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Iracundus wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Also, I doubt those worlds are already stripped, I though the proccess took almost year.

If I am right, then it means the 'nids have plenty of reserves, otherwise, they have a huge army.

Read the quoted section from the Tyranid Codex. It took weeks to digest the Orks of Ghorala. The other subsequent worlds have also been digested. Past tense.


The evidence for a lot of the suppositions and what ifs people keep flinging around is actually already given by GW.

Don'T have the dex, but okay, I'll remember that for the next time this thread pops up.

BlaxicanX wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
No the warboss at ghorla was killed by lictors, and then started infighting due to the leviathan fleet been decimated, the small hidden nids acted cautiosly.
Orks won that battle not the nids.

>Ork warboss gets eaten alive by lictors.
>Ork chieftains start fighting among themselves.
> Tyranids eat all of the Orks on the planet and leave it a desolate, baren rock with no living life left on it.

In your mind, that's a victory for the Orks. LOL

And the sad part is, in your mind you think that is how it works in 40k. One subpar boogey-man assassin. you realize the offico Assassinorum which, if you aren't familiar are the best of the best when it comes to assassinations they are able to approach the nearly unapproachable like Eldar Farseers, Dark eldar Archons, Tau Ethereals upon caste worlds. depending on their circumstance these assassins do what they are suppose to. the only assassins in history that have successfully dealt with Orkish Warbosses is first temple of assassins the Eversors.

So you have assassins which are hardwired to have a solar star explode out of their chest in the event of their death, liquifaction needle guns, lightning talons and hardcore frenzy drugs... and you think your squidbilly wannabe alien can just sneak though hundreds of thousands of orks, detections, orkish veterans, grots and then just walk up and kill a warboss? HA you are clearly the most delusional of all Nid players i have seen post of the Octarius Empire topic in quite some time so allow me to give you some wisdom on the topic of warbosses.

A Warboss will not die in his home, he will die on the battlefield if your nids have already made it planet side... which oh lookie!... they have. You might be of the opinion that warboss means singular ... it doesn't a Warboss is merely an ork who has become big enough to lead thousands of orks uncontested... it means Octarius has multiple leaders like you even said, when one boss dies someone else will take his spot because they have been wanting to. So We'll call this chode warboss you think that can be killed by a lictor WARBOSS BUGSUCKA. So Boss Bugsucka is killed... somehow by ninja lictors... meanwhile Nob Newspaper and nob Roach Motel vie for power by fighting one another Boom suddenly a leader is determined and the orks have rallyed under Nob NEWSPAPER. A battlefield might have one warboss... a empire will have many many more. Orkish leadership is an aggressive sport but it doesn't cause orks to implode when their are bugs to smash.

Infact the stupidest thing about the nids is they are given this orkish empire every excuse NOT to infight, we only fight one another when no one else is around you yourself are saying the nids are this thriving power upon their planet? What part of that makes you think the orks will suddenly not want to fight the new guy? Your post is willful ignorance of the operations of Ork Kulture and you strike me as someone who never does their homework before posting this dribble you think is truth. A small ocassion of orkish infighting without a perceived threat is not a empire conqured even if you catch the orks on a bad day good luck with your simple 3 step plan for conquering the orks.

Lastly, it isn't the burden of people disputing your claims to find evidence for you. If you say their is evidence that supports your claims you should produce them yourself for others. One does not accept a truth less it is provided.

Long story short, 1 warboss who isn't aware a war has begun isn't exactly a exploit to write home about. Nor is beating 1 entire planet of orks when your army is the fabeled great devourer who seems to be struggling and pouring EVERY resource from ultramar just to make a dent in the orks massive empire which somely is building to crash back. I garantee that the Orks aren't staying down for long, and (our lack of tactics) as you put it will be turning the nids on their head soon enough you don't realize that this entire thing will turn into a "New Armageddon" only with less than spectacular killcounts; a planet gridlocked until it loses all significance and falls to the wayside of 40k history with no definitive winner.

I'm gonna have to back the nids this time.

Lictors did kill the warboss on ghorla, but that is just 1 warboss, killed by stealth, the orks did start to infight. But it is a tactic used because of the poor resources the nids had available.

As much as we don't like the Orks handed the nids victory on that occasion.

But on octaria your point is valid, whacking 1 warboss doesn't eliminate the orksn while the nids are a large and accessable threat, all Orks will hit gribbly over green first and foremost.

Of course if the hivemind ever figures out that having green coloured carapace means they can get the drop on the orks... Well theorks are in trouble.

 Eetion wrote:
I'm gonna have to back the nids this time.

Lictors did kill the warboss on ghorla, but that is just 1 warboss, killed by stealth, the orks did start to infight. But it is a tactic used because of the poor resources the nids had available.

As much as we don't like the Orks handed the nids victory on that occasion.

But on octaria your point is valid, whacking 1 warboss doesn't eliminate the orksn while the nids are a large and accessable threat, all Orks will hit gribbly over green first and foremost.

Of course if the hivemind ever figures out that having green coloured carapace means they can get the drop on the orks... Well theorks are in trouble.

Green is best but it ain't orky... I say we stomp em flat!

