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No actually you did not need to say it. In fact the only reason YOU care is because YOU are a physicist and a biologist. You are applying real world science to a made up science fantasy table top war game fluff written by British writers far less educated on the subject than you yet you are annoyed by their lack of scientific accuracy? lol come on You started and ended your own argument on the matter with real world scientific logic... which might still not apply to how tyranids thermodynamics or biology work... why? simply because the GW developers say so. But hey glad you spent all that time figuring that all out and derailing this thread on irrelevant knowledge to the current new fluff for the 6th ed rule book of warhammer 40k.

By the way I’m a biologist too and while your figuring all that stuff about how fictional biological forms metabolize and develop… I’m going to be over here rolling dice, drinking a beer, and looking at how cool these MODELS look. I'll worry about crunching those numbers in the lab during working hours on stuff thats real.

Long story short lets drop the bs and stay on topic. I personally like the direction there going with the fluff, has a lot more 2nd and 3rd edition feel to it. And as previously stated there are lots of reasons why the tyranids could be eating each other, but I personally don’t believe it’s division in the Hive Mind or hive fleets as win or lose the Hive Mind always wins in these little skirmishes.

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:

Arclaw wrote:I was most suprised to see a direct reference to the Squats by name, even though it's not much... After all the trouble they went to removing all the references to them..

WHERE

zedmeister wrote:Annnnd thread derailed. Can we keep to the discussion on new/changes to the background instead of discussing how Tyranids fair on weight watchers or whatnot.

Arclaw wrote:I was most suprised to see a direct reference to the Squats by name, even though it's not much... After all the trouble they went to removing all the references to them..

What? Where? What page?

Appendix 1, Abhumans, Paragraph 3 (pg 405). Like I said, it's not much but I found it suprising...

Arclaw wrote:I was most suprised to see a direct reference to the Squats by name, even though it's not much... After all the trouble they went to removing all the references to them..

Not so surprising: Ork codex contains veiled reference to Squats, probably also Nid codex. There have been hints.

Backfire wrote:

Arclaw wrote:I was most suprised to see a direct reference to the Squats by name, even though it's not much... After all the trouble they went to removing all the references to them..

Not so surprising: Ork codex contains veiled reference to Squats, probably also Nid codex. There have been hints.

I'm aware of the indirect reference to Golgotha in the ork dex, but consider this is the first time the word "Squats" has been printed in a 40k (non BL) book since 2nd Ed. So they're explicitly canon again, after all that. And according to the rest of the paragraph its perfectly fine to consider whole worlds are populated by them... Guess that's going to make anyone with a Squat imperial guard regiment feel pretty chuffed?

It also seems obvious (together with Nids codex reference which likely points to Squats) that Squats and Demiurg are NOT the same thing. Curious to see where they go from here.

I expect they'll go nowhere with it, frankly... its just a reconciliation with the squat fans, and a sign that it's long enough after the messy relationship break-up that GW are comfortable talking about it

Backfire wrote:It also seems obvious (together with Nids codex reference which likely points to Squats) that Squats and Demiurg are NOT the same thing. Curious to see where they go from here.

Who in the world thinks Squats and Demiurg are the same thing?

They're not. They never have been. The Demiurg are an alien race which are fairly close to what the Squats used to be(short, masters of technology and craftsmanship, clan based) but outside of that they are two very different things.

Kanluwen wrote:Who in the world thinks Squats and Demiurg are the same thing? They're not. They never have been.

I think some people may have been confused by the fact that the Demiurg are based on the Squats, as explained in a post by Jervis Johnson. As we can see here on this forum as well, word of mouth tends to twist and warp supposed facts so much that the end result is much different from the original statement. It's like the telephone game, just with overenthusiastic grown-ups.

[edit] Found it. Oh, how i love the waybackmachine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070221095649/http://forums.specialist-games.com/epic/forum_b/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=2532&whichpage=3

nids have always fought eac other? how is this new?

i remember a short piece of fluff stating the hive mind find this to be an advantage, as the winner absorbs the defeated fleets biomass and whatever planet they may have been fighting over, becoming stronger from it.

its win win for nids

I really liked the story of the rogue ship apearing and all hell breaking loose after

Arclaw wrote:

Backfire wrote:

Arclaw wrote:I was most suprised to see a direct reference to the Squats by name, even though it's not much... After all the trouble they went to removing all the references to them..

