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according to fluff, a really disciplined Imperium crew can fire and reload one Nova cannon in 30minutes.
bearing this in mind, how common are Nova cannons? and how long would this take? also, a Nova cannon shot (the most powerful the Imperium can muster) is not a one-hit-kill on a hive ship...i would love it if it were so, but it isnt unfortunately


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otherwise, this is pretty much how the IoM fights Nids in space, hit em, keep hittin em, and aim mostly for the Hive ships

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

Revenent Reiko wrote:unfortuntely not, the Hive Ships are followed/covered by spores and defending drone creatures which serve to stop many if not all enemy munitions. So, a single projectile would be stopped far short of its target.
There is also an example in the fluff of special drones which fire arcs of lightning at an Imperial shell (from a Nova cannon) and strip its outer casing, causing the charge to ignite (Courage and Honour i think)

Couldn't you just fire enogh that eventually one will slip thorugh, I know it wouldn't be that efficient but the Imperium as a whole isn't.

Of cource you can. It's an organic shield. As long as you keep hitting it and destroying the spores, eventually the ship will run out or they will be dying faster than it can replenish them. However, the same can be done to void shields. Keep hitting them and eventually you're going to make a weak point and break through.

The Tyranid spore shield has the benefit of not catastrophically collapsing and further damaging the ship like a void shield can. Though I'd expect the spore shield to be weaker to things like lances or melta cannons, anything that burns through organics. Torpedos and anything using some kind of munition can be blocked by a spore running into it before the ship does, but a lance would likely burn right through. Though by the time a Tyranid ship is that close, you'd want it to be pretty close to dead because it bites your ship in half.

-Loki- wrote:

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

Revenent Reiko wrote:unfortuntely not, the Hive Ships are followed/covered by spores and defending drone creatures which serve to stop many if not all enemy munitions. So, a single projectile would be stopped far short of its target.
There is also an example in the fluff of special drones which fire arcs of lightning at an Imperial shell (from a Nova cannon) and strip its outer casing, causing the charge to ignite (Courage and Honour i think)

Couldn't you just fire enogh that eventually one will slip thorugh, I know it wouldn't be that efficient but the Imperium as a whole isn't.

Of cource you can. It's an organic shield. As long as you keep hitting it and destroying the spores, eventually the ship will run out or they will be dying faster than it can replenish them. However, the same can be done to void shields. Keep hitting them and eventually you're going to make a weak point and break through.

The Tyranid spore shield has the benefit of not catastrophically collapsing and further damaging the ship like a void shield can. Though I'd expect the spore shield to be weaker to things like lances or melta cannons, anything that burns through organics. Torpedos and anything using some kind of munition can be blocked by a spore running into it before the ship does, but a lance would likely burn right through. Though by the time a Tyranid ship is that close, you'd want it to be pretty close to dead because it bites your ship in half.

I find the way Tyranid space combat is carried out almost comical. I love the image of these super advanced space-craft just being bitten in half by actual jaws of some massive creature.

Which spits at you first and is constantly followed by its mutating babies...

I just attacking anything near sol they would face most of the space marine chapters and if they got to terra by some miracle and defeated all the forces on the ground they have to get by the religious zealots on terra. so eventually they nids would run out of bugs. but thats a big if they get past the defenses.


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I mean the nova cannons on the orbital platforms would kill the bugs.

Nova cannons hurt.....

samtheking wrote:I just attacking anything near sol they would face most of the space marine chapters and if they got to terra by some miracle and defeated all the forces on the ground they have to get by the religious zealots on terra. so eventually they nids would run out of bugs. but thats a big if they get past the defenses.

Why would they face most of the Space marine chapters? Most of them are based nowhere near Terra, and the shadow in the warp would make warping in to help so unreliable that a lot of forces would come out nowhere near Terra.

