Wouldn’t work really. Kronos is kinda a sub force hive fleet. Iirc Leviathan will conquer worlds but leave biomass for Kronos rather then grow their own fleet, just taking what they need to replenish then off to the next. Kronos later swings by for the free meal.
The Warp there isn’t really a free meal to allow Kronos to replenish. Unless it developed a way to identify mortals / cultists trapped in the warp to consume, and managed to jump to them while not sustaining to much damage between feedings.
It would be really funny though for a hive fleet to just show up in the warp but yeah they ain't that stupid shirt of someone setting off a warp rift bomb, which chaos wouldn't intentionally allow to happen. So either some kind of reverse pylons or a bunch of psykers who are about to explode in hibernation just get shot at them and hope something happens.
There's been accounts of hive fleets getting sucked into the warp when the great rift opened and getting spat out decades to centuries later and light years away from where they entered. We also know the nids were completely unaffected by the mutating powers of chaos afterwards. So they could have been up to all sorts of shenanigans and were thrown out by the chaos gods for making too much trouble for them.
It would not work I think.
There are limit on the power of the shadow in the warp.
So I think that it would probably fail to "purge" under the weight of the actual chaos gods
do you want the hive mind to find out how to become a chaos god? because thats what would probably happen eventually with enough exposure
alternatively, you get daemons bonded into tyranid flesh descending onto the nearest imperial world, removing their need to maintain physical bodies.
Well Hive Fleet Kronos doesn't actually gain any biomass from Daemons, they're just the hive fleet specifically tailor made to deal with Daemons, Hive Fleet Leviathan if I remember correctly has to basically donate biomass to them in order for them to keep their numbers up.
The main trick is that they can, but at the same time it's kind of very tricky and resource-intensive for them to deal with things like Daemons and Necrons in particular, to the point where it's a pyrrhic victory for them whenever they do win
Yeah, the biggest problem with Kronos is that Tyranids still lose even when they win against Chaos. You killed 6 million demons and only lost 500 Tyranids? Those demons will all reform and be back next week and you didn't make enough Biomass to replenish your losses, oops.
Nids are one of the heaviest hitters in the setting but they aren't much further ahead than Chaos or necrons. Those 3 are a weight class all their own in terms of bullshit. Honorable mention to Orkz for also having near infinite troops and tech, if the writers didn't love using you as a punching bag you'd probably be just as scary as those 3.
The real question is:
Can a 'nid kill Lucius without Slaanesh activating Lucius' bullshit powers? And if Lucius can't revive from the 'nid, how will Slaanesh go about reviving Lucius because we all know Slaanesh isn't about to let Lucius die permanently and escape his eternal torment.
Except fight effectively in space. They get absolutely fucking wrecked in long range space engagements.
Though, the issue with that is the Shadow in the Warp prevents warp travel and communication, so it’s a bid hard to engage them with a large enough fleet.
Nah, best way is to convince a necron Tomb world to fight them. Absolutely no biomass from the dead but their weapons also de-atomize their targets meaning the nids can't even eat their own dead to recoup losses. Every fight between nids and crons is a huge net loss for nids even if they take the planet
Nah its stated in lore that being de-atmoized by crons leaves absolutely nothing for the nids. Theirs a reason all of their Hive fleets actively avoid Tomb worlds if they can help it
The lore always contradicts itself.
It's consistent that tyranids can't digest necrodermis, but also consistent that tyrandis consume all the atmosphere of a planet.
De-atomizing turns biomass into gas, which is atmosphere.
It may be too difficult and too inefficient to maintain a fighting force off the gas of only the corpses of your own dead, but if they are "de-atomizing" then it is atmosphere and tyranids eat atmosphere.
Maybe the lore is wrong about "de-atomizing" then? Dunno. Pick your poison.
With zero research and just dissecting the word "de-atomizing". We can assume they are reducing them to *less* than atoms.
If they atomized them they would just be their basic atoms.
If they de-atomized them then they are less than atoms, reduced to their basic components of quarks and gluons.
