Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Overread wrote:
Because of the way Tyranid Lore is written I think Tyranid players, despite all the victories Tyranids have, tend to always feel a bit underpowered and abit like the big evil thing in a hero story.

Always beaten at the last punch; always not the underdog but the under appreciated and always a little faceless.

Swarmlord is the Face of tyranids currently; its the only real character of note that GW has allowed us to have and to keep. Most others are either small scale (Red Terror or Old One Eye) or were niche and for all their deadly aspiration were written out - eg the Parasite of Mortax.

Yeah, that's a problem of being an always-attacking-force-always-destroying-what-it-conquers force. Same thing happens to the Orks. It's how it goes.

As for the Swarmlord being the Face of Tyranids, it's problematic exactly because it's the face of the Tyranids. Tyranids don't really have a face. It being defeated means nothing. How many times have Greater Daemons or Avatars of Khaine been unceremoniously vanquished? It's what happens when you have an essentially undying enemy. It sucks but... don't play Tyranids because of the 'characters'. The Swarmlord itself almost contradicts the fluff. And it's unlikely to ever kill an important character who can't be resurrected.

As for their biggest achievement, wiping out a faction is leagues better than anything anyone else has done. Aside from that they're consistently written as at the least a sector ending threat as opposed to say, the Orks.

Carnikang wrote:I disagree. In size he could be considered to be. In skill, he definitely could be considered to be (in lore he's a monster that fights in lightening fast strikes/paries, and he's got a 2+ WS on the table). Tactically, he's comparable to any of them, though as it's been said, most tyranids strategies are reactionary, allowing for different tactics to be used. In the psychic arena, I can concede there, as just being innately a psyker doesn't really compare to most primarch level psykers. But, he is the Tyranid equivilant to a Primarch at this time. If he ever gets an updated bit of fluff or rules, we shall see from there.

Size means nothing. In skill, he was beaten by Calgar. He's no way near on the level of a Primarch. Tactically he has the massive advantage of real-time control of everything. That one I will grant you but he's still been proven to be beaten by the Imperium which had smaller forces so... either his tactical prowess is lacking or Tyranids need a huge numerical advantage to defeat forces used to them. This is probably really important. The Tyranid victories tend to be against enemies who aren't used to Tyranids or who they massive overpower. Take away those advantages (or even the not-used-to-part) and they tend to lose.

Wyzilla wrote:It did destroy Leviathan as far as we know. Firstly Leviathan doesn't actually "span the galactic disk", those tyranid maps show the path of their travel and not their actual size (otherwise with that much mass they would literally form a black hole and be incapable of moving), but the fleets are small things that exist at the tips of the arrows. Unless there's some splinter fleets as far as we know Leviathan is now a planetary skull structure made by Ka'bandha and his friends.

While you're correct that people often overestimate the size of the Tyranids I definitely think you're mistaken about Leviathan being entirely destroyed. Only the splinter fleet attacking Baal is suggested to have been wiped out (or disappeared through the Warp).

Strat_N8 wrote:Probably not in official fluff, but in the early days of 6th edition Swarmlord with Biomancy was able to beat up the 30k Primarchs on the table top fairly easily (Horus was the only one that gave him problems - it was still a fairly even fight despite Swarmy being half the cost). His old table-top statline was also fairly similar to that of a Primarch as well which furthers the comparison.

Comparing different rulesets is unfair. You can't used the table-top rules for 30K and plonk them in a 40K ruleset or vice versa and expect it to work out as it should.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Comparing different rulesets is unfair. You can't used the table-top rules for 30K and plonk them in a 40K ruleset or vice versa and expect it to work out as it should.

Perhaps, but it didn't stop people from running the two against each other before 8th edition dropped. Even discarding the different rulesets, in 8th edition Swarmlord's stats currently sit between Guilliman and the Daemon Primarchs released thus far. He might not be a direct Primarch equivalent (his offense and defense are weaker), but he is fairly close.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

Perhaps, but it didn't stop people from running the two against each other before 8th edition dropped. Even discarding the different rulesets, in 8th edition Swarmlord's stats currently sit between Guilliman and the Daemon Primarchs released thus far. He might not be a direct Primarch equivalent (his offense and defense are weaker), but he is fairly close.

Fair enough. Not much of a table top fan to be honest. Fluff-wise though I think it's very firmly in Guilliman's favour.

