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DISCLAIMER-----WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO APPLY LOGIC TO 40K. WE ARE AWARE THAT 40K IS A SCI-FI GAME.


A few of my friends were talking about whether Tyranids were OP, again lore wise. And after looking at it as close as we could, we ultimately decided that on the whole they are pretty fragile.
Given that the Tyranids are all in all biological, you can apply certain biological parameters to them.

-First, void travel by there means must take a huge amount of biological energy. Therefore most (or at the least a good portion) of any biological energy they get from devouring a planet must go to their travel reserves. Due to the heat tax law they would have to break down all their combat forms after they devoured a planet. Even then, they would only get a fraction of that biological energy they had invested in creating and maintaining those combat forms. But it would be necessary to travel the void of space.
Note: Even if they were using warp hi-jinks to get through the void, keep in mind that maintaining this would require an equally large amount of energy. In short they are still bound by the "No Free Lunch Law"

-Second, given that they would have to break down the majority of combat forms, that means that most of any army they would need has to be assembled on site when they land on a planet. This would mean that an early infestation would be relatively easy to quash. Think of how long a single baby human takes to be born. Now apply that to ten thousand (as a start) combat forms. Yes the hivemind having absolute control over biological functions might expedite the process a little. But certain biological necessities must be accounted for: digestive systems, nervous systems, neural programming,immune systems (hate to have your Tyranids die to the flu now wouldn't you). And they Have to do this continuously 'til the end. And if there are environmental factors to account for, that will cost more biomass, time, and energy
- Biological processes are fast, but still very slow.


-Given these two things, a hive fleet has a few biological norms to chose from: Slug, Hummingbird, Human, or Whale
Slug- Very small fleet, likely in its death throws. Not enough biomass for a fight. Likely to go dormant and or use genestealer cults as a Hail Mary.
Hummingbird- The Hive Fleet is small, therefore it needs a more constant sources of food (hummingbirds in real life are always a few hours away from starvation). They must hit extremely hard in areas that are rich in biomass but lack in any sort of defense. Any sort of defense is its bane. So more than likely they take a small bite out of a planet then piss off else where, unless it is uninhabited.
Human- The Hive Fleet sweet spot. Some staying power, and some agility. Might be able to withstand resistance, but it doesn't have a lot of time for a war of attrition (No Free Lunch Law).
Whale- Huge Fleet, Lots of troops, overcomes any resistance. But they still need a lot of bio mass to maintain all of this (No Free Lunch Law). If it can't do this, it shrinks to one of the other types.
These types can consolidate biomass for some extra time, but that just means that the next fight will be all the more desperate.

-Last point. Given all of these, a Hive Fleet cannot afford any losses, or Pyrrhic victories. They have to win just about any engagement they run into. If there is ever a situation where the given amount of energy that they expend to take a planet is more than that they will get from the planet, they have already lost. Because either they will not have the energy to make it to the next planet, or they will have to consolidate their biomass and energy, thus making their takeover of the next one even more difficult.
In short, if a Hive Fleet stumbles, It will fall.

Thoughts or critiques?

-It's a table top game in a future fantasy universe. They were going for more cool than realistic. Remember, 40k is not scifi. It's sci fantasy so we have no idea how biology works in their universe. It could be completely different or beyo6our understanding as meer mortals.

I'm sort of out of date, but in the old lore Tyranids didn't void travel IIRC. They sort of floated places, and got there eventually. Without active propulsion, saves them a lot of energy.

 LostRabbit wrote:
I'm sort of out of date, but in the old lore Tyranids didn't void travel IIRC. They sort of floated places, and got there eventually. Without active propulsion, saves them a lot of energy.

Getting there very slowly still requires a load of energy in order to survive for the thousands of years you'd be talking about.


To address a few of OP's points - there is fluff that talks about the warrior forms not having digestive systems and other necessities, presumably because they aren't expected to survive long enough to need them.

Also, unless a hive fleet begins a journey under provisioned they'll be able to have at least some of their invasion force created in advance.

This was a general topic over being background how?

To counter the OP: Space Magic.

I believe you greatly underestimate the amount of energy that can be gained by 'taking a whole planets resources'.