Can nids reassmble atoms from their basic parts? I have no ficking clue.
I think they can, considering they alter atoms/molecules all the time, but 40k isn't hard sci-fi, so I imagine it is up to whatever writer writes the story.
I wouldn't be surprised if the person who originally wrote the word "de-atomized" just thought it was a cool sci-fi word.
So, I also have no ficking clue. I know I have a hard time beating necrons when I play against them with my tyranid army.
They don't alter non organic material though. If they could they'd eat the entire planet, rocks and all. But they leave it bare of organic life.
De atomizing reduces you to less than organic material. They can consume the dust sure but they can't make any new nids with it.
Isn't it more like they terraform the planet and alter its atmosphere in order to consume the biosphere and strip the planet off organic life?
I know they erect their capillary towers and veins to poison the atmosphere and further break the last pockets of resistance but all biomass has to be broken down to its very basic nutrients in acid pools for the hive ships to take that in.
But maybe I am wrong here.
I am no Tyranid player.
The capillary towers is what suck the pools up to the ships.
But that's kinda what I'm saying. De-atomized tyranid corpse is in atmosphere. Atmosphere is dissolved into pools, and tyranids drink the planet milkshake.
In general, if matter is destroyed by a directed energy weapon, you should assume the majority of that matter has been converted into energy (usually heat and light).
Gauss flayers strips away the target's mass atom by atom, but that doesn't mean an equal amount of matter is now just floating in the atmosphere. The bright flash implies much of that matter has been converted into energy and sent off into the universe.
There *are* bloodthirster skulls in the skulls pack for some reason though. I'm gonna guess they do leave behind trophies when orkz kill them, because they expect there to be.
Yeah it’s weird anything from chaos that could be considered biomass straight up disappears when the connection to the warp is gone or the demon is banished.
I’m not sure how consistent it is in lore but it happens a few times in the plague wars books.
context:
forge world lucius suffered an invasion by the tyranids, this world commanded the legio cibernetica and its servitors to defeat the tyranids, while the high command of that world controlled the armies underground
Every time the tyranids defeated an army, servo skulls collected the metal fragments that they did not eat, and implanted them in new servitors, sending those new servitors to the battlefield, each time they were sent they had more and more metal and less biomass, making that the tyranids little by little run out of food
In the end the tyranids were surpassed in both numbers and power, because they ate each other to obtain biomass, so they lost that war
Sources: codex adeptus mechanicus, Eighth edition
Considering they likely were influenced by a C‘tan shared that Jimmy Space left on Mars, they definitely are. That and their unhealthy fascination with Necrons themselves.
That reminds me
https://preview.redd.it/1pb9bblzzu9d1.jpeg?width=576&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e423b8133a0505f2524eeaf662367d6c95628df8
And whos willing to bet the horse was a precursor to the stodes n thunder warriors?
Wheres that copypasta of applying a ratio to cock length to weight for horses and applied the same formula to humans to figure out that you need 4 inches in length and something to be as hung as a horse
Edit: The name checks out funnily enough
Fun fact about Horus Lupercal, the Emperor's favourite son: He often considered himself kin to horses, for they were great and powerful beasts designed for war and to stride across battlefields. The entire reason he stopped to try and make peace with the Interex were because they used centaur mech suits, and Horus was emotionally touched that they used horses.
Horus was also a Sagittarius, which is DEEPLY vital to the lore and eventually led to the heresy via his interactions with the Interex.
>horus was also a sagittarius, wich is DEEPLY vital to the lore and eventually led to the heresy via his interactions with the interex
Sorry, I haven't read the books, but why is the zodiac sign important?
"oh brother, I'm a total Sagittarius, that means I have to burn half the galaxy, silly things hehe"
It was part of what led to him having a love of horses lol. Here is the excerpt.
>"I'll tell you a thing," said Horus, walking back to them and resuming his seat. "The first thing my father gave me was an astrological text. It was a simple thing, a child's primer. I have it here somewhere. He noticed my wonder in the stars, and wished me to learn and understand."
