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Lol, if forgeworld writes it, we will have a great storyline, but with crazy OTT units on speed and crack. My Carnifex has the ability to take all the options it could in 4th Ed. WTF?!?!

Orks will never lose cuz orks are da best.

No really, the tyranids have to consume several corpses to get enough biomass to make even a single gaunt, and the orks have an infinite supply of orks from nearby systems while the orks already on Octarius simply grow stronger and bigger off of the war. However, GW will probably have the war never end so forgeworld can make a new IA for the war.

Exactly. The Tyranids are really just niche predators; they need to take worlds in quick succession to maintain their supply of biomass (the organisms need to eat, after all). Once these worlds become difficult to conquer, the Hive Mind is in jeopardy. For every world they fail to conquer, they lose their entire biomass "investment", meaning that they will be forced to retreat with the Waaagh! at their heels.

If the Imperium falls, then there will be a countless supply of worlds ripe with biomass. Nids could just stalemate orks in one sector while accumulating biomass in another. Or they can just choose to ignore orks all together for a time, then once they have a large enough force, overwhelm Ork empires.

Taoofss wrote:If the Imperium falls, then there will be a countless supply of worlds ripe with biomass. Nids could just stalemate orks in one sector while accumulating biomass in another. Or they can just choose to ignore orks all together for a time, then once they have a large enough force, overwhelm Ork empires.

Orks are everywhere.
They will probably take over a good amount of the IoMs worlds if it falls. The nids wll have to fight on practically every planet they land on.

purplefood wrote:

Taoofss wrote:If the Imperium falls, then there will be a countless supply of worlds ripe with biomass. Nids could just stalemate orks in one sector while accumulating biomass in another. Or they can just choose to ignore orks all together for a time, then once they have a large enough force, overwhelm Ork empires.

Orks are everywhere.
They will probably take over a good amount of the IoMs worlds if it falls. The nids wll have to fight on practically every planet they land on.

Not really. If you look at the star map, Orks are not everywhere.

Taoofss wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Taoofss wrote:If the Imperium falls, then there will be a countless supply of worlds ripe with biomass. Nids could just stalemate orks in one sector while accumulating biomass in another. Or they can just choose to ignore orks all together for a time, then once they have a large enough force, overwhelm Ork empires.

Orks are everywhere.
They will probably take over a good amount of the IoMs worlds if it falls. The nids wll have to fight on practically every planet they land on.

Not really. If you look at the star map, Orks are not everywhere.

It doesn't show where all the Orks are though. As soon as they invade a planet that planet will never be free of them unless it gets exterminatus-ed.
Orks are spread far and wide across the galaxy.
It would be nearly impossible to confine them to a corner of the galaxy.

purplefood wrote:

Taoofss wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Taoofss wrote:If the Imperium falls, then there will be a countless supply of worlds ripe with biomass. Nids could just stalemate orks in one sector while accumulating biomass in another. Or they can just choose to ignore orks all together for a time, then once they have a large enough force, overwhelm Ork empires.

Orks are everywhere.
They will probably take over a good amount of the IoMs worlds if it falls. The nids wll have to fight on practically every planet they land on.

Not really. If you look at the star map, Orks are not everywhere.

It doesn't show where all the Orks are though. As soon as they invade a planet that planet will never be free of them unless it gets exterminatus-ed.
Orks are spread far and wide across the galaxy.
It would be nearly impossible to confine them to a corner of the galaxy.

Every world the Tyranids take are stripped of spores, meaning orks won't rise from that planet again. If the Tyranids face a tough sector of orks, then they could try and attack other, less defended areas.

Scrabb wrote:

Taoofss wrote:It all comes down to resource consumption. Orks need raw materials to build space crafts. Nids do so with biomass. As long as nids have enough food, they can planet hop. Orks on the other hand need metals and fuel and what not.

It all comes down to resource management. Nids utilize planets in a non renewable manner and have not been shown to utilize power from the stars. Orks can use the literally hundreds of millions of solar systems they control exclusively as troop supplies to reinforce the frontline systems. As soon as nids lose they die. Orks on the other hand can go almost any number of rounds as the punching bag.

