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A Tyranid fleet relies on some of its smallest organisms known to the Imperium as Narwhals to let the fleet move faster than light. Once they encounter large gravitational bodies however, the narwhal is unable to continue its processes and the fleet must resort to standard bio-organic sublight propulsion. Large systems have been noted to take many months to a year to reach the inner core of the system, while yet larger bodies can force them to take years if they are unwilling to circumvent and skirt the perimeter to reach their goal if it is on opposite side.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Well if the psykers aren't held back, you'll have guys like Dak'ir just shredding Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra with little effort. The main thing constraining the Imperium is Chaos... without that it's open season on Tyranids as humans can utilize their psychic powers without restraint. Alpha Psykers in general will just go to town and reap trillions..

You have forgotten one extremely important thing in this statement. Nids have psykers too and also the Big BIG thing you forget is the Shadow in the Warp. On such a massive scale that Tyranid force would block the warp to the extreme. To reference several source materials at once gathered by Lexicanum:

"The effects of the shadow are varied:
The average citizen experences uneasiness and terrible nightmares.
The psyker or anybody with warp sensibility suffers severe headaches, uncontrollable screaming, bleeding eyes and unconsciousness.
It blocks most astropathic signals.
Complicates warp travel.
Disrupts psychic phenomena.

And this is just from your average lone Hive Fleet. On such a massive scale Psykers would be completely ****ed to the point that they probably couldn't even sustain ordinary combat. Hell most psykers (special snowflake Tigirus excluded) go crazy or die upon attempts to just contact or "touch" the Hive Mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scrabb wrote:

Not according to BFG rules and background they dont - they are lethal at mid-close range and once an enemy ship is entangled its like having a whole SM Legion board you in terms of ferocity

The key words in your argument are mid-close range (really just close range), which means Imperial fleets can happily pulverize all your capital ships (read; ability to continue travel towards food).

Sure they can. And the nid ships even as they die will continue to launch their spores filled with genestealers and the like at your ships by the hundred thousands. So those ships go down too. The largest hive fleet recorded to date was only defeated after an emperor class ship blew its warp engine to transport the nid fleed to oblivion. Nids kept launching boarding craft the entire time.

I'm not suggesting that the Tyranids would definitely win nor am I saying that the IoM would definitely lose. Just that it wouldn't be such a cake walk as many of the comments and counters on here imply.

People keep pointing out how the IoM would be unified, well the Tyranids would be too. As it stands Tyranids as creatures are adapted to best face the many different threats that the 40k universe has to offer them. A jack of all trades so to speak. With only one threat, one faction to focus on they would adapt to combat humans and their weapons chiefly above all else.

Unlike the Tau the IoM can't reoutfit or adapt their tactics completely. Where Tau choose the best blade for the circumstance the Imerium uses the same combat knife and only changes their fighting stance. Regardless of stance one weapon can only kill in one way.

On the other side I do think that just all the Space Marines in the Galaxy gathered to fight them would spell a very very difficuld battle for the nidz. There are about a Million or so SM in the galaxy right? 1000 chapters of 1000 men give or take a couple. (Don't reference the damn Black Templar as an argument here they are quite literally one in a thousand)

On a final note as has been said by one other person the Imperium is a lumbering giant in every regard. While they have their chain of command and operate as a unified military force at best, the Tyranid swarm operates as a single entity.

Even if the IoM is stronger you can look at it like this. There are two people fighting. One (the IoM) is a 6 and a half foot 240 pound Schwarzenegger like man and fights with each body part acting individually towards the same goal. They can work well together and are rather powerful, but are somewhat clumsy at times. Their opponent a 5 foot Tall Bruce Lee esque man who fights with each body part in harmony able to move quickly to adapt to the situation and apply excessive force to one point at a moments notice. (Disregard the fact that Bruce Lee is an expert martial artist otherwise this seems pretty one sided)


It can be won by either side. but not without difficulty for either.

Xyptc wrote:

 Scrabb wrote:


Exterminatus. Done.