The details of energy conversion going on inside the tyranid swarmfleet is also unknown. Given that even their smaller bioforms are quite adept at handling plasma, they might be able to perform fusion inside the bigger hive ships.
Thus taking the entire resources, including helium and hydrogen, from an entire solar system will grant them enough energy to last a loooooooooooong time.
Conesquentely, energy itself does not seem to be their target. Instead they are known (fluff-wise) to hunt biomass.

And towards 'they must avoid losing at all cost'':
It is established in fluff that they do not care much about their losses on the ground war, as long as they win. If they win, no matter the losses, they will simply reabsorb their dead in addition to any dead enemies (see for example how the hordes of orcs rushing towards the leviathan (?) supposedly fuel the fleets growth exponentially, even though the nids have to first kill those orcs under great losses of their own).

Those warrior creatures would be reabsorbed within short time anyways, so it does not matter if they die during their active duty, as long as their biomass is not lost.

Losing hive ships on the other hand seems to be a serious blow to any tyranid fleet, as that directly impends on their ability to absorb and store resources.
Hive fleets that lose most of their ships are known to scatter and try to head towards easier targets, where they can rebuild without much resistance.


Oh and OP-level in fluff:
Broken OP
Unless GW comes up with some kind of weakness, or counterbalance (Necrons maybe?) it seems like it is only a matter of time until this galaxy is done for.

There's too many of them to be realistically stopped by the crappy tech the Imperium uses. That's the only lore that really matters.

If you apply "no free lunch" to Tyranids, then you need to do the same for all the technology out there too. Most, if not all, the different species in the galaxy get around in ships, and they would need fuel just the same. If we say that the ships of other species have sufficiently advanced technology (mostly due to the warp) to be able to get around this, then we can mostly say the same about the Tyranids.

And, remember, the Warp isn't just emotions, it's also pure energy. Tyranids have very powerful psychic abilities, and drawing additional energy through the warp to help power their bio-ships heat requirements definitely would be something within their capabilities.

HMint wrote:
I believe you greatly underestimate the amount of energy that can be gained by 'taking a whole planets resources'.

The details of energy conversion going on inside the tyranid swarmfleet is also unknown. Given that even their smaller bioforms are quite adept at handling plasma, they might be able to perform fusion inside the bigger hive ships.
Thus taking the entire resources, including helium and hydrogen, from an entire solar system will grant them enough energy to last a loooooooooooong time.
Conesquentely, energy itself does not seem to be their target. Instead they are known (fluff-wise) to hunt biomass.

And towards 'they must avoid losing at all cost'':
It is established in fluff that they do not care much about their losses on the ground war, as long as they win. If they win, no matter the losses, they will simply reabsorb their dead in addition to any dead enemies (see for example how the hordes of orcs rushing towards the leviathan (?) supposedly fuel the fleets growth exponentially, even though the nids have to first kill those orcs under great losses of their own).

Those warrior creatures would be reabsorbed within short time anyways, so it does not matter if they die during their active duty, as long as their biomass is not lost.

.

I didn't know about the fusion thing.
And what I meant by the win loss thing is that, even though they are effectively numberless, any sort of battle of attrition is more than likely a net loss to there energy pools.
Also you have to remember that "reabsorbing" takes time and energy and a loss (minor) of biomass. So it is preferable to lose as few combat forms as possible.

 Madoch1 wrote:

I didn't know about the fusion thing.
And what I meant by the win loss thing is that, even though they are effectively numberless, any sort of battle of attrition is more than likely a net loss to there energy pools.
Also you have to remember that "reabsorbing" takes time and energy and a loss (minor) of biomass. So it is preferable to lose as few combat forms as possible.

Fusion is just my theory. It's not established how the nids gain energy as far as I know, but it does not seem to be much of an issue for them.
So they must have a valid source and apart from warp magic, I feel like fusion is the most plausible given their 'technology'.

And well, the reabsorbtion of all ground troops happens in any case. They do not seem to have any means of getting them back onto the ships, other than through biomass absorbtion.
It is a key feature of their warfare too, as they use this opportunity to better adapt to the enemy they are facing.
The next generation of warriors will be better suited for combat and thus spending a bit of energy on that seems to be worthwhile.

Why would there be losses in reabsorbing warrior form biomass? If it degrades into inorganic elements somehow, the hive fleet will.still.hoover it all up for use later, along with all.the volatiles and useful minerals.in a system.

