How does Tyranids fight Emperor Class Titans?

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**roboemperor**

If we're talking about spindly legs, how the hell does the ground support the bio-titan's spindly legs instead of them sinking into the earth like a giant dagger with a bajillion tons pressing down on them?

What gives Tyranids the ability to ignore physics and stay above the ground with a bio-titan's weight bearing down on 4 sharp points?

XD

**Overread**

roboemperor wrote:
If we're talking about spindly legs, how the hell does the ground support the bio-titan's spindly legs instead of them sinking into the earth like a giant dagger with a bajillion tons pressing down on them?

What gives Tyranids the ability to ignore physics and stay above the ground with a bio-titan's weight bearing down on 4 sharp points?

XD

The same thing that allows a Space Marine to operate with shoulderpads so huge that they can't move their arms much for close combat; or allows a Thunderhawk to fly; or allows an Ork to be smart enough to build a gargant .

Also its often said that Tyranids are not typically all that "heavy". Whilst they have a bulky exterior (which has grown increasingly more bulky over the years) they are often also shown to be quite gassy. Those vents on their backs are typically spewing out gases of various kinds. Meanwhile they've superior evolution to the point where they can likely achieve greater muscle power and bone strength with reduced weight. Ego it might be bone but its not our kinda bone.

It's like mithril - harder and tougher than steel but lighter by far making it the ultimate chain link in fantasy settings - tryanids just have biological mithril.

**pm713**

Overread wrote:
roboemperor wrote:
If we're talking about spindly legs, how the hell does the ground support the bio-titan's spindly legs instead of them sinking into the earth like a giant dagger with a bajillion tons pressing down on them?

What gives Tyranids the ability to ignore physics and stay above the ground with a bio-titan's weight bearing down on 4 sharp points?

XD

The same thing that allows a Space Marine to operate with shoulderpads so huge that they can't move their arms much for close combat; or allows a Thunderhawk to fly; or allows an Ork to be smart enough to build a gargant .

Also its often said that Tyranids are not typically all that "heavy". Whilst they have a bulky exterior (which has grown increasingly more bulky over the years) they are often also shown to be quite gassy. Those vents on their backs are typically spewing out gases of various kinds. Meanwhile they've superior evolution to the point where they can likely achieve greater muscle power and bone strength with reduced weight. Ego it might be bone but its not our kinda bone.

It's like mithril - harder and tougher than steel but lighter by far making it the ultimate chain link in fantasy settings - tryanids just have biological mithril.

IIRC they also don't have the same amount of organs as we do because most of them don't eat for sustenance so that probably cuts down on weight.

**Matt Swain**

Dan Abnett's "titan" comic has titans fighting nids. Might want to look it up. I think you can read it free on some online comics sites. It was in the inferno comic series.

**Vermis**

Hellebore wrote:When the EPIC Armageddon experimental lists were released for necrons, tyranids etc, they did have a couple of very rough sketches for some of the units in them.

There MIGHT have been a Hydraphant sketch, but at the time they were just saying 'use the old hierodule as the new heirophant and the old heirophant as the new hydraphant'.

So I imagine it would look pretty similar to a bigger version of the FW hierophant...

Ah, okay. I take it 'new hierodules' were conversions or custom sculpts based on the FW hierodule?

Overread wrote:Most of the ones I've seen the builders tend to either go nuts putting metal rods all into the legs and/or they put some trees/bodies under the lower point of the body to put a support peg there. In resin 4 very long very thing legs holding up a solid central chunk of resin body is just - well - sheer madness.

Well there you go, then.

(or plastic resin hybrid which GW has done before with the Warpfire Dragon - poor critter that got removed).

It got put down due to severe congenital deformities.

roboemperor wrote:If we're talking about spindly legs, how the hell does the ground support the bio-titan's spindly legs instead of them sinking into the earth like a giant dagger with a bajillion tons pressing down on them?

What gives Tyranids the ability to ignore physics and stay above the ground with a bio-titan's weight bearing down on 4 sharp points?

XD

Rule of cool.

I can pick at creature designs all day long, but I think the important thing is is that the designs makes it look natural, that it looks good and looks like it could function. As opposed to going into all kinds of complicated biophysics to make a thing that could actually function. In which case half the monsters in sci-fi and fantasy would disappear in a puff of dreariness.

It's not that the multi-ton dragon could fly, it's that it looks like it could fly. And that it isn't designed by someone who thinks 'comparative zoology' means checklisting different animal parks.

