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Fluff wise who would come out on top or benefit the most from an ork vs tyranids war of just those 2 species? Just wondering 'cause im curious

I'd go with "late game" Ork WAAGHS!, which have advanced to the point they have tellyportas, or can even loot a planetoid.

Orks cuz they produce matter out of nothing. (Spores)

'Nids cuz they're smarter, plus they should just out-evolve the orks

It will be a brutal war of attrition, with the Nids constantly consuming Ork biomatter, as the Orks constantly "spawn" , and the surviving Orks getting bigger and bigger. All that is known is that whoever wins will be the biggest threat the Imperium will ever have to face.

Orks, cuz' emz gonna hav funz!

Orks.... Vehicles are killer...

Thats going to either be one short and messy fight or one long and bloody one.

Unstoppable force vs immovable object ©

All we know for sure is that orkses are gona be happy.

Inquisitor what's his face has engineered a situation where the Orks/Tyranids are fighting (he redirected a hive fleet I believe?). As of now, it looks like the war just is going to end. The Orkses are getting bigger and stronger as the fighting goes on, with more and more arriving. By contrast, the Tyranids are assimilating Orky DNA/learning as it progresses. Either way, the winner will end up stronger than when it went in.

Tyranids won't out evolve. They are just producing variations on what they have with minor improvements.

 PhillyT wrote:
Tyranids won't out evolve. They are just producing variations on what they have with minor improvements.

That is the definition of evolving. The background says that the tyranids do it very quickly though, much more quickly than orks.

If the two were evenly matched in terms of size I'd say that tyranids would come out on top.

Except that the changes the Tyranids make never really make that big a difference. It is variation in form.

Also I disagree. Equal part ork and Tyranids has been shown to be a stale mate, and microbial orks are the first hard counter to the Tyranids conversion process. They are quite similar really.

Orks looting tyranids, now that would be funny, the only thing is ortk spores, they spread and not so reliant on bio mass to fuel production

According to planet strike ork spores were a counter to microbial tyranids and visa versa.

It would be an eternal stalemate, which means the Orks would win, as they will have accomplished their ultimate existential goal.

Altough, come to think of it, such a huge battle likely would eventually draw every single Ork in the galaxy to it...

 Iron_Captain wrote:
It would be an eternal stalemate, which means the Orks would win, as they will have accomplished their ultimate existential goal.

Altough, come to think of it, such a huge battle likely would eventually draw every single Ork in the galaxy to it...

thats why the orks win.

You know what I want to see? I want to see something like an Imperium experiment between Orks and Tyranids, right?

So, how's 'bout we stick a load of Orks on a planet, they're savages, no access to technology, they're running around stabbing things and shouting at eachother in gibberish.
Then send in a load of Carnifexes. You still with me?
So we've got a load of Orks, let's say, 10,000, they're all multiplying quickly where they go, leaving behind spores. Then we've got Carnifexes constantly trying to hunt them down, like Predator. And by a load of Carnifexes, I mean 100.

So we've got 100 Carnifexes on a planet with 10,000 Orks multiplying very quickly.

How many Orks will the Carnifexes kill before being killed themselves?

Here's something to ponder. Squigs. Fluff has them being found as orkoid rippers on a derelict, with the orks finding something downright orky about them, and taking them home. Now, think about that. Now, think about the fact that orkoid fungi grows into the various orkoid lifeforms. Including squigs. So what does that make the orks now?

This question pops up from time to time, and I submit my answer, as I always do:

Tyranorks.

Orks get bigger. Tyranids eat them and morph. Eventually, they will be a super-race of Tyranorks.

Now that Ghazghkull has joined the Octarius war, the orks may tip the scale.

 Wazdakka! wrote:
Now that Ghazghkull has joined the Octarius war, the orks may tip the scale.

I'm hoping for a showdown between the Swarmlord and Ghazzy now that both are involved, could be an interesting way to see how it advances depending on who krumps who.

Orks would come out on top, as they have no tactically important targets - killing the boss would just mean that another ork would be 'promoted'. If the orks take out the norn queen, it would be an easy victory.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Here's something to ponder. Squigs. Fluff has them being found as orkoid rippers on a derelict, with the orks finding something downright orky about them, and taking them home. Now, think about that. Now, think about the fact that orkoid fungi grows into the various orkoid lifeforms. Including squigs. So what does that make the orks now?

That's really old lore, not the new lore. It's been retconned, though you're still well within your rights to ignore the retcon if you want.

Instead, right now, Squigs are just an early form of Orkoid life in the Orkoid life cycle.

Goes like this:

Spores cause fungus to grow, eventually with enough fungus, Squigs begin to grow from the spores instead to eat the mushrooms and provide a food source for later Orkoids, eventually with enough squigs, snotlings begin to grow to herd the squigs, and then with enough snotlings, grots begin to grow now that there's the infrastructure needed to support them, and they create the infrastructure needed for the last portion of hte Orkoid life cycle, the Orks, whom become dominant as time goes on, but still rely on (and produce spores for) the other kinds of Orkoids.

jhe90 wrote:
Orks looting tyranids, now that would be funny

Dude... you know it happens!