Not so surprising: Ork codex contains veiled reference to Squats, probably also Nid codex. There have been hints.

I'm aware of the indirect reference to Golgotha in the ork dex, but consider this is the first time the word "Squats" has been printed in a 40k (non BL) book since 2nd Ed. So they're explicitly canon again, after all that. And according to the rest of the paragraph its perfectly fine to consider whole worlds are populated by them... Guess that's going to make anyone with a Squat imperial guard regiment feel pretty chuffed?

Not to mention there's a chance they might get more attention due to studio staff changes. Remember, it was the 'old guard' of the studio that didn't like the name and concept, and thus had no enthusiasm for the project. They have almost a whole new design studio now, and someone might work up the enthusiasm to work on them.

Formosa wrote:I really liked the story of the rogue ship apearing and all hell breaking loose after

The Sword of Eternity (sry if I didn't get the name right, spanish translation here) has to be one of my favorite additions to the background. But there are also some more grimdark bits hidden in the fluff.

Like the not-so-veiled reference to the Children's Crusade of 1212. At this point I no longer trusted 40k to pull me out of my comfort zone, but the snippets about the "Lost Crusade" and its horrifying end sent the odd shiver down my spine.

-Loki- wrote:

Arclaw wrote:

Backfire wrote:

Arclaw wrote:I was most suprised to see a direct reference to the Squats by name, even though it's not much... After all the trouble they went to removing all the references to them..

Not so surprising: Ork codex contains veiled reference to Squats, probably also Nid codex. There have been hints.

I'm aware of the indirect reference to Golgotha in the ork dex, but consider this is the first time the word "Squats" has been printed in a 40k (non BL) book since 2nd Ed. So they're explicitly canon again, after all that. And according to the rest of the paragraph its perfectly fine to consider whole worlds are populated by them... Guess that's going to make anyone with a Squat imperial guard regiment feel pretty chuffed?

Not to mention there's a chance they might get more attention due to studio staff changes. Remember, it was the 'old guard' of the studio that didn't like the name and concept, and thus had no enthusiasm for the project. They have almost a whole new design studio now, and someone might work up the enthusiasm to work on them.

It was the 'old guard' who also created the Demiurg as "Squats 2.0".

It's also, mind you, the 'old guard' in the form of Jervis Johnson who still heads the studio. More likely than not this is his way of getting people to finally shut the hell up about "Squats DID EXIST!".

Or it's that silly goon Cruddace copy/pasting from earlier editions again.

I'm fairly sure copypasting has always been a part of 40k fluff. Way back to 2E copying 1E Rogue Trader.

Not that this excludes the possibility of it possibly being an unintentional mistake. Has there ever been a list like this in a book before?

Err any other changes we should know about to the fluff?

Iracundus wrote:
And before people try to claim all logic should be thrown out in 40K, the fact that gravity still works, guns still fire ammunition and bolter shells need propulsion, shows there are still laws of physics in action. Just because a universe is a fictional universe doesn't mean anything goes. Fictional universes still have their own internal paradigms and tales within such a universe should be internally consistent with the setting's rules. The 40K universe has the addition of the warp which is often a way to bend or avoid real world physics, but the Tyranids are about "evolution gone mad" and are about a realspace alien menace as opposed to the otherworldly magical beings of the warp.

Thank you. The human race gets a little dumber every time people just use the hand-wave excuses. Some things are available to say "well it works with 40K science" because we don't know it isn't possible. But certain rules still apply. People dying when their heads get cut off is still "science" and "logic", lol. Basic laws of gravity seem to apply, it seems that stars function by the same principles too. So yeah, Tyranids can't technically recycle themselves and retain the same amount of "mass out" as "mass in". But you're right about their "mass in" not being limited to just other obvious animal life forms or themselves.

Besides, the universe itself even proves there must be some kind of loss. After all, two of the hive fleets have been stopped. That means they ran out of Tyranids at some point. Otherwise it would have been nearly impossible to stop if they simply converted all available biomass into new creatures.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Arclaw wrote:I expect they'll go nowhere with it, frankly... its just a reconciliation with the squat fans, and a sign that it's long enough after the messy relationship break-up that GW are comfortable talking about it

This has been my thought. The "et by tearnidz" story was a poorly conceived reaction by guys who were tired of being bothered by fans about Squats. You can understand it might get frustrating at some point to keep getting asked the same question you don't have a good answer to, though it's also understandable that those people who had invested in armies of Squat figures were a bit irritated to suddenly have a pile of expensive, basically unusable models.

