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Hecaton wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Chaos doesn't only seek to destroy though. The "plan" the Gods laid out for Horus was basically the same as what happened to the Imperium, life would continue but there would be sacrifices and dedications to the Pantheon to keep them sustained for as long as Humanity survived.

But it's not sustainable for several reasons. 1) Chaos is self destructive. You can't have a god of war, violence, and death that gains power the more violence there is and not have a constant loss of life to fuel him. 2) The gods don't play nice with each other. Betrayals and power grabs are inevitable. Then see above. 3) He's not the only god of death. Nurgle for being a god of life isn't a god of sentient life. He spreads plagues and disease. The life that sustains him also succumbs to him. The sensation of having your skin shucked from you like an ear of corn isn't one most life can survive but either inflicting it or experiencing it is where Slaanesh's life style leads to. And Tzneetch for being all about change is actually the most stable. Except with enough change and mutation you become mindless abominations.

Again none of that is sustainable. They are all self destructive. It's not an if, it's a when - IF they were to win.

The Imperium is honestly just as bad. It's a perverse dystopia that has consistently been described as circling down the drain in an inevitable fashion.

Agreed! But I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that humanity has an actual chance of winning 40k.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Denny wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IF only there was a god that could enhance reproduction rate faster than the death rate.

I assume you refer to Grandfather Nurgle?

when I think "worshipping this god will no doubt result in thousands of babies" Nurgle is NOT the first one I think of.

Then I don't know who you might mean. You can't possibly mean Slaanesh because Slaanesh is all about selfish pursuit of excess and pleasure at all costs, even self-destruction. A Slaaneshi worshipper would have no interest in babies other than perhaps using them for sacrificial rituals or as a cosmetic cream.

You must have missed all the couples who WANT BABIES NO MATTER WHAT.

I can think of three different couples in my life that would have like 9 children each if finances and living space and general sanity weren't an option. They're like, obsessed with kids. One family has six already.

Irrelevant. They are not Slaaneshi worshippers. A true worshipper of Slaanesh is not going to be raising babies. Slaanesh is not a god of reproduction. Slaanesh is a god of excess and pursuit of pleasure without regard to any inhibitions of morality.

Nurgle is the god of disease, decay, and fecundity in the midst of decay (as well as the psychological perseverance in the face of futility).

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Denny wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IF only there was a god that could enhance reproduction rate faster than the death rate.

I assume you refer to Grandfather Nurgle?

when I think "worshipping this god will no doubt result in thousands of babies" Nurgle is NOT the first one I think of.

Then I don't know who you might mean. You can't possibly mean Slaanesh because Slaanesh is all about selfish pursuit of excess and pleasure at all costs, even self-destruction. A Slaaneshi worshipper would have no interest in babies other than perhaps using them for sacrificial rituals or as a cosmetic cream.

You must have missed all the couples who WANT BABIES NO MATTER WHAT.

I can think of three different couples in my life that would have like 9 children each if finances and living space and general sanity weren't an option. They're like, obsessed with kids. One family has six already.

Irrelevant. They are not Slaaneshi worshippers. A true worshipper of Slaanesh is not going to be raising babies. Slaanesh is not a god of reproduction. Slaanesh is a god of excess and pursuit of pleasure without regard to any inhibitions of morality.

Nurgle is the god of disease, decay, and fecundity in the midst of decay (as well as the psychological perseverance in the face of futility).

I don't see why "pursuing what gives you pleasure" automatically means you can't have kids, if kids are where you derive pleasure.

Chaos worlds in the Eye of Terror have stable populations that do normal things like industry and commerce. The book Path of the Outcast involves a visit to an old Eldar Crone World, and there are people doing people things, and the book Atlas Infernal also follows an inquisitor visiting a Daemon World called Arach-Cyn. There's literally a marketplace there, where Chaos Eldar and human cultists are selling their gubbins just like a merchant on a craftworld or imperial world might.

Your idea of Chaos methinks is tainted a bit too much by Imperial propaganda.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Denny wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IF only there was a god that could enhance reproduction rate faster than the death rate.

