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.

In my humble opinion: the Iron Will of the Hive Mind over shadows the Chaotic Confusion of the Warp.

It slightly bothers me that Tyranids have to make a Perils of the Warp test or be mentally torn up by daemons.

I know it is a balance issue of game play, but I would be slightly less bothered if the official text made an extra side note about Tyranids possibly bursting a blood vessel in their head and simply suffering a brain aneurysm. (maybe I missed something in the FAQ, but I doubt it)

It also irks me that lesser creatures we call food can try to "Deny the Witch", when we as Tyranids are not Witches in any way shape or form. We do not call upon the Warp, we use our natural Hive Mind given talents. When one Witch/Psyker denies a fellow Witch/Psyker it would make sense that they would know how to distract or counter each other and make their enemy's concentration falter so the spell fails... But when a Psyker challenges a Tyranid to a battle of minds, that pitiful Psyker is up against the combined Synaptic powers of the whole Hive...

Again, I know these are gaming balance issues... but it still bothers me.

So I'm not asking a question about rules for this Poll, just opinions on who would win a fight:

The Vile Whispering Hordes of Ruinous Chaos, or
The Chattering Cacophony of Shadows from the Hive Mind's Swarms?

Depends whose codex the fluff is coming from.

Having read lots of different rules and various fluff, my vote still stands for Tyranids.

The Iron will that is obviously far superior to any of the lesser DNA Gene-Seeds the Imperial Marine Corp ever produced.

We are simply more advanced than any primitive Ork Spore, and pure to perfection compared to Xenos Eldar strands... but most importantly:

From Genestealers to Termagants, our Biomass will always obey the Hive Mind's Will even unto death or wretched mutation, just as well as any putrid Child of the Rotting Nurgle or perverted desires of Slaanesh

Serve the Hive or feed the Hive, there are no other options

I think you're misunderstanding the Shadow. The Shadow is not a concentrated force of will. It's more the white noise of trillions of Tyranids communicating with each other. It's just a byproduct of Tyranid behavior.

Due to sheer size it drown out other psykers or makes them go bonkers as they literally start hearing voices in their head, millions of them potentially. If the Hives ever got sufficiently large they might wash the whole warp in Tyranid 'static', but there's no reason they shouldn't suffer Perils like everyone else. A Daemon might still be able to pluck a Tyranid out of the 'noise' by design or chance.

Audustum wrote:
I think you're misunderstanding the Shadow. The Shadow is not a concentrated force of will. It's more the white noise of trillions of Tyranids communicating with each other. It's just a byproduct of Tyranid behavior.
Due to sheer size it drown out other psykers or makes them go bonkers as they literally start hearing voices in their head, millions of them potentially. If the Hives ever got sufficiently large they might wash the whole warp in Tyranid 'static', but there's no reason they shouldn't suffer Perils like everyone else. A Daemon might still be able to pluck a Tyranid out of the 'noise' by design or chance.

We can agree that the Shadow of the Warp is technically a byproduct, but the point I am trying to make is that this white noise byproduct from THE IRON WILL OF THE HIVE MIND is stronger than Chaos.

The Shadow is not just a collective conversation of Tyranid Cell Phones or Tyranid selfies on Tyranid Facebook....

The Hive Mind is the gestalt collective consciousness of the Tyranid species, the Hive Mind IS the concentrated force of will stronger than Chaos, and through this infinite intellect comes a mere byproduct strong enough to overshadow the Chaos from the Warp and fill it with the Will of the Hive Mind

I think you've made a mistake in describing Chaos as "having a will". My understanding of Chaos/the Warp/the immaterium is that it is simply a medium affected by the collective consciousness/emotions of all sentient life that exists in material space. The Hive being a collective of conscious life forms, affects the immaterium the same as any other sentient life. The only difference is that the 'form' of this effect, (ie. "white noise") differs from the effect of the rest of the Galaxy's life forms (ie. ravenous daemons) because their form of consciousness is so different, that is, a single minded desire to consume rather than the complex hopes and fears of other life forms.