But then in true Tyranid fashion the Swarmlord could try Bio-titans so there's that. I mean, I really don't get the idea of Tyranids needing a character. Aren't they the anti-character race?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Strat_N8 wrote:

Perhaps, but it didn't stop people from running the two against each other before 8th edition dropped. Even discarding the different rulesets, in 8th edition Swarmlord's stats currently sit between Guilliman and the Daemon Primarchs released thus far. He might not be a direct Primarch equivalent (his offense and defense are weaker), but he is fairly close.

Fair enough. Not much of a table top fan to be honest. Fluff-wise though I think it's very firmly in Guilliman's favour.

But then in true Tyranid fashion the Swarmlord could try Bio-titans so there's that. I mean, I really don't get the idea of Tyranids needing a character. Aren't they the anti-character race?

I don't know if I would call it that. They do have genetic variants that act like leader beasts, and are usually solitary aside from subordinates (Red Terror, Old One Eye, DeathLeaper, Broodlords, etc.). That and in the lore, variant/evolutionary mutations have happened surronding other Hive Tyrants and Warriors, coming out to appear as characters, despite being just another chasis with a fancy new biomorph and a little extra exp. The Swarmlord could just be a leader of leaders, and as such is afforded greater autonomy from the Hive Mind because of it's sheer mental and psychic might combined to make it unique. Yet not, as it's supposed that the Swarmlord can be present in many places at once across the galaxy if need be.

They're faceless bodies, but there are always some sort of characterizations with them.

 Lance845 wrote:
[

Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.

Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.

How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?

 Exergy wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
[

Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.

Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.

How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?

One, maybe two, as they won't be physical adaptations, but mental ones. Lore states that the Swarmlord is able to deflect bullets/shots fired at it, and that translates into striking as well. A creature that can move that quickly with that size, in combat with a smaller opponent, learning each time it's defeated, will win given enough time to adapt it's strategy.

Going back through the Horus Heresy, how many Primarchs has Guilliman fought? 4? He lost two of those three engagements, and may not have actually battled Omegon/Alpharius in the last. It can be assumed... that he's not the best fighter among them, even though he would still be a considerable fighter. That may have some bearing in the duel, as the Swarmlord is an exemplary fighter. The loss at Ichar IV is very interesting, where Calgar beat him... is the duel ever detailed? It only states that Calgar won in an epic duel.
Where as we know the general details of his first encounter with the Swarmlord, and Guilliman's encounters with his brothers in acute detail.

I'm not saying that makes it not an issue, but that it's suspect and I'm genuinely curious if that was just more Ultra-PLOT-marine armor or not.

 Exergy wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
[

Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.

Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.

How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?

Except the lore does have them adapting like that. If you deploy bioligical weapons or poisons the next wave is adapted to be immune to it.

When the tau used tons of pulse weaponry, they adapted to make those weapons less and less effective until the tau had to switch to ballistics and missiles.

When the nids were all caged up on Anphelion they grew wings to fly over and burrowers to go under.

They adapt to hard counters when it's the easiest option. They don't bother adapting Termagants to kill single marines. That's not the Termagants job. The swarmlord is already basically ready to go toe to toe with a primarch. I think it would probably loose the first round. But if you think the swarm wouldn't bring him back with adaptations ready to go or a whole new beast whos purpose built for the task you need to read more about what the nids do.

Except Leviathan didn't enter from the side of the galaxy like the others. It came up from the bottom of the galactic disk all at once. So every single point on the map where you see Leviathan is a place where leviathan showed up all at once. The lore talks about how it showed up in 2 long lines cutting off whole sections from communication because of the shadow in the warp. It showed up looking like a pair of jaws closing over a section of the galaxy.

So no. All of leviathan was not fighting the BA. A huge section of leviathan is also fighting the orks, while another section has been making a b line for Terra with a couple dozen SM chapters and IG fleets working together to slow it's advance.

It would actually do you well to bother to read the codices instead of making stuff up.



Firstly Hive Fleet Leviathan did not invade from both above and below the galactic plane, it came from "below", entering the galaxy with 13 tendril fleets. Secondly it is easy for Leviathan to be destroyed in one battle despite having so many splinters, 1) GW doesn't care and writes what it want, and 2) they may have simply concentrated together like Behemoth. And it's not as if killing a Hive Fleet actually eliminates all Tyranids with those color patterns, as Hive Fleet Behemoth even still has splinter fleets flying about in eastern space. But until we get more information it looks as if Leviathan is indeed toast.