Overread wrote:Whilst they have a bulky exterior (which has grown increasingly more bulky over the years) they are often also shown to be quite gassy. Those vents on their backs are typically spewing out gases of various kinds.

Sprouts and vindaloo: the ultimate bioweapon.

Meanwhile they've superior evolution to the point where they can likely achieve greater muscle power and bone strength with reduced weight. Ego it might be bone but its not our kinda bone.

Yup. The hive mind could have access to all kinds of biological processes and adaptations that even the humans of the 41st millenium could only guess at. Here on plain old earth, we've had palaeontologists scratch their heads about how far dinosaurs and pterosaurs could push the imagined size limit for terrestrial and flying animals. We've got iron snails and plasma-blasting shrimp. Bumblebees fly by creating vortices and wood frogs can survive being frozen for months. What directions could tyranids push just that handful of abilities?

**Insectum7**

Well for starters, they have a whole bunch of specis that float about, despite the fact that they don't look like they could possibly be lighter than air. Some sort of biological version of suspensors would avoid the issue of the Heirophant stabbing through the ground.

**Vermis**

Yes, that. Expanding on a previous thing: pneumaticity.

In almost all sauropods, and certainly in all the ones you learned about as a kid, at least some of the vertebrae were pneumatic (air-filled).
A lot of sauropod vertebrae are crazy pneumatic... the vertebrae of most sauropods were 60% air by volume, and in brachiosaurids like Sauroposeidon that number could be up to 89%.

And that's just the 'outer fringes' of the birdlike air sac system. Imagine nid biotitans riddled with cavities and sacs that are filled with, maybe, helium. Somehow. Not to make them float but just to make them lighter on their feet. Original book Baron Harkonnen from Dune as opposed to Kenny McMillan buzzing all over the shop.

Hydrogen too, possibly. But then 'shoot the big ones' wouldn't be a thing because the big ones are synapse creatures, but because they go boom real good.

**Insectum7**

^I'd much prefer something other than air pockets to explain it, that's why I went the route of biotech replication of known in-universe anti-grav. I'd prefer my Nids to have some serious mass behind their attacks, and lighter-than-air armor isn't a very satisfying concept.

**Overread**

Lighter than air armour coupled with muscles that deliver insane acceleration whilst being very dense and durable. Like those mantis shrimp that create vortexes with their supersonic firing front legs/arms. Just upscaled to punch through a landraider

**Vermis**

Ah, I getcha Insectum. When you talked about floating things I imagined the mucolid spores and venomthropes, which seemed to match Overread's gassy description. Is it explained how those float? Has anyone got WD41 handy...?

I'm not sure how biological antigrav would work, but then, I have no idea how mechanical antigrav works in sci-fi either. So it's all good.

Some sort of electromagnetic repulsion wouldn't be out of the question.

On the topic of floaty nids: zoanthropes? How about a hierophant with specialised nerve bundles along it's spine, tapping into the hive mind just enough for a bit of a psychic yoink off the ground?

**NinthMusketeer**

Spore mines and venomthropes float via lighter than air gas iirc. They are very mean balloons.

**roboemperor**

How many Tyrannofexes and Hierophants will it take to take down a Warlord Titan? Anyone have a rough figure?

**Iracundus**

roboemperor wrote:
How many Tyrannofexes and Hierophants will it take to take down a Warlord Titan? Anyone have a rough figure?

Again using the Epic Titan Legions rules, 1 Hierophant with Razor Claw if within charge range. The Hierophant can target the head or reactor with the Razor Claw and roll off with an advantage, so likely to win. A won roll off inflicts maximum damage to the hit location which results in decapitation or reactor explosion.

**Patriarch Phyrx**

A few Trygons to chew some holes in the Titan’s armour, flood it with assault organisms and turn the Titan into a slaughterhouse.

During the Valedor war, a coven of Hive Crones used their bone spurs to slice through the Eldar wraith titans by having them all hit the same spot, carving a deeper and deeper rent in the armour until it was broken. Picture a bodybuilder being attacked by a few hundred seagulls, except the seagulls all have a razor blade built into their tummy.

**the_scotsman**

I mean, I feel like by default the way any army should be able to defeat an emperor class titan is...just shoot it with a space ship? It's a big walking robot that has to stand on a planet's surface. Hide behind a moon and shoot it with space torpedos or something.

Last resort I guess blow the planet it's on up?