Drawing from 2 earlier posts about the orks growing and Octarius becoming new Armageddon:
First: Ork Codex page 8 Life of Conflict orks are seen being twice the size of humans who are not that much smaller than regular terma/horma guants or genestealers i BELIVE, please correct me if im wrong.
Second: Big Mek Wurzzog was correct saying that the Octarius fight will grow and grow and escalate un til will be similar to Armageddon. Orks are ATTRACTED to war so Orks will be coming from all over the universe. Also with this many reinforcements the blockade could probably be broken OR if the IoM holds strong then all the orks need to do is get a single ship through. That ship, you guessed it!, will be holding a Tellyporta.And if this ship is destroyed oh well there are more than one tellyportas. Im not sure how the orks CAN'T win this except for if the nids turn more tentacles towards Octarius.

I thought tellyportas were relatively rare, with only Gazzy having used them on mass in Armageddon.

 Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
No the warboss at ghorla was killed by lictors, and then started infighting due to the leviathan fleet been decimated, the small hidden nids acted cautiosly.
Orks won that battle not the nids.

>Ork warboss gets eaten alive by lictors.
>Ork chieftains start fighting among themselves.
> Tyranids eat all of the Orks on the planet and leave it a desolate, baren rock with no living life left on it.

In your mind, that's a victory for the Orks. LOL

And the sad part is, in your mind you think that is how it works in 40k. One subpar boogey-man assassin. you realize the offico Assassinorum which, if you aren't familiar are the best of the best when it comes to assassinations they are able to approach the nearly unapproachable like Eldar Farseers, Dark eldar Archons, Tau Ethereals upon caste worlds. depending on their circumstance these assassins do what they are suppose to. the only assassins in history that have successfully dealt with Orkish Warbosses is first temple of assassins the Eversors.

So you have assassins which are hardwired to have a solar star explode out of their chest in the event of their death, liquifaction needle guns, lightning talons and hardcore frenzy drugs... and you think your squidbilly wannabe alien can just sneak though hundreds of thousands of orks, detections, orkish veterans, grots and then just walk up and kill a warboss? HA you are clearly the most delusional of all Nid players i have seen post of the Octarius Empire topic in quite some time so allow me to give you some wisdom on the topic of warbosses.

A Warboss will not die in his home, he will die on the battlefield if your nids have already made it planet side... which oh lookie!... they have. You might be of the opinion that warboss means singular ... it doesn't a Warboss is merely an ork who has become big enough to lead thousands of orks uncontested... it means Octarius has multiple leaders like you even said, when one boss dies someone else will take his spot because they have been wanting to. So We'll call this chode warboss you think that can be killed by a lictor WARBOSS BUGSUCKA. So Boss Bugsucka is killed... somehow by ninja lictors... meanwhile Nob Newspaper and nob Roach Motel vie for power by fighting one another Boom suddenly a leader is determined and the orks have rallyed under Nob NEWSPAPER. A battlefield might have one warboss... a empire will have many many more. Orkish leadership is an aggressive sport but it doesn't cause orks to implode when their are bugs to smash.

Infact the stupidest thing about the nids is they are given this orkish empire every excuse NOT to infight, we only fight one another when no one else is around you yourself are saying the nids are this thriving power upon their planet? What part of that makes you think the orks will suddenly not want to fight the new guy? Your post is willful ignorance of the operations of Ork Kulture and you strike me as someone who never does their homework before posting this dribble you think is truth. A small ocassion of orkish infighting without a perceived threat is not a empire conqured even if you catch the orks on a bad day good luck with your simple 3 step plan for conquering the orks.

Lastly, it isn't the burden of people disputing your claims to find evidence for you. If you say their is evidence that supports your claims you should produce them yourself for others. One does not accept a truth less it is provided.

Long story short, 1 warboss who isn't aware a war has begun isn't exactly a exploit to write home about. Nor is beating 1 entire planet of orks when your army is the fabeled great devourer who seems to be struggling and pouring EVERY resource from ultramar just to make a dent in the orks massive empire which somely is building to crash back. I garantee that the Orks aren't staying down for long, and (our lack of tactics) as you put it will be turning the nids on their head soon enough you don't realize that this entire thing will turn into a "New Armageddon" only with less than spectacular killcounts; a planet gridlocked until it loses all significance and falls to the wayside of 40k history with no definitive winner.

You need to actually read fluff before commenting on it. It's sort of a pre-requisite of commenting in the fluff section.

Skarfang was already in the war. Tyranids were making no gains. They employed a new tactic - kill the warboss. They lured Skarfang and his entire retinue into an area choked with spores created by Venomthropes and launched an ambush. When the spores cleared, Skarfang found himself surrounded by Lictors which tore him apart. This caused the entire planets Ork population to start up infighting to determine a new Warboss, which in turn gave Leviathan the opening it needed to win.

It wasn't one Lictor finding Skarfang in bed with his wife. It wasn't some unawares Warboss unsure of an invasion. It wasn't some super-Lictor defying fluff and doing what an Imperial Assassin could not. Ghorala was at war with the Tyranids, and the Tyranids used better tactics to ambush and assassinate their Warlord, using his hubris against him.

As per fluff, the Tyranids are winning at Octarius, for every reason already pointed out. Tyranid players have been supporting their statements with fluff references from official GW publications which state the victories of the Tyranids. While it has been said they are struggling with Octarius itself, updated fluff from White Dwarf (which is still 100% official) has shown they're making strides towards winning there as well.

As for 'pouring EVERY resource from ultramar just to make a dent in the orks massive empire', they're not. While the Octarius war has been going on, the rest of Leviathan has been out kicking ass. Go check the galactic map in the 5th edition codex.