The Orks can keep this up forever. I'd also like to add that Orks are capable of manufacturing munitions and so on and so forth. They are also the designers of weapons as deadly as anything the eldar can boast of (more so if you count user hazards harhar!)

-Loki- wrote:You assume that the orks are what the Tyranids want to consume. On the contrary, it's the planets themselves in the Octarius system that the Tyranids want to consume. The Orks are just in the way. The Tyranids don't care about the Orks aside from the fact that they destroy the necessary life forms and structures that do the digesting.

The first wave of a Tyranid attack isn't military in any form - it's releasing spores into the atmosphere that make the plants and animals mutate and turn hyperfertile. Jungles overgrow to insane degrees, and the entire planets biosphere explodes in quantity. They don't need to eat the bodies of their dead or the bodies of the Orks. They eat the planet itself. So even if they're in a big stalemate, as long as they're not losing ground, the constantly growing and reproducing flora and fauna is still being funnelled up to the hive ships.

A stalemate is a stalemate. If the Orks lose this system the whole thing starts again on the next one. If the nids lose they're gone. There are more verified Ork worlds then there are tyranid splinter fleets.

But really, nids can't eat the Orks. It will soon be revealed that the nids are indeed fleeing a greater threat than that which the imperium has ever witnessed. An Ork Waaaaghhh! led by MORK himself. Because it is kunning but brutal for a God of the warp to smash you with his fist in the material plane.

Wow I cant even take that theory seriously.... theres also the theory that these hive fleets that have been witnessed so far are just tendrils of the actual fleet. The theory they are running is fine, just not from Orks.

Shrouger wrote:

Orks will never lose cuz orks are da best.

No really, the tyranids have to consume several corpses to get enough biomass to make even a single gaunt, and the orks have an infinite supply of orks from nearby systems while the orks already on Octarius simply grow stronger and bigger off of the war. However, GW will probably have the war never end so forgeworld can make a new IA for the war.

Exactly. The Tyranids are really just niche predators; they need to take worlds in quick succession to maintain their supply of biomass (the organisms need to eat, after all). Once these worlds become difficult to conquer, the Hive Mind is in jeopardy. For every world they fail to conquer, they lose their entire biomass "investment", meaning that they will be forced to retreat with the Waaagh! at their heels.

However, you are still going on the idea of a Hive Fleet hitting in one single thrust. Only Behemoth ever did this. Hive fleets now split into 'tendrils'. If one gets beaten, it hardly matters, since the rest of the Hive Fleet is killing things. It will just grow another splinter fleet.

Also, the only Ork vs Tyranid conflict in the fluff is the Octarius war, and it is a long, drawn out stalemate. What you keep saying would happen in a drawn out stalemate with Orks is not happening.

Also, the only Ork vs Tyranid conflict in the fluff is the Octarius war, and it is a long, drawn out stalemate. What you keep saying would happen in a drawn out stalemate with Orks is not happening.

This has only been happening for about a decade. Give the Orks time; if it took us mere days to consider all of this, the Orks should be able to figure it out within a few more years.

Shrouger wrote:

Also, the only Ork vs Tyranid conflict in the fluff is the Octarius war, and it is a long, drawn out stalemate. What you keep saying would happen in a drawn out stalemate with Orks is not happening.

This has only been happening for about a decade. Give the Orks time; if it took us mere days to consider all of this, the Orks should be able to figure it out within a few more years.

Great. When it's written in a codex or rulebook, let us know.

Great. When it's written in a codex or rulebook, let us know.

It's all a matter of logic. GW will likely never put such a scenario (post IOM war between Tyranids and Orks) into a codex or rulebook because doing so would mean losing the IOM, along with their precious Space Marines.

Mr Nobody wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Taoofss wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Taoofss wrote:If the Imperium falls, then there will be a countless supply of worlds ripe with biomass. Nids could just stalemate orks in one sector while accumulating biomass in another. Or they can just choose to ignore orks all together for a time, then once they have a large enough force, overwhelm Ork empires.

Orks are everywhere.
They will probably take over a good amount of the IoMs worlds if it falls. The nids wll have to fight on practically every planet they land on.