GW probably should have done to the Squats what they've done to the Sisters, and it's likely that the WD codex for the Sisters is a sign they learned their lesson with the Squats. Give the army a set of rules that keeps most of its models usable (no army has 100% model viability anyway). After Codex: IG 2E, they could have easily made. 'White Dwarf Codex" for Squats that left a fair number of their figures usable, while selling more of the new IGuard tanks and letting Squat players play. After all, Squats shared a lot in common with I Guard in RT, including the same tanks, basic weapons and basic armor.

At any rate, putting them back into the universe's lore is relatively easy and painless. After all, their demise was never really "officially" recorded in any of the studio material, only vaguely alluded to.

Asherian Command wrote:Err any other changes we should know about to the fluff?

Not really, 6th Edition demonstrates that GW will never advance the story at all.

AustonT wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:

Lynata wrote:Alternatively, maybe GW just likes the idea of Kerrigan's Swarm War. Given the Tyranid Redesign, it wouldn't be the first time they copy something from Blizz back. In this case, brace yourselves for Newnid Hiveminds with personalities like the Necron Lords.

Shhhhhhhh, 40K fanboys get butthurt when you point out that Games Workshop copies all their concepts from other universes, too.

I think that is the best explanation, though. I think GW is definitely trying to make their factions have a lot more "depth" to them, starting with the Necrons, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did begin modeling Tyranids after the Zerg. Zerg are basically just more interesting Tyranids anyway.

So your theory is that GW is going to base the Tyranids on the Zerg which are themselves based on the Tyranids...go on...

Well, basically, Zerg are what Tyranids would be if Tyranids were a faction that was actually well-written and served a purpose beyond being the galaxy's punching bag.

So to that end, Tyranids being more like Zerg would basically just be well-written Tyranids.

Punching bag? The Tyranids have conquered more of the galaxy in less time than any other faction in 40K...

They have to be stopped at some point, because if they aren't, 40K ends.

Good lord, punching bag, lol. Sometimes I wonder about how people arrive at the inane conclusions that they do. Of course, you think the Zerg were an original idea, so I guess it's no surprise.

Where did I say the Zerg were an original idea? lol. Hand me some of them drugs you're taking.

As for the rest of your post: naw. Tyranids get rage stomped by every other faction outside of their own codex. They're the Imperial Guard of the non-Imperial factions. Name some major victories the Tyranid have under their belt? They don't have any. Every major conflict they've been in has ended with them losing and then some grimdark one-liner being thrown in at the end of the article talking about how it's bittersweet victory because the Tyranids have endless numbers and they'll adapt for the next time blah blah blah. Meanwhile, lone Phoenix Lords are solo'ing entire fleets and Tau forces are decimating fleets without losing a ship. lulz.

Behemoth ate an entire chunk of the Ultima Segmentum before being finally stopped at Macragge. Kraken ate another chunk, including two entire SM chapters...

Of course they end up losing. They're an inexorable, implacable enemy that exists only to consume and perpetuate itself. Like I said, they have to eventually "lose" every major conflict because they're an "all or nothing" kind of faction.

If they don't lose, it means they go on to eat everything. And it's hard to have a 40K if they do that. However, all the way back to 2nd Edition, the Tyranids have been the "eventually going to eat everything" faction. The first, and original, unstoppable force.

. You don't seem to understand Tyranids at all, lol. Or really, anything else about 40K. Again, like I said, "punching bags"... LOL. Absurd. Absolutely absurd.

BlaxicanX wrote:Name some major victories the Tyranid have under their belt? They don't have any.

Destroying Malantai. Destroying Gryphonne IV. Destroying the majority of he planets in the Macragge solar system.

You seem to get caught up on the hive fleets being stopped, and ignore the irreparable damage each successive fleet does, and the fact that they're not going to stop comIng. It's not your fault - Cruddace did a terrible job on the recent fluff.

BlaxicanX wrote: Name some major victories the Tyranid have under their belt? They don't have any.

Let's see...entire sections of Ultima Segmentum left lifeless after Hive Fleet Behemoth until what was essentially a pyrrhic Imperial victory at Maccrage...Iyanden reduced to a shadow of its former self after Kraken...the Imperium being forced to burn hundreds if not thousands of worlds to slow and divert Leviathan...the Imperium having to increase recruitment 500% at least just to hold against incoming fleets...right, they might not be winning now, but in the long run, only the Orks have a chance against them.