Basically, start citing fluff references to Ork victories on Octarius to counter the fluff references of Tyranids victories, and you might be getting somewhere.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
No the warboss at ghorla was killed by lictors, and then started infighting due to the leviathan fleet been decimated, the small hidden nids acted cautiosly.
Orks won that battle not the nids.

>Ork warboss gets eaten alive by lictors.
>Ork chieftains start fighting among themselves.
> Tyranids eat all of the Orks on the planet and leave it a desolate, baren rock with no living life left on it.

In your mind, that's a victory for the Orks. LOL

And the sad part is, in your mind you think that is how it works in 40k. One subpar boogey-man assassin. you realize the offico Assassinorum which, if you aren't familiar are the best of the best when it comes to assassinations they are able to approach the nearly unapproachable like Eldar Farseers, Dark eldar Archons, Tau Ethereals upon caste worlds. depending on their circumstance these assassins do what they are suppose to. the only assassins in history that have successfully dealt with Orkish Warbosses is first temple of assassins the Eversors.

So you have assassins which are hardwired to have a solar star explode out of their chest in the event of their death, liquifaction needle guns, lightning talons and hardcore frenzy drugs... and you think your squidbilly wannabe alien can just sneak though hundreds of thousands of orks, detections, orkish veterans, grots and then just walk up and kill a warboss? HA you are clearly the most delusional of all Nid players i have seen post of the Octarius Empire topic in quite some time so allow me to give you some wisdom on the topic of warbosses.

A Warboss will not die in his home, he will die on the battlefield if your nids have already made it planet side... which oh lookie!... they have. You might be of the opinion that warboss means singular ... it doesn't a Warboss is merely an ork who has become big enough to lead thousands of orks uncontested... it means Octarius has multiple leaders like you even said, when one boss dies someone else will take his spot because they have been wanting to. So We'll call this chode warboss you think that can be killed by a lictor WARBOSS BUGSUCKA. So Boss Bugsucka is killed... somehow by ninja lictors... meanwhile Nob Newspaper and nob Roach Motel vie for power by fighting one another Boom suddenly a leader is determined and the orks have rallyed under Nob NEWSPAPER. A battlefield might have one warboss... a empire will have many many more. Orkish leadership is an aggressive sport but it doesn't cause orks to implode when their are bugs to smash.

Infact the stupidest thing about the nids is they are given this orkish empire every excuse NOT to infight, we only fight one another when no one else is around you yourself are saying the nids are this thriving power upon their planet? What part of that makes you think the orks will suddenly not want to fight the new guy? Your post is willful ignorance of the operations of Ork Kulture and you strike me as someone who never does their homework before posting this dribble you think is truth. A small ocassion of orkish infighting without a perceived threat is not a empire conqured even if you catch the orks on a bad day good luck with your simple 3 step plan for conquering the orks.

Lastly, it isn't the burden of people disputing your claims to find evidence for you. If you say their is evidence that supports your claims you should produce them yourself for others. One does not accept a truth less it is provided.

Long story short, 1 warboss who isn't aware a war has begun isn't exactly a exploit to write home about. Nor is beating 1 entire planet of orks when your army is the fabeled great devourer who seems to be struggling and pouring EVERY resource from ultramar just to make a dent in the orks massive empire which somely is building to crash back. I garantee that the Orks aren't staying down for long, and (our lack of tactics) as you put it will be turning the nids on their head soon enough you don't realize that this entire thing will turn into a "New Armageddon" only with less than spectacular killcounts; a planet gridlocked until it loses all significance and falls to the wayside of 40k history with no definitive winner.

You need to actually read fluff before commenting on it. It's sort of a pre-requisite of commenting in the fluff section.

Skarfang was already in the war. Tyranids were making no gains. They employed a new tactic - kill the warboss. They lured Skarfang and his entire retinue into an area choked with spores created by Venomthropes and launched an ambush. When the spores cleared, Skarfang found himself surrounded by Lictors which tore him apart. This caused the entire planets Ork population to start up infighting to determine a new Warboss, which in turn gave Leviathan the opening it needed to win.

It wasn't one Lictor finding Skarfang in bed with his wife. It wasn't some unawares Warboss unsure of an invasion. It wasn't some super-Lictor defying fluff and doing what an Imperial Assassin could not. Ghorala was at war with the Tyranids, and the Tyranids used better tactics to ambush and assassinate their Warlord, using his hubris against him.

As per fluff, the Tyranids are winning at Octarius, for every reason already pointed out. Tyranid players have been supporting their statements with fluff references from official GW publications which state the victories of the Tyranids. While it has been said they are struggling with Octarius itself, updated fluff from White Dwarf (which is still 100% official) has shown they're making strides towards winning there as well.

As for 'pouring EVERY resource from ultramar just to make a dent in the orks massive empire', they're not. While the Octarius war has been going on, the rest of Leviathan has been out kicking ass. Go check the galactic map in the 5th edition codex.

Basically, start citing fluff references to Ork victories on Octarius to counter the fluff references of Tyranids victories, and you might be getting somewhere.

Did you see what I said about the resource situation? Got buried in another page.

There will be no winner to octavia.
Given the time line is frozen, its the confluct to end all conflicts.

I don't expect much will get published on it until the next ork dex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a side note, I don't believe the orks are winning. I believe its a stalemate, and the Orks just havnt won yet.
As iv been typing these arguments from the childrens hospital while my daughter sleeps with no reference material other than what I can pull up on my phone, lexicanum will have to do.