 Flinty wrote:
Why would there be losses in reabsorbing warrior form biomass? If it degrades into inorganic elements somehow, the hive fleet will.still.hoover it all up for use later, along with all.the volatiles and useful minerals.in a system.

As i said. It would be minor. Like making a cake, even if you watch the ingredients like a hawk some will be spilled or lost.
Also, dissolving a being is not as precise as wanted. You end up with a minority of unusable,or otherwise worthless molecules.

 Madoch1 wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Why would there be losses in reabsorbing warrior form biomass? If it degrades into inorganic elements somehow, the hive fleet will.still.hoover it all up for use later, along with all.the volatiles and useful minerals.in a system.

As i said. It would be minor. Like making a cake, even if you watch the ingredients like a hawk some will be spilled or lost.
Also, dissolving a being is not as precise as wanted. You end up with a minority of unusable,or otherwise worthless molecules.

You're forgetting about the processes themselves. To continue your cake analogy, think about the energy consumed mixing the ingredients and baking it.

Tyranids travel through space by coating themselves in ice and pretending to be a slow comet.

A single fart could accelerate the hive ship without any further fuel need. The kinetic force of a piece of paper landing on your hand is enough to move a large object in space.

They also hibernate while traveling.

Tyranids don't have digestive systems other than the hive ships themselves.

Tyranids use a Narval to traverse space at a FTL speed.

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

Tyranids do not travel via Warp jumps, such as the Imperium does, and so instead rely on their Narvhal ships. Through the use of monofilament spines clustered along a Narvhal's bow which can interpret a wide range of sensory input and even a broad spectrum of gravimetric signals, a Narvhal can detect the presence of a planetary system at an incredible distance away. It can then somehow harness the system's gravity to create a corridor of compressed-space through which Tyranid vessels can travel towards the system at a swift rate. Whilst slower than proper warp travel, this method is infinitely more reliable.

'Space Magic'

Would also like to point out that the consumption of a planet/system would give a mind-boggling amount of biomass to use. Someone on the Tyranid forum, the Hive Mind, did the math, and it's in the quadtrillions in units of energy measurements. I cannot remember the math, but it was staggering. This is taking into account that they have fleets that are comprised of millions of organisms, all carrying plenty of biomass slurry for themselves, and to use to create life-forms.

 DeffDred wrote:

A single fart could accelerate the hive ship without any further fuel need. The kinetic force of a piece of paper landing on your hand is enough to move a large object in space.

They also hibernate while traveling.

I think your understanding of momentum is flawed.

Yes, a tiny force can accelerate an object of any size (that's true anywhere, makes no difference that its in space) but a more massive object will be accelerated much less.

Even if they don't mind taking thousands of years to travel between systems they still need to get to a pretty respectable speed. To get from here to the nearest system in one thousand years you need to be travelling at approx 3 million miles per hour. A "fart" is not going to get you to that speed - you need to eject significant mass at very high velocity.

Also, hybernation isn't a magic wand. You can substantially reduce processes to the bare minimum required to sustain life but you do need to sustain life which also means consuming energy.

 Scott-S6 wrote:


Also, hybernation isn't a magic wand. You can substantially reduce processes to the bare minimum required to sustain life but you do need to sustain life which also means consuming energy.

They don't all need to be hibernating though, only the ship(s), and a couple hive mind things per fleet. All the basic troops and others could essentially be dead, then only brought to life once at a target area (via warp magic, electro shock, whatever).

 DeffDred wrote:


A single fart could accelerate the hive ship without any further fuel need. The kinetic force of a piece of paper landing on your hand is enough to move a large object in space.

Yes, it moves the large object .000000000000000000000000000000001 millimeter a year faster than it was going before, so it'd only take 9,999,999,999.999 billion years to get to the nearest star, instead of a good round 10.

 Kcalehc wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:


Also, hybernation isn't a magic wand. You can substantially reduce processes to the bare minimum required to sustain life but you do need to sustain life which also means consuming energy.

They don't all need to be hibernating though, only the ship(s), and a couple hive mind things per fleet. All the basic troops and others could essentially be dead, then only brought to life once at a target area (via warp magic, electro shock, whatever).

I'm assuming that everything other than the ships is broken down into its constituents for transport.

Even so, maintaining a massive organism like the ships will require pretty substantial energy reserves.

