Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Essentially, in nidz codex there is entry that says that Maugan Ra stands alone against the hive fleet tendril and triumphs. Does it mean that he fought nidz with very few other eldar or was it 1 V hive fleet battle? If he really was there alone that seems quite unlikely to me. I mean could he REALLY defend whole planet from full nid invasion, which included bio-titans and stuff?

Actually, Draigo defeated Chaos and ate the Alpha Legion, thus learning their powers, and then pretended to be Maugan Ra and single handedly crushed a Hive Fleet.

More seriously, the background never specifies, but it is such a ridiculously stupid feat that I refuse to believe it. I like to think that he simply led an Eldar army that defeated a Hive Fleet.

Maybe each attack he does was aoe, even his regular ones lol.

An Eldar Seer of sufficient telepathic power could conceivably disrupt the Shadow in the Warp and the Synaptic Control of a Hive Fleet, causing it to turn on and destroy itself. It's not outside the realm of plausibility.

 Psienesis wrote:
An Eldar Seer of sufficient telepathic power could conceivably disrupt the Shadow in the Warp and the Synaptic Control of a Hive Fleet, causing it to turn on and destroy itself. It's not outside the realm of plausibility.

The problem is, that no Eldar seer is strong enough to do that. Eldrad is considered most powerful alive (?) and that is just way beyond him. Plus, Maugan Ra isn't a Seer, much less of that magnitude.

He's an Exarch, perhaps he manifested Khaine a bit more than normal Avatars do and kicked more ass than is normally anticipated. This does not mean that he isn't a psyker, as all Eldar are psychic to an extent.

It's also noted that it's just a tendril, not the whole Hive Fleet. While this is a lot of bugs, other groups have defeated tendrils before as well, while not being Eldar Exarchs.

Is it so wrong that the Eldar have their own B.A. character? We are talking about a guy who single-handedly created an entirely new Aspect of the Path of the Warrior.

 Psienesis wrote:
He's an Exarch, perhaps he manifested Khaine a bit more than normal Avatars do and kicked more ass than is normally anticipated. This does not mean that he isn't a psyker, as all Eldar are psychic to an extent.

It's also noted that it's just a tendril, not the whole Hive Fleet. While this is a lot of bugs, other groups have defeated tendrils before as well, while not being Eldar Exarchs.

Is it so wrong that the Eldar have their own B.A. character? We are talking about a guy who single-handedly created an entirely new Aspect of the Path of the Warrior.

Splinter Fleets have ships though, there's no physical way one guy took out a whole fleet by himself. Not possible. I have no problem with him leading an attack, beating down the Hive Tyrant, and inflicting lots of damage to help a Craftworld achieve victory, but there isn't a psyker IN EXISTENCE strong enough to shatter the Hive Mind with his mind. You can break the net by killing the pieces, and I'm fine with that, but no one person, Eldar, Ork, Primarch, or maybe even the Emperor, can take out a Splinter Fleet solo. The numbers involved just don't work.

 Psienesis wrote:
He's an Exarch, perhaps he manifested Khaine a bit more than normal Avatars do and kicked more ass than is normally anticipated. This does not mean that he isn't a psyker, as all Eldar are psychic to an extent.

It's also noted that it's just a tendril, not the whole Hive Fleet. While this is a lot of bugs, other groups have defeated tendrils before as well, while not being Eldar Exarchs.

Is it so wrong that the Eldar have their own B.A. character? We are talking about a guy who single-handedly created an entirely new Aspect of the Path of the Warrior.

Well he's also a phoenix lord, who somehow rescued Altansar from the lure of EoT, which means he is either really darn powerfull, or seriously aligned with Chaos. Either way, I doubt he's ever been in the path of seers, since being an Exarch, Maugan Ra is 'trapped' on the path of the Warriors, and therefore unlikely to have ever experienced the Path of Seers which requires an in-depth understanding for the Eldar paths.

I'd say Maugan Ra simply shot all the bio-ships down with his shuriken cannon, while snorking warp dust smuggled while he was still in the EoT, ignoring the laws of physics that you can't stand in space listening to AC/DC.

To be fair, it says 'Maugan Ra stands alone against the swarm, and triumphs'. It doesn't say how many Tyranids he fought, just 'the swarm' which is the general name given to the Tyranids. So it basically says he stood and fought Tyranids alone, and won.