If your question specifically relates to the "form" of Chaos currently envisioned by the average Imperial citizen, that is, slavering daemon gods devouring mortal souls, then I think the outcome of the immaterial realm depends on the outcome in the material realm. That is, if the Tyranids devour all life in the galaxy and then leave, then they will leave behind them a nice calm immaterium, much as it was before the ascendancy of conscious sentient life.

As to how any of this affects one individual psyker's ability to manipulate the Warp over another's, I don't see the connection. That's just down to the individual in question.

That actually further proves my point,

As you pointed out, Chaos has no will,

This is because all that the tainted ruinous powers can do is just taint and ruin, just as the Warp itself also has no will for it is just immaterial,

But the Hive Mind has Iron Will so strong it blots out any other driving force in the immaterial.

Thus, when our Glorious Tyranids recycle all the Biomass in the galaxy, all will bow to the Iron Will of Hive Mind, and Chaos will have no foothold within the immaterial to taint or ruin anything in the material world.

First off, I think you're referring to the hive mind rather than the Shadow in the Warp:

The Hive mind is the collective consciousness of all Tyranids in existence acting as a single being. There's a misconception that it's a single entity with a single will; it is in fact trillions upon trillions of minds acting in unison. Tyranids outside of Synapse range loses this connection and revert to their base instincts because they can no longer act with the collective knowledge of all other Tyranid bioforms. The misconception that there is a single "godlike" entity driving the tyranids comes from Starcraft, where the Overmind is very much that and not the collective voice of the entire zerg race. The Hive Mind is more like the Khala, except those in it become stupid when separated, not just emo-lonely.

The Shadow in the Warp is the byproduct of this. When Tyranid hive ships are near, the feedback from their collective minds "pinging" each other creates white noise in the Warp, which is why whenever psykers tap into it they describe it as a million voices all screaming in unison; it's both metaphorically and literally true in a sense.

In this way, the Tyranids are completely alien to the concept of Chaos and vice versa; Chaos is the product of sentient, individual minds with individual aspirations. For the Tyranids, aspirations and accomplishments are null concepts; anything that does not sate the collective hunger of the race does not matter and any means to that end is simply another tool, another gear in the machine. This is also why Chaos can never tempt the Tyranids; they can never offer any individual tyranid anything because those very concepts are alien to them. Comparing the two is very much Apples to Oranges.

As for the warp itself, note that the Warp isn't the same as Chaos; the Immaterium is simply another plane of existence and the energies within simply applies to a different set of laws than it does in the material universe. Chaos and the Tyranids both draw upon this energy as a means to an end; whereas the Chaos gods and their daemons are composed of this element and fully immersed into it, the Tyranids are merely using it to power their stuff in the material plane. To the tyranids, the warp energies used by the warp lances fired by zoanthropes are no different than the biomass used to grow the fleshborer beetles in a Termagant's gun. And finally the "Perils of the Warp" was described as feedback to the hive mind in older editions (4th and 3rd); basically the tyranid psyker bioform draws too much energy (or could not controll it) and ends up causing brain damage to itself. It just so happens (in game terms) to resemble what happens to a psyker when they are attacked by daemons.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
First off, I think you're referring to the hive mind rather than the Shadow in the Warp:

The Hive mind is the collective consciousness of all Tyranids in existence acting as a single being. There's a misconception that it's a single entity with a single will; it is in fact trillions upon trillions of minds acting in unison. Tyranids outside of Synapse range loses this connection and revert to their base instincts because they can no longer act with the collective knowledge of all other Tyranid bioforms. The misconception that there is a single "godlike" entity driving the tyranids comes from Starcraft, where the Overmind is very much that and not the collective voice of the entire zerg race. The Hive Mind is more like the Khala, except those in it become stupid when separated, not just emo-lonely.

The Shadow in the Warp is the byproduct of this. When Tyranid hive ships are near, the feedback from their collective minds "pinging" each other creates white noise in the Warp, which is why whenever psykers tap into it they describe it as a million voices all screaming in unison; it's both metaphorically and literally true in a sense.