Seriously folks, all the Imperium has to do is monitor Nid fleet movement (easy) and pop the planets after the nids land. It is explicit tyranid fluff that long periods without feeding weakens them. Every planet they hit they will lose biomass and cannot do anything about it. IoM can do this for thousands of systems.

1) Exterminatus isn't "easy" to pull off. You've got to get in range, you've got to make sure it's effective, you've got to make sure you get enough Tyranids to make it worthwhile. As for "monitoring the Tyranid fleet movements being easy"... it's explicitly stated that one of the things that makes the Tyranid advance so hard to handle is because it is ridiculously hard to determine where they are going. Sure, once they reach a system you usually have a chance of getting your act together as they often move very slowly*, but as the Shadow in the Warp crashes communication actually telling each other where the ships are becomes incredibly difficult. You can get a rough idea where they are because you find dead worlds/systems, but where they actually appear next is often a complete surprise. Unless you bait them in somehow.

*Furthermore, recent Tyranid fluff has Tyranid Hive Fleets millions strong crossing systems in a matter of days, implying that they are either arriving a lot closer to planets than they used to, or they are actually faster than a lot of sources give them credit for.

2) Tactics don't usually work against a Tyranid fleet for long. They adapt their strategies on a grand scale. If a large number of heavy losses are sustained while preparing to feed (lots of successful exterminatus incidents) who's to say that they won't modify their feeding style by either not commiting more than they have to or (worse) committing such ridiculous numbers that entire systems are wiped clean in less than a week, giving the Imperium no time to plan an exterminatus at all. In the Shield of Baal campaign, the Leviathan tendril crushes a rock-hard system in three days, and if the Blood Angels chapter (that's almost their entire chapter, by the way, plus assorted allies) had been just a few days later the consumption phase would have been over and it would have been far too late for any exterminatus attempt at all.

I think you are missing the point here.

You don't destroy the planets the Nids are already on. You figure out which planets they are heading to and then completely blow them up right before they arrive, when they have already expended the most energy to get there.

And you have to completely vaporize it, so there is no biomass left for the Nids to feed on.

Do this for a few systems and they should be sufficiently weakened to allow a strike on the Hive Fleet itself.

Does the emperor and his daemons ( er.... I mean Angaels?) get to participate in this fight? What about The Legion of the Damned?

pawa24 wrote:

I think you are missing the point here.

You don't destroy the planets the Nids are already on. You figure out which planets they are heading to and then completely blow them up right before they arrive, when they have already expended the most energy to get there.

And you have to completely vaporize it, so there is no biomass left for the Nids to feed on.

Do this for a few systems and they should be sufficiently weakened to allow a strike on the Hive Fleet itself.

Kryptman tried that, didn't work.

 Yaavaragefinkinman wrote:

The largest hive fleet recorded to date was only defeated after an emperor class ship blew its warp engine to transport the nid fleed to oblivion.

So just detonate a few more Warp drives. It's easy enough to find volunteers to perform suicide missions in the Imperium.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Yaavaragefinkinman wrote:

The largest hive fleet recorded to date was only defeated after an emperor class ship blew its warp engine to transport the nid fleed to oblivion.

So just detonate a few more Warp drives. It's easy enough to find volunteers to perform suicide missions in the Imperium.

It was Behemoth... so I have no idea why the hell he claimed it was the largest fleet recorded, Leviathan is far larger.

Also the IoM never tried it again for some weird reason.

Because ships are more valuable than planets in the Imperium.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Because ships are more valuable than planets in the Imperium.

That would be a good argument if Leviathan hadn't destroyed Ultima's fleet and the Tempestus fleets were unable to even slow down Leviathan.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Does the emperor and his daemons ( er.... I mean Angaels?) get to participate in this fight? What about The Legion of the Damned?

Yes and yes. Furthermore, there are no daemonic incursions to worry about.

what about the genestealer cults subverting the Iom supply lines. Causing rebellions in the hive worlds and taking up key positions throughout. The nids would win any prolonged campaign of attrition.

 Yaavaragefinkinman wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Well if the psykers aren't held back, you'll have guys like Dak'ir just shredding Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra with little effort. The main thing constraining the Imperium is Chaos... without that it's open season on Tyranids as humans can utilize their psychic powers without restraint. Alpha Psykers in general will just go to town and reap trillions..

