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.

 Psienesis wrote:
To list my entire head-canon would be impossible in the time allotted, so some highlights:

* Space Marines are not immortal. They are, however, naturally very long-lived. Their function, however, means that it is far more likely they die in combat rather than of natural causes.

* Blood Angels live longer than other Marines, and appear to age more slowly.

* The Space Wolves are still a Loyalist Chapter. The people of Fenris, however, have taken to worshiping the "natural forces" of Fenris, anthropomorphized into a Norse-like pantheon, which are actually manifestations of Tzeentch and Khorne. Both the Space Wolves and the Ecclesiarchy were "right", but neither side is willing to admit the other may have had a point.

*Rune Priests aren't Psykers. They're Druids. This means they're Sorcerers, even if they don't recognize it.

*The Tyranids have previously devoured 12 galaxies... but have never encountered one with such a rich, diverse sampling of intelligent life as this one. Unless the Hive Mind can completely re-configure how the Tyranid Hive functions, it will eventually be eradicated by combined weight of multiple Xenos attacking its Hive Fleets from all sides.

* Of course, this being 40k, such a combined-forces army is nearly impossible to manage.

* The biggest threat to the Tyranid is the Warp. The Shadow in the Warp can disrupt the link between a manifest daemon and the Warp... the Hive Mine is SOL if it enters a Warp Storm or a Warp Rift. If a Hive Fleet enters such a place, the Hive Mind must cut that fleet off from itself, or it will eventually go mad, not to mention risk the genetic mutations inherent to the corrupting effects of the Warp... which would spell eventual extinction of the bioform.

The new line is that the Tyranids have devoured a thousand galaxies and ended millions of civilizations.

Minimum.

Also my headcanon: When the full Tyranid Hive Fleet enters, the warp across the entire galaxy will just shut off in an all pervasive shadow.

All astropathic communications, all chaotic power, all psychic abilities, all warp travel simply ceases to function.

Even the web-way is completely closed off, the warp-storms stop, and the astronomicon is forever smothered.

And at that point all hope is lost and there's nothing anyone can do anymore but lay down and die.

Most people will in fact, just kill themselves as the shadow in the warp drives them insane.

The only people left to put up a fight will be the non-warp reliant races, who get drowned.

The new line is that the Tyranids have devoured a thousand galaxies and ended millions of civilizations.

The aged priest stepped up to the podium, bearing the ponderous tome from which all his sermons were delivered. The book boomed in the sepulchral chamber as he settled it onto the podium, clearing his throat as he turned back its age-worn covers.

"From the Book of Lamentations, chapter forty-two," he announced before clearing his throat once more, beginning his recital.

"And the Emperor looked out upon all that was presented to Him, the data-slates and the codices, the Journals and the scrolls penned by the albino squats, the books of Armament and Armories, and all the other sundry texts and missives from the farthest reaches of His Domains. The God-Emperor looked out upon these reports, rumors, myths, lies and legends, and stated that He, as the Emperor of Mankind, gave not one single feth about their contents, for it would be as He stated, neither lesser nor greater, to come neither before, nor after, but only at His Word. And they saw that it was good. Ave Imperator."

My head-canon says 12, so 12 it is.

 Psienesis wrote:

The new line is that the Tyranids have devoured a thousand galaxies and ended millions of civilizations.

The aged priest stepped up to the podium, bearing the ponderous tome from which all his sermons were delivered. The book boomed in the sepulchral chamber as he settled it onto the podium, clearing his throat as he turned back its age-worn covers.

"From the Book of Lamentations, chapter forty-two," he announced before clearing his throat once more, beginning his recital.

"And the Emperor looked out upon all that was presented to Him, the data-slates and the codices, the Journals and the scrolls penned by the albino squats, the books of Armament and Armories, and all the other sundry texts and missives from the farthest reaches of His Domains. The God-Emperor looked out upon these reports, rumors, myths, lies and legends, and stated that He, as the Emperor of Mankind, gave not one single feth about their contents, for it would be as He stated, neither lesser nor greater, to come neither before, nor after, but only at His Word. And they saw that it was good. Ave Imperator."

My head-canon says 12, so 12 it is.

Ah but my vision that everyone is going to die and everything everyone does is ultimately useless as they're all going to be swept away to leave eternal silence and lifeless ruins in a few thousand years is far more grimdark.