...
>"My father said he admired my choices, but was surprised that I had not picked one in particular. He showed me again the horseman with the bow, the galloping warrior. The Dreadful Sagittary, he said. Most warlike of all. Strong, relentless, unbridled, swift and sure of his mark. In ancient times, he said, this had been the greatest sign of all. The centaur, the horse-man, the hunter-warrior, who had been beloved in the old age. In Anatoly, in his own childhood, the centaur had been a revered symbol. A rider upon a horse, he said, armed with a bow. The most potent martial instrument of the age, conquering all before it. Over time, myth had blended horseman and steed together into one form; the perfect synthesis of man and war machine. That is what you must learn to be, he told me. That is what you must master. One day, you must command my armies, my instruments of war, as if they were extensions of your own person. Man and horse, as one, galloping the heavens, submitting to no foe. At Ullanor, he gave me this."
>Horus set down his cup, and leaned forward to show them the weathered gold ring he wore on the smallest finger of his left hand. It was so eroded by age that the image was indistinct. Loken thought he could detect hooves, a man's arm, a bent bow.
First thing the Emperor ever gave Horus was an Astrology book. That's canon lmao.
I'm just hoping that said C'tan is a little more chill than his pals.
Because the AdMech getting truly Necron'd would literally end the Imperium *that day.* And I'm not being facetious;
Without the AdMech, Big E's golden toilet stops working and the Astronomicon goes poof.
Additionally, the sudden whammying of the Adeptus Mechanicus would utterly fuck all manufacturing, maintenance, and logistics across the entire (now former) Imperium.
So, practically speaking, either that C'tan will never wake up or that C'tan is chill, because the alternative would end Warhammer 40,000.
And GW won't do that.
So he's chill and/or eepy.
Third option: he's not chill or eepy, he's scheming. The Void Dragon wants revenge on the Necrons for shattering it, and now he has a willing army to do it. He just needs to shepherd the AdMech into being competent enough. No need to scare them off with the biotransference forges.
We've seen C'tan that are chill >! Nomos in Rogue Trader and Orikan at the end of the Infinite and the Divine!< so it's possible Big E forced whatever C'tan is under Mars to chill out. It's likely that the C'tan from the War in Heaven only became assholes due to influence from the Necrontyr who were even bigger life hating assholes, so a C'tan influenced by Jimmy Space might end up being chill
I can only imagine the Imperium's reaction if they found out that there was a Xenos God under Mars this entire time.
And not just that, but that all the divine knowledge being beamed into the Adeptus Mechanicus' heads wasn't the Omnissiah (who is objectively real and intertwined with the Motive Force), but a C'tan that sees humanity as its little blorbos;
*"D'awww, look at all those little organics, they're so squishy I love them."*
Sidenote: I love how the 40k community has collectively agreed that Big E's full legal name and title is Jimmy Space, Man-Emperor of Mankind.
>unhealthy
It's not unhealthy at all! Blackstone is the secret to defeating Chaos!
Don't worry about the mind-numbing effects on lesser mortals. They too should aspire to the purity of the machine.
It's a little counter to lore, as Tyranids absorb the mineral and metal deposits of the planets they devour as well. But it's such a cool concept that I'll let it slide.
Those require specialized bioforms that are usually saved for after the planet has been taken over. And metal probably has far less nutritional value than flesh.
Also as lore it doesn't massively make sense (if you've eaten *all* the mineral animal and vegetable wealth of a planet haven't you just eaten the planet?)
Which leads me to my head canon: Tyranids poop a form of inert wraithbone made of crystalline nothingness, it happens to look like rock, and whenever they eat a planets crust they cover the planet in a couple of kilometres of the stuff. This is why Tyranid conquests are so hard to teraform back into livable worlds.
I always assumed they don't grab all the mineral wealth but just big deposits, the kinda stuff humans would mine.
If you like your planets consumed wholly look no further than the votann, who will just blow a planet into chunks to feed into a giant grinder and poop out the worthless rest as a giant cloud of debris.