Not really. If you look at the star map, Orks are not everywhere.

It doesn't show where all the Orks are though. As soon as they invade a planet that planet will never be free of them unless it gets exterminatus-ed.
Orks are spread far and wide across the galaxy.
It would be nearly impossible to confine them to a corner of the galaxy.

Every world the Tyranids take are stripped of spores, meaning orks won't rise from that planet again. If the Tyranids face a tough sector of orks, then they could try and attack other, less defended areas.

I did say that once before.
And if the Nids go somewhere Orks will probably follow them.
But if either the Orks or Nids mess up they will lose a lot of reasources in either planets or biomass.

With regard to the entire issue of splinter fleets; the more heavily divided they are (reducing the overall cost if they are defeated), the easier it will be for the Orks to eliminate them. The Tyranids may not be devastated by the loss of a hive fleet, but it certainly can't begin expending them left and right. So my point regarding the cost of failed invasions still stands.

With this conflict, GW made themselves a nice little stalemate to fuel the already seemingly never ending war and keep the fluff going to boost sales. Kudos to them

I don't think GW even knows who will win... Now I am sure there are running bets between co-workers around their office, but the official GW stand point would want no one to win, ever; and keep sales going as long as possible.

So, my fan boyishness says the Tyranids would win.

Simply because they are forever evolving. The bugs we see in the codex are just the ones that have worked well for The Hive Mind thus far. Those are the Tyranids that have proven to be useful time and time again in the past. However, once they are no longer useful for whatever reason, it is then that The Hive Mind will make something new. A creature we have not seen before, evolved specifically to counter Orks. If it goes too long as a stalemate, even with The Swarmlord hanging around, then the new bugs will emerge.

Examples of things I would do to counter the Ork threat if I where The Hive Mind:

1) A bug that spits out the same digestive acids as the digestion pools. Instead of dragging corpses back and forth, bring the digestion pool to the front line. Also, if the Ork is completly covered head to toe in the goo, then their spores cant escape to make new Orks.

2) People talked about Orks "looting" Tyranid bioweapons. Well, how about the reverse? All it would take is one Norn Queen to crack the DNA code that allows Orks to reproduce with spores. Apply that bio-tech, kill one Carnifex, and hundreds of Ripper spores launch into the air and start to feed, and grow, and spawn more Ripper spores. (Perhaps Venomthorpes are already an example of the Ork spore bio-tech being hijacked by Nids)

3) How about smaller Tyranids? Since the Orks are really bad shots any way, the smaller the bug, the harder it is for the Boyz to shoot.

How quickly do the Tyranids evolve, though (I do not own the Codex)? Just a rough approximation in generations between significant mutations would be fine.
Also, do they have complete control over their own evolution, or is it a natural phenomenon similar to natural selection?

1) A bug that spits out the same digestive acids as the digestion pools. Instead of dragging corpses back and forth, bring the digestion pool to the front line. Also, if the Ork is completly covered head to toe in the goo, then their spores cant escape to make new Orks.

These creatures sound a bit vulnerable to me (their internal reclamation pools likely make them easy targets for Tank-Bustas). All it takes is one Ork push through the gaunts, and they can shoot/smash/stomp/chop the pool, depriving the Tyranids of their biomass.

Additionally, unless the goo is extremely toxic and thus the cause of death, the Orks will have already released their spores by the time they are ready to be digested.

3) How about smaller Tyranids? Since the Orks are really bad shots any way, the smaller the bug, the harder it is for the Boyz to shoot.

But if the Tyranids field them in the numbers necessary to overwhelm the Orks, said Orks can just shoot blindly at the carpet of organisms. In fact, a few Burnas could probably make short work of such swarms (I hope the reclamation pools can handle barbecue ). While very small forms could probably orverwhelm an Ork through sheer numbers, if they're anything like Rippers, they'll likely starve before they even reach the Ork line. The Organisms that can reach their prey will be large enough for the Boyz to grip easily and snap in two.

Shrouger wrote:How quickly do the Tyranids evolve, though (I do not own the Codex)? Just a rough approximation in generations between significant mutations would be fine.
Also, do they have complete control over their own evolution, or is it a natural phenomenon similar to natural selection?