-Loki- wrote:

Arclaw wrote:

I'm aware of the indirect reference to Golgotha in the ork dex, but consider this is the first time the word "Squats" has been printed in a 40k (non BL) book since 2nd Ed. So they're explicitly canon again, after all that. And according to the rest of the paragraph its perfectly fine to consider whole worlds are populated by them... Guess that's going to make anyone with a Squat imperial guard regiment feel pretty chuffed?

Not to mention there's a chance they might get more attention due to studio staff changes. Remember, it was the 'old guard' of the studio that didn't like the name and concept, and thus had no enthusiasm for the project. They have almost a whole new design studio now, and someone might work up the enthusiasm to work on them.

It's taken a long time, almost ten years in fact, but my Avatar is finally valid again! Hurrah!

You're right though.. I think one of the chaps at Nottingham had said something along the lines of, "No squats while I am here".. Well, unless someone has been a little naughty with their writing, I'm guessing that guy doesn't work there any more (not sure who it was that said that, I always assumed Alan Merrit, but that obviously can't be the case).

As Kanluwen said though, the Demiurg are a very different concept to the Squats, their only commonalities being their short stature and love for industry and mechanical things. For those who aren't aware, their design concept first came many years ago when GW were looking for a new race for 40k. The Demiurg were one of the concepts put forward alongside the Tau, and the latter was ultimately chosen (some say cynically that this was due to the proposed expansion into Asia, and specifically Japan at the time, although such a choice if true reveals a poor understanding about Japanese culture). However, there was some residual spillage of that initial Demiurg concept; The Jes Goodwin sketches, the Battlefield Gothic ships, as well as some mentions in BL books.

I have to say I love the idea of ab-humans coming back into Imperial Guard - it always made them far more characterful in the past, and will hopefully make them a more interesting concept for converters. I've always thought the background should encourage imagination, and not 'stunt it' as it has been prone to do with 3rd through to 5th editions.

Agent_Tremolo wrote:

Formosa wrote:I really liked the story of the rogue ship apearing and all hell breaking loose after

The Sword of Eternity (sry if I didn't get the name right, spanish translation here) has to be one of my favorite additions to the background. But there are also some more grimdark bits hidden in the fluff.

Like the not-so-veiled reference to the Children's Crusade of 1212. At this point I no longer trusted 40k to pull me out of my comfort zone, but the snippets about the "Lost Crusade" and its horrifying end sent the odd shiver down my spine.

Wow, you must be a real sensitive soul to have shivers down your spine from a sci-fantasy transliteration of events that never happened.

Eh, the Children's Crusade happened, just not in the way the oft-repeated story suggests it did. There were two different movements of people in 1212 lead by youthful (one as young as 12) "visionaries" , this one being Stephan of Cloyes, who holds perhaps the strongest claim to being the origins of the Children's Crusade.

Right, but only relatively small portions of the mobs were actual children. A bunch of dumbasses walking to their deaths is nothing to be upset over. Adolescents don't count, since you were of marriable age and would probably die at 30. They aren't quite the same as adolescents of today.

I agree with you that Tyranid infighting makes no sense. The Tyranids were a lot cooler when they were an animalistic yet strangely intelligent alien species launching a massive invasion upon our galaxy bent on devouring all the galaxy's biomass. Now, hive fleets are little better than overgrown, space-faring beehives.

DOOMBREAD wrote:I agree with you that Tyranid infighting makes no sense. The Tyranids were a lot cooler when they were an animalistic yet strangely intelligent alien species launching a massive invasion upon our galaxy bent on devouring all the galaxy's biomass. Now, hive fleets are little better than overgrown, space-faring beehives.

Read more fluff, listen to less internet. This simply isn't true. They're still the same intelligent alien intelligence, and Tyranid infighting has been around since 3rd edition.

Well, I believe the correct way of putting it would be that there has been one incident of them 'infighting' in the 3rd edition book - except, its not even that - infighting implies some kind of mixed objective or leadership (the horus heresy, or any other form of civil war could be described as 'infighting').

We still generally have the impression that the entire Tyranid species is controlled by one, malign intelligence in the form of the Hive Mind.

Will someone just post the damn quote already. As with way too many fluff discussions, the debate concerning this seems to operate on 99% opinion, hearsay and unreliable memory.