A thousand galaxies and a million civilizations doesn't necessarily mean they've eaten a thousand Milky Way galaxies. It's possible that the nids nommed a bunch of Dwarf galaxies and killed off a ton of primitives. Is it stated to be a fact or speculation like the whole "The current hive fleets are only the tip of the iceberg" thing?

Good for you? In my own head-canon, I speak with the authority of the God-Emperor (that is to say, ALL the authority) and so I have uttered that I give not a single feth about what is published, it's what I say it is.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
A thousand galaxies and a million civilizations doesn't necessarily mean they've eaten a thousand Milky Way galaxies. It's possible that the nids nommed a bunch of Dwarf galaxies and killed off a ton of primitives. Is it stated to be a fact or speculation like the whole "The current hive fleets are only the tip of the iceberg" thing?

Million of space faring civilizations.

It's rather clear that 40k canon doesn't consider civilizations not capable of space travel as being worth mentioning other than "they were wiped out to make way for settlers/uplifted for sneaky plans."

I mean, even the Exodites are hardly cared about anymore because they'd never have any reason to go on the offensive.

Ah. I guess they are pretty big nasties. I don't think the Imperium flat out being wiped to a man by the nids is the most grim dark thing. I think the most Grim Dark thing would be that the Imperium slowly erodes into nothing but, at the same time, causing untold quadrillions to suffer so that they can hold on for another day. The Imperium beating the nids, in my opinion, is a far worse fate for humanity.

In my canon:

SM never stopped being the mind-scrubbed and repurposed psychotic criminal scum they were before GW latched onto the psycho space knight monk thing.

So pretty much ALL my fluff stays locked in 2nd ed where it belongs.

 Kain wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

The new line is that the Tyranids have devoured a thousand galaxies and ended millions of civilizations.

The aged priest stepped up to the podium, bearing the ponderous tome from which all his sermons were delivered. The book boomed in the sepulchral chamber as he settled it onto the podium, clearing his throat as he turned back its age-worn covers.

"From the Book of Lamentations, chapter forty-two," he announced before clearing his throat once more, beginning his recital.

"And the Emperor looked out upon all that was presented to Him, the data-slates and the codices, the Journals and the scrolls penned by the albino squats, the books of Armament and Armories, and all the other sundry texts and missives from the farthest reaches of His Domains. The God-Emperor looked out upon these reports, rumors, myths, lies and legends, and stated that He, as the Emperor of Mankind, gave not one single feth about their contents, for it would be as He stated, neither lesser nor greater, to come neither before, nor after, but only at His Word. And they saw that it was good. Ave Imperator."

My head-canon says 12, so 12 it is.

Ah but my vision that everyone is going to die and everything everyone does is ultimately useless as they're all going to be swept away to leave eternal silence and lifeless ruins in a few thousand years is far more grimdark.

Fool yours is not grimdark enough. The Thousand Sons break into the webway spilling chaos into it and raiding the library. Ahriman, learning all, tears the fabric of the webway apart as Eldar flee. The walls of chaos break open and the materium is plunged into the warp whilst Tau push onwards trying to expand their domains. However, Tyranids brutally decimate the Tau as a mere speedbump before hurtling forth to Ultrimar where, after a bloody fight, the largest hive fleet yet is destroyed along with every planet and every last Ultramarine. Blood Angels all fall to their curse as it is revealed that the Sanguinor was actually a daemon all along. During the war, Tyranids come to fight and so ends the Blood Angels. Space Wolves are assaulted by the Thousand Sons for one last battle. This time though, the Wolves are broken only for the Thousand Sons to all be freed from their eternal life becoming ash in the winds, free thought one last time before so (only to be cruel to make them realize all the terrible things they have done sense). The last living C'tan awakens beneath Mars and it goes into absolute anarchy as Necrons raise everywhere to fight the Tyranids at every stop. Eldar survivors unite with the last few DE to fight one last glorious battle against Slaanesh before both are slaughtered thanks to a betrayal, although nobody knows who shot the other first. Orks break off from the war with Tyranids and blaze the lands in a flurry of battles striking into many battles fighting the good fight. Eldrad kills himself releasing the last soul. All Eldar souls unite and become a new god who wages war with Slaanesh. Chaos and Tyranids close in on Terra and meet on a battlefield like no other. The golden structures of Terra lies damaged, with fungal growth in certain areas, large, chitinous jagged structures in others, and, in others, the ground permiates with tendrils and claws as the warp breaks in, daemons swirling out from the ancient webway that was damaged so long ago. Humanity unifies here for one last battle fighting at each step losing many, Necrons appearing at random locations to slaughter all. The Dark Angel's greatest foe reaches the Emperor and slays him. The light fades and Tyranid ships go around blindly whilst Necrons begin to press back into them. At first their is great success however the Flayer virus quickly spreads across them as the manevolent Void Dragon seeks revenge for their betrayal. Primarchs awaken to fight one last battle and the GK finally activate the last resort. Terra explodes. From here, anarchy spreads as the warp collapses on the material realm, humanity screaming in darkness and ships, once lost in the warp, flung out as horrors shift around everything. Necrons activate their remaining towers to create havens but eventually go mad whilst Tyranids, struggling under the might, continue to consume everything until nothing remains. Humanity suffers as orks continue to kill everything they can, settling on slaughtering eachother, tyranids consuming every being they possibly can, daemons and chaos bands ravage human survivors, and the necrons increasingly attempt to find a cure they can never capture. Some time passes. Everything dead, the gods have long since become a passing memory and the warp finally rests in peace. The material realm and the warp split apart leaving a barren galaxy of no vegetation or life. Merely the remnants of old civilizations long ago.

