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MarsNZ wrote:

This one is clearly directed at my post so I'll address only this point. An interesting piece of fluff you've quoted to be sure, but that's really only relevent once the Nids have arrived in a new Galaxy and want to find the choicest stars. It doesn't go any way to explain intergalactic travel which undoubtedly takes a toll on the fleets. Space is after all rather anathema to life.

Why should it? You are running off some assumptions and concluding them to be true without any resort to evidence. The Tyranid spaceships are born, live, and die in space. Space is their natural environment. There is no particular reason why it should taken any toll on creatures adapted to them, even though humans and other races might find space a hostile environment. Furthermore, you assume Tyranids only travel at sub-light speeds, which is yet another error. Tyranids have FTL, originally the warp, but most recently the stupid Narvhal nonsense. We also know Tyranids can and do hibernate as a way to reduce their energy expenditure still further, and not just individual Tyranids but the entire ship itself.

If people are going to debate, find some evidence to support your points. Simply making stuff up on the spot doesn't count as "evidence".


And while we're at it, there are a few other misconceptions about the Tyranids people often seem to have:

1. The false belief they don't use inorganic materials.

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

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

2. That somehow the Tyranids are helpless or somehow afraid against the Necrons

The Necron invaders of forge world Lucius are themselves crushed by a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Kraken.

p. 59, 4th edition Tyranid Codex

Much of the territory once ruled by the Charnovokh Dynasty lies far to the galactic southeast. Many of its dormant Tomb Worlds were devoured by Hive Fleet Behemoth...

p. 10, 5th edition Necron Codex

How fast can the Tyranids travel in space? I’ve heard that they have no means of traveling through the warp? If they truly cannot make warp jumps and don’t possess another way of moving faster than the speed of light, then I really can’t see them as a threat to the galaxy. The Imperium along with a great many of the other factions, would inevitably, have died out long before the nids have even reached halfway into the galaxy.

 Redcruisair wrote:
How fast can the Tyranids travel in space? I’ve heard that they have no means of traveling through the warp? If they truly cannot make warp jumps and don’t possess another way of moving faster than the speed of light, then I really can’t see them as a threat to the galaxy. The Imperium along with a great many of the other factions, would inevitably, have died out long before the nids have even reached halfway into the galaxy.

Narvhals. They create a "gravity corridor" to propel themselves, slower than Warp but much safer and disrupts the target system to boot.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Redcruisair wrote:
How fast can the Tyranids travel in space? I’ve heard that they have no means of traveling through the warp? If they truly cannot make warp jumps and don’t possess another way of moving faster than the speed of light, then I really can’t see them as a threat to the galaxy. The Imperium along with a great many of the other factions, would inevitably, have died out long before the nids have even reached halfway into the galaxy.

Narvhals. They create a "gravity corridor" to propel themselves, slower than Warp but much safer and disrupts the target system to boot.

Narvhals? Narvhals as in Narwhals?



Are you telling me that Tyranids are riding on fraking Narwhals into battle?! Who write this stuff?

 Redcruisair wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Redcruisair wrote:
How fast can the Tyranids travel in space? I’ve heard that they have no means of traveling through the warp? If they truly cannot make warp jumps and don’t possess another way of moving faster than the speed of light, then I really can’t see them as a threat to the galaxy. The Imperium along with a great many of the other factions, would inevitably, have died out long before the nids have even reached halfway into the galaxy.

Narvhals. They create a "gravity corridor" to propel themselves, slower than Warp but much safer and disrupts the target system to boot.

Narvhals? Narvhals as in Narwhals?



Are you telling me that Tyranids are riding on fraking Narwhals into battle?! Who write this stuff?

It's true. Still not as strange as being led by a Dominatrix, eh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominatrix

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

That has to be without doubt, the ugliest model I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Geez GW WTF man?

 Redcruisair wrote:
That has to be without doubt, the ugliest model I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Geez GW WTF man?