I like to presume that the silicone and oxygen that makes up most of what we know as "rocks" they already have in abundance and so don''t need to collect more.
This right here is way I struggle with the bugs being such a massive threat in 40K. with the technology around you should be able to starve them like the mechanicus did or just grab the super nov gun and blow up the sun near the fleet.
To be fair, they were attacking a forgeworld, very few planets are going to have such combat potential as well as such little biosphere for the 'Nids to replenish themselves. They were basically attacking their Stalingrad.
The main fighting forces of all but, at most, three of the main factions are fleshy:
The imperium has: Guard, arguably marines. Splitting the imperium up still nets you marines, guard, sisters, and admech/skitarii.
Eldar has guardians and aspect warriors. Drukhari have khabalyte warriors of seventeen different flavors.
Tau still deploy a metric tonne of fire warriors, Gue'vesa and other auxiliaries.
Orks are, well, Orks.
Necrons are also non-fleshy, though I'm not sure whether they can currently be consumed or not.
Chaos' presence in realspace is generally also cultists, heretic guard and traitor astartes. There's an argument to be made for demons though.
Tl;Dr: the Lucius trick is very hard to pull off given how little factions can deploy units that aren't canned beef at best.
Necrons cannot be consumed. In fact the Tyranids actively try to avoid tomb worlds because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain from fucking with the Necrons. Gauss flayers disintegrate matter at the molecular level, so the Nids wouldn't even be able to recycle their own corpses.
Nids are already shown to be able to consume metals and minerals and also be able to heavily adapt to different environments.
If GW was smart, they’d have them adapt some new bioforms that were specialized in attacking non-biological life. Think a bioform that was 90% metal, 10% fleshy bits, with specialized organs to consume and digest metal.
> If GW was smart, they’d have them adapt some nee bioforms that were specialized in attacking non-biological life.
They actually have, though only for daemons. Hive Fleet Kronos basically rolls around with an extremely powerful Shadow in the Warp, engaging with Daemon corruption via ranged combat, and actively gets fed by other fleets to make up for any loss in biomass.
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_Fleet_Kronos
I mean pretty much all factions have been shown to defeat Tyranids multiple times in conventional war. They are supposed to be a threat mainly because "we see only the vanguard of a much greater hive"
Well, yes and no. Multiple worlds were obliterated ny the Imperium itself just to *slow Leviathan down*.
The Scythes of the Emperor were completely bodied by Kraken, with both their home world and their outpost world consumed.
The Baal system was completely wrecked, with almost 14 Marine chapters annihilated.
It's true that the Nids are often ultimately defeated. But it's always at a huge cost, while the Nids themselves show no signs of running out of numbers.
It’s weird, people assume animals and periodically plants as the main biomass of the planet but completely neglect the microbial life, which frankly are the only things to rival plants for their share of at least terrestrial biomass.
The nids would still get Biomass from the Servitors if GW writers could stop fucking nids over.
I mean as long as the mechanicus doesnt destroy the biomass of the dead nids they can just recycle their dead and get the little bit of biomass core from the servitors.
The nids *did* get biomass from the servitors, but it became less and less, as the servitors sent to fight became increasingly mechanical, less biological.
Eventually it was so little, fighting became a loss, even if the nids won.
Recycling biomass isn't a lossless process, they probably couldn't regain more than 85% from fallen nid units, even in good condition.
Why couldn't the tyranids have done the same thing, and starting making the carapaces out of their bioforms out of metal? There are animals on earth that can and you're telling the MF'ing hive-mind couldn't couldn't start putting out steel-shelled gaunts to make up for the lack of organic materials? Not to mention servitors can't function on their own, so they could have easily pulled decapitation strikes on their commanders to shut them down, much like the Tyranids themselves.
Energy inefficiency.
Making more durable units = requires more energy and biomass. The metal doesn't dissolve itself for free to become armor.