I assume you refer to Grandfather Nurgle?

when I think "worshipping this god will no doubt result in thousands of babies" Nurgle is NOT the first one I think of.

Then I don't know who you might mean. You can't possibly mean Slaanesh because Slaanesh is all about selfish pursuit of excess and pleasure at all costs, even self-destruction. A Slaaneshi worshipper would have no interest in babies other than perhaps using them for sacrificial rituals or as a cosmetic cream.

You must have missed all the couples who WANT BABIES NO MATTER WHAT.

I can think of three different couples in my life that would have like 9 children each if finances and living space and general sanity weren't an option. They're like, obsessed with kids. One family has six already.

Irrelevant. They are not Slaaneshi worshippers. A true worshipper of Slaanesh is not going to be raising babies. Slaanesh is not a god of reproduction. Slaanesh is a god of excess and pursuit of pleasure without regard to any inhibitions of morality.

Nurgle is the god of disease, decay, and fecundity in the midst of decay (as well as the psychological perseverance in the face of futility).

I don't see why "pursuing what gives you pleasure" automatically means you can't have kids, if kids are where you derive pleasure.

Chaos worlds in the Eye of Terror have stable populations that do normal things like industry and commerce. The book Path of the Outcast involves a visit to an old Eldar Crone World, and there are people doing people things, and the book Atlas Infernal also follows an inquisitor visiting a Daemon World called Arach-Cyn. There's literally a marketplace there, where Chaos Eldar and human cultists are selling their gubbins just like a merchant on a craftworld or imperial world might.

Your idea of Chaos methinks is tainted a bit too much by Imperial propaganda.

It's from the Realms of Chaos omniscient narrator, and the first books that actually laid down what the Chaos gods were about.

Path of the Outcast had them visiting a deserted Eldar Crone world, deserted except for daemons and the ghosts of those Eldar from the Fall.

Your ideas of Slaanesh being a god that would boost reproduction seem to be tainted by the pop culture idea of Slaanesh as a god of sex. Nurgle's the one you should be looking at.

One reason Tryanids can sometimes appear to be weaker is because they don't care about losses and have no voice of their own in the lore.


First up if GW wants a character to appear REALLY tough they go and fight a Hive Tyrant one on one and survive/win. If they want to appear supremely tough they go and fight the Swarmlord.

Basically Tyranids don't care if either of those lose; they can make more Hive Tyrants and the Swarm Lord is in effect immortal so long as the Hive remains.

So they can be defeated in battle over and over and over again and it doesn't affect the Tyranids at all really.


Meanwhile the lore for Tyranids is always written either as a narrators voice or the viewpoints of individuals within the setting. This both means that htey never really have a story about themselves to "big themselves up" as many other factions do; but also means that they can have huge chunks of lore that are just wrong because its an Imperial Scientists viewpoint on how they Tryanids work. Indeed we don't really know much about them at all - save that they feed, though even that isn't as simple as some make out.

 Overread wrote:
One reason Tryanids can sometimes appear to be weaker is because they don't care about losses and have no voice of their own in the lore.

Although a lot of GW fiction depicts various factions as winning battles against Tyranids, in the grand scheme (i.e. galactic scale) the Tyranids are shown as making inroads and gaining ground. Yes, I know these are newly made up worlds and sectors but it shows on the Imperium and galactic scale, the Tyranids to be playing a grand game of attrition.

For every novel where the Tyranids are beaten back, there are many other small worlds that get eaten. These worlds might be insignificant to the Imperium, but a world's worth of biomass is still a huge amount that can be converted to more Tyranids to throw at the next world.

Also, the Tyranids ate Gryphonne IV, which was written by GW as one of the most heavily fortified worlds in the southern Imperium. That would make for a good Black Library novel: the tale of the ultimately fall of the forge world and any last fighting retreats by the AdMech to preserve what they can.

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Denny wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IF only there was a god that could enhance reproduction rate faster than the death rate.

I assume you refer to Grandfather Nurgle?

when I think "worshipping this god will no doubt result in thousands of babies" Nurgle is NOT the first one I think of.