You have forgotten one extremely important thing in this statement. Nids have psykers too and also the Big BIG thing you forget is the Shadow in the Warp. On such a massive scale that Tyranid force would block the warp to the extreme. To reference several source materials at once gathered by Lexicanum:

"The effects of the shadow are varied:
The average citizen experences uneasiness and terrible nightmares.
The psyker or anybody with warp sensibility suffers severe headaches, uncontrollable screaming, bleeding eyes and unconsciousness.
It blocks most astropathic signals.
Complicates warp travel.
Disrupts psychic phenomena.

And this is just from your average lone Hive Fleet. On such a massive scale Psykers would be completely ****ed to the point that they probably couldn't even sustain ordinary combat. Hell most psykers (special snowflake Tigirus excluded) go crazy or die upon attempts to just contact or "touch" the Hive Mind.

Except this completely forgets that most trained psykers like Librarians don't suffer perils of the warp from exposure to nearby Hive Fleets, and rather seem fairly untroubled. Especially when Alpha Psykers make the Tyranids look like gammas.

As people really don't seem to get this, a full blown Alpha Psyker completely unrestrained would be wiping out entire Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra, only not on splinters. It would only take one psyker on the level of empowered Dak'ir to wipe out an entire hive fleet. These are the psykers capable of blowing up planets, cutting capital ships apart with swords, or mind controlling people over several lightyears.

 Wyzilla wrote:


Except this completely forgets that most trained psykers like Librarians don't suffer perils of the warp from exposure to nearby Hive Fleets, and rather seem fairly untroubled. Especially when Alpha Psykers make the Tyranids look like gammas.

As people really don't seem to get this, a full blown Alpha Psyker completely unrestrained would be wiping out entire Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra, only not on splinters. It would only take one psyker on the level of empowered Dak'ir to wipe out an entire hive fleet. These are the psykers capable of blowing up planets, cutting capital ships apart with swords, or mind controlling people over several lightyears.

Mephiston's power is (and I quote GW "gods eye text" here) a candle before a raging star when compared with the Hive Mind being channeled through the Maleceptor trio that beat him into a coma.

Furthermore, I'm just not buying this "alphas are gods" thing. If alpha psykers are invincibly powerful... why haven't they destroyed/conquered the galaxy? Do you have a citation for this, or is it just tenth hand information?

If they are that powerful, then obviously they've been brought down before as well. If so, how?

Yeah, alpha level psykers are good and all, but on the scale we're talking about they're a drop in the water.

Even the Emperor at full strength would not count for a significant chunk of the tyranid force going mano-el-mano.

 Scrabb wrote:
Yeah, alpha level psykers are good and all, but on the scale we're talking about they're a drop in the water.

Even the Emperor at full strength would not count for a significant chunk of the tyranid force going mano-el-mano.

What are you basing this on? Your opinion?

Yes sir.

Still in the IoM camp.

the ability to destroy a planet Is impressive. But there's only a handful of alpha psykers. That, IMO, is like adding three times their number in capital ships. A bare fraction of the actual strength of the IoM.

I'm always willing to learn though. If there's evidence they can control/destroy entire systems without much thought. Then they'd be a significant boost to the IoM.

 Scrabb wrote:
Yes sir.

Still in the IoM camp.

the ability to destroy a planet Is impressive. But there's only a handful of alpha psykers. That, IMO, is like adding three times their number in capital ships. A bare fraction of the actual strength of the IoM.

I'm always willing to learn though. If there's evidence they can control/destroy entire systems without much thought. Then they'd be a significant boost to the IoM.

We would also need to see evidence that they are immune to the shadow in the warp, because most psykers go wild, and I would think that an alpha gone mad would be a bigger liability to blow itself and anything near itself up than an entire hive fleet.

The only references information on the Apex Twins I could find.