As far as I know, a Norn Queen simply has to think about what she wants, and a new Tyranid steps out of the digestion pool in a matter of moments. So technically there would be no evolution over generations, it simply would happen over night maybe. The only delay would be the amount time it takes for the new brood to get to the front line. Complete and total control over every drop of claimed bio-mass, it only has to be processed through digestion in one of the pools and the Norn Queen can do anything she wants with it.

Shrouger wrote:

1) A bug that spits out the same digestive acids as the digestion pools. Instead of dragging corpses back and forth, bring the digestion pool to the front line. Also, if the Ork is completely covered head to toe in the goo, then their spores cant escape to make new Orks.

These creatures sound a bit vulnerable to me (their internal reclamation pools likely make them easy targets for Tank-Bustas). All it takes is one Ork push through the gaunts, and they can shoot/smash/stomp/chop the pool, depriving the Tyranids of their biomass.
Additionally, unless the goo is extremely toxic and thus the cause of death, the Orks will have already released their spores by the time they are ready to be digested.

I do see what you are saying, but my tactics would have this new digestion vomiting creature doing suicide missions. Have it run as far as it canto the front line and explode. The Biomass is already processed and a new pool can start making fresh troops in moments. The idea IS for them to get close, if they are exploded a little prematurely that is okay too.

The way I picture the goo, it is very toxic and acidic, so once the Ork is covered, death is painful and spores are dissolved too. The goo itself is already processed and ready for Norn Queen instruction on what to produce. If something is covered in the goo then it is only a moment or before that bio-mass is processed too. Once it explodes, there are hundreds of mid-sized digestion pools all over the place for Norn Queens to tap into and use to create fresh troops. These pools are also closer for fresh corpses to be tossed into and again, more troops. The tinier puddles from the resulting explosion would make Rippers who then proceed to gather more bio-mass for the larger pools.

Shrouger wrote:

3) How about smaller Tyranids? Since the Orks are really bad shots any way, the smaller the bug, the harder it is for the Boyz to shoot.

But if the Tyranids field them in the numbers necessary to overwhelm the Orks, said Orks can just shoot blindly at the carpet of organisms. In fact, a few Burnas could probably make short work of such swarms (I hope the reclamation pools can handle barbecue ). While very small forms could probably overwhelm an Ork through sheer numbers, if they're anything like Rippers, they'll likely starve before they even reach the Ork line. The Organisms that can reach their prey will be large enough for the Boyz to grip easily and snap in two.

HAHA My last idea here was mostly just a joke at the Orks. :Theoretically though, the nids could go as small as germs, and release into the air what ever virus it is that makes genestealer cults . Then they don't have to fight the Orks, it would be one big Greenstealer Cult.

What I don't understand is the first three pages of this post. It's mostly hard Tyranid fact versus countless what if situations for the Orks. How likely is it that all Orks will hold hands and band together? Even if they did, there is no coherent war strategy, there is only fighting. If there is a strange occurrence on the battlefield, the Norn Queen knows immediately due to the Hive Mind and its faculties. All it has to do is think counter - Pop! A new brood!- and the new brood is on its way in a mycetic spore. We know this. It's a fact. Not, "Well if A and B come together, and C happens, then we throw in a little D and hope the other side does E, this could work." If there is a galaxy wide war, the Hive Mind allows us to know what is happening across the entire galaxy just as it is happening. The Orks, as quirky and fun as they may be, simply do not possess that kind of intellect. And besides, the fluff on Hive Ships is insane. The ship itself will eat you, never mind the fact that it, "simultaneously vomits broods of Genestealers and Hormagaunts." The only reason the Imperium fended off Behemoth (other than the fact that GW is a SM driven company that will stop at nothing to make them look good and wants to make money off of it) is because the Dominius Astra detonated its Warp Drives, killing it and the Hive Fleet. As for the ground forces, well, the fluff is terrible. Three paragraphs basically say all major military locations were taken and that Macragge was pretty much doomed. Then the Space Marines land and find Calgar beat the Tyranids. How? We don't know. Not even GW could come up with a thought of how they won because even THEY know it makes no sense.

