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Hi Dakkadakka community,

Since I (German) don’t get much time to play in Hong Kong, I spent more and more time with creating and thinking about fluff and background. I played since Tyranids 3rd Edition continously and though new creatures pop-up and give variety to the game ... *I LOVE my pyrovores* .... the Background does not improve likewise. The codices concentrate nowadays only on some bits of history, but what about medical and research papers, Imperial guide lines for Tyranids Encounters, Prioritization charts for the soldiers? The older codices included such things. Like the Anaphelion Project was a good add-on, but since then nothing really happened and the description of the hive fleets was good until the 4/5th edition, but the 6th ed feels shallow. So ...

... this is the creation of new fluff for tyranids.
My idea is a combined report of a Magos Biologis who was tasked by Inquisitor Kryptmann. Since Administration is slow in the empire, the Magos didn't even realize what happened to Kryptmann and just continued and finished his work.

So as a starter I analysed all known creatures of the codices and categorized them by size and how they use their limbs and tails. And it created five types that can be seen in the picture I used mainly latin expressions which would be lorefriendly with WH40K:
1. Grex (Herds) – they use 2 limbs as weapons, 2 Limbs for movement and 2 Limbs without function (Bigger creatures use them as weapons). They cannot create psychic powers, but are huge in numbers in all sizes. (Even Hierodule are in rots of up to 3 in formations)
2. Venator (Hunter) – They use all 6 Limbs as weapons and use their tails for movement. They are highly specialized in their task and gave up other abilities to be perfect in their respective field. (Mostly protection)
3. Bellator (Warrior) – They use 4 limbs as weapons and 2 limbs for movement. They have psychic powers and from medio level perform the role of a leader.
4. Defensor (Defender) – They use 2 Limbs to carry a heavy weapon and 4 limbs for movement and to keep their position.
5. Spore – They have underdeveloped limbs and use their body to perform their task, often resulting in destroying themselves upon completion.
Some units are special mutation that are a combination of different Genestrings (notable are the new/old toxicrene and maleceptor) and some need to be explained or even adjusted to make sense (notable: Terrorfex: A Carnifex with Biomorphs for W+1 and T+1). But these adjustments should come later.
I think the Defensor type is mostly unknown, but a potential possibility. That you could create on your own, due to the lack of Models from GW. And there are more Gaps to be filled. But it is a start.

What do you think? Would you agree with the structure, or do you have any suggestions?
Or better:
What reports would you like to add to the Magos Biologis Report? You can give suggestions or give whole fluff texts I will add them to a compilation.

Edit: Changed the content to emphasize more on the importance of the fluff. Rules are different story in a different topic in a different section. Go crazy with your suggestions.

Might want to have this moved to Proposed Rules. That will probably garner more attention from people who know more about Tyranids than, say, I do, and people with a good eye for rules-writing.

I like the family tree. Quickly looking over it, all the units seem to fit in and flow in a logical fashion. Good work.

My Lord,

My Research conducted three types of mutation in the tyranid gen string, which can be accumulated:

Mutation 1: systematic mutation to create a certain creature type .... The tyranid hive mind will use the prime gen string and mutate it into a shape of a certain creature type, e.g. Termagaunt, Carnifex, Hierophant. It is the most basic mutation and could be compared to the different progress of stemcells during a creation process. But it is different regarding the speed. Tyranid creatures can be produced in mere minutes looking at the Trvigon species. Therefore high speed mutation of tyranid stem cells during the reproduction process is the only reasonable explanation.

Mutation 2: spontanous mutation of a chosen few creatures ... The tyranids species showed evidence to rare unique creatures e.g. The swarmlord, Symbiarch, Neurotroph, which operate as leaders or so the Hive Mind wants us to believe. They were detectable due to their unique appearance among the large groups of identical creatures and cross comparisons with historic encounters of similar creatures.

Mutation 3: cross mutation of different Gen String ... Regarding the latest events, it must be assumed that the hive mind can mutated not only in the initial state of the creation process, but also in any stage of the process, even adding features of other different deleoped species e.g. Malefector and Toxicrene, which combine the features of a Zoantroph/Venomtroph with the armor and physioligy of a tyrant guard and the size of a Tyrannofex/ Terrorfex.

Conclusion: The Tyranids species can mutate at will an any stage during the creation process, but it had been detected, that some mutations had been rarer than others leaving the following hierarchy regarding the number of encounters: Mutation 1 (1:1, every creature) > Mutation 3 (1:10,000, common in certain situations) > Mutation 2 (rare 1:1,000,000). It is still a mere guess to follow up in the next report, but apparently the more mutations are used, the rarer the encounter, which I conclude means the more biomass is needed to be created.

