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 Overread wrote:
Orbital Bombardment isn't cheap and most of the orbital weapons we see tend to have quite significant fallout and side effects. Yes you can burn whole worlds to secure them, but then you've got to spend a fortune rebuilding the world to make it functional again. Plus with the way technology works there are many buildings the Imperium might not know how to rebuild or how to restore their original function to its former glory. Tech resources that are limited.

Heck the Imperium did conduct a huge orbital bombardment campaign clearing worlds ahead of the Hive Fleet and - people didn't like it.


In general it meant that whole worlds were sacrificed, whole territories lost and it might take generations to reclaim those worlds and have them profitable and productive and able to support populations.


Meanwhile the Tyranids sustained themselves. Which is the issue; a creeping retreat is just that, it might buy you a little time but its not actually going to stop them.

Tyranids can also adapt to harsh conditions on worlds very quickly and without apparent need to spend excessive resources to do that. So burning worlds might strip them of easy food, but it doesn't stop the Tyranids taking and using them if they need too.

The point was about Tyranids. They don't care about rebuilding worlds. It might have been more in character IMO for the Tyranids to have slathered the battlefield in acid instead of a duel, since they were shown to do just that a page earlier with Ork mountains, or to hurl a sacrificial bioship at the battlefield to ensure death of the Overfiend. By that point the Orks did not have enough anti-orbital defenses to stop Tyranids from landing or bombarding. It would have contrasted against the Orks and the individualism of their leaders.

A lot of 40k can be asked “why not orbital bombardment?” It makes sense on so many levels. But 40k is not about being sane. It’s about being cinematic and cool.

Duels between leaders have been done so many times already and even in the same book, Helbrecht already fought a duel against another Ork leader.

Having the Overfiend fight and think he's going to get a duel only to then be smothered by a sea of acid from orbit or a kamikaze bioship is cinematic IMO. Just think of the opening cinematic from Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm (which might as well be a Tyranid attack), where the ship crashes down on the battlefield, only this time imagine it is the Tyranid ship that crashes down on purpose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVbeoSPqRs4

 Nevelon wrote:

A lot of 40k can be asked “why not orbital bombardment?” It makes sense on so many levels. But 40k is not about being sane. It’s about being cinematic and cool.

Well in the Tyranids case the answer to that question seems easy. Orbital bombardment unnecessarily cooks off otherwise very tasty biomass. So instead of bombardment, the Hive Mind deploys 100,000,000,000 hungry mouths to the surface. If 90% of them die, it will just grow and send more mouths.

Voss wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Lets put it this way - the Silent King fled back to the Galaxy at top speed once he saw the Tyranids. Clearly he's very concerned about them, enough to want to reunite his people under one banner to provide a united front against them.

The Silent King wants to return the Necrons to flesh and blood again. He can't do that if the Galaxy is wiped clean of organic matter. The Tyranids are a threat to that goal.

Yes... a threat. That's the point. The premise of this thread (and the 'fleeing something worse' fanon) is that (somehow) the tyranids are bottom tier jokes.
The Supreme Overlord of the Ancient and Most Powerful alien race with magic science superweapons Noped the Hell Out and started devising brand new countermeasures out of fear of them. That does not make sense if they're just mediocre scavengers or remnants.
Clearly in-universe, tyranids are serious business.

Again, the premise of the thread is that nids seem relatively weak compared to the other factions *at the peak of their power*, not currently now they're all in decline. Currently the nids are plenty threatening!

Somehow this keeps getting missed. I actually thought it's an interesting point, I've been playing them since late second but never considered that before now.

Even "peak" factions are still only galactic level powers, while Tyranids are free to expand through the cosmos. That means even "peak" factions are limited to one galaxy of resources for their use, while Tyranids are hypothetically unlimited, infinite. I mean, even the concept of using the Celestial Orrery has an inherent flaw, there is a limited amount of stars in the galaxy. We cannot assert that the Tyranids are equally limited.

And of course, there is a reason why we call them "at their peak", all those civilizations fell to time and decay: a few million years was enough to ground the greatest of the galaxy civilizations into dust. The Tyranids do not share those flaws, time has little value to them.

And I'm not just stating these ideas, they are actually old in the Tyranid lore.

The Tyranids had found the only possible remedy for this. They moved from galaxy to galaxy, harvesting fresh, newly evolved DNA with which to renew and reinvigorate their own. They were the universe's ultimate life form. Quite possibly they had existed forever and would continue to exist forever. Quite possibly the universe contained an infinite number of hive fleets.