Sorry I got on a SM hating rage. Basically it feels like in order to win the Orks need better planning than the Tyranids, have to make their own space ships that can best the hive ships, and need the speed of adaptation that the Tyranids have. None of which they have. Now if Orks and Tyranids teamed up against something...

Psyker_9er wrote:

Shrouger wrote:How quickly do the Tyranids evolve, though (I do not own the Codex)? Just a rough approximation in generations between significant mutations would be fine.
Also, do they have complete control over their own evolution, or is it a natural phenomenon similar to natural selection?

As far as I know, a Norn Queen simply has to think about what she wants, and a new Tyranid steps out of the digestion pool in a matter of moments. So technically there would be no evolution over generations, it simply would happen over night maybe. The only delay would be the amount time it takes for the new brood to get to the front line. Complete and total control over every drop of claimed bio-mass, it only has to be processed through digestion in one of the pools and the Norn Queen can do anything she wants with it.

Shrouger wrote:

1) A bug that spits out the same digestive acids as the digestion pools. Instead of dragging corpses back and forth, bring the digestion pool to the front line. Also, if the Ork is completely covered head to toe in the goo, then their spores cant escape to make new Orks.

These creatures sound a bit vulnerable to me (their internal reclamation pools likely make them easy targets for Tank-Bustas). All it takes is one Ork push through the gaunts, and they can shoot/smash/stomp/chop the pool, depriving the Tyranids of their biomass.
Additionally, unless the goo is extremely toxic and thus the cause of death, the Orks will have already released their spores by the time they are ready to be digested.

I do see what you are saying, but my tactics would have this new digestion vomiting creature doing suicide missions. Have it run as far as it canto the front line and explode. The Biomass is already processed and a new pool can start making fresh troops in moments. The idea IS for them to get close, if they are exploded a little prematurely that is okay too.

The way I picture the goo, it is very toxic and acidic, so once the Ork is covered, death is painful and spores are dissolved too. The goo itself is already processed and ready for Norn Queen instruction on what to produce. If something is covered in the goo then it is only a moment or before that bio-mass is processed too. Once it explodes, there are hundreds of mid-sized digestion pools all over the place for Norn Queens to tap into and use to create fresh troops. These pools are also closer for fresh corpses to be tossed into and again, more troops. The tinier puddles from the resulting explosion would make Rippers who then proceed to gather more bio-mass for the larger pools.

These units sound an aweful lot like Pyrovores... actually, they sound like what Pyrovores intend to do, but fail at due to crappy points costs/statline/rules etc. In the fluff, they are great. And you're right, new brood mutations are created with relative ease and rapidly.

Justus wrote: What I don't understand is the first three pages of this post. It's mostly hard Tyranid fact versus countless what if situations for the Orks. How likely is it that all Orks will hold hands and band together? Even if they did, there is no coherent war strategy, there is only fighting. If there is a strange occurrence on the battlefield, the Norn Queen knows immediately due to the Hive Mind and its faculties. All it has to do is think counter - Pop! A new brood!- and the new brood is on its way in a mycetic spore. We know this. It's a fact. Not, "Well if A and B come together, and C happens, then we throw in a little D and hope the other side does E, this could work." If there is a galaxy wide war, the Hive Mind allows us to know what is happening across the entire galaxy just as it is happening. The Orks, as quirky and fun as they may be, simply do not possess that kind of intellect. And besides, the fluff on Hive Ships is insane. The ship itself will eat you, never mind the fact that it, "simultaneously vomits broods of Genestealers and Hormagaunts." The only reason the Imperium fended off Behemoth (other than the fact that GW is a SM driven company that will stop at nothing to make them look good and wants to make money off of it) is because the Dominius Astra detonated its Warp Drives, killing it and the Hive Fleet. As for the ground forces, well, the fluff is terrible. Three paragraphs basically say all major military locations were taken and that Macragge was pretty much doomed. Then the Space Marines land and find Calgar beat the Tyranids. How? We don't know. Not even GW could come up with a thought of how they won because even THEY know it makes no sense.