Don't be so sure until you've seen the Blood Bowl cheerleaders...

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Redcruisair wrote:
That has to be without doubt, the ugliest model I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Geez GW WTF man?

Don't be so sure until you've seen the Blood Bowl cheerleaders...

No, please!

Ah, the Tyranids. The fan favorite destroyer of the grand ol' Imperium and the army with a very lack luster model line. I believe the reason why they don't wreck more face than they do is because the Tyranids aren't made of everything-proof armor like the 'Crons are. A Leman Russ Vanquisher loaded with Beast Hunter Shells can one shot a Carnifex, a Manticore can destroy a ton of gaunts and all that good stuff. Yes, some well defended planets may fall due to overwhelming force but not all Tyranid invasions are on the same mega huge scale (I at least assume so or there is no excuse).

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole "The fleets we are seeing now are just the tip of the iceberg" idea from Inquisitor Kryptmann or was the hypothesis that they are running from something much worse from him?

In addition, why doesn't the Imperium make warp drives into bombs? The Tyranid invasion of Ultramar was defeated in part thanks to an Emperor class battleship detonating it's Warp Drive. Surely the drives are cheaper and easier to make than the entire battleship and you can stuff those on missiles to boot. If you can't shoot the bugs, then suck 'em into the warp.

Maybe the Tyranids aren't as powerful as you think they are. /shrug

I mean, the first two hive fleets were stopped, so they're not invincible, nor inexhaustible. Physics alone ensures there will always be loss in mass conversion, so a Tyranid hive fleet can sustain enough damage that it will eventually run out of biomass. Plus there's really no indication of how long it takes the Tyranids to grow new bioconstructs. Maybe it's not a quick process, and they take years to grow and mature too. /shrug

And your map isn't necessarily to scale.

Everyone seems to be missing a major point here. There are BILLIONS of 'earth like' planets in the milky way - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/milky-way-teeming-with-billions-of-earthlike-planets-capable-of-supporting-life-8921371.html.
There must be billions more that are not earth like but are more than gas giants. The Tyranids do not need to assault majorly defended (or even inhabited) worlds and get worn down by attrition. And if they did they could still sidetrack to an uninhabited world to 'resupply'. The imperium is apparently around a million worlds. That is less than a thousandth of the 'earth like planets', let alone none earth like planets that can stillbe devoured. They can eat rock and metal to reproduce for peats sake! Each world provides untold biomass to increase each fleet. The imperium cannot defend every planet of their own so they stand no chance of defending every planet that is beneficial to tyranids!
The 'nids don't need to fight to win. If they target every uninhabited planet for consumption, they will have enough biomass to just steamroll the galaxy. And thats not even including the bulk of the nids who aren't even in the galaxy yet!
The hive mind is uber intelligent, they will already be doing this. The only reason we havn't heard of it in the fluff is that a tyranid assault on an uninhabited planet would be about as interesting as watching paint dry.

 Deadshot wrote:

That's the thing- you CAN'T out-anything Tyranids.

Except many races can and have.

The Hive Mind is not omnipotent nor omniscient. A fething Ultramarine Librarian can tap into it to glean information.

It's been out-adapted by the Tau for Thor's sake.

Every single awakened Necron force that has fought the Tyranids haven't just beaten them. They've crushed them unceremoniously.