That said, the Imperium should probably let a Tyranid vanguard reach Terra. Why are they scared? It would be beneficial. They know the Tyranids avoided the dyson sphere because there was nothing they could consume. If a vanguard of Tyranids hit Terra, they'd tell the hive mind to forget it - there's nothing useful on the planet, just a few billion humans, which is not worth expending the biomass to get to. Nearly all of the useful biomass they get comes from the planet itself, and Terra has practically nothing left on the surface bar a giant city. It's practically a tombworld. Let a vanguard get in, and save themselves the trouble.

-Loki- wrote:

samtheking wrote:I just attacking anything near sol they would face most of the space marine chapters and if they got to terra by some miracle and defeated all the forces on the ground they have to get by the religious zealots on terra. so eventually they nids would run out of bugs. but thats a big if they get past the defenses.

Why would they face most of the Space marine chapters? Most of them are based nowhere near Terra, and the shadow in the warp would make warping in to help so unreliable that a lot of forces would come out nowhere near Terra.

That said, the Imperium should probably let a Tyranid vanguard reach Terra. Why are they scared? It would be beneficial. They know the Tyranids avoided the dyson sphere because there was nothing they could consume. If a vanguard of Tyranids hit Terra, they'd tell the hive mind to forget it - there's nothing useful on the planet, just a few billion humans, which is not worth expending the biomass to get to. Nearly all of the useful biomass they get comes from the planet itself, and Terra has practically nothing left on the surface bar a giant city. It's practically a tombworld. Let a vanguard get in, and save themselves the trouble.

Never thought of this. Looking at orbital pictures of terra there is so much pollution you cannot see the ground and even if you could there are no oceans (which is insane amounts of resources by the way.) The ONLY thing there is the amount of humans and the Emperor, however the emperor being there would push the Hivemind to try to invade maybe?

No useful biomass on Terra? Exactly how do we measure the 'usefulness' of the Emperor's DNA?

I would sacrifice a thousand Behemoths to get a single chromosome.

Asherian Command wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:The Hive Fleet would also instantly react and grow Acid Resistant carapaces on all their ships.

What about the Life eater virus?

the Ordo Xeno is horrendously afraid that the Nids would be able to absorb the Life Eater virus and use it against them.


its a risk they can't afford to take. the Nids have been able to absorb other Imperial Bio weaponry so they don't want to risk it.


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lindsay40k wrote:No useful biomass on Terra? Exactly how do we measure the 'usefulness' of the Emperor's DNA?

I would sacrifice a thousand Behemoths to get a single chromosome.

Genetically, the Emperor is just a human.


it was his psychic powers that made him special.


his soul was created when every Human Psyker(Shamens at the time) commited mass suicide so they could all be born into one body. after that, the new Emperor was able to make his body immortal with his own psychic powers, but on a genetic level he would still be human.

Thing is - and I realise we're risking another threadjack here, but heck this is a 'fun' thread as far as I'm concerned - psykers are mutants, aren't they? Their powers are phenotypes arising from their genotypes, aren't they? These psykers/shaman would therefore have had to craft a body physiologically capable of bearing the sum of their powers - in other words, bearing all of their psychic mutations and perhaps more?

Just give me one of those genomes. The Doom of Terra will eat Tzeentch for breakfast

Psychic powers are more of a mutation of the soul.

just like Blanks are Soulless and are able to harness negative warp energy(the most powerful ones like the Culexus anyway)


a psyker has a different soul from a normal human, but that is the only difference AFAIK

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Psykers
there is some mention of it being an actual biological mutation, but its not explained very well im afraid.
could easily go either way

yeah, i saw that, but it doesn't say its a Biological one.

the Navigator gene is a biological mutation though.


not really enough information either way.

oops i meant to put the link on for The Assignment scale.
Theres mention that with the Alpha and Beta 'class' (not to mention Alpha-plus) psykers, humans do not possess the necessary evolutionary developement. Makes me think its biological at least, but hey ho, still not enough to go on.
heres the link btw
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Assignment

lindsay40k wrote:No useful biomass on Terra? Exactly how do we measure the 'usefulness' of the Emperor's DNA?

I would sacrifice a thousand Behemoths to get a single chromosome.

