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Is there any examples in the lore of Tyranids living underground and emerging from underground like the bugs from Starship troopers?

Maybe beaten back and then flee under the planet with some other of leader organism Tyranid that could birth gaunts or something similiar? To regroup and then "invade" again later?

All the time!

Rippers are known to do it.

Trygons and Mawlocks dig huge tunnels and its even in their rules to erupt from the ground; often being followed by swarms of genestealers (shock troops that don't need synapse) and gaunts and such.

Meanwhile the Raveners and their "hero" model the Red Terror are also famed for tunnelling and appearing from the ground. Heck the main lore for the Red Terror is that it kept appearing from the ground and devouring guardsmen!



So yep there very much is infestation of the underground going on with several Tyranids who have lore and game rules that reflect that sphere of influence.

Oh sweet, what Tyranid would act as a queen and make new bugs???

Tervigons are the overt spawners, although various Tyranid "structures" also pop up in infested places like brood nests, which can spawn further nids.

usmcmidn wrote:
Oh sweet, what Tyranid would act as a queen and make new bugs???

The Dominatrix is the ground based equivalent of the Norn Queen in that it can spawn the whole range of Tyranids.

Tervigon is more a rapid incubator, if memory serves. Rather than growing its cargo from scratch, it matures embryonic versions of Termagants?

Tyranids can and will make use of burrows as the battlefield or war zone dictates. For instance, yes your Gribblies are more resistant to extremes of temperature and environment than most. But, if you’ve got Tervigon and Mawloc in your host? You can utilise their tunnels to shield your other bugs from the worst of it.


There’s a Cain novel (I forget which exactly) that shows exactly this. Subterranean advances, though not necessarily the in-game subterranean assault. Rather the bugs emerge fairly close, with everything committed to that attack coming up from the tunnels. Just not right in the midst of the enemy.

Aren't hive fleet Jormungandr well up for a spot o' tunnelling?

Well, they certainly specialise in it, but all Hive Fleets aren’t above a bit of underground fun.

They all use underground warfare, but Jormungandr fits the OP's requirement of "beaten back and then flee under the planet" to a T, with hundreds of Imperial worlds seeded by underground swarms that are pretty much impossible to eradicate.

 Haighus wrote:
Tervigons are the overt spawners, although various Tyranid "structures" also pop up in infested places like brood nests, which can spawn further nids.

So they have structures that can make new babies lol ???

usmcmidn wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Tervigons are the overt spawners, although various Tyranid "structures" also pop up in infested places like brood nests, which can spawn further nids.

So they have structures that can make new babies lol ???

Living structures, yup. There have even been models.

This is an example of the sadly-OOP Forge World brood nest:


This is the spawning nest entrance that came with the 4th edition starter set, Battle of Macragge:

There were also spore mine spawners too.

the Novel "the last ditch" has a bunch of them.

In "The Great Work" there are some 'Nids that survived Exterminatus by hiding and going dormant in a mountain (Which was really a Necron Tomb, so it had good security).