Magos Biologis Gaugamela

I'm really liking this stuff. I'm studying biotech, so trying to apply science to Tyranids always gets my attention.

There's actually a diagram of Tyranid DNA in Xenology.

It starts out as a double helix, then expands into a much wider... I can only describe it as "hexagonal double helix" structure, then changes to triple helix, goes briefly to quintuple helix, back to triple then to a wider double helix than it started as.

As a Zoology student, I can safely say that Tyranid DNA is roughly the equivalent of someone programming binary code and deciding to use 7, 5, Q and { along with the typical ones and zeroes. In other words, flagrantly impossible and headache inducing to try to explain. Like trying to combine every programming language into one program.

changemod wrote:
There's actually a diagram of Tyranid DNA in Xenology.

It starts out as a double helix, then expands into a much wider... I can only describe it as "hexagonal double helix" structure, then changes to triple helix, goes briefly to quintuple helix, back to triple then to a wider double helix than it started as.

As a Zoology student, I can safely say that Tyranid DNA is roughly the equivalent of someone programming binary code and deciding to use 7, 5, Q and { along with the typical ones and zeroes. In other words, flagrantly impossible and headache inducing to try to explain. Like trying to combine every programming language into one program.

Still, it's always fun to try. That's the best part of science fiction.

 Mr Nobody wrote:

changemod wrote:
There's actually a diagram of Tyranid DNA in Xenology.

It starts out as a double helix, then expands into a much wider... I can only describe it as "hexagonal double helix" structure, then changes to triple helix, goes briefly to quintuple helix, back to triple then to a wider double helix than it started as.

As a Zoology student, I can safely say that Tyranid DNA is roughly the equivalent of someone programming binary code and deciding to use 7, 5, Q and { along with the typical ones and zeroes. In other words, flagrantly impossible and headache inducing to try to explain. Like trying to combine every programming language into one program.

Still, it's always fun to try. That's the best part of science fiction.

Sure, but no way does that diagram represent anything sensible. It slides from one genetic structure to a completely unrelated one after every few rotations of the helix.

thanks changemod and Mr Nobody,

I don't have a zoology or biology background, so please support us with your scientific input. My overview is based on how they are using their limbs and what function the species have. I'm not sure about the gene string relationship, but on the other hand, what can be sure about the highly developed tyranid genes.

I try to distance my research from the diagrams in the 3rd and 4th ed codices, because of the synapse ability (mainly). Asking myself: "Why would a warrior gene string with clear synapse abilities loose them, if in the creation phase they are made into a liktor, ravener, carnifex or hierodule. Also I doubt the suggestion that other races like orcs, space marinesor eldar have any serious impact on the highly sophisticated tyranid genes.

So please ad your ideas, everything is wellcomed.

You have it right so far. The best way to organize different organisms is by their physical traits.

"Phenotypes" if you want to sound smart.

Intelligence is a very energy consumptive process, so we can probably assume the necessary mental development to draw upon psychic energy burns even more energy. A Lictor is smart enough to operate independently, but has no need to control lesser organisms and thus no need to burn energy on maintaining the synapse ability. It's essentially a matter of efficiency.

As for Orks, Eldar and Space Marines: All three are genetically engineered races. The Ork superspecies are a highly sophisticated self-sustaining ecosystem made by the Old Ones during the War in Heaven with genetic code for not only every supspecies, but for knowledge on how to perform certain tasks and construct certain technology. The Eldar are a highly psychic race designed by the same masters to be used as more sophisticated warriors and living artillery. Marines are less sophisticated in that they're modified humans rather than designed from the ground up... But if they keep causing the Hive Mind considerable losses, it'll still want to learn from them via it's directed evolution.

That said, Tyranids already have a lot of biological data to draw from, so how much innovation is new information gained on campaign and how much is dredged up from their archives as a reactionary measure is impossible to tell.

Yes, let us swarm. Time to be the Predator again.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/234253-K%207.html

changemod wrote:
There's actually a diagram of Tyranid DNA in Xenology.

It starts out as a double helix, then expands into a much wider... I can only describe it as "hexagonal double helix" structure, then changes to triple helix, goes briefly to quintuple helix, back to triple then to a wider double helix than it started as.

As a Zoology student, I can safely say that Tyranid DNA is roughly the equivalent of someone programming binary code and deciding to use 7, 5, Q and { along with the typical ones and zeroes. In other words, flagrantly impossible and headache inducing to try to explain. Like trying to combine every programming language into one program.

I had a Google and couldn’t find the image, do you (or anyone else on this thread) have it to hand?