But here we go at providing your references

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

Stormlord is a stress induced response, so by its vey nature and appearence the nids are being held/loosing.


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

Has a single mega continent, to retcon a planet to have Orks loose 3 continents is poor research at best and a throw away comment to buff tyranids at best. Some advancements are expected at the appearence of the Swarm lord however, yet the war rages on.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Octarius_War
Here is a transcript of the conflict thus far. Feel like updating it with your tyranids are winning on octarius WD be my guest if you can cite the source.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Blaktoof
Blaktoof is the overfiend, and launched a Waaagh into the Hivefleet, status unknown. At a guess that's a stalemate also. But Who knows, maybe dead, maybe kicking bottom.

As it is, I believe that a Stalemate is in order on octavia. But more Orks will keep on arriving, its what Orks do.
And when a Hive ship goes down in space, then things will start to go sour for the nids, the very fact the storm lord is needed shows that things are not. Going swimmingly for the nids.

In essence I believe the Orks will out last the nids, they will dig their heels in and grind out a victory... Eventually.

Eetion i believe that tellyportas were not very rare but the design was. Although only Ghazzy and Nazdreg have them , but also although they are not rare they are not common but somewhere in between. If you read the A Galaxy at War story from Ork Codex page 21 the section Descent it talks about how the Ork Roks land with giant tellyportasthat are able to brind Gargants and heavy artillery. So Ghazz or Nazdreg just need to send a horde of transport ships surround one transport ship carrying tellyportas, then the reinforcements will come and the nids will lose.

 Eetion wrote:
But here we go at providing your references

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

Stormlord is a stress induced response, so by its vey nature and appearence the nids are being held/loosing.

And that stress induced reaction has caused the Tyranids to make significant strides to taking Octaria. So that means it worked. How does this show they're losing?

 Eetion wrote:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Octarius

Has a single mega continent, to retcon a planet to have Orks loose 3 continents is poor research at best and a throw away comment to buff tyranids at best. Some advancements are expected at the appearence of the Swarm lord however, yet the war rages on.

Poor research or not, it's now official fluff. Octarius now has multiple continents, the number of which we don't know. We do know Tyranids have taken 3 now. We've heard nothing about how many the Orks have taken.

 Eetion wrote:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Octarius_War
Here is a transcript of the conflict thus far. Feel like updating it with your tyranids are winning on octarius WD be my guest if you can cite the source.

Never said White Dwarf said they're winning. I said there's more references to Tyranids winning on Octarius than Orks. Since they're neglecting to mention Ork victories, you can only assume there are none officially. This is the problem with a fluff debate over something as poorly written and thought out as the Octarius war.

 Eetion wrote:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Blaktoof
Blaktoof is the overfiend, and launched a Waaagh into the Hivefleet, status unknown. At a guess that's a stalemate also. But Who knows, maybe dead, maybe kicking bottom.

So what are the results of his Waaagh? Tyranids launched an attack into Octarius, we know it has taken multiple planets, killed multiple Warbosses, and is on its way to taking Octarius itself. Where are the references to Blaktoofs successes?

 Eetion wrote:
As it is, I believe that a Stalemate is in order on octavia. But more Orks will keep on arriving, its what Orks do.

And more Tyranids arrive as a fight drags on, and more are made during the fight. It's what Tyranids do.

 Eetion wrote:
And when a Hive ship goes down in space, then things will start to go sour for the nids, the very fact the storm lord is needed shows that things are not. Going swimmingly for the nids.

And the Swarmlord has caused them to make significant strides to victory. Not going swimmingly for the Orks since he turned up.

As for Hive Ships going down - it simply causes multiple other hive ships to birth new ones. 4th edition Tyranid codex. The Hydra Effect.

 Eetion wrote:
In essence I believe the Orks will out last the nids, they will dig their heels in and grind out a victory... Eventually.

Again, no fluff references point to them winning. They've all pointed to losses. In fact, it's the only part of the 5th edition fluff that mentions Tyranid victories and not their opponents victories, which is quite refreshing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Did you see what I said about the resource situation? Got buried in another page.

Yes I did. The thing is, Tyranids also use metals, along with everything else. This was mentioned in an old article about the amount of biomass removed from a planet. It included all metals and minerals.

So, if a Gargant is lost behind Tyranid lines, the Orks have lost that. The Tyranids have gained it. They're gaining everything else from that area from the hyper-reproductive flora as well, and anything else the Tyranids are eating (natural gases, soil, water, etc).

Orks use metal to make their things. Tyanids use it, plus far more. Metal is going to run out quicker due to both sides using it. Any more the Orks bring with them is potential biomass for the Tyranids.

Except, you are thinking that is orks run out of metal theya re done. the millions of orks fighting... can resupply the other millions of orks, guess what else orks master in? Ingenuity, Guess what a Hormaguant makes... 6 choppas (2 long 4 short) Their chitin makes eavy armor and fast repairs and their massive claws make excellent replacement parts for a power klaw....

Orks are going to find a way everytime, from the ruins of their homes, to scavenging off the dead and putting the corpses of the enemy to use the orks will still stomp the universe flat! Also you make it sound like hollowing out an entire planet is something fast... despite the billions of bullets earth has provided, or the steel columns for our houses, or metal for our cars... I highly doubt this war is going to exhaust a planet that fast and the nids will gobble up battlefields that stupidly knowing how hard it is to kill orks and not expect the battlefields to be more or less boobie trapped by wounded orks, mischevious gretchin looters or indigenous life.