Then I don't know who you might mean. You can't possibly mean Slaanesh because Slaanesh is all about selfish pursuit of excess and pleasure at all costs, even self-destruction. A Slaaneshi worshipper would have no interest in babies other than perhaps using them for sacrificial rituals or as a cosmetic cream.

You must have missed all the couples who WANT BABIES NO MATTER WHAT.

I can think of three different couples in my life that would have like 9 children each if finances and living space and general sanity weren't an option. They're like, obsessed with kids. One family has six already.

Irrelevant. They are not Slaaneshi worshippers. A true worshipper of Slaanesh is not going to be raising babies. Slaanesh is not a god of reproduction. Slaanesh is a god of excess and pursuit of pleasure without regard to any inhibitions of morality.

Nurgle is the god of disease, decay, and fecundity in the midst of decay (as well as the psychological perseverance in the face of futility).

I don't see why "pursuing what gives you pleasure" automatically means you can't have kids, if kids are where you derive pleasure.

Chaos worlds in the Eye of Terror have stable populations that do normal things like industry and commerce. The book Path of the Outcast involves a visit to an old Eldar Crone World, and there are people doing people things, and the book Atlas Infernal also follows an inquisitor visiting a Daemon World called Arach-Cyn. There's literally a marketplace there, where Chaos Eldar and human cultists are selling their gubbins just like a merchant on a craftworld or imperial world might.

Your idea of Chaos methinks is tainted a bit too much by Imperial propaganda.

It's from the Realms of Chaos omniscient narrator, and the first books that actually laid down what the Chaos gods were about.

Path of the Outcast had them visiting a deserted Eldar Crone world, deserted except for daemons and the ghosts of those Eldar from the Fall.

Your ideas of Slaanesh being a god that would boost reproduction seem to be tainted by the pop culture idea of Slaanesh as a god of sex. Nurgle's the one you should be looking at.

Slaanesh IS the god of sex, among other things.

Want more sources on Daemon Worlds having stable populations?
Here is a whole thread on it from this very forum:https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/587398.page

Daemon Worlds have cities, histories, civilizations, technology, social structures, etc. Do your own research if you don't believe me!

Slaanesh is the god of pleasure, of which sex and carnal pleasure is just a facet and the focus is on the pleasure not procreation. Bear in mind this is the kind of "pleasure" that at its extremes is likely to result in the death one or more of the participants. Slaanesh is not the god of reproduction.

Also a forum thread is not a citation and is not really evidence.
Yes there are daemon worlds where daemon princes and daemon primarchs rule over feral slave populations, where the warriors are recruited to become fresh CSM. Feral populations on barely inhabitable inhospitable worlds however is hardly a convincing argument for thriving populations.

That is irrelevant to your point where you tried to use a specific Eldar novel as evidence, when in fact that novel showed a deserted world.

I got one source wrong.

All the other sources aren't wrong.

And I offered the other thread because *it* lists sources so I don't have to. If you won't educate yourself, I don't have time to do it for you. But, trust me, there are Daemon Worlds in the warp with functioning societies and stable populations. It's a fact

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I got one source wrong.

All the other sources aren't wrong.

And I offered the other thread because *it* lists sources so I don't have to. If you won't educate yourself, I don't have time to do it for you. But, trust me, there are Daemon Worlds in the warp with functioning societies and stable populations. It's a fact

Wrong, it's your job to cite evidence to prove your point. It's not the responsibility of the reader or the audience to find your evidence for you. Just waving vaguely at a forum thread is not proof, since forum threads themselves are not direct sources and are prone to all sorts of misinformation (such as the earlier misinformation and mistakes you made about that deserted Crone world).

They have feral populations lorded over by daemons and CSM. Stable? Hardly, when 2nd edition Chaos Codex shows that they get a lot of immigration effectively from people fleeing from the Imperium. A small feral population of tribal warriors living on the daemonic equivalent of a death world with a few CSM overlords in a situation akin to those that loyalist Chapters recruit from is also not really a great example of a thriving society. Sure, I never said the Eye was lifeless, but it is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and the populations and societies seen are a reflection of that environment.