Psykers simply won't be a problem for Tyranids. The Shadow in the Warp makes utilizing Psykic Powers dangerous, and the Shadow created by a fleet as big as the OP means would have a colossal shadow. Of course it's conjecture, but you'd imagine that the Shadow would even be able to blot out the Astrominician or at least dim it if it got close to Terra. With that in mind, as soon as the Astrominician goes down, all Imperial Reinforcements are practically useless as they are now blundering around the warp with no point of reference.

Also remember Tyranids don't have to battle their way through the Galaxy to get to Sol, because the Galaxy isn't 2D. Leviathan is shown to be coming *up* from under the Galactic Plane, so all it would take is a concentrated assault spearing its way almost straight into Sol, blotting out the Astrominician which in turn stops most far flung reinforcements (neutralizing most of the IoM's numbers) and then it's one big royal rumble about defending Terra.

Of course, this is assuming the IoM doesn't predict this and pre-emptively move their military forces to Sol, but assuming the forces are as spread out around the Galaxy as they are now, Tyranids have a major advantage by popping up wherever they like from under the Galactic Plane.

Mephiston is not an alpha level psyker, ELDRAD is probably not registered as an alpha.


As for the emperor comment....


Empy, single handendly, pulps the minds of an entire ork wwaaaaggghhh. (A VERY big one) with a single thought. Without breaking a sweat.

I stand corrected. Another notch for the IoM.

 raiden wrote:
Mephiston is not an alpha level psyker, ELDRAD is probably not registered as an alpha.


As for the emperor comment....


Empy, single handendly, pulps the minds of an entire ork wwaaaaggghhh. (A VERY big one) with a single thought. Without breaking a sweat.

When would i find this? I assume it was when the Empy was fighting the Beast?

Didn't ANY of you see Starship Troopers? The attractive humans will survive, no matter the odds. The lovable friends, sadly, will not all make it, while unlikable humans will go extinct. A 1 v 1 nid war sounds like it would be the best thing to happen to humanity.

 Tyran wrote:

Also the IoM never tried it again for some weird reason.

Probably because it was really dumb (and from what I've heard a retcon from previous background). Detonating your warp drives like that would cripple any attack. Considering the size we're talking about it'd likely drag entire planets into the Warp. And the Imperium has a large number of willing martyrs.

ALEXisAWESOME wrote:Psykers simply won't be a problem for Tyranids. The Shadow in the Warp makes utilizing Psykic Powers dangerous, and the Shadow created by a fleet as big as the OP means would have a colossal shadow. Of course it's conjecture, but you'd imagine that the Shadow would even be able to blot out the Astrominician or at least dim it if it got close to Terra. With that in mind, as soon as the Astrominician goes down, all Imperial Reinforcements are practically useless as they are now blundering around the warp with no point of reference.

Some Psykers are still capable of forcing themselves through the Shadow of the Warp. Alpha-plus Psykers wouldn't be stopped by it. I believe there's a line about "theoretically nothing being beyond their power" with sufficient will behind it.

Additionally, the closer you get to Terra the strong the Astronomicon shines. It's entirely possible the Shadow would be unable to dull it completely. Indeed, in theory the opposite could happen.

Xyptc wrote:

 Scrabb wrote:


Exterminatus. Done.


Seriously folks, all the Imperium has to do is monitor Nid fleet movement (easy) and pop the planets after the nids land. It is explicit tyranid fluff that long periods without feeding weakens them. Every planet they hit they will lose biomass and cannot do anything about it. IoM can do this for thousands of systems.

1) Exterminatus isn't "easy" to pull off. You've got to get in range, you've got to make sure it's effective, you've got to make sure you get enough Tyranids to make it worthwhile. As for "monitoring the Tyranid fleet movements being easy"... it's explicitly stated that one of the things that makes the Tyranid advance so hard to handle is because it is ridiculously hard to determine where they are going. Sure, once they reach a system you usually have a chance of getting your act together as they often move very slowly*, but as the Shadow in the Warp crashes communication actually telling each other where the ships are becomes incredibly difficult. You can get a rough idea where they are because you find dead worlds/systems, but where they actually appear next is often a complete surprise. Unless you bait them in somehow.