They have as much energy as the plot demands no matter how much they use just as their will always be enough eldar as the plot demands no matter how many die. Everything in the setting is a made up creation from the fantasies of a group of authors. It might surprise you to know that the authors aren't highly experienced space travelers, space ship engineers, alien biologists, or even military strategists for that matter. Once you separate the setting from reality the poor quality writing is easier to swallow and even entertaining at times.

-In the official fluff tyranids are bound to totally nom nom the galaxy unless all races ally to counter them (which won't happen). The hibes that already have arrived in the Imperium are explecitly said to be tiny and you can see how they're already rampaging across the Imperium. The situation of the latter in 8th fluff maked in addition even less likely to put an actual resistance.

-Tyranids have ludicrous reserves of energy from the previous galaxy they have devoured, plus their method of travel, mostly hibernating while letting himslef cross slowly the void is uncomparably economical in terms of bilmasse and energy.

-To win an attrition war against the tyranids amounts to precenting them from feasting on the planet and recovering their dead creatures since the biomasse needed to spawn new warriors is jarvested from those sources. If the defenders do hold their ground enough then they habe a chance to win if they can get help from orbit: I guess a hive fleet is not as tough in void combat as it is in ground combat, and if they are pushed back without being able to compendate and make benefits on the planet's biomasse, they basically beat it. The tyranids, as a matter of fact, need to secure the territory to male the best at of it by tyranoforming it, that to say generate biological facilities to swallow the biomasse, transfer it to the fleet, where it finally is converted into whatever is needed.

-Firstly a tyranid fleet before it's been made ready for engagement is 't thoroughly dormant and undefended. Some organism are originally in charge of patrolling and protecting the ships from intruders ( like our beloved greenskins do for instance). Secondly, most fighting organism are extremly simple schemes: they habe no intullectual capabilities and only the purposed creatures to absorbing biomasse are provided with a digestive system.

-Because it is too little and emits little energy signatures, a remnant from a beaten hive fleet is able to sneak through lical defenses until it rezches undefended worlds where it can regrow and recover to become immensly powerful again. The shadow in the warp, that a little as well as a huge hive fleet can relay as a beacon because of its link the the hive spirit, is also able to cut reinforcements through warp travel and can allow a tyranid assault to be already long lived when the threat is finally identify.

-The tyranids are damn adaptative. No virus nor weapons nor anything is able to jurt tyranids past one or two generation. Needless to say that generations are created a ridiculous speeds.

A few points that might be interesting to raise. Hope it's helpful to you!

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-

-Tyranids have ludicrous reserves of energy from the previous galaxy they have devoured, plus their method of travel, mostly hibernating while letting himslef cross slowly the void is uncomparably economical in terms of bilmasse and energy.

-To win an attrition war against the tyranids amounts to etc.

-Firstly a tyranid fleet before it's been made ready for engagement is 't thoroughly dormant and undefended. Some organism are originally in charge of patrolling and protecting the ships from intruders ( like our beloved greenskins do for instance). Secondly, most fighting organism are extremly simple schemes: they habe no intullectual capabilities and only the purposed creatures to absorbing biomasse are provided with a digestive system.

-Because it is too little and emits little energy signatures, a remnant from a beaten hive fleet is able to sneak through lical defenses until it rezches undefended worlds where it can regrow and recover to become immensly powerful again. The shadow in the warp, that a little as well as a huge hive fleet can relay as a beacon because of its link the the hive spirit, is also able to cut reinforcements through warp travel and can allow a tyranid assault to be already long lived when the threat is finally identify.

-The tyranids are damn adaptative. No virus nor weapons nor anything is able to jurt tyranids past one or two generation. Needless to say that generations are created a ridiculous speeds.

Some counterpoints.
-Traveling between galaxies takes a huge amount of energy. Due to the No Free Lunch Law, that energy has to be taken from the energy pools meant for keeping the fleet alive.
-Yes a war of attrition would be difficult to implement but far from impossible.
-Even for a "simple" organism like a gant, you still need some basic systems for functionallity (nervous, digestive, immune systems)
-And last, a shadow in the warp still would take a huge amount of energy to maintain.

