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I've always wondere how... has anyone got any ideas about this?

They don't. They absorb biomass and DNA, and certain organisms are capable of using it to create new Tyranids. There is no mating.

When a mummy 'nid and a daddy 'nid love each other very much...

SilverMK2 wrote:When a mummy 'nid and a daddy 'nid love each other very much...

/facepalm.

But yeah, they don't mate. After absorbing Biomass, the Norn Queens experiment about a bit, crap out a few eggs, then the Queens and the Dominatrixes just create at will iirc.

Where Troy Mclure when you need him...

'And they didn't give in to their raging hormones....'

Female Tyranids are interested in sex only about 8 to 12 hours in a year!  To court a female during the short mating season, a male Tyranid stands up on his hind legs, waddles up to her, and then sprays her with a huge stream of urine from as far as 6 inches away, and drenches his would-be paramour from head to foot!

If the female wasn’t impressed, she’ll scream and shake off the urine.  But, if she is ready, then she’ll rear up to expose her spike-less underbelly and let the male mount her from the behind (that’s the only safe position for Tyranids!). Once mating begins, the female is insatiable: she forces the male to mate many times until he is thoroughly exhausted. If he gets tired too quickly, she will leave him for another male!

Spawning pools \o/

But you, no mating with nids, ya pervert.

Kilkrazy wrote:Female Tyranids are interested in sex only about 8 to 12 hours in a year!  To court a female during the short mating season, a male Tyranid stands up on his hind legs, waddles up to her, and then sprays her with a huge stream of urine from as far as 6 inches away, and drenches his would-be paramour from head to foot!

If the female wasn’t impressed, she’ll scream and shake off the urine.  But, if she is ready, then she’ll rear up to expose her spike-less underbelly and let the male mount her from the behind (that’s the only safe position for Tyranids!). Once mating begins, the female is insatiable: she forces the male to mate many times until he is thoroughly exhausted. If he gets tired too quickly, she will leave him for another male!

...



I think Japan has broken your mind

Genestealers "reproduce" through implantation into a host; these then become hybrids, and eventually (after a few generations) you will start to get purestrain 'stealers again.

But this is because 'stealers are....unusual as far as Tyranids are concerned.

Other than that -theyre all neuter, even the "queen" doesnt need a male at any point.

Recently GW mated them with Cruddace and the result was an abortion...

most recent 'nid codex page 38 Hormagaunts
"Furthermore unlike MOST other tyranid bioforms, Hormagaunts are able to reproduce indipendently"
The important word here is most.

In that case, I just don't want to know, it be nasty.

Gwar! wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Female Tyranids are interested in sex only about 8 to 12 hours in a year!  To court a female during the short mating season, a male Tyranid stands up on his hind legs, waddles up to her, and then sprays her with a huge stream of urine from as far as 6 inches away, and drenches his would-be paramour from head to foot!

If the female wasn’t impressed, she’ll scream and shake off the urine.  But, if she is ready, then she’ll rear up to expose her spike-less underbelly and let the male mount her from the behind (that’s the only safe position for Tyranids!). Once mating begins, the female is insatiable: she forces the male to mate many times until he is thoroughly exhausted. If he gets tired too quickly, she will leave him for another male!

...
I think Japan has broken your mind

Japan is an abyss, from which pour the sorrows of the world. It twists a man's soul, and any who enter will find themselves changed and unrecognizable from what they once were when they first stepped into the gaping maw of oblivion. Although they are unchanged physically, but at their core they rot like the Denmark of old, these "Gaijin", as they are called for they are no longer human. Malice flows from them like the winds that blow from the river Phlegethon, an aura of half-rotted decay and unheard cries for mercy made piquant by the stench of boiling flesh. No good has ever come from the land of the rising sun. Except FFXIII.

Umm okay why would you want to know about said ritual?? Do i detected a Xeno lover lurking inside you??

Hormagaunts reproduce by laying eggs so that by the time they've died, a fresh new wave is ready to assault the enemy. As to how they do it, they're bio-engineered killing machines; I very much doubt they need to get it on with an other hormagaunt. They don't mate.

True. Nowhere does it say it is sexual reproduction, it could as easily be Asexual reproduction.

I sincerely hope it's asexual. I don't need the hideous mental images.

Well when Tyranids visit the local bar, they have a few drinks, one thing leads to another... and then a male Tyranid is found chewing his arm off in the morning.

It is similar to how Leman Russ tanks mate to reproduce

New Leman Russes tend to appear overnight in IG hangars without anyone knowing how they got there. Some say that Creed is behind this, but that's just a rumor.

Creed is accounted for many things, but him mating Leman Russ tanks is a new one to me

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:I sincerely hope it's asexual. I don't need the hideous mental images.

Oh boy, just wait until you see what I can dig up from 4chan.

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:I sincerely hope it's asexual. I don't need the hideous mental images.

Oh boy, just wait until you see what I can dig up from 4chan.

tried crap like dat b4, all failures.......

No. Nonononono. Nono. Please, christjesus no....

Kroothawk wrote:Creed is accounted for many things, but him mating Leman Russ tanks is a new one to me

In hangars that is. Now, on the battlefield, in the midst of a war, that would take some kind of tactical genius....

*Opens envelope* And the Wierdest Thread of the Year Award goes to... THIS THREAD!!!

This thread contains....

EXTRA HERESY!!!

In my personal "screw the conventional background" background for Tyranids, they have a more conventional eusocial reproductive structure except that the Tyrant of a particular Hive or Fleet has a harem of reproductive-caste Tyranids that produce Rippers, the larval stage of the Tyranid life-cycle. Then, depending on the needs of the Hive or Fleet, the larvae are raised as the required caste.

I still haven't figured out how the Tervigons fit into this structure since they poop out Termagants, but my thought was that they were non-reproductives that forms a pouch into which eggs are laid, larvae hatch and mature, as the battlefield morph of the otherwise sessile caste that acts like an 'axolotl incubator'.

Much like most "genetically modified" crop products are actually chemically treated to turn on/off certain genes, the Tyranids treat their offspring with chemicals, hormones, and psychic flesh-crafting to create the various castes. Spore mines, for example, are eggs that don't hatch like ordinary eggs would, but instead develop in the explosive spores that Like wasps this ovipositor. But of all the castes only the Warrior morph has an ovipositor that functions reproductively as well as a weapon. If a Hive's Tyrant is killed then a senior Warrior assumes the Tyranny, and both contributes his genes to the Hive and guides their development and expression, perhaps innovating, and either building his sire's dominion, or likewise falling to alien attacks, attacks from neighboring Hives, or corruption from the Powers of Chaos.

No mating, what-so ever. Just biomass. Unless you break fluff. YOU HERETIC!

Its not GRIMDARK to love-make and Rape is not PG therefore Tyranids have a some stalk creature (lictor?), who delivers baby Hive tyrants and carnifexs.. As for Gaunts they come from the Tervigon patch.

That concludes todays lesson.. Tommorrow is Omnomnomnom 101.