*Furthermore, recent Tyranid fluff has Tyranid Hive Fleets millions strong crossing systems in a matter of days, implying that they are either arriving a lot closer to planets than they used to, or they are actually faster than a lot of sources give them credit for.

2) Tactics don't usually work against a Tyranid fleet for long. They adapt their strategies on a grand scale. If a large number of heavy losses are sustained while preparing to feed (lots of successful exterminatus incidents) who's to say that they won't modify their feeding style by either not commiting more than they have to or (worse) committing such ridiculous numbers that entire systems are wiped clean in less than a week, giving the Imperium no time to plan an exterminatus at all. In the Shield of Baal campaign, the Leviathan tendril crushes a rock-hard system in three days, and if the Blood Angels chapter (that's almost their entire chapter, by the way, plus assorted allies) had been just a few days later the consumption phase would have been over and it would have been far too late for any exterminatus attempt at all.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Life-eater_Virus#Virus_Bombs

Virus Bombs
Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals. This process of cellular decay also produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The population of Tallarn managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.

Basically, all biomass is burned in a matter of minutes. Seems pretty easy to me. Virus bomb a system the 'Nids are going to hit in a few hours, then leave. Seems pretty dang easy to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yaavaragefinkinman wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Well if the psykers aren't held back, you'll have guys like Dak'ir just shredding Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra with little effort. The main thing constraining the Imperium is Chaos... without that it's open season on Tyranids as humans can utilize their psychic powers without restraint. Alpha Psykers in general will just go to town and reap trillions..

You have forgotten one extremely important thing in this statement. Nids have psykers too and also the Big BIG thing you forget is the Shadow in the Warp. On such a massive scale that Tyranid force would block the warp to the extreme. To reference several source materials at once gathered by Lexicanum:

"The effects of the shadow are varied:
The average citizen experences uneasiness and terrible nightmares.
The psyker or anybody with warp sensibility suffers severe headaches, uncontrollable screaming, bleeding eyes and unconsciousness.
It blocks most astropathic signals.
Complicates warp travel.
Disrupts psychic phenomena.

And this is just from your average lone Hive Fleet. On such a massive scale Psykers would be completely ****ed to the point that they probably couldn't even sustain ordinary combat. Hell most psykers (special snowflake Tigirus excluded) go crazy or die upon attempts to just contact or "touch" the Hive Mind.

The God-Emperor (yes, he is a God of the Warp, we have more than ample evidence of that) of mankind is currently holding four other gods in check. He may be losing the war, but he is still stopping them from filling the entire galaxy with Daemons, as they could easily do with all of the power the Imperium of Man is constantly feeding them (Emprah really fethed up with building the Imperium). The Emperor is easily a match for two of these Gods combined, a third and he struggles, a fourth and he is gradually losing. You say that the Shadow in the Warp would be sufficient to negate the advantage of Alpha Psykers, but I say that the Emperor's full force (and that includes the LotD and the "Legions of Fire", aka, a metric asston of the Emperor's Daemons constantly battling Chaos) would be more than capable of negating that, and still having a massive impact upon any battlefield. Of course, any such conflict would likely result in more Chaos Gods being generated by all of the negative energies feeding into the Warp, but this new pantheon would likely be guided by the Emperor, so it would just add even more power to humanity. If there were no Chaos Pantheon, than humans would be able to curbstomp all other races combined (except for the Orks, because Gork and Mork) through the sheer power of the Emperor, and their own psychic emanations (even the non-psykers release energies into the Warp that feed the Gods, or create new ones to embody said energies) combined with the might of Alpha Psykers, who, now unfettered, would be able to summon an army of Daemons whom they have molded themselves to serve the Imperium, as, with no threat of Chaos, they would be able to freely dabble in the energies of the Warp and mold it to obey their will. Said Daemons could then combat the Tyranids as well. Altogether, the humans would win simply because they would have almost of the entirety of the Warp behind them.

 dusara217 wrote:

Virus Bombs
Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals. This process of cellular decay also produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The population of Tallarn managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.