 Madoch1 wrote:

Some counterpoints.
-Traveling between galaxies takes a huge amount of energy. Due to the No Free Lunch Law, that energy has to be taken from the energy pools meant for keeping the fleet alive.
-Yes a war of attrition would be difficult to implement but far from impossible.
-Even for a "simple" organism like a gant, you still need some basic systems for functionallity (nervous, digestive, immune systems)
-And last, a shadow in the warp still would take a huge amount of energy to maintain.

Highlighted above is incorrect. The Tyranid 5th edition codex explicitly states that many Gants and their variants are born without digestive systems.

The only point that I want to address at length is the one about the Shadow in the Warp. It is not something maintained. It's each individual presences of a Tyranid, dormant and awake, accumulated into one massive psychic static barrier of ONE emotion. Feed. It is as if every human decided to have one emotion in a part of the galaxy. It would fundamentally change how the Warp works there, who was in power, and what kind of 'sea' it would be. It would blot out almost every other, especially because it was a human emotion.

It's not projected intentionally, it is only recently been weaponized by the Hive Fleet Kronos, because their urge to Feed is greater than the earlier fleets, being a fledgling, and specifically engineered to fight Chaotic Creatures. The Shadow has been affected by this because the emotion they have is more akin to a Competative Predatory Feed/Hunt. It's not the constant Feed. It's weaponized in that it knows it's competing with another Super Predator.

 Madoch1 wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-

-Tyranids have ludicrous reserves of energy from the previous galaxy they have devoured, plus their method of travel, mostly hibernating while letting himslef cross slowly the void is uncomparably economical in terms of bilmasse and energy.

-To win an attrition war against the tyranids amounts to etc.

-Firstly a tyranid fleet before it's been made ready for engagement is 't thoroughly dormant and undefended. Some organism are originally in charge of patrolling and protecting the ships from intruders ( like our beloved greenskins do for instance). Secondly, most fighting organism are extremly simple schemes: they habe no intullectual capabilities and only the purposed creatures to absorbing biomasse are provided with a digestive system.

-Because it is too little and emits little energy signatures, a remnant from a beaten hive fleet is able to sneak through lical defenses until it rezches undefended worlds where it can regrow and recover to become immensly powerful again. The shadow in the warp, that a little as well as a huge hive fleet can relay as a beacon because of its link the the hive spirit, is also able to cut reinforcements through warp travel and can allow a tyranid assault to be already long lived when the threat is finally identify.

-The tyranids are damn adaptative. No virus nor weapons nor anything is able to jurt tyranids past one or two generation. Needless to say that generations are created a ridiculous speeds.

Some counterpoints.
-Traveling between galaxies takes a huge amount of energy. Due to the No Free Lunch Law, that energy has to be taken from the energy pools meant for keeping the fleet alive.
-Yes a war of attrition would be difficult to implement but far from impossible.
-Even for a "simple" organism like a gant, you still need some basic systems for functionallity (nervous, digestive, immune systems)
-And last, a shadow in the warp still would take a huge amount of energy to maintain.

Well I'd add this to push my remarks forward:

-As far as the shadow in the warp, it is a psychic phenomenon induced by the ludicrous image the hive spirits mirrors in the warp. Therefore, it isn't proper energy and doesn't infringe on its survival reserves.

-The plot assumes that having eaten the entire galaxy they come from is enough to sustain the travel. 1 billion is much, but 1 billion out of 100 billions isn't quite de same, if tou get what I mean. What's more, by the time the Imperium understodd and reacted to the threat, they jad already absorbed many worlds of this galaxy.

-Setting up a war of attrition with the tyranids is possible under 3 conditions:
-the defences are powerfully manned and prepared to repel the assault
-reinforcements can be brought (hard because of the shadow in the warp)
-the orbital battle to kill the bioships starts early enough. Past a few weeks, the tyranid invasion litteraly grows exponentially at a tremendous pace.This implies that a myriad of creatirzs are available in very little time.

-Tyranids will not suffer the least loss of biomasse if they win. They are able to scrap any living particle into biomasse including the fallen tyranids.

-They haven't been mentionned yet, but genestealer cults are enslaved by the genestealer scouts and will eventually launch uprisings that smoothen the defences and hinders reinforcements a few months before the hive itself arrives. Most of the time, the defenders are overwehked before any help can rescue them.

In fact the tyranids are supposed to be lorewise invincible. They don't habe actual weakness that one could exploit. Even Chaos is very concerned about them. The chaos god regard the hive as a competitor in what should be their realm.