Resources are a very negotiable term for orks... I'm shocked Nids would even suggest this as a viable outcome, for the Imperium perhaps... but never for an ork.

Nids can nom on the carapace of their 'gaunts too?

Chitin is pretty much flak armor, doesn't make good heavy armor.

I find it hard to believe that the orks havent had a single victory.

Do nids absorb metal and minerals. As far as I was aware its bio mass, atmosphere and water.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tyranid#Planetary_Assimilation

Makes no mention of minerals on the reclamation schedual. Can't really see how the access unmined minerals.

And of course orks have won. If they had it wouldn't be a stale mate.

I'm fully prepared to admit the Swarmlord resulted in a gain for nids, Just not enough, as you said we have no idea how many continents there are now. It might be a quarter of the world. It might be half? 3/4? Who knows.

As for the WD, still likely a throw away Blurb unresearched.

The problem is that most fluff comes from the nid dex so Ork exploits are hard to come by.


As for more nids coming. Really. The whole of leviathan seperated into tendrils, maybe some follow up behind. Orks have a much easier time to reinforce, nids need to reinforce themselves. And until ork resistance is eliminated that capability is a finite resource and they can get at the planet itself.

So know comes the long wait for the new Ork Codex to come out before the forum is revived so there will be more info on Octarius fights and Ork victories.

 Eetion wrote:
Do nids absorb metal and minerals. As far as I was aware its bio mass, atmosphere and water.

They use metal:

The Venom cannon is a long, powerful bio-weapon which fires salvoes of highly corrosive poison crystals encrusted with a metallic residue.

p. 30, 4th edition Tyranid Codex

Curving tusks of adamantium-laced chitin sprout from the Tyranid's head, allowing it to effect a devastating charge.

p. 33, 4th edition Tyranid Codex

I highly doubt this war is going to exhaust a planet that fast and the nids will gobble up battlefields that stupidly knowing how hard it is to kill orks and not expect the battlefields to be more or less boobie trapped by wounded orks, mischevious gretchin looters or indigenous life.

Once again, for there to be a debate, people have to actually have proof. Simply making up hyperbolic statements for your fan favorite is NOT proof or support for your position. This above position is further disproved by the fact that on Ghorala, the Tyranids did scavenge resources from battlefields and harvest bodies of both sides quite successfully, so all these supposed obstacles being made up to shore up the Ork position don't exist or are not the serious obstacles they are made out to be:

In the dead of night, synapse creatures re-mustered the scattered swarm to the corpse-choked battlefield. There the Tyranids fed on Ork cadaver and Tyranid carcass alike before returning to digestion pools secreted in the planet's rocky mesas. Slowly but surely, the Tyranid's numbers started to grow.

p. 30, 5th edition Tyranid Codex

Seriously, I am not particularly cheering on either of the factions on Octarius but from just review of the evidence, I see a lot more made up stuff coming from the players trying to argue for the Orks. Find evidence for your position. Whipping out personal statements of what you believe the Orks can do isn't proof. Quote and cite proof, from GW sources, not a Wiki, or some random "I remember reading somewhere that I cannot recall or name". Yes the evidence so far seems to show Tyranid victories, but that may change with the Ork Codex. However in the absence of evidence thus far, we cannot make any definitive conclusions about any Ork victories.

The only stuff we can definitively conclude is what is given by GW, and it shows so far that the Tyranids were attracted by a Genestealer cult/infestation planted by the Inquisition that spread in the Octarius Empire, 4 Ork worlds have fallen so far, the Tyranids have made planetfall on Octarius, and that the Eldar have started striking worlds, some Ork-held, for the purpose of denying resources to the Tyranids.

For that matter though, a citation and quote of the retcon of Octarius's geography and the claim that several continents have fallen would also be nice, as that is a Tyranid claim so far that is also unsourced.

Boss Grot Punt wrote:
So know comes the long wait for the new Ork Codex to come out before the forum is revived so there will be more info on Octarius fights and Ork victories.

Orkses are nothing if not paitient. (Can't believe I said that_

Slowly slowly swatty gribbly.

Also orks are bound to win, its an eventual certainty,
Orkses is never defeated in battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fighting so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The problem with citation is that the war has very little coverage beyond the tyranid codex, and giving little in the way of Ork exploits.

Up until now it was granted as a stalemate, with neither side of the obvious victor.
Being asked who you think will winn comes with a certain ammount of assumption and interpretation.

Now I'm happy with the state of affairs, my personal belief is orks will prevail, just as I don't begrudge or generally frustrated with opposing points of view.

However an ill thought out blurb in a WD saying Nids are winning (they are allowed to make serious inroads initially wouldn't be a stalemate otherwise)/have the orks on the run. Change the continents of the planet upsets this balance.

The stalemate should be maintained. To give the impeium a enemy after. Personally I think it will be a Waaagh they have to contend with.

So by the nature of the question of 'who do you think will win' requires a certain ammount of hypothesis and assumption as the citations are entirely lacking.

Probably when new Ork Codex comes out the info will be the Orks are winning.

Ugh... that quote again...

After scrupulous checking, the quote about the continents seems to actually be a mis-remembered bit of information from p. 16 of the 5th edition Tyranid Codex, describing the attack on the planet of Crimsonfall. Unless someone can provide proof from this alleged WD source, I don't think there is evidence for any retcon of Octarius's geography.