With every planet consumed the fleets grow bigger and leviathan has not been stopped AT ALL besides this single blurb about the BA. The skull structure was made of xenos skulls. Not Nid skulls. Also... keep in mind, the individual fighting organisms are nothing. Unless the Hive Ships corpses can be found someplace that group of leviathan hasn't been destroyed. It's just gone.

You don't seem to get that none of this matters unless GW decides it does/n't matter. They're prone to completely ignoring things, especially when it concerns the Nids considering they're often treated as nothing more than NPC's.

I can't seem to find any story of calgar actually beating the swarmlord. Just that the Ultramarines took the planet back but no mention of what happened to the swarmlord. So, like OOE, he's probably dormant somewhere on Ultramar until more hive ships show up to support it. Got a link to back that up?

Battle of Ichar IV, Calgar squares off with the Swarmlord and kills it with his bare fists. I also forgot about the Cassius novel, Chaplain Cassius also faced down and killed the Swarmlord as well on another occasion.

Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.

None of the primarchs have had to deal with the shadow in the warp yet. Lets not kid ourselves, as much as I am sure the primarchs have the iron will to muscle through it, I doubt very much they can manifest much of anything since deamon enhanced magnus got shut down by a few sisters of silence. A heirophant would masacre RG 1 on 1 on the table and in the fluff.

Sisters of Silence actually have better feats than the Shadow in the Warp, considering a handful of Sisters of Silence is all you need to kill a Greater Daemon. A couple Sisters of Silence completely nukes a Greater Daemon's psychic abilities and physically weakens it, and a couple Custodes and Grey Knights working together can bring it down with some casualties sustained. That an all blanks are not created equally, blankness exists on a sliding scale with the most powerful blanks causing the most powerful daemons to literally run in terror.

Simply put with Nids, they're the underdog when it comes to literature. If anything with a name comes up against Nids it's pretty safe to bet that the other guys is going to win as Tyranids are just not a favored faction at all by GW, just look at how the Baal showdown got swept under the rug with little ado about anything. if the Swarmlord meets Guilliman it's extremely safe to say it will become a literal footnote.

 Carnikang wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
[

Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.

Nids do adapt and evolve, but they dont evolve into hard counters. They dont become immune to lasguns when fighting guard. They dont become immune to bolter rounds when fighting space marines. They just get slightly better and slightly more efficient at taking on that particular thing.

How many cycles of evolution would it take for a single terramagant to take out a space marine? My guess is no number of evolutions is going to be sufficient.
How many cycles of evolution would it take for a swarmlord to take out a Primarch?

One, maybe two, as they won't be physical adaptations, but mental ones. Lore states that the Swarmlord is able to deflect bullets/shots fired at it, and that translates into striking as well. A creature that can move that quickly with that size, in combat with a smaller opponent, learning each time it's defeated, will win given enough time to adapt it's strategy.

Going back through the Horus Heresy, how many Primarchs has Guilliman fought? 4? He lost two of those three engagements, and may not have actually battled Omegon/Alpharius in the last. It can be assumed... that he's not the best fighter among them, even though he would still be a considerable fighter. That may have some bearing in the duel, as the Swarmlord is an exemplary fighter. The loss at Ichar IV is very interesting, where Calgar beat him... is the duel ever detailed? It only states that Calgar won in an epic duel.
Where as we know the general details of his first encounter with the Swarmlord, and Guilliman's encounters with his brothers in acute detail.

I'm not saying that makes it not an issue, but that it's suspect and I'm genuinely curious if that was just more Ultra-PLOT-marine armor or not.

It's Calgar in pre 8th edition, of course it involves plot armor. This is the same Codex that features Calgar taking on several companies of Night Lords and wiping them out with feudal peasants.

I also forgot about the Cassius novel, Chaplain Cassius also faced down and killed the Swarmlord as well on another occasion.

I had to go look this up because I absolutely did not believe you.

But there it was, Chapter 4.....

Really though? Bloody Hell.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Except Leviathan didn't enter from the side of the galaxy like the others. It came up from the bottom of the galactic disk all at once. So every single point on the map where you see Leviathan is a place where leviathan showed up all at once. The lore talks about how it showed up in 2 long lines cutting off whole sections from communication because of the shadow in the warp. It showed up looking like a pair of jaws closing over a section of the galaxy.

So no. All of leviathan was not fighting the BA. A huge section of leviathan is also fighting the orks, while another section has been making a b line for Terra with a couple dozen SM chapters and IG fleets working together to slow it's advance.

It would actually do you well to bother to read the codices instead of making stuff up.

Spoiler:

Firstly Hive Fleet Leviathan did not invade from both above and below the galactic plane, it came from "below", entering the galaxy with 13 tendril fleets.

