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.

Stop pointing out because the Necrons have no biomass, the Tyranids won't eat them. It makes very little sense that way. Eldar Craftworlds have very little biomass since the whole planet is made of not-so-edible Wraithbone and the Tyranids still go after them. Fauna and flora only consist of a small portion of total biomass available on a planet. The Tyranids devour land and water until the planet is a dried, barren piece of rock. If a Necron Tomb World still have those, the Tyranids will still come and eat them. The inhabitants matter very little. The only exceptions are Chaos because the biomass might be tainted to the point the Tyranids would have to evolve further to even start to chew and Orks whose worlds are so overpopulated (there are overall more Orks than any other race, but they hold one-tenth worlds as the Imperium) that they might actually account for a larger portion of the total biomass available.

This also means that Tyranids prefer eating worlds unpopulated by intelligent species since they will encounter less resistance there.

Are you mad at someone specific, or are you just picking a fight with the internet?

The Tyranids are motivated by 2 goals:

1. Sheer biomass for energy and raw material
2. New genetic information to absorb

A living world fulfills both.
A dead tombworld fulfills neither. Sure, the Tyranids could process even the CHNOPS bound in nonliving substrates, but that takes energy so the net profit is lower. Furthermore the Hive Mind is intelligent enough to know from past experience (since it is stated the Tyranids have already fought Necrons before), that the Necrons fight back.

Thus it makes no economic sense for the Tyranids to put in such effort to fight against a fierce enemy for so little expected gain even if they do win in the end. It is a simple cost vs. gain analysis. It is this same economic calculation that leads to for example, Kraken splinter fleets bypassing heavily defended worlds in favor of picking off isolated agri-worlds, which offer high gain for little effort/risk.

The same could be said for Chaos corrupted worlds, however the latest Tyranids Codex depicts Hive Fleet Kronos as being bred specifically to counter and attack Chaos despite daemons providing no sustenance, because it seems Chaos was competing for the same living parts of the galaxy that the Tyranids wish to ultimately consume. Kronos was subsidized by Leviathan, by Leviathan leaving worlds specifically for Kronos to consume.

It could be that given enough time or if Necrons are later perceived as being a similar competitor then the Tyranids may turn their attention more to the Necrons, if only to ensure that the Necrons do not interfere with other Tyranid consumption elsewhere.

Please stop trying to make sense of the Tyranids from a how-biology-really-works standpoint, because nothing about them works (for a start, just try comparing the energy densities of living tissue and rocket fuel, then ask how they can ever get anything off a planet's surface). 40K is a fantasy setting, not sci-fi. It's Spelljammer with the grimdark turned up. It's not Asimov.

Tyranids avoid Necron tomb worlds because a wizard cryptek did it, not because of some logical real-world-biology reason.

Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

pm713 wrote:

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

This is the best thing I've read all week.

Think of them as an Iron supplement to the Tyranids' diet. Gotta get your vitamins and minerals.

Tyranids wouldn’t ignore Necrons or Chaos Daemons. In several accounts in codexes the Tyranids have fought them. In one case Tyranids killed so many humans that a Warp Portal opened up and Khorne Daemons poured out. By the account he Tyranids saw the Daemons as competing predators and attacked the Daemons even though they leave no biomass when killed.

Similarly Necrons will protect their world’s from attack regardless of who is there and Necron planets are not all lifeless rocks. There is fauna and such that they can devour. And Nids could feasibly start destroying Necron structures without realizing it, threatening the Tombworld stability.

pm713 wrote:
Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

Well the real answer is they have some tendril things that reach the fleet. There was a thread here that had some great pictures of that.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

Well the real answer is they have some tendril things that reach the fleet. There was a thread here that had some great pictures of that.

Capillary towers or something, right? What happens to them after they send up all the biomass? Are they left or eaten or destroyed or what?

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Craftworlds are filled with biomes of forests, seas and animals. They're literally arks filled with ancient flora and fauna. They're basically gourmet meals for Tyranids but surrounded by lasers.

I'll tell you how Tyranids get things off planets. With a can-do attitude.

Well the real answer is they have some tendril things that reach the fleet. There was a thread here that had some great pictures of that.

Capillary towers or something, right? What happens to them after they send up all the biomass? Are they left or eaten or destroyed or what?

Think the thread said both, depending on when the fluff was made.

Capillary towers Just dries up and die. The dead Capillary towers just left there.

Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Whenever I really think about the 'nids, I remember how disgusting they are! XD

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

 Desubot wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

Tyranids aren't the most sensible faction.

I think they use Rippers for grass but a cownid would be so much better.

Nids already have Cownid. It’s Haruspex now.

 Desubot wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

quentra wrote:
Yeah, I always thought that the 'nids (once the opposition on the planet was dead) had specialized bioforms that would 'digest' the planet's biomatter into a slurry, then the capillary towers would 'suck' the slurry up to the bioships.

Those specialized organism that do the digesting are digestion pools. Feeder organisms gather the biomass then head to the nearest digestion pool and dive in killing themselves and adding all their content to the slurry. Cappilary towers form at the pools.

Man this sounds all very inefficient. like how much energy would it take to make a feeder bot, have that feeder move around, come back and be dismantled and the remade for another round of eating.

also im imagining a cow nid running around harvesting grass.