You're not thinking like a Tyranid. They're not trying to make themselves better - they've already transcended mortality and mechanical aids, and have become the perfect biological life form, controlled by the most powerful psychic entity ever - their collective consiousness. They just want to feed. There's very little on Terra to actually feed on. In fact, the closer they get to Terra, the less biomass there is to feed on. It makes as much sense attacking Terra as it does a tomb world.

-Loki- wrote:

lindsay40k wrote:No useful biomass on Terra? Exactly how do we measure the 'usefulness' of the Emperor's DNA?

I would sacrifice a thousand Behemoths to get a single chromosome.

You're not thinking like a Tyranid. They're not trying to make themselves better - they've already transcended mortality and mechanical aids, and have become the perfect biological life form, controlled by the most powerful psychic entity ever - their collective consiousness. They just want to feed. There's very little on Terra to actually feed on. In fact, the closer they get to Terra, the less biomass there is to feed on. It makes as much sense attacking Terra as it does a tomb world.

Every single invasion of a militarised settlement involves an initial biomass deficit as expendable organisms are thrown at the defenders to deplete their ammo and isolate them. As long as you've got a renewable energy source (Sol), you can just recycle your own bodies to balance the biomass budget. At the theatre level, the Hive Mind has been observed to make massive sacrifices for long-term gain - and to intelligently understand the need and means to disrupt prey social organisations. The Hive Mind has had so many Lictors and Genestealers assimilate senior military personnel, it's very unlikely to be unaware that the massive HERE WE ARE beacon screaming at the warp from Terra is a pretty important part of its second most numerous prey's ability to organise to defend itself.

The fact that the Tyranids continue to evolve and assimilate other species' DNA proves that they are far from finished developing. The two questions this thread needs to resolve are:

- Does the Hive Mind consciously and actively hunt for exceptional organisms to assimilate, or does it drift towards inhabited worlds on autopilot and look through the goodies it finds?

- Does the Hive Mind's strategy of bringing down prey social structures from within go beyond siccing Lictors on commanders in warzones and giving Genestealers the imperative to spread, or does it have a wider understanding of the societies on which it predates?

If either question can have the latter answer, then the Hive Mind has the potential to see the Emperor's DNA and/or the snuffing of the Astronomicon as a high priority objective. Those are two 'win buttons' waiting to be pressed, only question is if they are visible to the Hive Mind's perception.

1 - eat Emperor's body
2 - spawn the Doom of Terra
3 - mindjack the psykers powering the Astronomicon
4 - disable entire warp fleet
5 - almighty ruck between Swarmlord and Doomie versus newly reincarnated Emperor

lindsay40k wrote:Every single invasion of a militarised settlement involves an initial biomass deficit as expendable organisms are thrown at the defenders to deplete their ammo and isolate them. As long as you've got a renewable energy source (Sol), you can just recycle your own bodies to balance the biomass budget. At the theatre level, the Hive Mind has been observed to make massive sacrifices for long-term gain - and to intelligently understand the need and means to disrupt prey social organisations. The Hive Mind has had so many Lictors and Genestealers assimilate senior military personnel, it's very unlikely to be unaware that the massive HERE WE ARE beacon screaming at the warp from Terra is a pretty important part of its second most numerous prey's ability to organise to defend itself.

The Tyranids operate at a massive biomass deficit. They don't get their useful biomass from bodies, they get it from the over-reproductive planetary flora which is caused by the initial pahse of the invasion - filling the atmosphere with spores that cause the planetary flora to explosively reproduce. The fact that bodies of defenders and attackers alike are killed in a variety of ways that would make their reabsorbtion very difficult means that relying on the bodies of the slain to replace themselves is very stupid. Bodies are frequently burned to ash, blown into peices and scattered over a huge area or simply vaporised by large explosions, which makes it very difficult to reclaim the biomass.