**pm713**

That's a huge waste of a planet though. Plus I think it's safe to assume that most ships in 40k aren't armed for the kind of precision that allows for killing a Titan and not destroying everything nearby along with it.

Like most of the Imperium the best way is to shoot them while they're stuck on spaceships. Or apparently build mechs because that's what everyone actually does...

**Andersp90**

roboemperor wrote:

Tyranids been out for a really long time now. Necrons got titans in lore like crypt stalker or that weird comic with the giant humanoid necron titan in the background. Tyranids got jack.

Tyranid bioforms do not have a set size. If they need a 25-30m tall hierophant to match a warlord titan, they will simply spawn one.

From "Warlord: Fury of the god machine":

Spoiler:

Hive Fleet Gorgon's defeat. It was one of the most advanced tyranid armies there were to even house dominatrixes yet if a hive fleet doesnt create anything bigger in the face of total annihilation, then they got nothing bigger.

Grogon was a small fleet, with no mention of them having dominatrixes.. please stick with the lore.

**roboemperor**

Andersp90 wrote:
Grogon was a small fleet, with no mention of them having dominatrixes.. please stick with the lore.

"In early 903.M41 the Cadian 18th Army and the Kel'shan Sept's Fire Warriors purged the remaining Tyranids from that world. With the destruction of their fleet, the Tyranids no longer possessed any reproductive capacity on Kel'shan save for a single Dominatrix and a group of already-battered Tervigons.[u] That reality, and the combined tactics and different weapons of the T'au and Astra Militarum, now prevented the rapid adaptation that the units of Hive Fleet Gorgon had displayed in previous encounters. As a result, at the final Battle of Worldspine Ridge in mid-903.M41, the last Dominatrix and Hive Tyrant of Hive Fleet Gorgon were both slain by combined Imperial and T'au forces. Though the alliance between the Imperial Guard and the T'au promised to break down into renewed combat almost before the last Tyranid corpse had grown cold, the terrible threat of Hive Fleet Gorgon had been ended. "

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_Fleet_Gorgon

**Andersp90**

roboemperor wrote:
Andersp90 wrote:
Grogon was a small fleet, with no mention of them having dominatrixes.. please stick with the lore.

"In early 903.M41 the Cadian 18th Army and the Kel'shan Sept's Fire Warriors purged the remaining Tyranids from that world. With the destruction of their fleet, the Tyranids no longer possessed any reproductive capacity on Kel'shan save for a single Dominatrix and a group of already-battered Tervigons.[u] That reality, and the combined tactics and different weapons of the T'au and Astra Militarum, now prevented the rapid adaptation that the units of Hive Fleet Gorgon had displayed in previous encounters. As a result, at the final Battle of Worldspine Ridge in mid-903.M41, the last Dominatrix and Hive Tyrant of Hive Fleet Gorgon were both slain by combined Imperial and T'au forces. Though the alliance between the Imperial Guard and the T'au promised to break down into renewed combat almost before the last Tyranid corpse had grown cold, the terrible threat of Hive Fleet Gorgon had been ended. "

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_Fleet_Gorgon

I just had a look in the 5th edition codex. My bad.

Anyway, if/when the tyanids need a titan sized bioform, they will just spawn one, as mentioned in my quote.

**roboemperor**

Andersp90 wrote:
Anyway, if/when the tyanids need a titan sized bioform, they will just spawn one, as mentioned in my quote.

Yeah that quote has been tremendously helpful. Now I know that there aren't any missing blanks in the Tyranid unit lineup. From knight to emperor class it's all hierophant design. Unlike Necrons who have massive holes in their unit lineup because they have titans that have never been shown.

Just don't accuse me of making stuff up. I'm probably the most litigious tyranid fan on this forum to the point I had multiple posters give me a lot of flak for it.

**Andersp90**

roboemperor wrote:
Andersp90 wrote:
Anyway, if/when the tyanids need a titan sized bioform, they will just spawn one, as mentioned in my quote.

From knight to emperor class it's all hierophant design.

We dont know.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Another vote for boarding actions.

Just flooding it with Hormagaunts and Termagants ought to prove problematic in the extreme. Particularly Termagants, as they were bred to squeeze through smaller routes in the Hive Ships to fend off boarders.

Penetrate the plasma reactor decks and wipe out the occupants? That Titan is in serious, serious trouble. To the point the best bet, if you want to avoid destruction would be a total shut down. Just switch it off, avoid all chance of an engine overheat and total meltdown.