No more inefficient then spending months of energy raising livestock, feeding livestock, then consuming only part of the livestock. Modern western societies waste between 40-60% of the food produced through spoilage, etc.

Solidcrash wrote:
Nids already have Cownid. It’s Haruspex now.

In no way does a Haruxpex resemble a cow.

pm713 wrote:

Solidcrash wrote:
Nids already have Cownid. It’s Haruspex now.

In no way does a Haruxpex resemble a cow.

Better cow than paper weight.
In tabletop it’s rubbish. Maybe an cow can kill more than Haruxpex... it’s made a sense that Haruxpex good at eating grass and soil.
In lore, unlike tabletop version. It’s powerful, hunger and stronger than carnifex and hive tyrant.

If all necron worlds are able to build pilons and shut out the warp, that can be a biiiiig reason why the hive mind woulndt want to land on those worlds, it would be totally shut out.

 Formosa wrote:
If all necron worlds are able to build pilons and shut out the warp, that can be a biiiiig reason why the hive mind woulndt want to land on those worlds, it would be totally shut out.

That's always been my theory, too. Obviously something in the Necrons' technology disrupts the Hivemind, so the Tyranid swarm avoids their tombworlds. Especially the big Dyson Sphere.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
If all necron worlds are able to build pilons and shut out the warp, that can be a biiiiig reason why the hive mind woulndt want to land on those worlds, it would be totally shut out.

That's always been my theory, too. Obviously something in the Necrons' technology disrupts the Hivemind, so the Tyranid swarm avoids their tombworlds. Especially the big Dyson Sphere.

This. The only recorded example I know of is tyranids avoiding the Outsider's prison like the plague.
They've certainly attacked 'normal' tomb worlds - see Shield of Baal/Leviathan

I thought the Pylons only held back actual Warp Storms rather than stopping all forms of psychic powers?

bibotot wrote:
Stop pointing out because the Necrons have no biomass, the Tyranids won't eat them. It makes very little sense that way. Eldar Craftworlds have very little biomass since the whole planet is made of not-so-edible Wraithbone and the Tyranids still go after them. Fauna and flora only consist of a small portion of total biomass available on a planet. The Tyranids devour land and water until the planet is a dried, barren piece of rock. If a Necron Tomb World still have those, the Tyranids will still come and eat them. The inhabitants matter very little. The only exceptions are Chaos because the biomass might be tainted to the point the Tyranids would have to evolve further to even start to chew and Orks whose worlds are so overpopulated (there are overall more Orks than any other race, but they hold one-tenth worlds as the Imperium) that they might actually account for a larger portion of the total biomass available.

This also means that Tyranids prefer eating worlds unpopulated by intelligent species since they will encounter less resistance there.

Cost vs reward.

Necron worlds are hellishly defended and Necrons keep coming back, they take alot to kill and even then they phase out or there metal is immune to reuse. The amount of Biomass, vs the gain is often just not there.

Its easier to just bypass their worlds.
Also fleet assets, Necron ships are crazy powerful, so good luck fithing Necrons who zip in ernerialess drive in a slow bioo ship.

pm713 wrote:
I thought the Pylons only held back actual Warp Storms rather than stopping all forms of psychic powers?

Old fluff they completely shut out the warp, lock it out literally, new fluff your probably right, I think it may just be a meter of numbers, get enough of them and they lock it out or it may just be some other necron tech imbedded like a large scale gloom prism, not sure, all we know is necrons do have the ability to shut out the warp, just not how they do it.

It’s intetesting as necrons do appear to be the perfect foil to tyranids.

Necron pylons dampened warp phenomena but did not necessarily completely prevent them.

Cadia for example had tons of pylons but nonetheless daemons could still manifest and attack it. When Cawl fully activated the Cadian network of pylons in the Gathering Storm, it was enough to shrink the Eye of Terror ever so slightly, and when it was in activation, daemons disappeared or became weak while Saint Celestine's holy aura and light also diminished (since those supernatural abilities are also warp based). However the rebound backlash of the Eye of Terror overwhelmed and destroyed the pylons, showing that sufficiently powerful warp activity can still overcome the pylons.

In 40k, no faction has an automatic "I win" against the others. The pylons keep Chaos and psychic abilities in check, but they still have limits to what they can do. Similarly the fact that Tyranids have successfully clashed with and consumed Necron worlds before (since one of the Necron dynasties is canonically shown to have taken heavy losses against the Tyranids), it shows the pylons cannot complete block out the Tyranids' Hive Mind.

Is the stuff about Necron Gauss weaponry making it impossible for Tyranids to recover biomass still canon? Shots from a gauss rifle used to make the targets atoms scatter to a point where the tyranids couldn’t re-harvest it and thus they avoided the necrons. That was back in 3.5, not sure about the current fluff.

 Nerak wrote:
Is the stuff about Necron Gauss weaponry making it impossible for Tyranids to recover biomass still canon? Shots from a gauss rifle used to make the targets atoms scatter to a point where the tyranids couldn’t re-harvest it and thus they avoided the necrons. That was back in 3.5, not sure about the current fluff.

yeah, im sure Gaus was a weapon working on Atomic level. what it hit was destroyed, as in utterly destroyed.

thus it depletes the bio mass left in the body. every shot represents a net loss in biomass,
and thats not counting the heavier weaponry and so.