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The tyranid back story got me thinking...

They are supposedly a biomass devouring hive entity, eating all in their way, converting it to more biomass to be absorbed and remade as more tyranids.
Sometimes, however, they run up against the likes of the Imperium on an inhabited world and get their asses kicked off the planet while trying to storm a defended city or something.

My question is: Why do they bother?

The amount of biomass made up of people on any given world would be a tiny fragment of the total. It is estimated humans make up 0.33% of the biomass of earth for example (Ants may be as much as 15% alone) So why bother fighting the planet's armed inhabitants? Why not strip the world of its 99.66% of other biomass and have no risk of getting booted off world? Just go around or ignore the damn cities or armies. The stories of fighting tyranids in jungles make me chuckle, I would think they would be far more interested in eating the jungle itself!
Obviously all 40k planets are different, and a hive planet will have more people-mass than anything else and may be a valid reason to fight, but any non 'scorched wasteland' planet would surely mean that avoiding the centres of population, or just saving them until last, would be the most efficient way of chowing down on a planet. There should also be as many water-borne nids as land based ones. (Probably not a good idea to go swimming if you think you have just beaten a nid invasion!)

Are humans listed under 'Starters' on the nid menus? Are they environmentaly friendly and like to save the trees until last? Does it matter as long as there's a reason for a good scrap?

Because if they invade 100 planets they get lots more as it's 0.33% of each of them.
It all adds up, like Tesco say 'Every little helps'

For largely the same reason that a infections will deal with a person's immune system, as I read it.

The Hive Mind does not seem to view humanity (or whatever) as a threat--merely as an inconvenience. Also, by defeating the more capable defenders, the fleets are actually strengthened with the defender's DNA, methods, and more!

kirsanth wrote:For largely the same reason that a infections will deal with a person's immune system, as I read it.

The Hive Mind does not seem to view humanity (or whatever) as a threat--merely as an inconvenience. Also, by defeating the more capable defenders, the fleets are actually strengthened with the defender's DNA, methods, and more!

Actually apparently Tyranids don't get strengthed from other species DNA anymore. That's what i have been told i'm actually sure though.

Daedricbob wrote:The amount of biomass made up of people on any given world would be a tiny fragment of the total. It is estimated humans make up 0.33% of the biomass of earth for example (Ants may be as much as 15% alone) So why bother fighting the planet's armed inhabitants? Why not strip the world of its 99.66% of other biomass and have no risk of getting booted off world? Just go around or ignore the damn cities or armies. The stories of fighting tyranids in jungles make me chuckle, I would think they would be far more interested in eating the jungle itself!

So the hive fleet turns up, the skies go dark with the amount of mycetic spores dropping onto the world and the human inhabitants just sit back and watch as their planet is reduced to a lifeless husk because, hey, those 'Nids sure are hungry but they never attack humans so just let them be.

The Tyranids don't attack armed defenders for the sake of attacking armed defenders, they kill every living thing there is, esepecially if it's fighting back because generally people (or other alien species) don't just sit around and watch their world, their people and their families get devoured. The Tyranids are not Zombo, they don't ask politely if they can eat you, they just eat you, and generally that will involve some kind of fight.

The next point you have to keep in mind is that their are other Tyranid organisms eating all the other life on the planet beside the assault creatures, the Tyranids attack world right down to the molecular level, the bigger beasts are just their to make sure nothing gets in the way.

Finally, an invading army might well seek to avoud confrontations, to preserve its troops but the Tyranids are not an invading army, the individual lives of Tyranids creatures are meaningless, the vast majority invariably walking into digestion pools once a world is neutralised. If millions of Tyranids die killing the defenders of one city it doesn't matter, their corpses are dragged to digestion pools or eaten by rippers and with a few days you have another million Tyranids ready to attack the next city and so on.

They still use DNA, it's just been downplayed in the new codex. Once you've a few hundred human planets, there's nothing really new to learn from their DNA.

Daedricbob wrote:The tyranid back story got me thinking...

They are supposedly a biomass devouring hive entity, eating all in their way, converting it to more biomass to be absorbed and remade as more tyranids.
Sometimes, however, they run up against the likes of the Imperium on an inhabited world and get their asses kicked off the planet while trying to storm a defended city or something.

My question is: Why do they bother?

The amount of biomass made up of people on any given world would be a tiny fragment of the total. It is estimated humans make up 0.33% of the biomass of earth for example (Ants may be as much as 15% alone) So why bother fighting the planet's armed inhabitants? Why not strip the world of its 99.66% of other biomass and have no risk of getting booted off world? Just go around or ignore the damn cities or armies. The stories of fighting tyranids in jungles make me chuckle, I would think they would be far more interested in eating the jungle itself!
Obviously all 40k planets are different, and a hive planet will have more people-mass than anything else and may be a valid reason to fight, but any non 'scorched wasteland' planet would surely mean that avoiding the centres of population, or just saving them until last, would be the most efficient way of chowing down on a planet. There should also be as many water-borne nids as land based ones. (Probably not a good idea to go swimming if you think you have just beaten a nid invasion!)

Are humans listed under 'Starters' on the nid menus? Are they environmentaly friendly and like to save the trees until last? Does it matter as long as there's a reason for a good scrap?

"Real" Tyranids would simply infiltrate the biosphere with a virus that converts all DNA and RNA based lifeforms to sludge. Wait a couple of months, then scoop up the sludge. Any organisms that were immune will have died from lack of oxygen, food, and so on. Their bodies can be picked up and slung into the pot, too.

This would avoid all the hassle with the flamethrowers and so on, but it wouldn't make for a fun game of 40K.

You also need to remember, that after rippers eat things and return to the digestion pools, the biomass still needs to be sent up capillary towers to the hive ships in orbit. Those capillary towers, as well as other Tyranid 'structures' that help the process are prime targets.

The Tryanids need to not only subdue any nearby agressive enemies (which is what the big initial assault is all about), but actively defend these 'structures'. This is where the followup attacks come from. They don't sit there idly watching their biomass feeding network get destroyed any more than a race inhabiting a planet would sit back and watch the planet get eaten.

Killkrazy
they are to fast paced to wait on a virus to break things down, i mean would you wait on the cow to die to make hamburger??