Sorry I got on a SM hating rage. Basically it feels like in order to win the Orks need better planning than the Tyranids, have to make their own space ships that can best the hive ships, and need the speed of adaptation that the Tyranids have. None of which they have. Now if Orks and Tyranids teamed up against something...

You claim about how preposterous orks fighting off tyranids is. Then go on to say about them teaming up? I'd Find them teaming up more ridiculous. Orks are the ultimate survivor/warrior race. The tyranids a huge killing machine/super predator. It seems a pretty good match up for them to duke it out.

What I don't understand is the first three pages of this post. It's mostly hard Tyranid fact versus countless what if situations for the Orks. How likely is it that all Orks will hold hands and band together? Even if they did, there is no coherent war strategy, there is only fighting. If there is a strange occurrence on the battlefield, the Norn Queen knows immediately due to the Hive Mind and its faculties. All it has to do is think counter - Pop! A new brood!- and the new brood is on its way in a mycetic spore. We know this. It's a fact. Not, "Well if A and B come together, and C happens, then we throw in a little D and hope the other side does E, this could work." If there is a galaxy wide war, the Hive Mind allows us to know what is happening across the entire galaxy just as it is happening. The Orks, as quirky and fun as they may be, simply do not possess that kind of intellect. And besides, the fluff on Hive Ships is insane. The ship itself will eat you, never mind the fact that it, "simultaneously vomits broods of Genestealers and Hormagaunts." The only reason the Imperium fended off Behemoth (other than the fact that GW is a SM driven company that will stop at nothing to make them look good and wants to make money off of it) is because the Dominius Astra detonated its Warp Drives, killing it and the Hive Fleet. As for the ground forces, well, the fluff is terrible. Three paragraphs basically say all major military locations were taken and that Macragge was pretty much doomed. Then the Space Marines land and find Calgar beat the Tyranids. How? We don't know. Not even GW could come up with a thought of how they won because even THEY know it makes no sense.

Sorry I got on a SM hating rage. Basically it feels like in order to win the Orks need better planning than the Tyranids, have to make their own space ships that can best the hive ships, and need the speed of adaptation that the Tyranids have. None of which they have. Now if Orks and Tyranids teamed up against something...

The Orks will instinctively band together against a common threat; they only fight each other when there is no other enemy. Not only that, Orks do have their own system of selecting a good leader; in order to rise to control an actual Waaagh!, an Ork must be strong, but also cunning. The entire concept of Waaagh! is that it is a crusade, generally with a set intention (the conquest of Armageddon, the destruction of the Tau, etc.). The Orks on average may not be the brightest creatures in the galaxy, but their leaders are typically intelligent, even by human standards.

There was an endless stalemate until...

the new ork codex came and gave the boyz a decent initiative value

then the nids knew all was lost as ork boyz whipped genestealers with 10 S-10 I-10 attacks per boy, and stompas were no longer apocalypse and came in mobs costing 6 points per stompa with 4 destroyer attacks in close combat and giga shootas

Much as I wish the Boyz had such power, let's keep this realistic.

I do agree with the Initiative issue, though.

Haha the Ork's lack the potential to be cool at all, so that statement is far from realistic. Ork's lose in every story they have ever been in this one should be no different. Tyranid's are far more organized, vicious, awesome, not to mention the hive-mind. Hive-mind has un-paralleled commanding abilities and cn command all Tyranid simultaneously.

Also it has been witnessed that Tyranid are run from a losing battle, this would make the theory of them running from a greater force very slim.

xXSir MontyXx wrote:

scrabb wrote:
But really, nids can't eat the Orks. It will soon be revealed that the nids are indeed fleeing a greater threat than that which the imperium has ever witnessed. An Ork Waaaaghhh! led by MORK himself. Because it is kunning but brutal for a God of the warp to smash you with his fist in the material plane.

Wow I cant even take that theory seriously.... theres also the theory that these hive fleets that have been witnessed so far are just tendrils of the actual fleet. The theory they are running is fine, just not from Orks.

Neither do I.