The Imperium of Man had beaten off one hive fleet. Perhaps it could beat off others. It would be a rare reversal for the Tyranids, but that did not matter at all. In a few million years the Imperium would be gone, the human race would be gone, and some other hive fleet would arrive, meeting weaker resistance, and would leave the galaxy lifeless and desolate.

Then, a few billion years later, life would evolve all over again, on millions of planets.

And again a hive fleet would move in....

He would try to persuade Drenthan Drews to join the Imperial Guard and help defend the Imperium. Hive Fleet Kraken had to be repelled or humanity was doomed.

Not that the outcome was of any importance to the Tyranids. To them, species evolved and perished like blades of grass. Galaxies condensed, blazed, then guttered out. The supposedly immortal Chaos gods would not even last that long. They would perish when the psyches which sustained them died out.

Only the Tyranids lasted forever.

Now these quotes are from Hive Fleet Horror, which I believe is from 2000, which is 3rd edition lore. Back then Kraken was the big bad hive fleet and Leviathan had yet to make its debut in 4th edition. But it is one of the few pieces of lore that addresses the implications of the Tyranids' extra-galactic nature.

shortymcnostrill wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Lets put it this way - the Silent King fled back to the Galaxy at top speed once he saw the Tyranids. Clearly he's very concerned about them, enough to want to reunite his people under one banner to provide a united front against them.

The Silent King wants to return the Necrons to flesh and blood again. He can't do that if the Galaxy is wiped clean of organic matter. The Tyranids are a threat to that goal.

Yes... a threat. That's the point. The premise of this thread (and the 'fleeing something worse' fanon) is that (somehow) the tyranids are bottom tier jokes.
The Supreme Overlord of the Ancient and Most Powerful alien race with magic science superweapons Noped the Hell Out and started devising brand new countermeasures out of fear of them. That does not make sense if they're just mediocre scavengers or remnants.
Clearly in-universe, tyranids are serious business.

Again, the premise of the thread is that nids seem relatively weak compared to the other factions *at the peak of their power*, not currently now they're all in decline. Currently the nids are plenty threatening!

Somehow this keeps getting missed. I actually thought it's an interesting point, I've been playing them since late second but never considered that before now.

It isn't missed. The peak of various races' mythological powers seems unimpressive compared to the Hive Fleets, which have successfully wiped out a galaxy or twelve. Necron and Eldar 'peak achievements' are failure.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
we have a HH short story where a man of iron helps the Ad mech destroy the dark mech, the man of iron being an AI just put itself into the machines it wanted to control, now we know they do not need a body it opens up the chance that others exist.

as for the gods, you could destroy the 40k universe and they would not care, they are a multiversal threat not tied directly to the 40k universe.

They kind of say and imply that. But if it was fully true, why don't the legions bound to the chaos gods show up in Fantasy and start blasting people with chaos infused bolters? Where are the demon engines? A plague crawler doesn't actually give a gak if it's attacking the 40k universe or the fantasy one.

This



doesn't give a single gak what it's killing. It's just happy to be killing. Why is it not showing up everywhere?

Because the gods are multiversal, not their mortal followers with a couple of exceptions like Archaon, we have Demon engines crossing reality as well as demonic creatures such as the mutalith.

The fantasy universe is not in the 40k one but the warp touches both

It isn't missed. The peak of various races' mythological powers seems unimpressive compared to the Hive Fleets, which have successfully wiped out a galaxy or twelve. Necron and Eldar 'peak achievements' are failure.

I don't see how annihilating a galaxy or two is more impressive than being able to control stars themselves and use them as a fuel or a natural weapon. I don't see how it's more impressive than being able to withstand, defeat and then imprison what's possibly the oldest race that ever existed and imprison them into shards to use them as incredibly potent war slaves. Both Eldar and Necrons had literal control of natural matter and energy of the universe.

Give Orks sufficient numbers and evolution and I'll guarantee you they'll be a far more deadlier threat than nids could ever hope to be. But that's all Nids can offer. Destruction. Even Orks with enough of cultural evolution are capable of sustainment.

Voss wrote:

It isn't missed. The peak of various races' mythological powers seems unimpressive compared to the Hive Fleets, which have successfully wiped out a galaxy or twelve. Necron and Eldar 'peak achievements' are failure.