 Grimskul wrote:

 Wazdakka! wrote:
Now that Ghazghkull has joined the Octarius war, the orks may tip the scale.

I'm hoping for a showdown between the Swarmlord and Ghazzy now that both are involved, could be an interesting way to see how it advances depending on who krumps who.

Yeah that would be cool, but probably it would be that Ghazghkull crumps the Swarmlord with either massive force, or some tactics shenanigans, or both.
Then the Swarmlord would reincarnate and it would be like loading a quick save and trying again, knowing what to expect, and maybe defeating Ghazzie, but not killing him, seeing as how much Gork and Mork actually protect him actively now, they would save him in the last second.

 Melissia wrote:
That's really old lore, not the new lore. It's been retconned, though you're still well within your rights to ignore the retcon if you want.

Instead, right now, Squigs are just an early form of Orkoid life in the Orkoid life cycle.

Goes like this:

Spores cause fungus to grow, eventually with enough fungus, Squigs begin to grow from the spores instead to eat the mushrooms and provide a food source for later Orkoids, eventually with enough squigs, snotlings begin to grow to herd the squigs, and then with enough snotlings, grots begin to grow now that there's the infrastructure needed to support them, and they create the infrastructure needed for the last portion of hte Orkoid life cycle, the Orks, whom become dominant as time goes on, but still rely on (and produce spores for) the other kinds of Orkoids.

I never heard they retconned that...I am actually kind of sad about that. It made me laugh at the early inconsistency of Orks. That being said, I like the sound of this new version as well.

 YourIntestines wrote:
Orks would come out on top, as they have no tactically important targets - killing the boss would just mean that another ork would be 'promoted'. If the orks take out the norn queen, it would be an easy victory.

Except that killing the Warboss has a demonstrably extreme impact on an Ork Waaagh(!!). Yes, another Ork will assume control eventually, but only after a period of chaos and infighting. There is a reason why Imperial campaigns make "finding and killing the Warboss" top priority when the Orks invade their systems.

The Tyranids figured this out in short order on the planet Ghorala, and the loss of the Ork Warlord on that world was enough to allow the Tyranid infection to go from a small number of beasts fighting a shadow war (after their fleet was destroyed in space) to consuming the planet and birthing a whole new fleet in short order.

Both Tyranids and Orks suffer severely from the collapse of their respective control webs. The problem for the Orks is their their leaders like to lead from the front, where as the Tyranid "leaders" (such as they are' even the Norn Queens are just puppets) live in space and are encased in vessels thousands of kilometers long (not that this stopped the Orks in the Ghorala story above; they destroyed the entire fleet with a combination of a huge mine field and a lot of ships).

 Melissia wrote:

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Here's something to ponder. Squigs. Fluff has them being found as orkoid rippers on a derelict, with the orks finding something downright orky about them, and taking them home. Now, think about that. Now, think about the fact that orkoid fungi grows into the various orkoid lifeforms. Including squigs. So what does that make the orks now?

That's really old lore, not the new lore. It's been retconned, though you're still well within your rights to ignore the retcon if you want.

Instead, right now, Squigs are just an early form of Orkoid life in the Orkoid life cycle.

Goes like this:

Spores cause fungus to grow, eventually with enough fungus, Squigs begin to grow from the spores instead to eat the mushrooms and provide a food source for later Orkoids, eventually with enough squigs, snotlings begin to grow to herd the squigs, and then with enough snotlings, grots begin to grow now that there's the infrastructure needed to support them, and they create the infrastructure needed for the last portion of hte Orkoid life cycle, the Orks, whom become dominant as time goes on, but still rely on (and produce spores for) the other kinds of Orkoids.

Adding onto this, the Orks at this stage are usually Feral, and are content to roam around beating each other with sticks. It takes some external influence (usually) to introduce higher technology and to trigger the mass migration of a Waaagh(!!!!!).

 Dashofpepper wrote:
This question pops up from time to time, and I submit my answer, as I always do:

Tyranorks.

Orks get bigger. Tyranids eat them and morph. Eventually, they will be a super-race of Tyranorks.

The Valedor novel suggests that this may actually be (more or less) the reason behind the vanguard Tyranid fleets we have at the moment. They arrive in the galaxy, consume worlds and document resistance. They then link up, combine genetic resources and build a crop of Tyranids specifically designed using the genetics of the opposition to beat the enemy at their own game.

Quite what Tyranids inspired by Eldar, Ork and human genetics taken to eleven would look like... I have no idea :p

Whats the Valedor novel?

Has there been any advance in the plot since the 4th edition ork codex?

I would love to see some novels come out detailing the octarian war! Make a great 3 novel series

The whole "ultra genetic evolution" thing is still ridiculous. Unless the Tyranids make up some new form of movement, they are pretty much what they are going to be. They can tweak a couple things, but genestealers will always be what they are, homagaunts are what they are, etc.