The reason CSM are fighting from a compromised position is because the Eye simply does not support as much industry and population as the Imperium. That is why so many Chaos armies rely also on uprisings and why so many Chaos forces adopt a raiding strategy rather than one of conventional territorial conquest out of the Eye.

Your facts are not facts at all and have major errors. If you have direct evidence, cite actual GW sources with source names, quotes, and page numbers, not hearsay or forum threads, otherwise stop trying to claim there is such.

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I got one source wrong.

All the other sources aren't wrong.

And I offered the other thread because *it* lists sources so I don't have to. If you won't educate yourself, I don't have time to do it for you. But, trust me, there are Daemon Worlds in the warp with functioning societies and stable populations. It's a fact

Wrong, it's your job to cite evidence to prove your point. It's not the responsibility of the reader or the audience to find your evidence for you. Just waving vaguely at a forum thread is not proof, since forum threads themselves are not direct sources and are prone to all sorts of misinformation (such as the earlier misinformation and mistakes you made about that deserted Crone world).

They have feral populations lorded over by daemons and CSM. Stable? Hardly, when 2nd edition Chaos Codex shows that they get a lot of immigration effectively from people fleeing from the Imperium. A small feral population of tribal warriors living on the daemonic equivalent of a death world with a few CSM overlords in a situation akin to those that loyalist Chapters recruit from is also not really a great example of a thriving society. Sure, I never said the Eye was lifeless, but it is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and the populations and societies seen are a reflection of that environment.

The reason CSM are fighting from a compromised position is because the Eye simply does not support as much industry and population as the Imperium. That is why so many Chaos armies rely also on uprisings and why so many Chaos forces adopt a raiding strategy rather than one of conventional territorial conquest out of the Eye.

Your facts are not facts at all and have major errors. If you have direct evidence, cite actual GW sources with source names, quotes, and page numbers, not hearsay or forum threads, otherwise stop trying to claim there is such.

Sorry. I really don't have the time on a workday.

Feel free not to educate yourself; not my responsibility ultimately.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I got one source wrong.

All the other sources aren't wrong.

And I offered the other thread because *it* lists sources so I don't have to. If you won't educate yourself, I don't have time to do it for you. But, trust me, there are Daemon Worlds in the warp with functioning societies and stable populations. It's a fact

Wrong, it's your job to cite evidence to prove your point. It's not the responsibility of the reader or the audience to find your evidence for you. Just waving vaguely at a forum thread is not proof, since forum threads themselves are not direct sources and are prone to all sorts of misinformation (such as the earlier misinformation and mistakes you made about that deserted Crone world).

They have feral populations lorded over by daemons and CSM. Stable? Hardly, when 2nd edition Chaos Codex shows that they get a lot of immigration effectively from people fleeing from the Imperium. A small feral population of tribal warriors living on the daemonic equivalent of a death world with a few CSM overlords in a situation akin to those that loyalist Chapters recruit from is also not really a great example of a thriving society. Sure, I never said the Eye was lifeless, but it is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and the populations and societies seen are a reflection of that environment.

The reason CSM are fighting from a compromised position is because the Eye simply does not support as much industry and population as the Imperium. That is why so many Chaos armies rely also on uprisings and why so many Chaos forces adopt a raiding strategy rather than one of conventional territorial conquest out of the Eye.

Your facts are not facts at all and have major errors. If you have direct evidence, cite actual GW sources with source names, quotes, and page numbers, not hearsay or forum threads, otherwise stop trying to claim there is such.

Sorry. I really don't have the time on a workday.

Feel free not to educate yourself; not my responsibility ultimately.

It's not my responsibility to prove your point for you. That's not how academic writing, persuasive writing, court cases, or debates work. If you have no proof, as it seems you don't by your inability to cite direct sources, then your argument has no weight and can be dismissed.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
You’ve missed that there are many, many more Tyranids than numbers within the other factions. Their numbers are unknown as we’ve but seen the tips of their Hive Fleet tendrils. They will feast until all are consumed.