It's so vague and open both sides can pull it either way, from 'He beat a whole tendril all by himself!' to 'Pfft, it was just a few Termagants'.

Sometimes bad fluff is just bad fluff. Don't over think it, just move on.

I forget if it was the rulebook or IA12 (I read both yesterday) but they specify that he accomplished this by sniping off the synapse creatures.

 jifel wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
He's an Exarch, perhaps he manifested Khaine a bit more than normal Avatars do and kicked more ass than is normally anticipated. This does not mean that he isn't a psyker, as all Eldar are psychic to an extent.

It's also noted that it's just a tendril, not the whole Hive Fleet. While this is a lot of bugs, other groups have defeated tendrils before as well, while not being Eldar Exarchs.

Splinter Fleets have ships though, there's no physical way one guy took out a whole fleet by himself. Not possible. I have no problem with him leading an attack, beating down the Hive Tyrant, and inflicting lots of damage to help a Craftworld achieve victory, but there isn't a psyker IN EXISTENCE strong enough to shatter the Hive Mind with his mind. You can break the net by killing the pieces, and I'm fine with that, but no one person, Eldar, Ork, Primarch, or maybe even the Emperor, can take out a Splinter Fleet solo. The numbers involved just don't work.

He could have his own ship, maybe? And planted a WMD in the midst of the Great Devourer's bio-ships (causing outrage all across the Galaxy, no doubt) then set it off, before going down on the planet to use more of the same against the 'Nids on the ground?

Also, Maugan Ra is not an Exarch, essentially a sergeant; he's a Phoenix Lord, closer (in stature, anyway, if not in current tabletop battle prowess) to a Primarch if we keep up the analogy.

Maugan Ra dived into the eye of terror personally and singlehandedly bitch slapped the legions of Chaos to get his craftworld back, he cut a biotitan in half with a single blow, and he defeated a tendril fleet at Stormvald.

Clearly Ra is the dormant form of Ynnead because he's kicked more ass than some Primarchs without breaking a sweat.

He probably trained Draigo in plot-fu too.


Given that a planet targeted by a tendril fleet looks like this all over




He definitely at least has access to the magical infinite ammo dimension.

I was kind of disappointed that the new codex didn't contain more badassery, like singlehandedly krumping a space marine chapter and riding on he top of their battle barge and rocking out while he crashed it into their fortress monastery.

Because that's just how Maugan Ra rolls.

The Maugetar does seem to be supernatural in its ammunition now as shown by both:

http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/The-Maugetar.html

which mentions how the shuriken it fires seem to mysteriously vanish after killing their targets, and by the line in the Eldar Codex:

The mind-linked discs it fires are large enough to decapitate a swathe of foes one after another before vanishing into nothingness...

p. 61, 6th edition Eldar Codex

As for the thing about defeating a Tyranid swarm, that reference appears to refer to defeating a Tyranid ground force. The use of the word swarm is used by GW in general to refer to Tyranid forces in general, and doesn't necessarily denote a hive fleet. More specifically, there is a reference in the latest Apocalypse rulebook that supports it being just a ground force rather than a full fledged fleet:

Upon the world of Stormvald, the Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra single-handedly scattered a Tyranid swarm by systematically destroying every one of its synapse leader-beasts.

p. 26, 6th edition 40K Apocalypse rulebook

It shows that the reference from the last Tyranid Codex refers to a ground battle, and that it was more effective destruction of a ground force due to loss of its leadership rather than literally killing every one. Killing the Synapse creatures of a Tyranid ground force (of unspecific size) single handedly while still improbable is at least less over the top.

Well he has done just as awesome stuff before. He was rocking around the warp since before Draigo made it cool. He single handily cut a bio titian (Maybe just a trygon prime) in half just my 'magically standing still' (you can't not believe this stuff!) and destroying an entire swarm, well that's just a piece of cake.

Maugan-Ra 1 'Nids 0.

It was pretty simple really.

Maugan-Ra sent a ship full of genestealer cultists into an Imperial Agricultural System. Within a short amount of time, the cult spread and acted as a psychic beacon drawing the Hive Tendril in a different direction.

Maugan-Ra then swings by for a photo shoot after the Inquisition has exterminated the entire system, and takes credit for the defeat of the tendril.

The question you should be asking is who is Maugan-Ra's Public Relations Rep, and is he currently accepting new talent.