This is why I am so particular about asking for proof because there are all sorts of errors that creep in when people start mixing details from memory.

 -Loki- wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Did you see what I said about the resource situation? Got buried in another page.

Yes I did. The thing is, Tyranids also use metals, along with everything else. This was mentioned in an old article about the amount of biomass removed from a planet. It included all metals and minerals.

So, if a Gargant is lost behind Tyranid lines, the Orks have lost that. The Tyranids have gained it. They're gaining everything else from that area from the hyper-reproductive flora as well, and anything else the Tyranids are eating (natural gases, soil, water, etc).

Orks use metal to make their things. Tyanids use it, plus far more. Metal is going to run out quicker due to both sides using it. Any more the Orks bring with them is potential biomass for the Tyranids.

If you took all the metals, minerals, and volatiles off a planet, as you suggest the Nids do, there would be nothing left. All planets are just groupings of minerals metals and volatiles, usually in the pretty set ratio of 1/6 metals, 1% unbound volatiles, and the rest minerals. So you are talking about just removing a planet so that there is nothing left at all, where i think they actually leave a scoured ball behind, with most of the crust removed, the atmosphere gone or poisoned, and any free water gobbled up.

As an aside, there is no way that the orks will run out of metal to make war material before the nids will exhaust biomass. Think about every single solitary scrap of metal ever collected and used by mankind. That isn't even considered part of the planet's metal composition, it is just the remnants of the 'late heavy bombardment', asteroid carcasses. And consider how, even after the amount that we have used of what is essentially a trace element, iron is still cheaper than potatoes pound for pound. We know that there are quarries of such size in the 40 millenium that they destabilize the entire gravity of the planet. Once you start getting into mantle and core metal (impossible on earth since we are a rare, geologically active rocky planet) the supply of metal is inexhaustible. That's not even getting into the quicker and easier method of mining an asteroid.

The nid path to victory just doesn't exist it's
step 1-- spend a lot of energy travelling to planet using biologically derived fuels of far less efficiency than fusion or fission.
step 2-- spend more energy hatching a bunch of bugs to drop down on the planet
step 3-- spend more energy eventually overcoming resistance
step 4-- spend yet more energy gathering everything up and putting it into digestion towers which require staggering amounts of power to pump the material skyward.
step 5-- use even more energy to convert the simple volatiles captured into new, more complex forms

They have an energy gap that is impossible to explain away. Their whole MO is just a slap in the face to anyone who has leafed through a biology or chemistry book before. I don't even mean read, just like browsed the pictures.

Plus, if they make all the plants go into crazy turbo growth mode, wouldn't that make every ork on the planet into some kind of super nob within hours?

Frankly, does it even matter who wins? I thought that Kryptman or whatever his name was planned on supernuking the planet once one side had been wiped out. I doubt that the imperium of man will let the leviathan win though, it is an existential threat, unlike the orks. Either way, there won't be a lot of time to pass around the fungus beer before the atmosphere turns into hot sexy fire. Tigurus mind-melded with the swarm lord, so it should be easy for the imperium to know when victory for one side is imminent, and then slide a battle cruiser in there and barbecue whatever is left.

That seems the inevitability, so as I said "We are just turning into an Armageddon" Since the Octarius empire is more than just a few worlds, and orkish starmap says it holds many worlds in the sector near Ultramar this would be assumed primarily Octarius empire's Claim for a multitude of reasons

1) if you are going to pit your greatest enemies against one another make sure they are evenly matched to maximize both sides losses and since it's nids the only way to garantee that is through fiding the LARGEST foe you can.
2) The orks have fought the Ultramarines there for sometime and thus are use to those tactics in a few years it will turn into them use to fighting nids unless the Exterminatus ships are guided in by the blockade to deliver their payload but both armies aren't garanteed to die out completely due to volume of ork ships and durability of carnies and the like per their codex example
3) if IOM and eldar are working together it wasn't so the nids could emerge victorious... it was so it could be a winning strategy.

In short, It'll be fun while it lasts Bring it on BUGGIES!

 Silverthorne wrote:
They have an energy gap that is impossible to explain away. Their whole MO is just a slap in the face to anyone who has leafed through a biology or chemistry book before

Why does this bother you so much? You've mentioned it twice thus far.

I could see the nids having some metalic element to them, after all humans, orks, astartes, usually have some form of mettalic element on them as armour or weapons before they get launched into digestion pools, but mining it out or disassembling a gargant into said pools, I'd imagine detritus and ruined warmaterials and cities adorn the dead worlds the tyranids capture.
Biomass remains their primary resource.

But physics asides for the nids, it is what it is, and we can only attribute it to hand wavium.

 Eetion wrote:
I could see the nids having some metalic element to them, after all humans, orks, astartes, usually have some form of mettalic element on them as armour or weapons before they get launched into digestion pools, but mining it out or disassembling a gargant into said pools, I'd imagine detritus and ruined warmaterials and cities adorn the dead worlds the tyranids capture.
Biomass remains their primary resource.

War detritus is also digested. See the following about an Imperial world fallen to the Tyranids:

Strangle-vines tightened their grip on the ruins of an Imperial outpost, rendering steel and plastic down to their constituent parts ready for absorption.

p. 42, 3rd edition Tyranid Codex

If the Tyranids actively digested the Imperial ruins, they can actively digest a Gargant.

But physics asides for the nids, it is what it is, and we can only attribute it to hand wavium.

