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 -Loki- wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
Theoretically a self-mutating virus could wipe out the Tyranid race, one that mutates faster than the hivemind can adapt. If that comes from anywhere it's most likely to be Nurgle.

Theoretically Tyranids could make a spore that reduces biological entities to biomass sludge, never needing to touch the ground to kill a population.

They haven't done it in the fluff.

It's useless arguing theoreticals with 40k because theoretically anything could be done. That's why fluff debates tend to stick to established fluff, not fanfiction.

In established fluff, the most virus or corruption has done is wipe out a tendril before being stopped (and that has only, IIRC, happened once), and never works again. The Hive Mind is described as being very adept at finding a way to fight them, and afterwards spread the cure to every Tyranid fleet. Anything it can't fight simply gets cut loose and abandoned so it doesn't spread.

Well there was the Blood Ravens who defended their recruiting worlds by developing a Poison for the Leviathan Tendril that was about to devour the Aurelian Subsector. However it's worth noting that the effects were not immediate, the ground based Tyranids didn't even notice the poisoning of the Hive Fleets above and could have simply started the whole thing over again had the Hive Tyrant Alpha not been killed, and even after that the Tyranids adapted a way to survive in feral form, seemingly developing ways to reproduce their land based organisms to the point that you could still find pretty much any variety of Tyranid organism smaller than a biotitan ten years later during the Exterminatus of Typhon Primaris. Of course, dawn of war II introduced planetside spawning chambers which can birth anything up to a Carnifex so it's probably those that kept the infestation going.

Afterwards, it's noted that Uriel's trick flat out doesn't work anymore period, and presumably neither does the Blood Ravens'.

And Retribution shows another Tyranid mechanism. If any form of spawning chambers remain for a feral infestation, the Tyranids can birth a Hive Lord, a variant of a Hive Tyrant with a stronger connection to the Hive Mind and instilled with the duty and capacity to restore contact with the hive fleets.

So even if you seemingly win, the Tyranids can still make you lose and even play Ork to be a pain in your ass until the Hive Lord and Genestealers can bring another hive fleet wheeling back in again.