Except Leviathan didn't enter from the side of the galaxy like the others. It came up from the bottom of the galactic disk all at once.

It would do you well to bother to read the text your quoting.

Secondly it is easy for Leviathan to be destroyed in one battle despite having so many splinters, 1) GW doesn't care and writes what it want, and 2) they may have simply concentrated together like Behemoth. And it's not as if killing a Hive Fleet actually eliminates all Tyranids with those color patterns, as Hive Fleet Behemoth even still has splinter fleets flying about in eastern space. But until we get more information it looks as if Leviathan is indeed toast.

Except they specifically have stories where that doesn't happen. Again, Leviathan is currently all over the place. The orks are still duking it out non stop with leviathan. IoM is still holding off splinter of it trying to slow it's advance.

With every planet consumed the fleets grow bigger and leviathan has not been stopped AT ALL besides this single blurb about the BA. The skull structure was made of xenos skulls. Not Nid skulls. Also... keep in mind, the individual fighting organisms are nothing. Unless the Hive Ships corpses can be found someplace that group of leviathan hasn't been destroyed. It's just gone.

You don't seem to get that none of this matters unless GW decides it does/n't matter. They're prone to completely ignoring things, especially when it concerns the Nids considering they're often treated as nothing more than NPC's.

While true, GW chooses to ignore whatever they want with each new release. Everything is still valid until something contradicts it. Since all of Leviathan was not at Baal there is no reason to now think it was.

I can't seem to find any story of calgar actually beating the swarmlord. Just that the Ultramarines took the planet back but no mention of what happened to the swarmlord. So, like OOE, he's probably dormant somewhere on Ultramar until more hive ships show up to support it. Got a link to back that up?

Battle of Ichar IV, Calgar squares off with the Swarmlord and kills it with his bare fists. I also forgot about the Cassius novel, Chaplain Cassius also faced down and killed the Swarmlord as well on another occasion.

See others responses above.

Nids, ABSOLUTELY adapt and evolve. It's all they do. Almost all nid units and biomorphs are adaptations. Gargoyles, flyrants, and shrikes are all adaptations to answer electric fences.

None of the primarchs have had to deal with the shadow in the warp yet. Lets not kid ourselves, as much as I am sure the primarchs have the iron will to muscle through it, I doubt very much they can manifest much of anything since deamon enhanced magnus got shut down by a few sisters of silence. A heirophant would masacre RG 1 on 1 on the table and in the fluff.

Sisters of Silence actually have better feats than the Shadow in the Warp, considering a handful of Sisters of Silence is all you need to kill a Greater Daemon. A couple Sisters of Silence completely nukes a Greater Daemon's psychic abilities and physically weakens it, and a couple Custodes and Grey Knights working together can bring it down with some casualties sustained. That an all blanks are not created equally, blankness exists on a sliding scale with the most powerful blanks causing the most powerful daemons to literally run in terror.

Have you read the story about the nids fighting deamons? The shadow blankets the entire plaet and most deamons wink out of existence just because the nids are on the other side of the equator. Named greater deamons get torn through like tissue paper.

Simply put with Nids, they're the underdog when it comes to literature. If anything with a name comes up against Nids it's pretty safe to bet that the other guys is going to win as Tyranids are just not a favored faction at all by GW, just look at how the Baal showdown got swept under the rug with little ado about anything. if the Swarmlord meets Guilliman it's extremely safe to say it will become a literal footnote.

It's true. Nids get beaten in the fluff by forces that should have no chance against them all the time. It's what happens when everyones codex is a big circle jerk about their victories.

 Carnikang wrote:

I also forgot about the Cassius novel, Chaplain Cassius also faced down and killed the Swarmlord as well on another occasion.

I had to go look this up because I absolutely did not believe you.

But there it was, Chapter 4.....

Really though? Bloody Hell.

Ultramarines are like a bad Axe commercial. "With new Ultramarine Aftershave, everything is possible"

I would say the Swarmlord is a threat to any Primarch. It has the skills, the psychic and physical might and the weapons to kill a Primarch. Of course, it will never happen in any of the fluff since Primarchs are too important for the storyline to be killed by any ennemy, but a battle against Guilliman and the Swarmlord would be an impressive duel that would leave the victor battered.

The main advantages of the Swarmlord over a Primarch are his weapons. His four blades are basically designed to cut through armor and powerfields and destroy the soul of its victims. These swords are thus one of the rare few weapons in the Tyranid arsenal that can kill a Primarch. The fact that the Swarmlord has also lightining fast reflex and four arms is also non-negligeable against a target that's much more imposing than a Space Marine and not particularly agile and graceful.

