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The Hivemind is able to think unlike the other nids so it should know just how dangerous the races in this galaxy are. The tyranids has encounter every race already and got their asses kicked by each one at least once. They're been destroyed by beings they can't understand or comprehend like daemons and necrons. Even the races that they could take biomass from has beaten them on multiple occasions. If i was the hivemind i'll say screw this galaxy and just attack a different galaxy instead, Other races needs to continue fighting because they're within the galaxy but the tyranids are outside, they don't need to risk annihilation. What you guys think?

Well, they already expended massive amounts of energy just to get here so perhaps leaving to go somewhere else just isn't an option. If you are really hungry and there is a queue at your favourite food outlet, you don't just think 'oh, well there is another one 10 miles from here guess I should start walking' instead you queue up and wait.
In the same way the Tyranids can just keep coming with their numbers and eventually they will get served.

Plus, by your theory, most races should have decided to pack up and fight somewhere else by now. Dameons are technically 'outside' the galaxy (and the dimension for that matter) and they get beaten and yet they keep coming. Plus, it's only logical that every race has beaten them at least once given the nature of the fluff otherwise people would complain, but at the same time haven't the Tyranids also beaten every race at least once in return? You win some and lose some

They need to feed, and the various races of the galaxy are naught but food to them. Besides, they have successfully consumed many worlds, far more than those they failed to defeat.

Yeah I am not sure where you are getting the "beaten" impression from. Some Hive fleets have been stalled or destroyed, but overall, Tyrands seem to be well on their way to galactic buffeying.

Particularly if you consider the fluff that states that the hive fleets are actually just tendrils of the main fleet, which would then have to be the size of half the galaxy... they can easily devour everything unless pretty much the entire galaxy unites against them. They have no reason to leave. Plus the implication might be that they can't really survive another trip without feeding.

Nids try and avoid necrons, and generally only encounter daemons by accident as they are not a "warp aware" species per say.

Mostly they keep coming like because like water on a rock eventually they will wear the resistance down

Even if they have been "beaten", don't you think a galaxy with untold, uncountable masses of biomass is too tempting to pass over?

How are you getting the "asses kicked" impression?

Also, the Tyranids are a massive force. A Hive Fleet tendril is a tiny part of the whole, and it normally takes a massive battle to even slow it down, and they have only been destroyed a few times. And that is the smallest fraction of their full strength.

If the rumors are true and this is just a probing force, the Tyranids may have the numbers in their main force to consume the whole galaxy.

There's no where else to go. You can't make an intergalactic journey and just turn around because of some inconvenience.

The Tyranids have consumed countless worlds, and what they have only sent in 3 major hive fleets? Leviathan, Behemoth and Kraken. Leviathan is not even beaten its just locked in a war with the Ork Empire of Octarius, from which they will most likely win and come out of with even more biomass and new deadly species. I'd say the Tyranids have been far from getting their asses handed to them as you imply.

I believe it says somewhere in the fluff that the hive mind is being drawn to Terra by something in the Golden Throne. (Perhaps the hive mind wants to absorb the emperor before he dies, mayhaps it is some mysterious part of the Golden Throne's original function or perhaps the Emperor plans to use the nids somehow. The fluff doesn't even speculate why this is.)

The implication what we see in 40k are just the nids that were closest and fastest. It takes the Nids a long time to travel across space compared to races that use the warp. I think even the Tau can travel faster. My 40k books are on loan right now so I can't look it up.

I read the title to this thread and thought we were talking about the players.

The fluff suggests that the Tyranids are actually unbeatable and they will overwhelm the galaxy in the end through strength in numbers...

...assuming Chaos doesn't tear it apart first.

Slightly off topic, it would be nice to see their overwhelming numbers represented in the rules again via some kind of wave assault.

Getting beaten does not instantly translate into losing. Losing battles and losing the war are two different things. We already know the Tyranids think nothing of expending their own organisms if it means victory (They're far better suited to attrition than the Imperium is) - so if they're willing to do that for individual worlds, why would it be any less different on the galactic scale? If anything, the fluff has steered towards the notion that every conflict the Hive Fleet has engaged in has been designed to test and probe their enemies, to develop new tactics and strategies to beat them (which is one reason why each Hive Fleet assaults the galaxy in different ways.)

We still know there's a far bigger Tyranid force inbound for the galaxy, so its not like they've taken crippling losses yet.