Ah my bad then, I misunderstood you.

IDK if this has been said before in this thread, but the tyranids always get pushed back for one simple reason: a victory for the tyranids would spell the end of 40k as a setting. To the tyranids, it's everything or nothing. They don't govern, they don't build, and they don't have any grand plan. They'll just keep coming until everything organic in the galaxy has been consumed.

The closest thing to a victory that the tyranids can achieve (from a meta standpoint, not an in-universe one) is if they manage to establish some sort of permanent "beachhead" in one corner of the galaxy from which they can continue launching attacks. Or perhaps if they perform a tactical retreat after consuming a large amount of organic material and/or significantly weakening one of the major factions.

I'd also wager that every tyrannic war has been a lot costlier for the Imperium than the tyranids.

Tyranids are not a joke. In fact, they are so much not a joke, that the reason they always lose is because the writers of 40k cannot allow them to win. Except maybe in a "what-if" scenario similar to the End Times of Warhammer Fantasy.

.

I mean that's the same reason every major Ork Wargh falls apart; or the Imperium is constantly being torn in too many directions internally and externally to unit; or the Chaos Gods just turn their newest leader into a spoon or something otherwise mad to stop them winning; etc....

Every major faction that "could" arise into a serious singular mega-power has at least one or more repeat major flaws that prevents them rising up.

Cause in the end the lore isn't a story of a Stellaris game; its a story that works with a wargame and the last time GW allowed one faction to win and ended the setting - that was not a popular choice .

 Overread wrote:
I mean that's the same reason every major Ork Wargh falls apart; or the Imperium is constantly being torn in too many directions internally and externally to unit; or the Chaos Gods just turn their newest leader into a spoon or something otherwise mad to stop them winning; etc....

Every major faction that "could" arise into a serious singular mega-power has at least one or more repeat major flaws that prevents them rising up.

Cause in the end the lore isn't a story of a Stellaris game; its a story that works with a wargame and the last time GW allowed one faction to win and ended the setting - that was not a popular choice .

Its not the same thing. If the imperium of man wins they sit in their corner of the galaxy (they don't actually have the population to inhabit the entire galaxy) and act miserable to their own people.

If the nids win its the end of life for the entire galaxy.

Its not just a difference in scale. Its a difference of kind.

What about Necrons? They'd also wipe out all life. And then probably go back to sleep for a few more millennia and then do it all over again.


Tyranids end-game is different, but in the end most races have potential to win and destroy all others. About the only ones that actually don't are Eldar and Dark Eldar because their numbers are just too low on the Galactic scale; and Tau though their lore is ever changing and in theory they could expand super-fast if they found ways to win over Imperial worlds en-mass.

Agreed!

 Lance845 wrote:
There are only 2 actual threats to the galaxy in 40k.

Necrons, whos tech is so beyond the scope of everyone else that they could annihilate everything from their diner table while sipping wine. (They have that living star map of the galaxy where they can manipulate celestial bodies in real time by swiping on it like a cell phone including winking stars out of existence.)

And the Tyranids, who eat entire galaxies. Everyone else is so caught up in their petty squabbles they don't even realize the scope of the threat.

People might argue that the chaos gods are also a threat, but if Chaos actually wins and all life is extinguished/falls to the warp then there are no more intelligent creatures to sustain them in the warp and they end up losing anyway. So while yes, bad for everyone, they ultimately cannot win themselves.

Thats it. It only LOOKS like the Tyranids are not such a huge threat because they are looking at all the blood sweat and tears spent defending single systems from them, the sheer scope of the loss to do it, and they think it's a victory. As though they caused real loss and/or damage to the tyranids. As though it wasn't just causing the hive mind to chip a nail.

roboemperor wrote:
From my reading it seems like the Tyranids are a total joke compared to all the factions at their peak.

It is my understanding that individual Krorks are stronger than the beast. And every ork was a Krork back in the day. If Octarius is anything to go by, Krorks would seem to stomp the Tyranids hard.
Necrons have one too many super weapons. If all of them are operational and organized with full power C'tan support on top of that, it seems the Tyranids would be as strong as a cockroach v.s. a tank.
Eldar went tit for tat with the Necrons' super weapons with the blackstone fortresses. I don't see how Tyranids could handle system wiping super weapons that completely outranges them.
Men of Iron had what, Blackhole cannons? Sun snuffers? Swarms of little robots that nom faster and better than Tyranids? Seems like they'd do everything the Tyranids do but better.