(I'm kidding I think this is stupid)

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Ah. I guess they are pretty big nasties. I don't think the Imperium flat out being wiped to a man by the nids is the most grim dark thing. I think the most Grim Dark thing would be that the Imperium slowly erodes into nothing but, at the same time, causing untold quadrillions to suffer so that they can hold on for another day. The Imperium beating the nids, in my opinion, is a far worse fate for humanity.

A lifeless galaxy devoid of all things, all testament to anything having ever been there being wiped away by a swarm of claws and teeth.

There are some ruins, standing there in mute testimony. But there are none to witness it.

They struggled, they fought, they died.

There are no voices, just silence, ever lasting, eternal silence.

No more noise, no more laughter, no thirsting gods, no howling barbarians or treacherous schemes, no more war.

Just nothing.

There is peace.

Endless, eternal, peace.

 chromedog wrote:
In my canon:

SM never stopped being the mind-scrubbed and repurposed psychotic criminal scum they were before GW latched onto the psycho space knight monk thing.

So pretty much ALL my fluff stays locked in 2nd ed where it belongs.

Oooh, that's a good one. You could reconcile the two with not too much effort. "Oh, where do Space Marines come from? Why, they are recruited from the strongest and most resillient stock, of course! The places are too remote and too crowded for you to ever have heard of them of course. Oh, and their headquarters are too far away from civilization to see them. OH! And they recruit young boys too! They fill them with all of these special space drugs and organs to make them super special awesome! The mental brainwashing they undergo? Why they can't remember much of their past? Well... it's to... uhh, make them more mentally strong! Yeah, totally".

@Kain

Until another galactic civilization arises from a newly formed star system, recolonizes the galaxy, discovers warp travel and makes the same mistakes the Imperium/Eldar/Necrontyr did. And then another galactic civilization arises and makes the same mistakes... And so on until the Milky Way stops producing stars.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
In my canon:

SM never stopped being the mind-scrubbed and repurposed psychotic criminal scum they were before GW latched onto the psycho space knight monk thing.

So pretty much ALL my fluff stays locked in 2nd ed where it belongs.

Oooh, that's a good one. You could reconcile the two with not too much effort. "Oh, where do Space Marines come from? Why, they are recruited from the strongest and most resillient stock, of course! The places are too remote and too crowded for you to ever have heard of them of course. Oh, and their headquarters are too far away from civilization to see them. OH! And they recruit young boys too! They fill them with all of these special space drugs and organs to make them super special awesome! The mental brainwashing they undergo? Why they can't remember much of their past? Well... it's to... uhh, make them more mentally strong! Yeah, totally".

@Kain

Until another galactic civilization arises from a newly formed star system, recolonizes the galaxy, discovers warp travel and attracts the Tyranids again. Or some other big gribbly.

Except that all biomass is gone.

Not exactly a renewable resource without the capacity to create life.

How many new worlds start up the process of abiogenesis is not my field of expertise though.