In resume, I think to two measure up nicely one to the other, but that Primarchs have an edge over the Swarmlord, provided they don't make a habit of fighting him. In that case, The table will turn pretty quickly.

 Wyzilla wrote:
That it even dies to a horde of marines is evidence enough that it isn't on the same tier of power as a Primarch.

Well, at least we can agree it is on a power level equivalent to Dorn .

If Calgar and Cassius can kill the Swarmlord, Guilliman is MORE than capable.

 Overread wrote:
Right now the biggest achievement everyone remembers is that Tyranids ate Squats

And that they are written in deus-ex-machina-unbeatable-monster style. Tyranids are so boring because as it is by fluff fighting them is meaningless. You are going to lose anyway when the real fleet comes rather than these tiny scout fleets that are already good enough to give imperium run for money.

Unless you play Eldar or necron or demons or orks. Also Tau and Imperium if they crank up the tech.

Plus there's no proof of other fleets.

 Frazzled wrote:
Unless you play Eldar or necron or demons or orks. Also Tau and Imperium if they crank up the tech.

Plus there's no proof of other fleets.

Imperium doesn't even need to crank up the tech, in the Adeptus Mechanicus or Skitarii codex (forget which it is), there's a Forge World that came under attack by a Splinter Fleet. They beat the nids at attrition warfare because the Admech could recycle the mechanical parts of its slave troops faster than the nids could recycle the organic matter.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Unless you play Eldar or necron or demons or orks. Also Tau and Imperium if they crank up the tech.

Plus there's no proof of other fleets.

Imperium doesn't even need to crank up the tech, in the Adeptus Mechanicus or Skitarii codex (forget which it is), there's a Forge World that came under attack by a Splinter Fleet. They beat the nids at attrition warfare because the Admech could recycle the mechanical parts of its slave troops faster than the nids could recycle the organic matter.

And Leviathan already ate Gryphonne 4, which had defenses comparable to Mars.

 Lance845 wrote:
Have you read the story about the nids fighting deamons?

I've read a few. usually the daemons come out on top.

What this thread looks like

Goku vs Superman depends on the version, because Superman is the type of character that used to be able to pull of super powers out of his ass.

Tyran wrote:
Goku vs Superman depends on the version, because Superman is the type of character that used to be able to pull of super powers out of his ass.

That and "Superman" is multiple different characters in multiple canons and timelines of very different levels of power.

 Lance845 wrote:


The Nids don't see anything in the galaxy as an actual threat. A loss on a planet is inconsequential. The nids are not even all here yet, and the last major hive fleet to arrive was capable of traveling across the galactic disk without entering it and then nearly split the galaxy in two with simultaneous attacks.

Each major hive fleet to arrive has been exponentially larger then the last. If there really is another hive fleet coming that is bigger than leviathan and it shows up as a single large hammer blow that plows strait across the galaxy there is nothing any race or faction in the galaxy can do to even slow it down.

And yet it's been stated multiple times that nids will avoid tomb worlds, I wonder why they do this if they do not see anything as threatening.

Also the line that Hive Fleets x, y and z are just scouts and there's 10^1000000 super evolved nids just waiting to arrive is as credible as the counter argument which argues the hive fleets represent the sum total of what amounts to a race of refugees fleeing some unknown extra-galactic threat.

The schizophrenic fluff behind races like nids and crons is probably deliberate, likely the fog of war in a narrative featuring humanity as the POV character. It does lead to really annoying rabidness among fans of these two factions though.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


The Nids don't see anything in the galaxy as an actual threat. A loss on a planet is inconsequential. The nids are not even all here yet, and the last major hive fleet to arrive was capable of traveling across the galactic disk without entering it and then nearly split the galaxy in two with simultaneous attacks.

Each major hive fleet to arrive has been exponentially larger then the last. If there really is another hive fleet coming that is bigger than leviathan and it shows up as a single large hammer blow that plows strait across the galaxy there is nothing any race or faction in the galaxy can do to even slow it down.

And yet it's been stated multiple times that nids will avoid tomb worlds, I wonder why they do this if they do not see anything as threatening.

Also the line that Hive Fleets x, y and z are just scouts and there's 10^1000000 super evolved nids just waiting to arrive is as credible as the counter argument which argues the hive fleets represent the sum total of what amounts to a race of refugees fleeing some unknown extra-galactic threat.