In this way, the Tyranids are completely alien to the concept of Chaos and vice versa; Chaos is the product of sentient, individual minds with individual aspirations. For the Tyranids, aspirations and accomplishments are null concepts; anything that does not sate the collective hunger of the race does not matter and any means to that end is simply another tool, another gear in the machine. This is also why Chaos can never tempt the Tyranids; they can never offer any individual tyranid anything because those very concepts are alien to them. Comparing the two is very much Apples to Oranges.

As for the warp itself, note that the Warp isn't the same as Chaos; the Immaterium is simply another plane of existence and the energies within simply applies to a different set of laws than it does in the material universe. Chaos and the Tyranids both draw upon this energy as a means to an end; whereas the Chaos gods and their daemons are composed of this element and fully immersed into it, the Tyranids are merely using it to power their stuff in the material plane. To the tyranids, the warp energies used by the warp lances fired by zoanthropes are no different than the biomass used to grow the fleshborer beetles in a Termagant's gun. And finally the "Perils of the Warp" was described as feedback to the hive mind in older editions (4th and 3rd); basically the tyranid psyker bioform draws too much energy (or could not controll it) and ends up causing brain damage to itself. It just so happens (in game terms) to resemble what happens to a psyker when they are attacked by daemons.

You managed to articulate my thoughts better than I ever could. Get outta ma brain, mutant!

We are all still making the same point so far, Tyranids for the WIN!!
! !

Billions upon trillions of hive organisms all working as a single organism = Awesome Might of THE Hive Mind

I say It is almost god-like because of it's unimaginable complexity, but not-so god like as compared to other deities which plot and plan out the fates of their followers... The hive is only driven to consume, so the Hive Mind can grow and adapt.

Chaos is no match for this Iron Will of the hive's mind.

given hive fleet levithan got eaten by the warp, the evidance is chaos.

Again, apples to oranges. The chaos gods are comprehensible to mortals simply because they choose to be, while the Tyranids see no reason to be comprehensible and hence choose not to. Even in a pure fistfight, it all depends on which realm they're in; Nids would be completely torn up in the Warp because they're largely physical creatures while the gods can have the pleas of their followers drowned out by the collective noise of the shadow.

However if the Warhammer Fantasy Battle lore was true, the Chaos Gods exist as a singularity across the entire warhammer multiverse, meaning the AoS Khorne is the same as the 40k Khorne, and they can and will survive the complete annhilation of the universe while the Nids won't be able to (it also means the Eldar colossally screwed the multiverse by creating the fourth chaos god).

Perhaqps in the old galaxy the tyranids where much more psykicly giftet. We know old school eldra could just conjure forward monsters from their mind when working for the old once. Until the warp grew more and more volatile.

The collective consciousness and emotional spectrum of the entirety of all sentient existence that ever was and ever will be, versus the static chatter of a swarm of hive-minded bugs. Unless the entire universe-spanning tyranid race was clumped together in one location projecting the Shadow in unison instead of spread out halfway to another galaxy, I'd give this one to the Warp. It's got the Tyranids psychically and physically outnumbered and outmatched, obeys no natural laws, and exists outside of time.

The thing is the Chaos Gods might be a cosmic singularity, which shoots them far above any other characters in the setting because not only can they instigate a universal collapse, but they would also be the only ones capable of surviving it.

Of course, that is assuming that the AoS Chaos Gods are the same ones as 40k and in Fantasy. So far the Horned Rat hasn't appeared yet so there's still a chance that they're different entities.

Now if we start seeing backstabbing ratmen, then there might be an issue.

Back in 4th or 5th ed it was made clear that whilst Zoanthropes aren't using Daemonic energies, the chance of them losing control of the energy they wield is represented by the PotW test.

So far the votes are showing Tyranids would win,

And so far all the Chaos group can say is they can win by destroying everything... well, that is a cheap victory... Tyranids would not need destroy everything to win, we simple recycle, reduce, and reuse all Biomass like any good friendly neighbor who welcomes you to the family... once Tyranids rule the galaxy, their is no room for the petty perils of the warp...