The Tyranids are not invincible. What they are is incredibly numerous (Maybe as much as the Orks), and entirely united (Unlike the Orks).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Everyone seems to be missing a major point here. There are BILLIONS of 'earth like' planets in the milky way - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/milky-way-teeming-with-billions-of-earthlike-planets-capable-of-supporting-life-8921371.html.
There must be billions more that are not earth like but are more than gas giants. The Tyranids do not need to assault majorly defended (or even inhabited) worlds and get worn down by attrition. And if they did they could still sidetrack to an uninhabited world to 'resupply'. The imperium is apparently around a million worlds. That is less than a thousandth of the 'earth like planets', let alone none earth like planets that can stillbe devoured. They can eat rock and metal to reproduce for peats sake! Each world provides untold biomass to increase each fleet. The imperium cannot defend every planet of their own so they stand no chance of defending every planet that is beneficial to tyranids!
The 'nids don't need to fight to win. If they target every uninhabited planet for consumption, they will have enough biomass to just steamroll the galaxy. And thats not even including the bulk of the nids who aren't even in the galaxy yet!
The hive mind is uber intelligent, they will already be doing this. The only reason we havn't heard of it in the fluff is that a tyranid assault on an uninhabited planet would be about as interesting as watching paint dry.

There are more races in the galaxy than humanity.

There are countless specieis. The Necrons control more planets than humanity does (Though they are not unified), the Tau have a nice little corner of the galaxy to themselves that has repelled Tyranid invasions, and then... Then there are Orks, who inhabit more worlds than perhaps the other major players combined.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

That's the thing- you CAN'T out-anything Tyranids.

Except many races can and have.

The Hive Mind is not omnipotent nor omniscient. A fething Ultramarine Librarian can tap into it to glean information.

It's been out-adapted by the Tau for Thor's sake.

Every single awakened Necron force that has fought the Tyranids haven't just beaten them. They've crushed them unceremoniously.

The Tyranids are not invincible. What they are is incredibly numerous (Maybe as much as the Orks), and entirely united (Unlike the Orks).

It has been speculated this is how he gains his Prescience regarding the Hive Fleet movements, in universe. Speculated, not factual.

The Tau were losing against Hive Fleet Gorgon and only survived because the Imperial guard showed up and the fleet couldn't cope with two so vastly different strategies and weapons.

Its has been stated and quoted in this thread that Nids have assimilated Tomb Worlds, showing this to be false.

This last part is the most frightening thing. They are numerous as the orms, unified, can disrupt communications and can adapt to your very weaponry.

Yep. That still doesn't account the BILLIONS of worlds. Only a small spectrum of those will be inhabited by the sounds of it (otherwise the imperium would be in an even worse state than portrayed). Even if the imperial worlds are only a 100th of the 'earth like planets' that are inhabited, that still leaves 9 out of 10 earth like planets uninhabited (and that would be billion in the singular - not plural). Again that's not counting the far far more numerous non earth like planets that will most likely be uninhabited but still immensley valuable to tyranids. The sheer scale of it makes even factoring in ALL the other races totally insignificant to the outcome when counting all the possible worlds the tyranids could devour.

And to reinforce something here, this isn't representative of actual Tyranid numbers, but the movements of splinter fleets of the hive fleets.



In the same way that this does not represent actual armies of Germans, stretching hundreds of miles across...

Poly Ranger wrote:
Everyone seems to be missing a major point here. There are BILLIONS of 'earth like' planets in the milky way - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/milky-way-teeming-with-billions-of-earthlike-planets-capable-of-supporting-life-8921371.html.
There must be billions more that are not earth like but are more than gas giants. The Tyranids do not need to assault majorly defended (or even inhabited) worlds and get worn down by attrition. And if they did they could still sidetrack to an uninhabited world to 'resupply'. The imperium is apparently around a million worlds. That is less than a thousandth of the 'earth like planets', let alone none earth like planets that can stillbe devoured. They can eat rock and metal to reproduce for peats sake! Each world provides untold biomass to increase each fleet. The imperium cannot defend every planet of their own so they stand no chance of defending every planet that is beneficial to tyranids!
The 'nids don't need to fight to win. If they target every uninhabited planet for consumption, they will have enough biomass to just steamroll the galaxy. And thats not even including the bulk of the nids who aren't even in the galaxy yet!
The hive mind is uber intelligent, they will already be doing this. The only reason we havn't heard of it in the fluff is that a tyranid assault on an uninhabited planet would be about as interesting as watching paint dry.