The Tyranids are nearly numberless, so being defeated isn't a big deal for them. Also, the Tyranids in the galaxy already are only the tip of the iceberg. Unless the other factions get a lot more powerful, the Tyranids will ultimately devour all the biomass in the galaxy.

I like to think of the Tyrannids losing as them shedding off dead skin. We do it constantly, by the millions of cells. Yet we think nothing of it. The Tyrannid race is similar, it's barely even been bruised thusfar in the fluff.

They devour, it is their nature to consume all biomass...cut blackberry bushes improperly and they will come back even stronger, thus is the tyranid scourge.

I think the only real threat to the Tyranids is the chaos daemons, since they're the only other numberless race and they don't give up biomass on death, but they'll cease to exist once all the psychic races are gone(correct me if i'm wrong- I don't know chaos). Everyone else will just be ground down by neverending Tyranids.

Hunchkrot wrote:I think the only real threat to the Tyranids is the chaos daemons, since they're the only other numberless race and they don't give up biomass on death, but they'll cease to exist once all the psychic races are gone(correct me if i'm wrong- I don't know chaos). Everyone else will just be ground down by neverending Tyranids.

Sounds about right, though Chaos is more a manifestation of any sentient races hopes and desires. Races like humanity, eldar, etc

Magtherion_Soulsaver wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:I think the only real threat to the Tyranids is the chaos daemons, since they're the only other numberless race and they don't give up biomass on death, but they'll cease to exist once all the psychic races are gone(correct me if i'm wrong- I don't know chaos). Everyone else will just be ground down by neverending Tyranids.

Sounds about right, though Chaos is more a manifestation of any sentient races hopes and desires. Races like humanity, eldar, etc

Sucks, because it would be an epic war. And that isn't a word I throw around.

They keep coming because something is drawing them like a moth to the flame. That something is the Golden Throne.

Hunchkrot wrote:

Magtherion_Soulsaver wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:I think the only real threat to the Tyranids is the chaos daemons, since they're the only other numberless race and they don't give up biomass on death, but they'll cease to exist once all the psychic races are gone(correct me if i'm wrong- I don't know chaos). Everyone else will just be ground down by neverending Tyranids.

Sounds about right, though Chaos is more a manifestation of any sentient races hopes and desires. Races like humanity, eldar, etc

Sucks, because it would be an epic war. And that isn't a word I throw around.

Necrons, they cant get anything from the necrons. Necrons also see nids as a big threat, since they want to eat everything

The Necrons would do well at first because they phase out rather than give up biomass, but for every planet they lose, they have one less to run away to. Eventually, they'd be cornered.

Hunchkrot wrote:The Necrons would do well at first because they phase out rather than give up biomass, but for every planet they lose, they have one less to run away to. Eventually, they'd be cornered.

Necrons don't have any biomass apart from the skins of the flayed ones' victims.

Lord Rogukiel wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:The Necrons would do well at first because they phase out rather than give up biomass, but for every planet they lose, they have one less to run away to. Eventually, they'd be cornered.

Necrons don't have any biomass apart from the skins of the flayed ones' victims.

Flayed one: "why do they keep attacking me!?"

Necron 2: "because you're wearing food, just take it off!"

Lord Rogukiel wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:The Necrons would do well at first because they phase out rather than give up biomass, but for every planet they lose, they have one less to run away to. Eventually, they'd be cornered.

Necrons don't have any biomass apart from the skins of the flayed ones' victims.

Just because they can't eat them, doesn't mean they can't kill them. They can still pound the necrons down with numbers.

There have been only estimations of the tyranids true size but no one actually knows the true number of tyranids. Tyranids are like a conscript army of guard. They may loose millions, but to an army of billions, that's hardly a loss.

The common cold is constantly being beaten back... but it just keeps coming back.

They Tyranids are slow to learn but quick to evolve.

To them this is just the next galaxy, of many, to consume.

I've always been fond of some old 2nd edition fluff where an inquisitor speculated that perhaps the Tyranids had already consumed most of the life in the universe and maybe this was the last galaxy left with any life. Can't remember where I read that, I'll have to dig out my send edition codices and find that particular passage.

Samurai_Eduh wrote:I've always been fond of some old 2nd edition fluff where an inquisitor speculated that perhaps the Tyranids had already consumed most of the life in the universe and maybe this was the last galaxy left with any life. Can't remember where I read that, I'll have to dig out my send edition codices and find that particular passage.

I like to think the Tyranids have already conquered a majority of the galaxies out there, because it better explains how they can come from all the different angles into our galaxy. But, like many things about the 'Nids, it is pure speculation.