Numbers don't matter with infinitely firing super weapons.
Orks are insanely numerous and still increases in number exponentially. If each and every one was a krork who can take out armies of Tyranids by themselves, it's a no contest.
Blackstone Fortress wipes out entire systems in a shot and is powered by farseer souls. If the Tyranids cannot cross an entire system within the time for the Blackstone Fortress to fire again their endless numbers don't matter.
Necrons had stuff comparable if not surpassing the Blackstone fortress.
Similarly, how can Tyranids defend against a blackhole cannon?

The only way Tyranids are not a joke is if they got super weapons and we just haven't seen it yet. Which is plausible because they got that giant psychic continent sized structure and Zoanthropes channel energy directly from the Hive Mind, so it's not a stretch to say they could make a blackstone fortress equivalent that's powered by the hive mind itself and shoots its "awesome energies".

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If we are talking peak Old Ones, pre-fall Eldar, or war in heaven Necrons then they could probably deal with Tyranids on something like equal footing. But it still wouldn't be a joke.

Without super weapons of their own they are a total joke.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Assuming the krork were genetically superior 'prime-orks' that would make things worse; Tyranids would obtain those genetics.

Why are there no Tyranids using ork-tech? Or Tyranids using Wraithbone? There seems to be a lot of limitation regarding the genetic absorption thingy. And Tyrant Guards aren't exactly impressive.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
IMen of Iron still ultimately lost, so they weren't THAT powerful.

That's like saying the old ones weren't that powerful because they lost. It is my understanding that the war with the men of iron was of similar scale as the war in heaven.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The trouble is…..

The Tyranid race for all intents and purposes very likely outnumbers every other race combined. Certainly this is the case in terms of creatures at arms. And unlike the various other species, they’re of literally a single mind and purpose.

Numbers don't matter when dealing with super weapons. A couple of men with infinitely firing flamethrowers v.s. all the ants on the planet. Who wins? You gotta somehow show that Tyranids are capable of handling perfectly organized blackstone fortresses firing in tandem.

Voss wrote:
Not even vaguely. Tyranids have, effectively, already won. (Barring necron superscience miracles (not just superweapons) or some other pull from some place the sun don't shine).
They're endless hordes that grow more numerous and stronger over time, with effectively unlimited resources, and capacity to expand, even when they lose.

GW has made them the overpowered death of the setting, even with their blithe indifference to numbers for everyone else.

What infinite resources?
84% of the matter in a galaxy is dark matter.
12% is gas
4% is stars
An infinitesimal amount of planets.
Of those infinitesimal amount of planets, an infinitesimal amount of them holds life.
Of those infinitesimal amount of planets that hold life, less than 1% of it is consumed by the Tyranids.
So infinitesimal x infinitesimal x 0.01 x 12 (they consumed a dozen galaxies) = ?
Far from infinite.

I mean, we have ONE source that says Tyranids eat gas giants, so that would mean they can eat 2/3rds of the non-darkmatter galaxy, but the lore is so conflicting regarding Tyranids its far from reliable.

And Imperium of Man and Eldar had super weapons of their own.

 Overread wrote:
First up if GW wants a character to appear REALLY tough they go and fight a Hive Tyrant one on one and survive/win. If they want to appear supremely tough they go and fight the Swarmlord.

You confused Avatar of Khaine with Hive Tyrant. And Avatars of Khaine always losing is not a good thing for Avatars of Khaine.

The nids FTL is a super weapon. They latch onto a gravitic body and fall through space. It causes natural disasters that ravage the solar system. Eaerhquakes, tidal waves, solar flares.

The whole system becomes a mass hazard. Then the shadow in the warp falls. Psykers of mad and die. Regular men have nightmares that drive them insane. Warp travel becomes impossible.

A hive fleets existance is a weapon.

OP’s criteria are frankly nonsense. Thread is full of lore-based responses. Their response is something about infinitely-firing flamethrowers? What?

Ok. You do you, OP.

Well to be fair, what the op is saying is that most other factions have their "back in my day..." type lore that made them very powerful in the past (even though they are not any longer so). Nids don't have such a past that we know of.