So is it correct to assume that the Tyranids are just cockroaches feasting on the corpses of all the factions and they wouldn't stand a chance in hell if all the factions haven't completely gimped themselves?

Octarious? Does beach worry if grain of sand is lost? For that is size for tyranids.

All the fleets galaxy has seen is but mere tiny scouting forces...

If there was one existential threat other factions might find common enemy its tyranids who have numbers to devour entire galaxy. Even chaos hates idea. Tyranids is one thing that could get imperium, chaos, eldar, tau and necrons fight together...the only common foe.

 Tarara wrote:

It isn't missed. The peak of various races' mythological powers seems unimpressive compared to the Hive Fleets, which have successfully wiped out a galaxy or twelve. Necron and Eldar 'peak achievements' are failure.

I don't see how annihilating a galaxy or two is more impressive than being able to control stars themselves and use them as a fuel or a natural weapon. I don't see how it's more impressive than being able to withstand, defeat and then imprison what's possibly the oldest race that ever existed and imprison them into shards to use them as incredibly potent war slaves. Both Eldar and Necrons had literal control of natural matter and energy of the universe.

Yet both still managed to fail and fall. Apparently 'literal control of matter and energy' doesn't actually mean much. It couldn't give them real, actual control of even part of a galaxy, much less the annihilation of whole galaxies. 100 thousand million stars per galaxy, conservative medium 4-6 planets per star. Unknown percentage lifebearing (probably higher than reality, plus terraforming and stations and who knows what else), all gone. The sheer scale of that with even one galaxy beggars the imagination. Playing tiddlywinks with stars means nothing at this scale.

Tyranids are basically a macro-scale grey goo event, spreading out across the universe.

Give Orks sufficient numbers and evolution and I'll guarantee you they'll be a far more deadlier threat than nids could ever hope to be. But that's all Nids can offer. Destruction. Even Orks with enough of cultural evolution are capable of sustainment.

Ugh. This isn't the 30 second moral from a kids' cartoon in the 80s. Destruction is the point! Hypothetical cultural advancement of the orks as a species is... a really bizarre unrelated tangent.

It's also weird to argue the Tyranids are incapable of sustainment. The Tyranids were awoken from a nap in the dark between galaxies in the middle of the horus heresy. Presumably they didn't wink into existence at that moment. Which means not only did they wipe out their original galaxy and then become pan galactic threats, but they have managed to sustain themselves throughout the vast inconceivable distances between galaxies. The Milky Way is a pit stop on the Tyranids road trip of sustainment.

 Formosa wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
we have a HH short story where a man of iron helps the Ad mech destroy the dark mech, the man of iron being an AI just put itself into the machines it wanted to control, now we know they do not need a body it opens up the chance that others exist.

as for the gods, you could destroy the 40k universe and they would not care, they are a multiversal threat not tied directly to the 40k universe.

They kind of say and imply that. But if it was fully true, why don't the legions bound to the chaos gods show up in Fantasy and start blasting people with chaos infused bolters? Where are the demon engines? A plague crawler doesn't actually give a gak if it's attacking the 40k universe or the fantasy one.

This



doesn't give a single gak what it's killing. It's just happy to be killing. Why is it not showing up everywhere?

Because the gods are multiversal, not their mortal followers with a couple of exceptions like Archaon, we have Demon engines crossing reality as well as demonic creatures such as the mutalith.

The fantasy universe is not in the 40k one but the warp touches both

Is fun because in old fantasy chaos warriors actually had plasma guns as relics...

And that miniature?

Yeah...

Which is great for what it used to be. But again, if the Warp touches both, and there are Chaos space marines that live in the warp, then they should be able to be deployed in both. Same goes for the demon engines.

Not just a think on treads. But chain weapons. 40k weaponry. Once the Chaos gods have access to those tools why would they not use those tools?

 Tarara wrote:

It isn't missed. The peak of various races' mythological powers seems unimpressive compared to the Hive Fleets, which have successfully wiped out a galaxy or twelve. Necron and Eldar 'peak achievements' are failure.

I don't see how annihilating a galaxy or two is more impressive than being able to control stars themselves and use them as a fuel or a natural weapon. I don't see how it's more impressive than being able to withstand, defeat and then imprison what's possibly the oldest race that ever existed and imprison them into shards to use them as incredibly potent war slaves. Both Eldar and Necrons had literal control of natural matter and energy of the universe.