Basically, all biomass is burned in a matter of minutes. Seems pretty easy to me. Virus bomb a system the 'Nids are going to hit in a few hours, then leave. Seems pretty dang easy to me.

I'm tempted to quote Trinity from the Matrix:

"Adapt to this."



Or, alternatively, that quote can be attributed to the BBEG from X-men origins, who actually said exactly that. Trinity did it with more style though.

 Scrabb wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

Virus Bombs
Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals. This process of cellular decay also produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The population of Tallarn managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.

Basically, all biomass is burned in a matter of minutes. Seems pretty easy to me. Virus bomb a system the 'Nids are going to hit in a few hours, then leave. Seems pretty dang easy to me.

I'm tempted to quote Trinity from the Matrix:

"Adapt to this."



Or, alternatively, that quote can be attributed to the BBEG from X-men origins, who actually said exactly that. Trinity did it with more style though.

Except for you know, all the survivors on Istvaan...

Furthermore, the BFG fluff features virus weapons being used on Tyranids, which quickly become immune and (worse) then spit the sa,e virus right back at the humans next time they board a ship.

Life Eater itself might be more challenging but if humans built it Tyranids can figure out how it works and come up with a counter. It is what they do.

Xyptc wrote:

 Scrabb wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

Virus Bombs
Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals. This process of cellular decay also produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The population of Tallarn managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.

Basically, all biomass is burned in a matter of minutes. Seems pretty easy to me. Virus bomb a system the 'Nids are going to hit in a few hours, then leave. Seems pretty dang easy to me.

I'm tempted to quote Trinity from the Matrix:

"Adapt to this."



Or, alternatively, that quote can be attributed to the BBEG from X-men origins, who actually said exactly that. Trinity did it with more style though.

Except for you know, all the survivors on Istvaan...

Furthermore, the BFG fluff features virus weapons being used on Tyranids, which quickly become immune and (worse) then spit the sa,e virus right back at the humans next time they board a ship.

Life Eater itself might be more challenging but if humans built it Tyranids can figure out how it works and come up with a counter. It is what they do.

I'm not talking about using it on the 'Nids. Use it on the humans. If a 'Nids fleet is about to NOM a system, then send a fleet there to forestall them, and virus bomb every habitable world in the system. Then retreat to a stronghold and observe the 'nids to see where they will go next.

 raiden wrote:
Mephiston is not an alpha level psyker, ELDRAD is probably not registered as an alpha.


As for the emperor comment....


Empy, single handendly, pulps the minds of an entire ork wwaaaaggghhh. (A VERY big one) with a single thought. Without breaking a sweat.

Interesting head cannon considering that the Empy and his Primarchs have faced a big Waaaagh! before and he wasn't capable of single handedly turning their minds into pulp, indeed he couldn't even do that to their Warboss known as "The Beast" and had to be save by Horus. I'm thinking you are falling prey to the myths and legends created by the authors from the point of view of the average Imperium who is made to believe that the Empy is a god.

 dusara217 wrote:

Xyptc wrote:

 Scrabb wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

Virus Bombs
Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals. This process of cellular decay also produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The population of Tallarn managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.

Basically, all biomass is burned in a matter of minutes. Seems pretty easy to me. Virus bomb a system the 'Nids are going to hit in a few hours, then leave. Seems pretty dang easy to me.

I'm tempted to quote Trinity from the Matrix:

"Adapt to this."



Or, alternatively, that quote can be attributed to the BBEG from X-men origins, who actually said exactly that. Trinity did it with more style though.

Except for you know, all the survivors on Istvaan...

Furthermore, the BFG fluff features virus weapons being used on Tyranids, which quickly become immune and (worse) then spit the sa,e virus right back at the humans next time they board a ship.

Life Eater itself might be more challenging but if humans built it Tyranids can figure out how it works and come up with a counter. It is what they do.

I'm not talking about using it on the 'Nids. Use it on the humans. If a 'Nids fleet is about to NOM a system, then send a fleet there to forestall them, and virus bomb every habitable world in the system. Then retreat to a stronghold and observe the 'nids to see where they will go next.

Krypman did that, ended excommunicated.