The previous critique about energy is flawed because it rests on the false assumption that planetary ecosystems are closed energy systems, which they are not. Energy inputs exist, such as from the local sun, and geothermal sources. We know the Tyranids make use of hypertrophic vegetation, which requires sunlight for photosynthesis. We also know the Tyranids utilize geothermal:

Tyranid Magma Vents:
...
These vitrified tubes are bored down past the Mohorovicic Discontinuity (between the crust and the mantle) to allow gases trapped deep within the planet to escape into the atmosphere...
...
Magma vents are also utilized as a geothermal energy source for the Tyranid broodhive complexes. Dozens of these types of vents are utilized to heat the entire hive and provide thermal energy to incubating broods.

"Tyranid Planetary Assimilation Analysis", Sherman Bishop, WD 254

A lot of the issues raised with the Tyranids are really non-issues due to lack of knowledge of the background as the answers are already given by GW.

Plus, if they make all the plants go into crazy turbo growth mode, wouldn't that make every ork on the planet into some kind of super nob within hours?

No, because Orks are not plants. Fungi are not plants. Orks are a hybrid creature composed of animal, algae, and fungus. In any case, nothing of the sort is mentioned happening for Ghorala, or any of the other Ork worlds that have already fallen to the Tyranids.

Again the very fact that Ork worlds have fallen shows that neither the Ork life cycle or individual Ork growth is any foolproof defense against the Tyranids, as otherwise these worlds would not have fallen and been stripped bare.

Over and over again people are proposing new made up "what if" scenarios involving the Orks and their biology as if it were some sort of magical defense that would prevent the Tyranids making any headway. Yet if that were the case, no Ork worlds would ever have fallen, yet we know from GW multiple worlds have fallen.

Lets take a step back here.

What do we know as fact?

We know a tendril of Leviathan has invaded the Octarius Sector. We know this sector is one of the largest and most densely populated Ork held areas of space.

We know the Swarmlord has appeared in the warzone. We know that the Tyranids have taken 4 worlds. We can assume there are many more as the Sector is equated to Ultramar which has at least 8 systems.

So that's what we know and it's not much is it?

What can we reasonably assume then?

We can give the Orks the technological advantage. They're capable of producing more advanced weaponry, have teleportation, better inter-stellar travel and thrive on conflict.

The Orks are able to better resupply and re-enforce themselves; warp travel is faster than the Tyranids conventional space travel.

Given their warp advantage the orks also posses the advantage of mobility and will be able to better exploit breakthroughs and respond to emergencies. Such behaviour requires a level of co-ordination only possilbe through an intact command structure- a struggle for the orks. As long as the Overfiend is alive he can likely co-ordinate his forces to an adequate degree, he wouldn't have made it to Overfiend if he was an idiot.

The Tyranids however have a psychic command chain, an unbreakable willpower and the strategic genius of the Swarmlord. We can give them the advantage in leadership.

Knowing that the Tyranids have conquered 4 named worlds and having documented victories is no reason to suggest they're winning. Given that most of the information about the war comes from the Tyranid codex it's no surprise it's slanted. Furthermore the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, by which i mean you can't assume the ork's don't have a victory because none are mentioned, if they were always losing the war wouldn't be described as a stalemate.

As to who's going to win, that's a tough question. Both sides thrive on continued conflict. Both utilize unconventional technology and tactics. Both are able to rapidly replenish their ranks and resources.

I would posit it's going to come down to which sides builds up the greatest momentum. If one sides starts winning by a significant margin they're then going to continue picking up speed and steamroll over the opposition; they're both suited to this. Each sides force would increase in quality and quantity after every victory (the nids consuming every more biomass and spawning every more organisms and the orks getting bigger and stronger and more numerous too) and eventually that would tip the scale.

Mostly because its t documented. The conflicts are generally quick. But even the ork phsiology isn't going to grown in a vaccuum if the planet is stripped bare.
If resistance remains then its feasable that orks grow more quickly, its also feasable they don't grow at all due to the tyranid phage cells.
At present we don't know what effect the nid rapid eco systems has on ork spores, if any.

It may simply be a case of the planet stripped before the gesatation period for the ork is complete, it may be sped up, it may be same duration, it may not grow at all.

There simply is a lack of evidence either way.

Strangle vines being the case for utilising detritus, bio energy is still their primary resource.

There is also the question of just what is happening in Space, have the nids commenced absorption? Are they delayed due to a war in space with the orks and unable to harvest properly until it is resolved?

Iracundus wrote:


The previous critique about energy is flawed because it rests on the false assumption that planetary ecosystems are closed energy systems, which they are not. Energy inputs exist, such as from the local sun, and geothermal sources. We know the Tyranids make use of hypertrophic vegetation, which requires sunlight for photosynthesis. We also know the Tyranids utilize geothermal:

Tyranid Magma Vents:
...
These vitrified tubes are bored down past the Mohorovicic Discontinuity (between the crust and the mantle) to allow gases trapped deep within the planet to escape into the atmosphere...
...
Magma vents are also utilized as a geothermal energy source for the Tyranid broodhive complexes. Dozens of these types of vents are utilized to heat the entire hive and provide thermal energy to incubating broods.

"Tyranid Planetary Assimilation Analysis", Sherman Bishop, WD 254

A lot of the issues raised with the Tyranids are really non-issues due to lack of knowledge of the background as the answers are already given by GW.
.