Give Orks sufficient numbers and evolution and I'll guarantee you they'll be a far more deadlier threat than nids could ever hope to be. But that's all Nids can offer. Destruction. Even Orks with enough of cultural evolution are capable of sustainment.

Tyranids' aspirations are more simple - their own survival by consuming all others. They don't need to wink out stars, kill gods, etc, they just need to eat you and your entire galaxy and then move on to the next one. The fact that they have done that to other galaxies already should actually be horrifying, moreso than the fact that their bio-tech isn't so flashy - it doesn't need to be, they've evolved to perform their purpose perfectly and will continue to do so to overcome all resistance.

I'm not sure the Gods are the same in AoS as they are in 40k. They're similar yes, but not the same beings.

The more I read Tyranid lore, the more I think, there's no reason why they can't build a blackstone fortress equivalent themselves. They're actually masters at warp manipulation. Even in BFGA2 they got things like **** huge psychic scream from a gloria-class sized Hive Ship and the ability to teleport short distances.

So put this together, there's no reason why they can't make a **** huge tyranid with a **** huge psychic cannon like the blackstone fortress. I mean they got a **** huge continent sized bioform that kills all psykers just by existing.

So maybe the Tyranids are not a joke. And their super weapons are just deemed unnecessary at this time.

The World Engine was defeated by a single space marine ship kamikaze-ing into it. Tyranids got infinite space marine sized ships.

roboemperor wrote:
The more I read Tyranid lore, the more I think, there's no reason why they can't build a blackstone fortress equivalent themselves. They're actually masters at warp manipulation. Even in BFGA2 they got things like **** huge psychic scream from a gloria-class sized Hive Ship and the ability to teleport short distances.

So put this together, there's no reason why they can't make a **** huge tyranid with a **** huge psychic cannon like the blackstone fortress. I mean they got a **** huge continent sized bioform that kills all psykers just by existing.

So maybe the Tyranids are not a joke. And their super weapons are just deemed unnecessary at this time.

The World Engine was defeated by a single space marine ship kamikaze-ing into it. Tyranids got infinite space marine sized ships.

They could probably make a planetkiller - if it weren't for the fact that destroying a planet would destroy all the biomass and therefore render it useless to themselves. This makes it extremely unlikely.

The thing to understand about Tyranid evolution is that it is intrinsically reactive. If they come across a world filled with life but no defenders, it just spams out monsters to eat, consume, and generally devour every last thing. If it runs into species with swords and armour, it'll make something with a claw strong enough to go through armour. If it runs into things with guns, it makes ranged xenoforms. If the things with guns deploy trench defences, it evolved something to help the gribblies cross trenches, and so on.

The intent, whatever lifeform based weapon is produced, is for that lifeform to help it overcome whatever resistance is being posed to the absorption of biomass. And then to re-absorb that weapon as excess biomass after its use is past.

Blowing up planets is consequently of little use or worth to the Tyranid. Likewise detonating stars or dropping black holes. It's essentially self-defeating. Even if they could somehow develop the means to do so biologically (unlikely for things like black holes), they wouldn't want to. They're actually more restrained than most sentient races in this regard.

This also makes it very difficult for the Tyranid to come up with a hard counter against super-weapons beyond 'swarm it with gribbles and hope to disable it before it can go off' (a not unfamiliar strategy for the Imperium also). If I blow up a planet, the Tyranids cannot somehow magically biologically repair the planet. If I snuff out a star, the Tyranid cannot develop a lifeform to replace it. If I drop a black hole, the Tyranids cannnot bio-engineer a fleshy containment box for it.

The Tyranids, bizarely, are actually the least ruthless party in this regard. Life must go on for them, or it ceases to be. There is simply no Tyranid counter for a scorched earth approach which turns entire star systems upside down.

 Ketara wrote:
They could probably make a planetkiller - if it weren't for the fact that destroying a planet would destroy all the biomass and therefore render it useless to themselves. This makes it extremely unlikely.

Most planets are "indigestible" to the great devourer so why would it give a **** whether it gets blown to smithereens or not?

------

On a different not, I've read that Tyranids go out of their way to avoid the outsider c'tan. Don't know if this is oldcron or newcron but it might signify that Tyranids are in fact a total joke to C'tans? And necrons, being entities that killed C'tans, would be immeasurably more powerful than the Tyranids at their peak?