This means that the peak power of the nids is what we're currently seeing. Yes there is more stuff coming, but that could be anything: maybe more powerful creatures, maybe simply more of the same, maybe even slow defenceless creatures that eat the barren rocks the fleets leave behind. We simply don't know.

That in turn means that nids at the peak of their power (that we know of; current nids) probably wouldn't have been that big of a challenge to any of the big players at the height of their power, given the ridiculous tech they had available. The nids are really dangerous to the remnants that exist now, but it feels a bit meh to only be a threat to the leftovers.

Iracundus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I got one source wrong.

All the other sources aren't wrong.

And I offered the other thread because *it* lists sources so I don't have to. If you won't educate yourself, I don't have time to do it for you. But, trust me, there are Daemon Worlds in the warp with functioning societies and stable populations. It's a fact

Wrong, it's your job to cite evidence to prove your point.

There are forge worlds within the EoT. The Dark Mechanicus is a thing. Chaos being chaos, there's going to be a lot of variety, but if an entire world can be dedicated to industrial capacity, there are going to be functioning societies with semi-stable populations.

Still not sure there about stable populations. The portrayal of Dark Mechanicus worlds seems to have a lot of daemons, daemon engines, and be economically like a rapacious maw consuming raw materials and human fodder (for labor and for sacrifices). The Dark Mechanicus tech-priests might have a stable population. Not so sure about their menu also. All the other Chaos societies within the Eye seem to churn through their lower classes. The Word Bearers’ world for example has been described as teeming with activity but these are slaves toiling to build monuments or participating in rituals. They are basically expended and replaced with more from offworld, either Chaos worshippers or captured slaves.

I think it would depend on the world/ship in question. The forces of Chaos aren't stupid and they don't just kill slaves for no reason. Slaves produce more slaves and even aspirants to be turned into Astartes, it might just depend on whether you get "lucky" and end up on a planet/ship where your masters don't murder you for fun.

 Gert wrote:
The forces of Chaos aren't stupid

[Citation required]

Chaos does not kill slaves for no reason but for reasons that may seem horrific or irrational to RL readers. Kill the slave laborers when they are done to use their blood to consecrate the dark monument. Use their souls as payment for daemonic pacts, etc... Kill them to render down for drugs or just for the pleasure of that Slaanesh champion (because to them, their pleasure is a valid enough reason). The emotional anguish and suffering can itself be a goal desirable because daemons want it.

What you don’t seem to see described is the everyday menial life that is seen on Imperial civilized worlds or hive worlds where people trudge through their daily normal life (like seen in Warhammer Crime novels). We see feral world regressed tribal cultures where they fight to gain admission to being implanted as a CSM and we see societies where you are part of the warlord ruling class (or their lackeys) or being expended as fodder for labor or religious reasons (rituals, sacrifices, etc.). Slaves may be kept alive til they get worked to death but that does not mean it is a stable or thriving population.

Iracundus wrote:
Chaos does not kill slaves for no reason . . . .

. . . Slaves may be kept alive til they get worked to death . . .

So does the Imperium

I mean, you'll have to define "stable" and "thriving" I suppose. An economy of slave labor is still an economy, and if a place is going to be an industrial hub, some stability is required. When I think "thriving" I'm not really thinking public education and social programs, lol.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
Well to be fair, what the op is saying is that most other factions have their "back in my day..." type lore that made them very powerful in the past (even though they are not any longer so). Nids don't have such a past that we know of.

Yeah, we do. The tyranids ate their ENTIRE HOME GALAXY. Now a few worlds, or whatever, but millions or billions of worlds, that probably had empires that presumably rivaled the 40k empires at their (honestly, purely mythological) heights.

This means that the peak power of the nids is what we're currently seeing. Yes there is more stuff coming, but that could be anything: maybe more powerful creatures, maybe simply more of the same, maybe even slow defenceless creatures that eat the barren rocks the fleets leave behind. We simply don't know.