**Hellebore**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Another vote for boarding actions.

Just flooding it with Hormagaunts and Termagants ought to prove problematic in the extreme. Particularly Termagants, as they were bred to squeeze through smaller routes in the Hive Ships to fend off boarders.

Penetrate the plasma reactor decks and wipe out the occupants? That Titan is in serious, serious trouble. To the point the best bet, if you want to avoid destruction would be a total shut down. Just switch it off, avoid all chance of an engine overheat and total meltdown.

I reckon one of the most effective means of this would be swarms of gargoyles flying into the back of the reactor and clogging up the heat vents causing the reactor to go critical. Very little they can do to stop flying swarms doing that.

**Andersp90**

Here are some examples from "Warlord: fury of the god machine".

Spoiler:

It was when she looked north that Krezoc saw more than a crisis. She saw a turning point. This was the fulcrum on which the battle would pivot. Two hierophants were attacking Ferrum Salvator. They had closed with it on both sides. Balzhan’s Warlord could not bring its full force to bear on two fronts. Its armament was similar to Gloria Vastator’s, though instead of a mega-bolter, the venerable god-machine’s left-shoulder hard point was armed with a plasma blastgun. The Titan’s torso pivoted back and forth between the two hierophants. Its fire was constant, but it could not hit either with the concentrated fury that was needed. The hierophants scuttled around and around the Warlord, their biocannons unleashed, a xenos storm pounding the Titan’s void shields, straining them past their limit. Both tyranids had been hit. Alien blood coursed down their legs. Fluid bubbled and steamed from rents in their carapaces. But they had not slowed. They circled, advanced, jabbed with claws long as chapel spires and both kept blasting their acid. They were two animals taking down their larger prey. Brute instinct was winning over human battlefield skills.
The entire ambush was a war of gigantic insects, yet Krezoc could feel, now, more acutely than ever, the sense of something larger directing the attacks of the tyranids. It was not an intelligence in any way that she could recognise, yet it was a presence, a shadow, the hint of something beyond human measure and comprehension. Perhaps it was a form of sentience, but if it was, it recognised nothing of the sort in the human animal. There was only prey.
Krezoc turned Gloria Vastator to the north. The Titan’s great steps seemed too slow. The marshal of the Pallidus Mor was under attack, and his salvation was the priority. Balzhan was her mentor, her former princeps. Ferrum Salvator had been where she had served as moderati. She could not let Balzhan fall.
‘Marshal,’ she voxed, ‘hold fast. We are coming.’
The channel crackled as if Balzhan were starting to answer. Krezoc thought she heard strained breathing. Then there was only static.
Ferrum Salvator swung to the left, and its quake cannon boomed. The shell smashed into the hierophant’s armour just behind its head. The tyranid staggered.
‘Target the enemy on the right,’ Krezoc told her moderati.
‘Acquired,’ said Konterus. The Apocalypse missiles were ready now. The big guns were still building up their charge.
‘Kill it,’ Krezoc ordered. The rockets flew. They arced high, and their descent was true. The upper plating of the hierophant flashed with multiple strikes.
Krezoc hoped the damage already done by Ferrum Salvator would make the impact of the missile barrage all the more telling. At the very least, she wanted to pull the hierophant’s attention towards Gloria Vastator. The principle had worked to save Augustus Secutor. Krezoc needed to see the same success now, when the stakes were much higher.
The hierophant ignored the missiles. Perhaps the battles with Balzhan’s Warlord had already gone on long enough for the bioform to adapt its defences to the attacks. Perhaps some form of species memory recognised Krezoc’s tactic. In the end, the reasons did not matter. The hierophant charged forwards again, reared back, and stabbed both its forelimbs into the back of Ferrum Salvator.
The void shields flared a blinding violet and collapsed. At the same moment, the god-machine’s volcano cannon fired. It struck the other hierophant in the same wound as the quake shell, and cut the beast in half.
Krezoc felt a surge of hope as her volcano cannon came online and the first hierophant fell in two pieces. But the other monster was still on the back of Balzhan’s Warlord, still stabbing through adamantium with its forelimbs, and it was too close for Krezoc to risk a shot. Even a perfect hit would do catastrophic damage to Ferrum Salvator while its void shields were down. Ferrum Salvator leaned forwards. It leaned too far.
‘Throne, no,’ Krezoc whispered.
The hierophant stabbed. It fired its biocannons. Acid smoke roiled up from the armour of the god-machine in a black, venomous cloud. The mass of the monster and the ferocity of the attack pushed the Titan past the centre of its gravity.
The unthinkable became the inevitable.
The vox burst into life, and Krezoc heard Balzhan’s voice. It was ragged from pain. She could hear the marshal’s life bleeding away, and, in the background, the roar of flame and the distant crump of internal explosions. ‘The Pallidus Mor is strong,’ Balzhan said. ‘Its leader is strong.’
‘Marshal,’ Krezoc called, pleading with the fates.
‘The Emperor protects,’ Balzhan whispered.
The vox went dead. With smoke and flame billowing from the gaping wounds in its armour, Ferrum Salvator fell with awful grace. A monument crashed to the earth, and the earth trembled with horror. The hierophant scrabbled forwards over the Titan. It fired its biocannons through the back of the god-machine’s armour, dissolving the weakened plating still further, then plunged its forelimbs down. They passed through all the way to the Warlord’s head. A new explosion shook the Titan.
It was a death throe.