A lot of those other worlds... most of them, in fact... are Ork Worlds.

Why haven't the Tyranids wrecked more face? Because it's a setting, not a story. They have established the sort of threat the Tyranid represent. That's it, mission accomplished, job done. Now, buy the models and play the game! Forge your own narrative, tell your own stories.

They're just scifi "flavor of the month" bugs when you get down to business. "Biotech" is a funny scifi trope but in general a pretty bad idea for anything concerning space travel or production of combat technology. Producing "living" weapons is less efficient than technology, and living spacecraft is just silly compared to real ships.

But on topic, in-game: They've probably eaten places with no advanced life before and now when they're hitting real intelligence they're stumped. Nothing ever tried to resist before because it didn't know how or why. Now the assimilated - and deeply ingrained - patterns of eat/breed/kill are working against the Hivemind as it encounters life that has ideas beyond that.

 Psienesis wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Everyone seems to be missing a major point here. There are BILLIONS of 'earth like' planets in the milky way - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/milky-way-teeming-with-billions-of-earthlike-planets-capable-of-supporting-life-8921371.html.
There must be billions more that are not earth like but are more than gas giants. The Tyranids do not need to assault majorly defended (or even inhabited) worlds and get worn down by attrition. And if they did they could still sidetrack to an uninhabited world to 'resupply'. The imperium is apparently around a million worlds. That is less than a thousandth of the 'earth like planets', let alone none earth like planets that can stillbe devoured. They can eat rock and metal to reproduce for peats sake! Each world provides untold biomass to increase each fleet. The imperium cannot defend every planet of their own so they stand no chance of defending every planet that is beneficial to tyranids!
The 'nids don't need to fight to win. If they target every uninhabited planet for consumption, they will have enough biomass to just steamroll the galaxy. And thats not even including the bulk of the nids who aren't even in the galaxy yet!
The hive mind is uber intelligent, they will already be doing this. The only reason we havn't heard of it in the fluff is that a tyranid assault on an uninhabited planet would be about as interesting as watching paint dry.

A lot of those other worlds... most of them, in fact... are Ork Worlds.

Why haven't the Tyranids wrecked more face? Because it's a setting, not a story. They have established the sort of threat the Tyranid represent. That's it, mission accomplished, job done. Now, buy the models and play the game! Forge your own narrative, tell your own stories.

No offence intended but I don't think you are quite grasping the scale of billions. If most of the other worlds were ork worlds, ork worlds would outnumber imperial worlds by thousands to one. Is it not far more likely that most of these worlds are uninhabited? Otherwise the imperium would be a tiny insignificant speck in comparison to the ork empires/worlds. It would be an even bigger difference (by a long way) than that between the size of the imperium and that of the tau empire. And that's not counting the much greater proportion of worlds that are uninhabitable but still devourable.

Ork Worlds *do* outnumber Imperial Worlds thousands to one.

Borrowed from Lexicanum:




Oh, and found right here on Dakka, though I've seen it elsewhere, too:



... same information as presented in the first image, but arranged in what is arguably a more-easily-understood format.

As the fluff says, if the orks were to unite under one banner, they could likely beat everything else out (bar them all uniting which would never happen) problem is they can never unite! Heck, chaos is better at uniting then orks!

 Psienesis wrote:
Ork Worlds *do* outnumber Imperial Worlds thousands to one.

Borrowed from Lexicanum:




Oh, and found right here on Dakka, though I've seen it elsewhere, too:



... same information as presented in the first image, but arranged in what is arguably a more-easily-understood format.

There also remains the possibility of extragalactic Orks being, well, everywhere.

I tend to think of Nids as a force of nature rather than an army. Like the typhoon or earthquake that lay waste to an entire nation, but on a planetary scale.

You can do things to try and weather the "storm" and rebuild after, but you can't truly prepare for the OMGWTF that will actually hit you.