The schizophrenic fluff behind races like nids and crons is probably deliberate, likely the fog of war in a narrative featuring humanity as the POV character. It does lead to really annoying rabidness among fans of these two factions though.

Tyranids have eaten Tomb Worlds, Behemoth even ate the territorial heart of a Necron Dynasty.

And while a number has never been given, a giant hive fleet always has been implied multiple times and outright mentioned in a few rulebooks.

And then there is Hive Fleet Horror that implies that the Tyranids are universal.

And we've also had implications, repeated ones at that, that Tyranids are universal refugees running away from something scarier. Don't read too much in to it.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fall_of_Shadowbrink

What happens when Nids fight deamons.

 Carnikang wrote:


I don't know if I would call it that. They do have genetic variants that act like leader beasts, and are usually solitary aside from subordinates (Red Terror, Old One Eye, DeathLeaper, Broodlords, etc.). That and in the lore, variant/evolutionary mutations have happened surronding other Hive Tyrants and Warriors, coming out to appear as characters, despite being just another chasis with a fancy new biomorph and a little extra exp. The Swarmlord could just be a leader of leaders, and as such is afforded greater autonomy from the Hive Mind because of it's sheer mental and psychic might combined to make it unique. Yet not, as it's supposed that the Swarmlord can be present in many places at once across the galaxy if need be.

They're faceless bodies, but there are always some sort of characterizations with them.

I don't think of any of them as characters though. Aside from the Swarmlord and Patriarchs (which admittedly I had forgotten about) they don't have personalities or anything. They're used as stand-ins for characters but since they can die and be reborn they're likely to lose in fluff pieces against actual characters. The autonomy of the Swarmlord is weird and not very well explained. Why is it the only one allowed such autonomy? Does it risk Tyranids breaking off?

Tyran wrote:Tyranids have eaten Tomb Worlds, Behemoth even ate the territorial heart of a Necron Dynasty.

I think people get confused with the avoidance of the Dyson Sphere the Outsider was implied to be in. I don't recall them avoiding normal Tomb Worlds. Regardless I think recent editions have shown the Tyranids to be a much greater threat to the Necrons than they were previously. Their sheer numbers seem to give even Necron technology trouble.

Lance845 wrote:http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fall_of_Shadowbrink

What happens when Nids fight deamons.

One internally inconsistent battle between a Hive Fleet and a piddly four Greater Daemons. One could just as easily say that Ka'bandha wrecking Tyranids in the Baal System demonstrates what happens when Tyranids fight Daemons.

Games Workshop aren't going to have a situation whereby one faction will always dominate another faction.

 Melissia wrote:
And we've also had implications, repeated ones at that, that Tyranids are universal refugees running away from something scarier. Don't read too much in to it.

Do you havw the quotes? Becauae I only remmember one instance of the universal refugees theory.

 Melissia wrote:
And we've also had implications, repeated ones at that, that Tyranids are universal refugees running away from something scarier. Don't read too much in to it.

I've always interpreted the hive fleets to be like real world locusts;

The ones at the front of the swarm are running from the ones at the back. The ones are the back are chasing the ones at the front. They only slow their cannibalistic stampede when they come across an alternative food source.

Tyrannids are giant army ant locusts.

Regarding the Tyrannid numbers: It is very easy to be hyperbolic but accurate at the same time. Sure there may be billions of tyrannids, but that number is dramatically reduced when you consider every weapon is an organism. Every piece of ammo is an organism. Every other piece of equipment or random device is an organism. Even something as simple as a termagaunt could potentially be dozens (or hundreds?!) of organisms!

It would be like including every bolt round as an individual when counting the number of space marines in the galaxy.

Tyran wrote:
The Swarmlord isn't going to duel Guilliman, as neither would force a duel unless they are confident they will win it.

Why not? The Swarmlord's principal use is as a force multiplier, to maximise strategy and control over the swarm but other Hive Tyrants and Dominitrixes are able to do such a thing.

What you're describing is simple risk vs reward. For Guilliman, the risk is death and dooming the Imperium to inferior leadership and demoralisation, with the reward being killing the Swarmlord but not ending the threat entirely.

For the Swarmlord, the risk is death, and reabsorbtion back into the Hive. The reward is completely breaking the enemy morale and leadership, absorbing the incredible biomass and enhancing the swarm's physical and intellectual prowess unfathomably, and destroying the biggest threat to the Tyranid race from its greatest enemy.


Seems like a no brainer to me.