-Matt

 jifel wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
He's an Exarch, perhaps he manifested Khaine a bit more than normal Avatars do and kicked more ass than is normally anticipated. This does not mean that he isn't a psyker, as all Eldar are psychic to an extent.

It's also noted that it's just a tendril, not the whole Hive Fleet. While this is a lot of bugs, other groups have defeated tendrils before as well, while not being Eldar Exarchs.

Is it so wrong that the Eldar have their own B.A. character? We are talking about a guy who single-handedly created an entirely new Aspect of the Path of the Warrior.

Splinter Fleets have ships though, there's no physical way one guy took out a whole fleet by himself. Not possible. I have no problem with him leading an attack, beating down the Hive Tyrant, and inflicting lots of damage to help a Craftworld achieve victory, but there isn't a psyker IN EXISTENCE strong enough to shatter the Hive Mind with his mind. You can break the net by killing the pieces, and I'm fine with that, but no one person, Eldar, Ork, Primarch, or maybe even the Emperor, can take out a Splinter Fleet solo. The numbers involved just don't work.

I know this is sort of off topic but I just wanted to say... the Emperor and/or Tzeentch might be able to shatter a Hive Mind. Just thoughts.

As much as I love the fact that it is a piece of fluff where the Eldar aren't getting manhandled(pun intented) by whatever random Codex is talking about them in relation to warfare, Maugen Ra seems to have a serious case of fanboi writting in his background.

I have to say that the overall fluff for the Eldar when it appears in sources other than a writing trying to convey the Eldar side of the battle, tends toward 'The Eldar lined up and attacked and then were beaten back with vehicles blowing up all over the place when the Dark Angels arrived!'. This makes NO sense in the context of Eldar warfare.

So we certainly deserve a person in the fluff that is amazing, but like all 40k fluff that gets to the point of 'we want to create a powerful background character', the writers make it just silly.

 Zaki66 wrote:

 jifel wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
He's an Exarch, perhaps he manifested Khaine a bit more than normal Avatars do and kicked more ass than is normally anticipated. This does not mean that he isn't a psyker, as all Eldar are psychic to an extent.

It's also noted that it's just a tendril, not the whole Hive Fleet. While this is a lot of bugs, other groups have defeated tendrils before as well, while not being Eldar Exarchs.

Is it so wrong that the Eldar have their own B.A. character? We are talking about a guy who single-handedly created an entirely new Aspect of the Path of the Warrior.

Splinter Fleets have ships though, there's no physical way one guy took out a whole fleet by himself. Not possible. I have no problem with him leading an attack, beating down the Hive Tyrant, and inflicting lots of damage to help a Craftworld achieve victory, but there isn't a psyker IN EXISTENCE strong enough to shatter the Hive Mind with his mind. You can break the net by killing the pieces, and I'm fine with that, but no one person, Eldar, Ork, Primarch, or maybe even the Emperor, can take out a Splinter Fleet solo. The numbers involved just don't work.

I know this is sort of off topic but I just wanted to say... the Emperor and/or Tzeentch might be able to shatter a Hive Mind. Just thoughts.

The Emperor is merely the amalglation of a few psykers, and Tzeentch the collected hope and ambition of some of one galaxy.

The hive mind is the gestalt of twelve galaxies rendered into Tyranid form.

Last time I checked, twelve beats less than one.

 Kain wrote:

Last time I checked, twelve beats less than one.

Firstly, it's not that simple. Tzeentch and the Emperor are both relatively coherent entities. The Hive Mind isn't an entity. It has no consciousness dominating every Tyranid. It's also generally less intelligent. Secondly, how much of the energy gained from those galaxies has been lost? For all we know they have less than galaxy-worth of biomatter\energy because they've lost too much in the gulf between galaxies.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Zaki66 wrote:

Last time I checked, twelve beats less than one.

Firstly, it's not that simple. Tzeentch and the Emperor are both relatively coherent entities. The Hive Mind isn't an entity. It has no consciousness dominating every Tyranid. It's also generally less intelligent. Secondly, how much of the energy gained from those galaxies has been lost? For all we know they have less than galaxy-worth of biomatter\energy because they've lost too much in the gulf between galaxies.

Want me to break out my pop calcs?

The old SBer in me feels like breaking out the math.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:
An earth like planet has about 2 trillion tons of biomass, so assuming a billion earthlike planets in a galaxy, you could have 2 sextillion tons per each of the twelve galaxies eaten

A single void whale, being bigger than the earth by a good margin, would have a mass of about 6-10 sextillion tons, so let's go with eight.