There are a few things I'd like to add to this discussion. Firstly, in the numbers game between orks and nids there are more known orks than nids in the galaxy. The number of nids in galaxy may be 40%, 10%, 5% 1% or almost zero percent of all nids total ever. They may all already be here. They may be running from a greater power, they may not be. So right now, orks can completely overpower what nids there are in the galaxy.

Next, I'd like to respond to the complaint that ork players are using "what ifs" in a "what if" matchup between them where the imperium has mysteriously been destroyed already. Orks are widely represented in fluff of needing a catalyst in order mass together in the numbers necessary to fight the tyranids. The tyranids are this catalyst. It is as probable that the orks will attack the nids as it is the nids will evolve during the ensuing fight.

Finally, I want to say having an uber hyper-intelligent consciousness that can bio genetically create anything it can imagine and replicate that perfectly and efficiently is awesome, but doesn't mean that if ten dudes get hit by a disintegration beam the hive mind will be able to spend ten minutes remaking all the troops with the exact same combat effectiveness and maneuverability, not increase biomass cost, and make the troopers immune to that disintegration beam. It's just not happening. Does anyone remember that superman villain doomseday? His origin story is that, as a baby, he was dropped on a hideously dangerous planet, full of poisonous, powerful, and wicked creatures. Ten seconds later he was dead. His dna was extracted and they recreated him as a more perfect being. They did this ten million times until he could take superman on in a fight. Thereafter, whenever he was beaten by anyone or anything, the next time he was better than whatever had beaten him and won. Doomseday is lame. Tyranids are not lame. Tyranids are not doomseday.

cheers

Scrabb wrote:Finally, I want to say having an uber hyper-intelligent consciousness that can bio genetically create anything it can imagine and replicate that perfectly and efficiently is awesome, but doesn't mean that if ten dudes get hit by a disintegration beam the hive mind will be able to spend ten minutes remaking all the troops with the exact same combat effectiveness and maneuverability, not increase biomass cost, and make the troopers immune to that disintegration beam. It's just not happening. Does anyone remember that superman villain doomseday? His origin story is that, as a baby, he was dropped on a hideously dangerous planet, full of poisonous, powerful, and wicked creatures. Ten seconds later he was dead. His dna was extracted and they recreated him as a more perfect being. They did this ten million times until he could take superman on in a fight. Thereafter, whenever he was beaten by anyone or anything, the next time he was better than whatever had beaten him and won. Doomseday is lame. Tyranids are not lame. Tyranids are not doomseday.

cheers

Surely they can't evolve and adapt that quickly! Wait...

As the hive fleet sails relentlessly on through
space, it is continually evolving to meet the
enemies that it faces. Individual organisms
adapt and refine themselves with each new
encounter, while the hive ships perpetually alter
the morphology of the new organisms birthed
by the fleet. As such, the hive fleet is a
continually changing mass, both individually
and collectively.

“We fought them the first day, and our guns
tore through them with ease. We fought
them the second day and saw our missiles bounce
off a thickened skin they seemed now to bear, so
we turned out lances on ‘em. We fought them the
third day, and no cursed thing worked!”

They are some of the easier to read quotes about their adaptability and selective evolution. And that's from BFG describing fleet level evolution.

Codex Tyranids has a short bit about Hive Fleet Gorgon. I've cut out the boring bits regarding the Tau themselves.

With every battle, fresh iterations of Tyranids emerged, each new variant perfectly adapted to overcome a particular foe or circumstance.

...

The Tyranids adapted to more than just his doctrines and deployments, they moved to counter the Tau weaponry itself. In response to the powerful pulse rifles of the Tau warriors, carapace was restructured, bone recombined and tissue reknitted, dramatically increasing the Tyranids resistance to Tau ordnance.

...


However,each time a weakness was found, the Tyranid biomatrix shifted once more.

Footsloggin wrote:These units sound an awful lot like Pyrovores... actually, they sound like what Pyrovores intend to do, but fail at due to crappy points costs/statline/rules etc. In the fluff, they are great. And you're right, new brood mutations are created with relative ease and rapidly.