Not really. If you are assuming that they have a photosynthetic function (not a crazy thought) what efficiency are we looking at? Because plants process the energy from the sun at a rate even less efficient than the pitiful 9-11% that we can squeeze out of solar cells today, in this century. You can hand wave around that to some extent, for example by saying that the hive mind evolved partitions around the mitochondria of the cells allowing the local CO2 concentration to be sky high and bump up the efficiency, but it doesn't matter since a common trend of almost all literature on the nid invasions stipulates that the skies turn black within hours, and after the first day the entire planet is shrouded in darkness. Kinda bones the whole photosynthesis paradigm.

There are pockets of gas that are trapped in the mantle, sure. If some bug had a major deathwish, they could pop them open and take a krakatoa to the face. I'm sure a lot of nid fans like to think that covering your basecamp with forty or fifty cubic miles of granitic magma is a great plan, but um, maybe they should reconsider that. If they need gas so bad, wouldn't it make more sense to, i don't know, nosh a gas giant then try to extract a tiny bit of it out of the mantle using what can only be a suicidal extraction technique? And geothermal only helps you while you are wherever it is available. After the planet is digested in however many days ( I thought it took like 10 days), you're boned again. Again that is assuming the planet has an active core (huge assumption) and that the contour is such that heat energy is close to the surface (another huge assumption).

Why can't the devs just say 'Um yeah they can draw power from the warp'. It's their solution to every other loose end they can't tie up. Based on the background of the nids, all our nuclear subs should be run on hamburgers instead of uranium, because hamburgers work so much better as a power source.

 Eetion wrote:
Mostly because its t documented. The conflicts are generally quick. But even the ork phsiology isn't going to grown in a vaccuum if the planet is stripped bare.
If resistance remains then its feasable that orks grow more quickly, its also feasable they don't grow at all due to the tyranid phage cells.
At present we don't know what effect the nid rapid eco systems has on ork spores, if any.

It may simply be a case of the planet stripped before the gesatation period for the ork is complete, it may be sped up, it may be same duration, it may not grow at all.

There simply is a lack of evidence either way.

Actually we do know what happens. Phage cells and Ork spores fight on the microscopic level.

At a microscopic level, Tyranid phage cells fought to consume the aggressive expansions of Orkoid spores.

...

By the time night fell, every single greenskin upon Orrok was dead, their bodies reconstituted and channelled back to the bio-ships to create yet more Tyranids.

p. 58, Planetstrike

Thus we know that they engage in direct conflict, and that Tyranid phage cells are capable of dealing with Ork spores as Orrok was one of the 4 worlds stripped and consumed. Ork spores therefore are not an insurmountable obstacle.

Using evidence from Codex, to Planetstrike, to White Dwarf, multiple assumptions about Tyranid capability or lack of capability have been proven wrong.

Strangle vines being the case for utilising detritus, bio energy is still their primary resource.

"Bio energy" is not a term that makes any sense. If you mean by actual heterotrophic metabolizing of surface biomass to fuel Tyranid activities, then yes that is a likely occurrence, but we already know that from descriptions of rippers defoliating and stripping the landscape. However the issue and question was whether Tyranids can and do make use of metals and other inorganics. The answer to that is YES, as they have been shown by GW to actively break down war detritus for consumption. One of the assumptions about Tyranids raised earlier in this thread was the assertion that they could not make use of metals or leftover Ork equipment, and that assumption has been shown to be false, through GW sources.

There is also the question of just what is happening in Space, have the nids commenced absorption? Are they delayed due to a war in space with the orks and unable to harvest properly until it is resolved?

Consumption is continuous as per:

Strictly speaking the consumption of the planet under attack is continuous from the moment the hiveships achieve low orbit and release organisms into the atmosphere. However the point upon which the hiveships begin to replenish their reserves of bio-mass from the planet is a discrete phase which forms the culmination of the Tyranid assault.

p. 41, 3rd edition Tyranid Codex

People seem to be confusing the issue of the ships with the Tyranids as a whole. The Tyranid consumption eco-system of rippers, mutated flora, spores, etc... is all underway from the moment of Tyranid invasion. However the Tyranid ships, which only form the space component of the Tyranids, do not feed until the end. That however does not mean the ground swarms are not replenishing their reserves or incapable of reproducing.

Upon making a kill, a Hormagaunt will hungrily feed upon its prey's remains...

Furthermore unlike most other Tyranid bioforms, Hormagaunts are able to reproduce indepently, and lay hundreds of eggs just below the surface of a planet before their short, hyperactive lifespan is over.

p. 38, 5th edition Tyranid Codex

Therefore the issue of asking about the Tyranid ships misses half the issue. The issue is one of the ground swarms, which have made planetfall already after Octarius's anti-air defenses were neutralized (see p.59, Planetstrike).

Again I am not specifically trying to argue in favor of the Tyranids but a lot of the Ork posters in this thread seem to be just completely off base when it comes to what Tyranids do, do not do, or what they have done, as given by GW. If there is going to be any discussion or debate, both sides have to be in possession of the facts. Without agreement on the facts as given by GW, things just become nonsensical, analogous to someone for example claiming bolter fire can be reflected by mirrors because they fire laser beams. Such a person would be wrong because it is a given fact in the 40K universe that bolters do not fire laser beams. The same applies for this situation. The capabilities of both sides need to be looked at, with reference to sources, not just random spouting of personal opinion or made up hyperbole about what can or cannot be done.

There is limited evidence at times but in such circumstances the only real conclusion that can be made is that there is insufficient evidence.