Assuming about a million void whales per galaxy, that means 8 octillion tons times twelve meaning 96 octillion tons.

So assuming no void whales you have 24 sextillion tons of Tyranids, with void whales that leap frogs up many orders of magnitude.

Measuring the Tyranids in terms of numbers of individuals is silly and meaningless, measurig them in total mass gives a more concise figure.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Last time I checked, twelve beats less than one.

Firstly, it's not that simple. Tzeentch and the Emperor are both relatively coherent entities. The Hive Mind isn't an entity. It has no consciousness dominating every Tyranid Well of cause it is, that's what synapse is!!! . It's also generally less intelligent Prove it, or I call opinion on this one. Also the hive mind is incredibly smart as portrayed in the tyranid codex. Oh, and the Swarmlord says hi Secondly, how much of the energy gained from those galaxies has been lost?Quite little, because they have been in hybernation For all we know they have less than galaxy-worth of biomatter\energy because they've lost too much in the gulf between galaxies. Or they could have almost exactly what he said, they all swarm down and eat the imperium of man, including your prescious emperor and his astrominicion, killing him and all the chaos gods...

The Tyranid stripped those 12 galaxies of all life. There is only the Swarm. It doesn't matter how many people lived in those galaxies, because their population does not equate 1:1 with the number of remaining Tyranid.

Maguen Ra could have easily used various eldar technology to aid his efforts. The eldar have weapons that target enemy minds and terraforming technologies used by Biel Tan that scour the earth clean of even the tiniest bacteria.

(which is how Biel Tan ends the threat of orks on Maiden Worlds)

Who's to say he didn't cheat and use something to assist? Heck, even if he just zipped about in a Venom sniping all the Tyrants, Warriors and whatever else it seems doable, if unlikely, in game.

The Phoenix Lords don't strike me as the kind that would just sit on a hill and fire away like a bad Starship Troopers redux.

Its obvious that Malal granted him favor in his war against Chaos. Probably the most under played Chaos God in the fluff and I have no idea why. His concept is pretty cool.

To best an entire Tyranid fleet he had to tap into the greatest force in the universe: Rule of Cool. The first thing he did was hunt down the nearest Harpy and beat it into submission, hooking ropes of bone and sinew into its wings to control and forcefully direct it towards his prey. Riding his new steed, he began hunting down all the Zoanthropes and Hive Tyrants he could find (Did I mention he did this while Air-Maugetaring?) The tyranids never stood a chance.

But in all seriousness Tyranids aren't hard to take down once you clear out the chaff. All you need to do is kill about 1% of them to get them to be complete pushovers. All he would have to do is gun down the leaders and then wreck house with his Maugetar in CC. Also, Inverse Ninja Law.

It's stupid fluff.

One being cannot, however awesome he is, hope to defeat billions upon billions of foes. Set billions of (determined) ants on an elephant, the poor pachyderm won't last a minute.

Shatter the Hive Mind? Then all those billions upon billions of Nids revert to their instinctive behaviours. They lose coordination, nothing else. They still want to eat your face, and they still can.

Hell, a single spacefaring biomorph could end anyone. All it has to do is to commit suicide by crashing itself in the general vicinity were the enemy is.

Stupid fluff. That is all.

Actually, Tyranids can and do attack one another when they lose access to Synapse creatures. The instinctive need to feed overcomes almost all other concerns. It's kill or be killed at that point, so some 'Nids will flee, others will fall upon the closest thing there is to eat, which is always another Tyranid,

 Psienesis wrote:
Actually, Tyranids can and do attack one another when they lose access to Synapse creatures. The instinctive need to feed overcomes almost all other concerns. It's kill or be killed at that point, so some 'Nids will flee, others will fall upon the closest thing there is to eat, which is always another Tyranid,

Reference, please? The fluff subtext for Feed only state that such organism will scramble to get to the nearest prey and devour it. Nids aren't prey to Nids. It's not even logical, otherwise all the Ripper Larvae each organism carries would immediatly set about eating their hosts.

I would like to think that there's a whole novel waiting to happen here, with some sort of doomsday device going off that wipes out the swarm on that world. It doesn't have to be the silly image of Maugan Ra standing on a rock killing 10,000,000 creatures one by one with a gun.