 Kain wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
In my canon:

SM never stopped being the mind-scrubbed and repurposed psychotic criminal scum they were before GW latched onto the psycho space knight monk thing.

So pretty much ALL my fluff stays locked in 2nd ed where it belongs.

Oooh, that's a good one. You could reconcile the two with not too much effort. "Oh, where do Space Marines come from? Why, they are recruited from the strongest and most resillient stock, of course! The places are too remote and too crowded for you to ever have heard of them of course. Oh, and their headquarters are too far away from civilization to see them. OH! And they recruit young boys too! They fill them with all of these special space drugs and organs to make them super special awesome! The mental brainwashing they undergo? Why they can't remember much of their past? Well... it's to... uhh, make them more mentally strong! Yeah, totally".

@Kain

Until another galactic civilization arises from a newly formed star system, recolonizes the galaxy, discovers warp travel and attracts the Tyranids again. Or some other big gribbly.

Except that all biomass is gone.

Not exactly a renewable resource without the capacity to create life.

How many new worlds start up the process of abiogenesis is not my field of expertise though.

Not necessarily. The way Nids find planets is very ineffective and I would hazard to say that they wouldn't find even the majority of life sustaining worlds. Probably all of the Imperial worlds but those aren't very many planets at all. I think about 0.0001% of the total planets in the galaxy. However, without knowledge of just how much out of the total amount of life sustaining worlds there are out there (Or potential for them) I can't say for certain if this nomming by the Nids will cripple any future Empire's ability to expand. It could be a tiny minority of these kind of worlds or the vast majority. Current astronomical tech can't pick out terrestrial worlds well at all so the rate is difficult to tell at this time.

But civilization as we know it isn't the end all of how to live. You could have people live in cities orbiting gas giants or in cities floating in the atmosphere of venus like planets.

Kain, could you stop trying to get other people's headcanon to fit in your own? It's a bit aggravating right now. :(

Oh, I disagree completely with Kain about the power of the Hive Fleets. I think the current vanguard represents about 25% of the total Hive Fleet. However, I also have a minor hypothesis that the Tyranid hive fleet shrinks considerably during intergalactic travel to sustain itself. Once it finds a new galaxy it starts eating itself back to full strength before wiping everyone out.

He's a Nid fan and I'm a Guard/IOM fan. I don't think we'll ever agree on each others faction's capabilities.

In my canon the Tyranids don't exist at all.

/debate

 Peregrine wrote:
In my canon the Tyranids don't exist at all.

/debate

If only! Why don't you like Tyranids, Peregrine?

Because bugs are gross, duh!

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
In my canon the Tyranids don't exist at all.

/debate

If only! Why don't you like Tyranids, Peregrine?

Probably because they don't fit into WW1hammer 40K.

To Peregrine, armies like Chaos Daemons and Tyranids don't fit his definition of realistic and sensible, thus he pretends they don't exist and makes his dislike of them rather vocal.

As for my armies: I play

Spehss Mehreens (Many chapters)
Guard (Many regiments, including Kriegers and Elysians)
Tyranids
Orks
Kay-Oss Spehss Mehreens
Kay-Oss Daemons
Necrons
Grey Knights
Imperial Knights.
Several homebrew armies.

Damn Kain. Color me Impressed. Are you a drug lord?

I do Guard (Imperial Army) , Space Marines (Blood Angels/Vanilla Counts as and HH UM) and Kayoss Space Marines (Word Bearers). I don't care for Tyranids since I don't like an army that is undefeatable in 40k or other gaming settings. It's like a big slap in the face to the fans of the Imperium, Necrons, Tau etc. to know that they'll be wiped out no matter what by someone else's army. However, a big threat is always nice which is why I like Chaos.

I also like to imagine Chaos tanks without those big ass trophy racks the Chaos rhino kit gives you. Those things are just so stupid to put on a AFV. I can kinda get the spiky dozer blade but not those things.

Hmm. One thing that I'd consider my own personal interpretation would be that at least some Sisters are allowed to survive after encountering Daemons, or possibly even know about their existence. Case in point, there's a story in the 6E SoB codex where the Sisters raid a Daemon world to recover some lost relics. After doing so, they then take their ship offworld just as the GK show up to bomb the planet. But then there's no mention of the Sisters being killed or otherwise dealt with by the GK ship, the story just ends. And while I don't like to make big assumptions when it comes to the fluff, I do think it's reasonable to assume that Sisters are one of the few forces that could handle contact with Daemons, their faith being as great as it is. I know there's that whole thing in the GK fluff about anyone who isn't a Marine being killed afterwards, but this just seems plausible to me.

