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Charax wrote:
Well *something* has to hunt gazelles and elephants, makes sense to breed existing forms that are also capable of doing those things rather than tasking an entire new life form to do it.

You have a mass-produced gaunt variant bred for speed that has been doing exceptionally well against the bipedal meat creatures with guns you keep encountering, but a lot of these worlds also seem to have very fast quadrupedal herbivorous lifeforms that those gaunts can't quite reach. Makes more sense to make hormagaunts a little bit faster to perform both roles rather than make something new to hunt the herbivores

Termagant with a spike rifle.

Charax wrote:
Well *something* has to hunt gazelles and elephants, makes sense to breed existing forms that are also capable of doing those things rather than tasking an entire new life form to do it.

You have a mass-produced gaunt variant bred for speed that has been doing exceptionally well against the bipedal meat creatures with guns you keep encountering, but a lot of these worlds also seem to have very fast quadrupedal herbivorous lifeforms that those gaunts can't quite reach. Makes more sense to make hormagaunts a little bit faster to perform both roles rather than make something new to hunt the herbivores

As the spike rifle above.
-OR-
You don't need very fast creatures, because you can just chase them over long distances like humans used to do.
-OR-
The carpet of ripper swarms eats all the plants, then all the gazelles die of starvation.

Also, the Hive Mind has encountered life on countless worlds.

Whilst the jury is out on whether at least some Deathworlds became so following an ancient Tyranid Invasion? Deathworlds are something the Hive Mind has to deal with.

So it’s not just hunting gazelle and elephant analogs, but also Catachan Devils, Ambull, Space Dinosaurs, all sorts of crazy life forms normally perfectly capable of defending themselves, and often highly aggressive.

On speed, out of curiosity I looked up the movement characteristics for various Tyranids in 2nd edition.

Human/Marine - 4
Eldar Guardian/Aspect Warrior - 5
Termagaunt, Hormagaunt, Genestealer, Tyranid Warrior, Hive Tyrant, Lictor, Carnifex - 6

Things like the Biovore and Zoanthrope were 4. But nearly all Tyranids were faster than your typical Eldar.

There’s also no guarantee that Tyranids organisms have “specced in” to a single role.

In natural evolution, it’s driven by a number of factors, including exploiting a niche in the biome. And once you’re performing in that niche, in a relatively stable environment, you’re exposed to lesser evolutionary pressure.

And so we tend to see species specialise in just a couple of things. For instance, ambush hunting or persistence hunting as a preference, pack or lone hunting, typically with some ability to be flexible/opportunistic.

But for Tyranids? Their evolution is different. They’re designed, not solely tied to the whims of random mutation and change in allele frequency and that.

And so they needn’t have the same limitations. So, a Hormagaunt may be just as capable at persistence hunting, as ambush hunting.

A Carnifex is well armoured, and a capable predator - whereas in nature, you tend to see that being one or the other as a trait, typically herbivores with armour, carnivores with Great Big Teeth Like That. And it has a variety of tools for tackling prey - its ranged weapons, natural blades as typically seen on insects, claws normally seen in certain crustaceans.

 Tyran wrote:
Regardless of how the Hive Mind does it, there is an utilitarian design goal here: Tyranid swarms are designed with the purpose of out fighting the other militaries in the galaxy.

A hormagaunt isn't designed to hunt gazelles, so a cheetah is a poor comparison. It is designed to hunt Imperial guardsmen and thus its real benchmark is how fast Imperial Guards armies move on the field and the effective range of their weapons.

Same with carnifexes. It doesn't hunt elephants, it hunts battle tanks.

Russes are quoted as going between 30 and 70km/h. Chimeras are listed at 55-70km/h

If the beasties can't redeploy as quickly or faster than their primary targets, then they are at a disadvantage on an individual and small-unit basis. In some cases, this disadvantage could be addressed through logistics, just having may more carnifexes and therefore having enough everywhere. However, the balance of resource management then comes into play Is it better to do that or have beasties that can outmanoeuvre their primary targets.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, the Hive Mind has encountered life on countless worlds.

Whilst the jury is out on whether at least some Deathworlds became so following an ancient Tyranid Invasion? Deathworlds are something the Hive Mind has to deal with.

So it’s not just hunting gazelle and elephant analogs, but also Catachan Devils, Ambull, Space Dinosaurs, all sorts of crazy life forms normally perfectly capable of defending themselves, and often highly aggressive.

If such fauna causes trouble, then tyranids need to go smaller, not bigger. Just a swarm of scuttling critters. Or even diseases, transmitted by tyranid "mosquitoes" and other biting insect analogues.

Hive Mind, from what we’ve seen, prefers to go “many sizes fit everything”.

Otherwise, we might see it just vomit untold phage viruses from orbit. Which it does do, but alongside all the other uglybuglies.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hive Mind, from what we’ve seen, prefers to go “many sizes fit everything”.

Otherwise, we might see it just vomit untold phage viruses from orbit. Which it does do, but alongside all the other uglybuglies.

The game puts limits on the capacity of the Tyranids to just auto-win every encounter. This then creates limits in the lore for what the Tyranids can and can't do, regardless of the logical application or extrapolation that could be done using the knowledge of the fan base.

The Virus Outbreak card needed to be torn up for a very good reason.

The Imperium can Exterminatus planets, but on the whole there are compelling reasons not to do so. The same restriction must apply to Tyranids as well, even if the logic thread might feel a bit hinky.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maybe the Hive Mind is incapable of distinguishing between micro and macro, and already thinks its operating at the level of mosquitos and viruses

Our dog is fundamentally incapable of understanding how big she is, so maybe its a blind spot for the Nids as well

Tyranids already deploy highly toxic spores that kill and pre-disgest unprotected organisms, with recent books noting that Imperial guardsmen without environmental protection equipment just die as their lungs liquify.

Presumably the same happens to most fauna aside of the most poisonous death worlds.

It suggests the Hive Mind isn’t just about consuming worlds, but also collecting DNA. Otherwise, you’d just poop a load of viruses into the atmosphere.

Which offers a potential insight to its overall goal.

I still stand by my head canon its origin may be an organic STC equivalent gone well out of control. I can’t back that up with anything other than speculation and it being cool to my mind.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It suggests the Hive Mind isn’t just about consuming worlds, but also collecting DNA. Otherwise, you’d just poop a load of viruses into the atmosphere.

Which offers a potential insight to its overall goal.

I still stand by my head canon its origin may be an organic STC equivalent gone well out of control. I can’t back that up with anything other than speculation and it being cool to my mind.

Eh, it's cool, and there's no evidence that it's false.
Don't go saying it as gospel, but as your own personal thoughts? Hell yeah.