That in turn means that nids at the peak of their power (that we know of; current nids) probably wouldn't have been that big of a challenge to any of the big players at the height of their power, given the ridiculous tech they had available. The nids are really dangerous to the remnants that exist now, but it feels a bit meh to only be a threat to the leftovers.

The big players at the height of their power never wiped out everyone else- each individually failed. The tyranids of today are 'more evolved' (nonsense to say, but that's how the fluff works), more powerful and more numerous from their _galaxy spanning_ success back home. They aren't the remnants. They're the only faction with a track record of success.

Voss wrote:
Yeah, we do. The tyranids ate their ENTIRE HOME GALAXY. Now a few worlds, or whatever, but millions or billions of worlds, that probably had empires that presumably rivaled the 40k empires at their (honestly, purely mythological) heights.

The big players at the height of their power never wiped out everyone else- each individually failed. The tyranids of today are 'more evolved' (nonsense to say, but that's how the fluff works), more powerful and more numerous from their _galaxy spanning_ success back home. They aren't the remnants. They're the only faction with a track record of success.

For all we know the 12 galaxies the Tyranids ate didn't have anything close to necron/eldar/orks/golden age imperium.

And the swarmlord, the supposed military leader of the swarm, is getting his ass kicked regularly by literally every faction. Overfiend of octarius kicked his ass. Yeah, yeah he won after he got reinforcements and weakened the overfiend but that's just it. He loses 1v1 to an ork.

roboemperor wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah, we do. The tyranids ate their ENTIRE HOME GALAXY. Now a few worlds, or whatever, but millions or billions of worlds, that probably had empires that presumably rivaled the 40k empires at their (honestly, purely mythological) heights.

The big players at the height of their power never wiped out everyone else- each individually failed. The tyranids of today are 'more evolved' (nonsense to say, but that's how the fluff works), more powerful and more numerous from their _galaxy spanning_ success back home. They aren't the remnants. They're the only faction with a track record of success.

For all we know the 12 galaxies the Tyranids ate didn't have anything close to necron/eldar/orks/golden age imperium.

And the swarmlord, the supposed military leader of the swarm, is getting his ass kicked regularly by literally every faction. Overfiend of octarius kicked his ass. Yeah, yeah he won after he got reinforcements and weakened the overfiend but that's just it. He loses 1v1 to an ork.

You have a misunderstanding of the Swarmlord. The SL isn't a single separate entity just like none of the nids are. The SL is just a fraction of the Hivemind who doesn't care to throw away bodies left and right. Killing the SL is, again, like chipping a nail. It's meaningless. The perspective that the SL is an individual is based on an incorrect imperial understanding that is trying to fathom the unfathomable. It's trying to anthropomorphize something that isn't human, doesn't truly have bodies, and doesn't care when an extension gets killed. It all gets reabsorbed and fired back out anyway. Multiple SLs are active at the same time on multiple battlefields around the galaxy. None of those individual battles matter on any level.

roboemperor wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah, we do. The tyranids ate their ENTIRE HOME GALAXY. Now a few worlds, or whatever, but millions or billions of worlds, that probably had empires that presumably rivaled the 40k empires at their (honestly, purely mythological) heights.

The big players at the height of their power never wiped out everyone else- each individually failed. The tyranids of today are 'more evolved' (nonsense to say, but that's how the fluff works), more powerful and more numerous from their _galaxy spanning_ success back home. They aren't the remnants. They're the only faction with a track record of success.

For all we know the 12 galaxies the Tyranids ate didn't have anything close to necron/eldar/orks/golden age imperium.

By that logic, we don't 'know' that those golden ages were all that impressive. Its mythology, not fact. Mythology of fiction no less, which means you're dealing with codex POV propaganda, made up wholesale to show off a faction in the best possible light for marketing sales, rather have any historic weight or sociological purpose.

There is no reason to think there weren't opponents or challenges in those galaxies, as otherwise it does nothing but undermine the threat of the tyranids to even mention them. That's very bizarre logic. Oh no, the Great Devourer of... some space cows and whatever. Scary, scary. That doesn't have any narrative weight at all.