And as for how things will end, I'm going to go with the Tyranids eating everything. They've got several galaxies worth of biomass behind them, the tide is not going to stop. But Chaos, the Craftworld Eldar, the Dark Eldar and possibly the Necrons would likely br able to successfully hide from the 'Nids and avoid the feeding frenzy.

The lasgun is named after its inventor, the venerable explorator Hiram Lasgun and the melta family of weapons is named after Magos Melta. Similarly, the Leman Russ Battle Tank is partially named for the battle cannon it carries, named after Archibald Battle. Most of the Imperium's tank weapons were discovered in a time where it was fashionable for explorators to do their work under melodramatic assumed names.

No, not entirely serious.

-All the C'tan except the Void Dragon, the Deciever, The Nightbringer and the Outsider are shattered instead of all of them.
-the Tyranids have committed a third of there forces to fighting and they have 3 more massive hive fleets left in space, the biggest of which contains the Hive Mind itself.
-Abaddon has taken most of Cadia and allmost all of Segmentum Obscuras during the 13th Crusade and most of Segmentum Pacificus during the Night of 1000 Rebellions. He has since established The Empire of Man and Chaos United across these two realms and will soon launch his final Crusade to conquer the Imperium and become the New Emperor of Mankind.
-Perpetuals were part of the ancient Shaman who created the Emperor but decided not to commit suicide.
-Magnus The Red is working with Ahriman to stab Tzeentch in the back by finding out his true name from the Black library and punishing him for what he did to the Thousand Sons.
-Kaldor Draigo only defeated a tired and wounded Mortarion who had killed all of Draigo's Brotherhood.
-Kaldor Draigo's victories in the warp are illusions created to turn him to chaos but non have worked.
-Constantin Valdor was crucified and flayed by his Custodes Brethren and entombed in a status field right across from the Golden Throne.
-The Necrons are made up of 2 factions: the loyalists who still serve the 4 living C'tan and the traitor under the Silent King who fight against him.
-Malal is the original God who was deposed by Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle. His destruction split the Warp in two creating The Immaterium and The Materium and Malal currently resides at the bottom of The Well of Eternity, waiting to rise again.

Wait, now I'm confused. Are we talking about changing canon into a form that makes sense with existing canon or completely new additions and large changes?

Draigo died a long time ago in the warp. His 'adventures' are just propaganda stories to try to inspire the Imperials.

Space Marine candidates can be female or male. After becoming Space Marines, they just appear male because of the musculature they develop and they're actually genderless, asexual beings that could no longer be described as human.

The Imperium is ironically the reason why Chaos is powerful in the galaxy- by oppressing their citizens and being incompetant, the Imperium inspires rebellion that rapidly turns to Chaos.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If only! Why don't you like Tyranids, Peregrine?

Two reasons:

1) They suck from a narrative perspective. They have no characters to identify with or storylines to follow, their entire role in the setting is to be a faceless force of nature. And even as a faceless force of nature they suck, since GW makes sure to remind us over and over again that you can't ever win against the Tyranids, reducing the "story" potential to "how long before we die". A good villain needs depth beyond "we eat you because we eat you".

2) They embody the worst "bio-tech" fanboyism. No, making things out of organic materials does not work. Flesh is never going to be as effective as metal when making tank armor, throwing blobs of acid is never going to be as effective as guns with explosive shells (or tactical nukes), etc. And 40k is not Star Trek with weapon "frequencies" to evolve to defeat: no amount of handwaving and saying "the Tyranids are evolving OMFG!!!!!!" is going to let them magically adapt to being shot in the face or vaporized by a nuke. The icing on the cake of horribleness is the sheer idiocy of having alien invaders from outside our galaxy that are somehow still compatible enough with our DNA that they can adapt by eating our corpses and absorbing our genes. FFS GW, a Tyranid swarm getting upgrades that way makes about as much sense as adding tree DNA to a human baby so that it will grow some nice pretty flowers and drop pine cones everywhere.