What does Terra lack in its entirety? Planetary flora. It doesn't even have oceans. It's a barren, dry husk of a world covered in an enormous city made of processed minerals and ores. There's nothing for the Tyranids to actually use to not only replenish biomass during the attack, but replace said losses after the attack. Terra is a terrible target for a race that just wants to absorb biomass.

lindsay40k wrote:The fact that the Tyranids continue to evolve and assimilate other species' DNA proves that they are far from finished developing. The two questions this thread needs to resolve are:

- Does the Hive Mind consciously and actively hunt for exceptional organisms to assimilate, or does it drift towards inhabited worlds on autopilot and look through the goodies it finds?

Are you going by new or old fluff? Old fluff they didn't actively seek out new DNA for the sake of new evolutions. They evolved new creatures to overcome obstacles. It's not a question of them looking for new things to make, its them making new things to make feeding easier.

Going by new fluff, they don't do it at all. They've had all their creatures since they entered the galaxy, so this question is moot anyway now.

lindsay40k wrote:- Does the Hive Mind's strategy of bringing down prey social structures from within go beyond siccing Lictors on commanders in warzones and giving Genestealers the imperative to spread, or does it have a wider understanding of the societies on which it predates?

Lictors don't, and have never, brought down societies from within like Genestealers. They land, assess biomass and defense levels, and call in the cavalry. Even the Deathleaper strain doesn't, it's basically a terror weapon.

Genestealers are actually strange in that they actively avoid the hive mind. They're independant creatures. Whether bringing down societies from within was a planned feature of Genestealers is pretty unknown, since they go out of they way to not share any intelligence they gained from the hive mind by fleeing a planet before the hive fleet arrives.

lindsay40k wrote:If either question can have the latter answer, then the Hive Mind has the potential to see the Emperor's DNA and/or the snuffing of the Astronomicon as a high priority objective. Those are two 'win buttons' waiting to be pressed, only question is if they are visible to the Hive Mind's perception.

1 - eat Emperor's body
2 - spawn the Doom of Terra
3 - mindjack the psykers powering the Astronomicon
4 - disable entire warp fleet
5 - almighty ruck between Swarmlord and Doomie versus newly reincarnated Emperor

This method of shutting down the astronomican is needlessly complex. If all they want to do is shut it down, they just need to sit in Sols Oort cloud and throw billions of huge asteroids at Earth. They'd eventually level the throne room. And if they knew about and wanted to get to the Emperor for his DNA, they certainly haven't been showing tactics of a race approacing from outside the galaxy who wanted to do that. They wouldn't have bothered approaching from any direction but the shortest, above and below the galactic plane, and hit Sol with everything they had.

Genetically, the Emperor is just a human.

No, his DNA IS special. He was like a space marine without going through all the stuff to become one. And that still is not a fair representation of what he really is.

xXSir MontyXx wrote:

Genetically, the Emperor is just a human.

No, his DNA IS special. He was like a space marine without going through all the stuff to become one. And that still is not a fair representation of what he really is.

His DNA is special in that he was immortal. He is a human, albeit an immortal human with unprecedented psychic might, born from a mortal, since he's every old shaman reincarnated, and reincarnated people are souls of someone else in a new body. Well, according to old fluff which I don't think has been refuted.

He isn't like a space marine at all - the primarchs were him attempting to scientifically create beings close to his level of power, and space marines were created from them. But nothing has been said about all the extra organs and things being in him - he didn't need all of that, since again, he was born immortal.

-Loki- wrote:

xXSir MontyXx wrote:

Genetically, the Emperor is just a human.

No, his DNA IS special. He was like a space marine without going through all the stuff to become one. And that still is not a fair representation of what he really is.

His DNA is special in that he was immortal. He is a human, albeit an immortal human with unprecedented psychic might, born from a mortal, since he's every old shaman reincarnated, and reincarnated people are souls of someone else in a new body. Well, according to old fluff which I don't think has been refuted.

He isn't like a space marine at all - the primarchs were him attempting to scientifically create beings close to his level of power, and space marines were created from them. But nothing has been said about all the extra organs and things being in him - he didn't need all of that, since again, he was born immortal.

Exactly, as i said he didnt have to go through anything to be imortal like a space marine. (augmentations)