And the swarmlord, the supposed military leader of the swarm, is getting his ass kicked regularly by literally every faction. Overfiend of octarius kicked his ass. Yeah, yeah he won after he got reinforcements and weakened the overfiend but that's just it. He loses 1v1 to an ork.

Lance covered this well, but also, it narratively doesn't matter if tyanid organisms die. Losing Swarmlords is meaningless- it lets heroes of other factions shine while the tyranids temporarily lose some biomass, maybe (if they don't win in the end, which they often do).
Heroism in the face of the swarm make Special Character X look good, but blunting (not completely defeating) a single hive fleet tendril means sacrificing 50%+ of the manpower of _all_ the blood angel successors (as in Devastation of Baal). That's a losing gaming, every time. And that's with Khorne sending a daemonic army to jump up and down on the invading organisms on one Baal's moons, so one of his favorite greater daemons doesn't lose its pet project. And Roboute and a crusade fleet coming in to clean up the space battle.

All that for a _reprieve_ (a local repreive! In the half of the galaxy they've effectively written off!) from a fraction of the hive fleets.


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The funny thing is, I hate the direction they went with the tyranids. They're too big, too galaxy ending, too setting ending, and the old Cruddace codex took the fluff way too far, as the inevitable, unstoppable end to everything.
The tyranids seeding 'nest planets' and trying to expand for resources on a local sector level works a lot better- a constant background threat rather than unstoppable force that's just going to eat the galaxy, and can devour everything in its path.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
Chaos does not kill slaves for no reason . . . .

. . . Slaves may be kept alive til they get worked to death . . .

So does the Imperium

I mean, you'll have to define "stable" and "thriving" I suppose. An economy of slave labor is still an economy, and if a place is going to be an industrial hub, some stability is required. When I think "thriving" I'm not really thinking public education and social programs, lol.

I do actually. For example, some of the more recent Black Library novels such as the Warhammer Crime stuff about the city of Vargantua are basically gritty cop novels. You see people live everyday lives, grumble about trivial everyday things, and things like public education, street maintenance, and how their daughter did at the local academy. Even though their lives may be drudgery, the average person on that world is not a slave even though they may just be working a menial job in a textile mill, and there is a societal framework in place that is in theory and in propaganda meant to service them. It is a society that while unpleasant seems capable of persisting on its own and sustaining a large population without constant inputs of immigrants from outside.

We don't see that kind of ordered society on the daemon worlds of the Eye of Terror. We see feral tribes of low population scratching a subsistence existence and fighting to be chosen to be a CSM. We see slaves being worked to death and sacrificed, while presumably living a labor camp/concentration camp kind of life while waiting for that. Dark Mechanicus forge worlds have their mad scientist types shovelling souls and human flesh into the furnaces as fuel for daemonic engines and pacts. These are worlds that are sustained by imports of human population because they go through them so quickly. In Godblight we see an example of a Nurgle conquered world and it has basically degenerated into a fetid swamp inhabited by a few disease wracked uneducated Nurgle worshipping scavenging humans with a very short lifespan. None of these environments that are so heavily Chaos aligned are exactly conducive for large populations of average baseline humans, not in the way that say a civilized world of the Imperium or a hive world of the Imperium might sustain.

In short, the Imperium's heavily developed worlds do have the social infrastructure to sustain such large populations, even though it is not a nice system. By contrast, we see at best examples of warlordism from the Chaos worlds in the Eye. The local warlord or tech-priest may have a stronghold but outside of those centers of power, it seems there is no complex social infrastructure for the rest of the population, beyond the level of a tribe or maybe that necessary to keep a labor camp going.

I could have sworn that Nurgle had/has created a virus that one of the new books says something along the lines of "even the Tyranids can't stop it" It was along the lines of the GodBlight, but more designed for stopping the Nids.

I don't think anyone takes the Nids as a joke. Every Imperial faction that has dealt with them knows they are not to be underestimated in the slightest. Hell, they even scared the greatest imperial hero ever into crapping his pants and running away....

In fairness, Ciaphas Cain runs away from a lot of things, Fezzik.

*Tactical retreat.