The thing is with an unknown number of Tyranids in the black of space, a Scorched Earth policy can only work for so long. Even the Imperium, with its casual disregard for its general population (at the large scale) can't even sustain such a policy for very long.

Necrons might be able to for longer as they've a casual disregard for other life and don't really need food or resources like others; however they also have sense of property. They consider the Galaxy to belong to them. Yes they can blow up suns, but they don't want to blow up suns because they own those suns and have better ideas for them.


Thing is the scorched earth only slows Tyranids. It would work if their Hive Ships shows significant signs of suffering and if their reinforcements from space dwindled to nothing; then you could do a scorched earth and starve out the remains. But whilst they have potentially limitless or at least unknown, numbers sill migrating into the galaxy; scorched earth isn't the right move.

Heck even if you scorch every world and every sun there's nothing which says that the Tyranids are "starving". You could sacrifice everything and they just go "Oh no more food, fine next Galaxy." Or you find that what you've dealt with is just one massive tendril of the mass of the Swarm

I wonder if the best counter might actually be rather like dealing with Borg Shields in Star Trek. Constantly keep hitting the Tyranids with variable battle groups and situations. Yes that forces evolution, but at the same time if you keep changing you force the Tyranids to keep changing as well. That said there's at least one story of this happening between Tyranids and Nurgle forces and in the end the Tyranids kept up at an insane rate.

I wasn't talking about scorched earth. I was talking about Tyranids wiping out imperium fleets and then nom planets from there because without orbital superiority the planet is good as dead.

But then I remembered every hive fleet battle, and it always ended in the Tyranids' victory except when some kind of a super weapon was involved. magnovitrium. That warp drive thing. So it makes sense that the Tyranids wouldn't use a planet killer in these situations because why would they? They got the superior fleet.

And then i realized, wtf am I talking about right now? Tyranids don't need a planet killer at this time because their hive fleets are the strongest fleets in WH40k atm.

And then back to the original discussion, if Tyranids can build planet killers they're probably NOT a joke to every faction at their peak. But if they can't then they most certainly are.

Concept - Tyranids ARE Planet Killers themselves.

Problem is that we haven't read about what Tyranids at their peak are capable of. Single characters beating the SL is really not too important, because wars are won on the macro level, where Nids are formidable with near infinite sustainability, FTL travel and the shadow in the warp blocking most of the supernatural abilities that might help contest them. And that's their current – presumably toned down – iteration in the manufactured stalemate that is 40k. Taken to their logical extreme, they should "win" 40k.

roboemperor wrote:

On a different not, I've read that Tyranids go out of their way to avoid the outsider c'tan. Don't know if this is oldcron or newcron but it might signify that Tyranids are in fact a total joke to C'tans? And necrons, being entities that killed C'tans, would be immeasurably more powerful than the Tyranids at their peak?

Well to be fair the necrons didn't defeat the outsider either. Like a lot of war in heaven stuff the lore on it is a little fuzzy. But it seems to be the one C'tan that wasn't broken into shards, as it became too powerful to beat after cannibalizing so many of its brethren. But fortunately it instead went insane, and went off to live in a self imposed exile.

No one wants to poke the bear. Even the tyranids.

 BertBert wrote:
Problem is that we haven't read about what Tyranids at their peak are capable of. Single characters beating the SL is really not too important, because wars are won on the macro level, where Nids are formidable with near infinite sustainability, FTL travel and the shadow in the warp blocking most of the supernatural abilities that might help contest them. And that's their current – presumably toned down – iteration in the manufactured stalemate that is 40k. Taken to their logical extreme, they should "win" 40k.

I like the theory I read somewhere that the tyranids were running away from something much worse and only stooped in the galaxy to eat.

Andykp wrote:

 BertBert wrote:
Problem is that we haven't read about what Tyranids at their peak are capable of. Single characters beating the SL is really not too important, because wars are won on the macro level, where Nids are formidable with near infinite sustainability, FTL travel and the shadow in the warp blocking most of the supernatural abilities that might help contest them. And that's their current – presumably toned down – iteration in the manufactured stalemate that is 40k. Taken to their logical extreme, they should "win" 40k.

I like the theory I read somewhere that the tyranids were running away from something much worse and only stooped in the galaxy to eat.

This fan made up theory has already been debunked earlier in the thread. There isn't any actual evidence for it, and just because individuals within the 40K universe might speculate, that speculation does not mean it is true.