Think about it, the Nids come from outside out galaxy, that means that wherever they are coming from they ran out of biomass and have crossed the infinite vastness of space in search of food.

They replicate, evolve and swarm what they need to to sustain themselves, and then move on. They are a terrifying force. The Imperium and other races can't wipe them out, but rather stall them or deny them a meal at untold lives or a whole planet. They decimate fleets in their path, disrupt the warp itself and drive psykers insane with their mere presence in system. They subvert entire populations like a virus and don't usually make themselves known until they make their move.

If anything, it seems more like the Tyranids are like shaking a universal etch-a-sketch. They WILL wipe the slate clean, they just need the time to do so.

Not to mention that I am fairly certain that the average Gaunt is being underestimated. The average human already has trouble fighting off a roughly equal-sized IRL predator while unarmed. Arms, armour, and vehicles does not entirely compensate for the fact that the bio-engineered bred-for-war weaponbeasts of the Hive Fleets can be assumed to be pretty darn superior to an IRL predator, and are themselves supported by living battle tanks.

To answers one person questions about routh rates of tyranids. Form the 5e codex we know that the hivemind can churn out all new combat strength numbers of new breeds in a matter of weeks, though it can be taxing on the hivemind energy reserves. 4e codex commented that nid fleets tended to avoid confrontation with tombworlds mostly because of the lack of biomass on most of them.

Orks are really an almost ideal prey for Tyranids. You kill one you get even more biomass than you started with thanks to the sporing at death of an ork. Ork like nids because they get all the fighting they can stand.

We also know from both the 4e and 5e codexes that hive fleets are beginning to target lightly defended planets over heavily garrisoned ones to conserve biomass, isolate and eventually crush the now isolated world with overwhelming force.

 Redcruisair wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Redcruisair wrote:
How fast can the Tyranids travel in space? I’ve heard that they have no means of traveling through the warp? If they truly cannot make warp jumps and don’t possess another way of moving faster than the speed of light, then I really can’t see them as a threat to the galaxy. The Imperium along with a great many of the other factions, would inevitably, have died out long before the nids have even reached halfway into the galaxy.

Narvhals. They create a "gravity corridor" to propel themselves, slower than Warp but much safer and disrupts the target system to boot.

Narvhals? Narvhals as in Narwhals?



Are you telling me that Tyranids are riding on fraking Narwhals into battle?! Who write this stuff?

Actually.... yeah, kinda.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Narvhal#.Uov9xCfAaEo

The biomorph of the Narvhal looks... like a narwhal. Even has a horn in some pictures. Creates a gravitic tunnel behind it and pulls the fleet towards its destination. It is capable of FTL speeds, but cannot be used in-system. It can take years to decades for the Hive Fleet to actually reach the target planet once it drops out of the gravity tunnel and begins the slow-ride towards, say, an inner-system planet.

Iracundus wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:

This one is clearly directed at my post so I'll address only this point. An interesting piece of fluff you've quoted to be sure, but that's really only relevent once the Nids have arrived in a new Galaxy and want to find the choicest stars. It doesn't go any way to explain intergalactic travel which undoubtedly takes a toll on the fleets. Space is after all rather anathema to life.

Why should it? You are running off some assumptions and concluding them to be true without any resort to evidence. The Tyranid spaceships are born, live, and die in space. Space is their natural environment. There is no particular reason why it should taken any toll on creatures adapted to them, even though humans and other races might find space a hostile environment. Furthermore, you assume Tyranids only travel at sub-light speeds, which is yet another error. Tyranids have FTL, originally the warp, but most recently the stupid Narvhal nonsense. We also know Tyranids can and do hibernate as a way to reduce their energy expenditure still further, and not just individual Tyranids but the entire ship itself.

