tropic level losses in energy, which on Earth is about 90% loss between levels. That is why for example it takes 10 tons of plants to create 1 ton of herbivore flesh, and in turn it takes about 10 tons of herbivore flesh to create 1 ton of carnivore flesh. So similarly it may take 10 Termagant corpses consumed to recreate 1 Termagant.

It's plied in at least one place. I forget what codex but it states that when Tyranid Hive Fleets cross paths they tend to fight and consume each other and that the winner essentially becomes the size of both combined.

The two fleets fight and the winner consumes the loser, but that is still energy loss though maybe not loss in actual mass. Now granted, if they fight on a planet, there is the planet's biomass/energy content to offset any such loss. Tyranid ships in space, have the option in BFG of having additional vanes gathering sunlight and this leads to faster movement, so we know Tyranid ships can and do use sunlight as an energy source.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
It's plied in at least one place. I forget what codex but it states that when Tyranid Hive Fleets cross paths they tend to fight and consume each other and that the winner essentially becomes the size of both combined.

IOW "GW doesn't understand thermodynamics".

 Peregrine wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
It's plied in at least one place. I forget what codex but it states that when Tyranid Hive Fleets cross paths they tend to fight and consume each other and that the winner essentially becomes the size of both combined.

IOW "GW doesn't understand thermodynamics".

Well it's possible they understand the 1st law. The 2nd and 3rd, not so much.