**Jackal90**

As an owner of one and someone that’s assembled 4 in the past, they are horrible.

The sculpt it’s self is great, but the mechanics of it is terrible.

First one I built without any real knowledge, just pinning parts as normal.
After a month it’s legs had started to bow.

Next one I tried a central support, but couldn’t find anything that didn’t stand out like a sore thumb or look bad.
Ended up trying around 7-8 ideas then just sold it in my temper.

Third and 4th ones (mine plus one built for a friend) I ended up following a guide to add rods through its legs.
It’s painfully intensive work that is essential IMO.
It involves cutting an expensive model in several places, drilling with perfect precision etc.
1 slip requires filling in and trying again once set.

After all that, it’s back to it with GS to blend in the cuts and make it look normal again.

Some of the drill areas are also precarious at best.
Trying to drill through the backbone of a talon without exiting either side really isn’t easy when it has a curve.

If I ever felt self destructive enough to get another one, I’d pay someone to do that for me, 2 is enough.
Or I’d just buy a harridan that’s far easier to work with.

**Overread**

Yeah the design just doesn't look like it works well with resin - plastic it would be ok in, but 4 really small contact points on what's basically a thick solid chunk just doesn't work well. Personally I wonder if the original design had the designer including some kind of ripper swarm base built into the model so that the base of the titan was connected against the ripper swarm and - for some reason - the swarm was never made.

I've seen people use rocks, buildings, trees etc.. all to hide a central stem to hold the middle up.

Harriadan looks far more practical, and the detailing around the close up head shots I've seen looks awesome - however it suffers from being rather static in pose. It's the kind of model I'd love to see a version 2 of where they can put the wings in a more dynamic pose and perhaps the head moves a little. Ergo looking like its alive and less "boxy"

Of the two Harridane is one I'd more likely want to own from a practical assembly point of view. Though I'm likely to only ever own the hiroduels (if I ever get around the purchasing them).

**the_scotsman**

Andersp90 wrote:
Here are some examples from "Warlord: fury of the god machine".

Spoiler:

"The two hierophants near the front lines went after the Warhounds. The Titans had been a match for the bioforms present until that moment. They still dwarfed the carnifexes, but the hulking predators went after them in hordes, overwhelming the secutarii squads, hammering the legs of the Warhounds, slowing them down, as the supreme horrors closed in.
The destruction of the first Warhound reverberated through Gloria Vastator’s manifold as a long, tearing, multi-layered scream. It was the building howl of ruined metal, out-of-control energy release and auspex feedback. It was also the voices of its crew on the vox. Barked orders became shouts of anger, of desperation, and then shrieks of pain. The end came quickly – too quickly for a weapon thousands of years old, a sacred embodiment of the Imperium’s martial history. It was also slow, the agony of mortals and machine spearing through Krezoc’s consciousness, inflaming the wrath of Gloria Vastator’s machine-spirit. The end was so fast, there was nothing any of the other Titans could do. Their helplessness turned the death into an unendurable torture that went on and on and on.
It ended with a burst of white noise. And that explosion blended into another death-cry.
Two Warhounds lost in the first seconds of the attack"

Ok, I'm sorry, but every time I read some excerpt from a 40k novel I inevitably end up laughing at just how terribly they all seem to be written.

"It was so fast! Agonizingly slowly, the titan fell - but also very fast, too fast! The slow, torturous fall with screams and shouts and yelling - faster than lightning!"