And that is part of my point too actually. The means to defeat the Orks (or any race) are already there, just behind the scenes. It is just a small DNA skip and a jump from a Biovore to a Pyrovore, and then from there in to the mobile digestion pool / command center like I described. They could even put this digestive soup in to a Mycetic Spore and even if it is shot out of the sky it will still rain acidic goo every where. Of course this is all just fan boy made up stuff I am talking about, but The Hive Mind can do practically anything...

I mentioned it before, but In my opinion, the end game move that the Tyranids can do to win, hands down, once and for all: Crack the genetic DNA code that allows Orks to reproduce with spores.

The dead Tyranid host can be recycled in a digestion pool like normal, but the spores have already been released. Hiding and growing (just like the Ork Spore), feeding and learning (just like the Ork Spore), once the Tyranids make planet fall they would never leave (just like the Ork Spore).

But that is just my opinion, and I don't think GW will ever do it... They want the war to go on for a very very long time.

-Loki- wrote:
Surely they can't evolve and adapt that quickly! Wait...

Lots of examples of extremely rapid evolution and adaptation by tyranids

I didn't say they couldn't make all their termagaunts adamantiumguants in ten minutes. I didn't say they don't/can't constantly adapt their battlefield tactics to the situation. I said they couldn't do it without compromise. Tougher = slower or more energy consumption. Getting shot by a bullet doesn't allow a nid to have bulletproof armor (unless is has evolved a bullet absorption template, which it probably has! ).

I mean, a splinter fleet gets obliterated by some insane superweapon that tractor beams a star into it. Does the hive mind of that fleet plate all it's ships in indestrucium? Why didn't it already have that activated if it can? If it couldn't but now can what new information did it get? Does it have enough actual indestructium to plate all the ships with? Where did it come from? If the entire process is nids get hurt/lose/feel sad then EVOLUTION and they can't get hurt/win/feel happy than tyranids are beyond lame.

I like to interpret many of those pieces as the hivemind accessing files on similar enemies it has defeated and assimulated in the past and rebooting the good stuff. I like to think the heavy weapons not working on day two means they've slowed down consumption of world number fifty billion by three percent to give heavy armor to units attacking the strongest pockets of resistance.

All IMO of course.

Scrabb wrote:I like to interpret many of those pieces as the hivemind accessing files on similar enemies it has defeated and assimulated in the past and rebooting the good stuff. I like to think the heavy weapons not working on day two means they've slowed down consumption of world number fifty billion by three percent to give heavy armor to units attacking the strongest pockets of resistance.

All IMO of course.

While they need to store the information of what they are fighting to recall later, they still do evolve quickly to new threats. The bit about fighting the Tau - that's the first time they were fighting against Tau. They had never been shot by those weapons or fought against those tactics before. Yet they evolved protection simply in the short time between engagements. They couldn't recall those evolutions, since they didn't exist yet.

That is an excellent point, Scrabb. The Ork Codex clearly states (direct quote):
"... It is only a matter of time before the Orks unite once and for all to drown the stars in a torrent of mindless violence."

What better reason to unite than an actual threat to Ork-kind? Because of all these reasons that have been provided to explain why Tyranids are deadlier than Orks, said Orks will drop their own petty wars and rally against the 'Nids. GW will do everything it can to make every race seem like the most powerful in the galaxy in order to entice players; what they have to say about the power of various species is typically exaggerated relative to what is reflected in the actual game and in the Black Library novels. Now that we have that out of the way, let's continue debating this point logically without quoting arbitrarily from the Codex. Both sides can and are making good arguments without relying on quotes from the rulebooks and refusing to extrapolate.


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While they need to store the information of what they are fighting to recall later, they still do evolve quickly to new threats. The bit about fighting the Tau - that's the first time they were fighting against Tau. They had never been shot by those weapons or fought against those tactics before. Yet they evolved protection simply in the short time between engagements. They couldn't recall those evolutions, since they didn't exist yet.

Who's to say they had not encountered a similar race at some point? The Imperium has discovered and destroyed countless races not disimilar to the Tau; it would not be impossible for the Tyranids to attack and devour some race that either traded with the Tau or had developed similar tech independently (it's bound to happen when you have thousands of races all trying to live in the same galaxy)