(And note that #1 also applied to the old Necron fluff. Say what you want about the quality of the new version, but at least it's better than the old "we're Tyranids, but metal" version.)

 Kain wrote:
To Peregrine, armies like Chaos Daemons and Tyranids don't fit his definition of realistic and sensible, thus he pretends they don't exist and makes his dislike of them rather vocal.

No, actually I'm fine with demons in general, I just hate that they're an entire separate army instead of being summoned in a chaos cult/CSM army. And I like orks, which are just as unrealistic as Tyranids (complete with absurd "our technology works because we believe it works" magic), but at least have the redeeming quality of being an interesting army for other reasons.

Here's a few more that I thought of:

Draigo's travels in the warp is a Tzeentch-induced hallucination. Every time he succeeds in the Warp, he is subsequently shown how he's actually just an unwilling plaything for Tzeentch's entertainment. After this mind-shattering revelation, his memory is erased and the cycle repeats.

The film "Event Horizon" is a canonical prequel to the 40k universe and is the first recorded encounter with Chaos; albeit unrecognized as such.

Be'lakor, the first Daemon Prince, was once the biblical figure known as Cain.

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If only! Why don't you like Tyranids, Peregrine?

Two reasons:

1) They suck from a narrative perspective. They have no characters to identify with or storylines to follow, their entire role in the setting is to be a faceless force of nature. And even as a faceless force of nature they suck, since GW makes sure to remind us over and over again that you can't ever win against the Tyranids, reducing the "story" potential to "how long before we die". A good villain needs depth beyond "we eat you because we eat you".

2) They embody the worst "bio-tech" fanboyism. No, making things out of organic materials does not work. Flesh is never going to be as effective as metal when making tank armor, throwing blobs of acid is never going to be as effective as guns with explosive shells (or tactical nukes), etc. And 40k is not Star Trek with weapon "frequencies" to evolve to defeat: no amount of handwaving and saying "the Tyranids are evolving OMFG!!!!!!" is going to let them magically adapt to being shot in the face or vaporized by a nuke. The icing on the cake of horribleness is the sheer idiocy of having alien invaders from outside our galaxy that are somehow still compatible enough with our DNA that they can adapt by eating our corpses and absorbing our genes. FFS GW, a Tyranid swarm getting upgrades that way makes about as much sense as adding tree DNA to a human baby so that it will grow some nice pretty flowers and drop pine cones everywhere.

(And note that #1 also applied to the old Necron fluff. Say what you want about the quality of the new version, but at least it's better than the old "we're Tyranids, but metal" version.)

 Kain wrote:
To Peregrine, armies like Chaos Daemons and Tyranids don't fit his definition of realistic and sensible, thus he pretends they don't exist and makes his dislike of them rather vocal.

No, actually I'm fine with demons in general, I just hate that they're an entire separate army instead of being summoned in a chaos cult/CSM army. And I like orks, which are just as unrealistic as Tyranids (complete with absurd "our technology works because we believe it works" magic), but at least have the redeeming quality of being an interesting army for other reasons.

I can't say I disagree with you. Tyranids are probably the most poorly thought out faction besides Space Marines. I still want to know how they are any good at eating galaxies if their main means of finding suitable worlds to chow down on is throwing scouts around the target galaxy and seeing what sticks. Unless they have some handwavery about how they can tell a star has habitable planets by it's color or something.


A few more:

Dark Eldar are some of the most agile fighters there is. They'll dance around you, blow a kiss and eviscerate your sorry humie ass before you can finger the trigger on your Lasgun. A Punisher will mutilate a squad of them, though. Especially Wyches. You may be able to dodge one bullet. Maybe even 100. But not tens of thousands.

Eldar weaponry isn't all that much better at punching through armor than the bolter equivalent is. It's just that Eldar have such excellent aim it makes it seem that the Shurken catapault is able to cut through armor easier.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

I still want to know how they are any good at eating galaxies if their main means of finding suitable worlds to chow down on is throwing scouts around the target galaxy and seeing what sticks. Unless they have some handwavery about how they can tell a star has habitable planets by it's color or something.

They're attracted to our galaxy by the Astronomican. Since there's a clear psychic presence in our galaxy, the Hive Mind probably concluded that there must also be life. That's probably how they devoured other galaxies as well. Also, Genestealers and Genestealer Cults act as a psychic beacon that attract Tyranids to worlds that they inhabit.