Why should it? Because that's the point we're talking about maybe? Tyranids are organic, it's a base fact since the species reached it's proper form in 2e. The fact that they absorb limited amounts of metals means that, just like us, they require some trace metals in order to function, and that they can utilise these elements in their evolution. You've skillfully dodged any discussion about intergalactic travel (which is what my original point was in reference to) and talked about how they can travel within a Galaxy, then you've rubbished me because I haven't backed up my point. I'd like to point out neither have you, you've simply changed the subject, backed the new subject up, then retreated to the high ground and grandstanded about how you've shown evidence of something we aren't even discussing. The point I'm making doesn't need a link to a Codex, it's a fact. An organic life form uses energy to do literally anything (even sleep), millennia in the void with no sustenance simply will take it's toll. A hibernating bear will eventually starve. Space is also most definitely not their natural environment, if that were true why do they need to make planetfall to feed? A natural environment provides for those native to it. But by all means...

Iracundus wrote:

If people are going to debate, find some evidence to support your points. Simply making stuff up on the spot doesn't count as "evidence".

MarsNZ wrote:

Why should it? Because that's the point we're talking about maybe? Tyranids are organic, it's a base fact since the species reached it's proper form in 2e. The fact that they absorb limited amounts of metals means that, just like us, they require some trace metals in order to function, and that they can utilise these elements in their evolution. You've skillfully dodged any discussion about intergalactic travel (which is what my original point was in reference to) and talked about how they can travel within a Galaxy, then you've rubbished me because I haven't backed up my point. I'd like to point out neither have you, you've simply changed the subject, backed the new subject up, then retreated to the high ground and grandstanded about how you've shown evidence of something we aren't even discussing. The point I'm making doesn't need a link to a Codex, it's a fact. An organic life form uses energy to do literally anything (even sleep), millennia in the void with no sustenance simply will take it's toll. A hibernating bear will eventually starve. Space is also most definitely not their natural environment, if that were true why do they need to make planetfall to feed? A natural environment provides for those native to it. But by all means...

I talked about their travel period, not their travel within a galaxy. Tyranids have FTL capability and they have hibernation capability as given in multiple GW sources. Of course Tyranids have some energy expenditure but their travel in space does not seem to have rendered them weak in the manner you imply. Simply having to expend some energy does not per se equate to having a significant toll taken. A person going on a journey may expend energy but that does not mean they necessarily are weakened by it if they are adequately provisioned. It just seems you are desperately fishing for any way to try and make the Tyranids come off as weak, when there isn't such evidence.

Also you are sorely mistaken about Tyranid ships if you think they need to make planetfall to feed. Go read up on Tyranid consumption and the final consumption phase because it seems you are very misinformed on this point. Tyranid ships remain in space for their entire lives, and feed whilst still in space. The closest they ever come to a planet is to be in orbit. You are under the mistaken notion that an animal native to an environment must get its food from that environment. Go look at any fish eating land animal. The animal is native to land yet gets its food from animals that live in a different environment. Furthermore if you go back to the Space Fleet sources on Tyranid Kraken it even states the Kraken derive some partial sustenance from asteroids. Part of the background on the Kraken is even replicated in the last Tyranid Codex, p. 14, describing them as "gigantic organisms perfectly adapted to the chill darkness of the void", and posing no direct threat to planets since they are "entirely spaceborne". Tyranid ships are space dwelling creatures whose native environment is space but who primarily feed upon the biomass of life bearing worlds, processed through the ground based Tyranid consumption ecosystem.

The point you are making should have a link to evidence otherwise it is just unsupported fan speculation. You claim Tyranids have a severe toll taken on them by their journey, go and prove it then. Where are your sources and quotes? If you have none and are just making things up, then your points have no support and are as worthless as all the random fan speculation and conspiracy theories that rest only on personal opinion.

People can debate whether Tyranids being written with the ability to cross galaxies with no appreciable detrimental effect is a good or bad bit of writing by GW, but the fact is they are written as having this ability and having done so not just once, but multiple times as they have consumed at least a dozen galaxies. Again debate actual Tyranid background as written by GW, rather than trying to invent weaknesses for them out of the air.