Quite possible that they didn't have any Bioforms available to even absorb the metal, as another commenter mentioned. They tend to scour metal only after the planet is pacified, due to it being an arduous and expensive process. \[Citation needed\]
And it does say that the Techpriests were bunkered deep underground. I find it reasonable to assume that the Tyranids either didn't know where to strike or tried and failed already.
Energy is lost in the process of fighting, expelled as heat (or in the case of tyranids very calorically costly plasma) and sound. That energy cannot be reclaimed by the tyranids essentially ever and so fighting a non-stop war against a barely flesh opponent would be a slow battle of attrition, tyranid energy loss vs Admech population loss
>expelled as heat (or in the case of tyranids very calorically costly plasma) and sound.
And light! Anything that bioluminesces is burning energy that will not be retrievable.
Thanks for that, would have expected the servitors to run out of 'biomass' long before the tyranids.
I'm positive I've read somewhere that tyranids also consume natural minerals and break down metal too.
I believe they need to be in the invasion stage where all planet biomass is consumed before they start eating metals and mineral. So not practical when the planet is still fighting you off.
Pretty much. They do strip planets bare of all their resources, but the more basic and inorganic they are, the more „infrastructure“ they need. Which is why they start with the ecosystem first. That‘s much easier to absorb and use as it’s already in a readily available form. Getting elementary Iron and other minerals into a usable form takes a lot more energy and even more time.
Tyranids big superpower is adaptability. If this becomes the default strategy, I'd be surprised if they didn't evolve forms designed to defeat and consume servators without the infrastructure.
I now wat to kitbash some genestealer servators.
>I now wat to kitbash some genestealer servators
This sorta happens. GSC’s are not considered much a problem to many forge worlds because the answer is to just turn all the cultists into servators.
It becomes problematic when Tech Priests get infected, though.
Even when that happens the damage is usually uncovered fairly quickly. The Ciaphas Cain books touch on the subject, and the priest themself even partially figured it out do to their implants when presented with the evidence. Ad Mech are in every way a natural counter to the tyranids, there's just not enough of them, and GW doesn't like them anyway
Yeah the concept that tech priests are really competent in their specific niche but there just are never enough is really cool but GW seems unwilling to ever portrait them as such.
Like when a fucking Marine initiate defeated a magis dominus.
That’s crazy, a Magos outfitted for war should be among the most dangerous imperial combatants out there.
I recall one pulling essentially a pocket Lascannon in Brutal Cunning when faced with some Orks.
I think the author didn't know that "dominus" is kinda the doctorate for warfare.
I think the marine winning can work if he wins the swordfight but then the magos fucking shoots him from under the robe and reveals that he could nuke anybody in the room at any point and that duels are a stupid waste of time in a war. Like have that honorable warrior thing many marines have crash against the cold calculus of the admech.
Absolutely, like yes the marine can beat him in a fist fight but good luck since depending on the Magos, he could weigh thrice that in combat augments and the like.
Nah, the Necrons are a natural counter to Tyranids. The Necrons directly created the Mechanicus with the whole Void Dragon thing. Technically, this is just a further extension of the bullshit of their strategy against the Tyranids, without disintegrating the bioforms too.
That’s a bit like saying that the Roman’s created Christianity. It certainly wouldn’t exist in its modern context without them, but the ad mech would still counter them without the crons. They grew to revere augmentation not because of the religious aspect, but because of the realities of life on mars. The religion amplified this, but it was already present in the early age of strife
And then a Hive Fleet nears and reasserts its influence over the GSC-turned-Servitors lol. Though maybe it's less likely to happen to a Servitor than a Skitarii, not sure how differently or similarly each is lobotomized. But if even a nascent, barely realized Magus is able to turn a high-ranking Skitarii that served faithfully for many campaigns back to the cultists' side, I can only imagine how much stronger the full psychic influence of a Hive Fleet would be.
I’d love to see a better writer show how something like a Neurotyrant can properly disorder enemy defenses like how it did in Leviathan, directly attacking the minds of high level decision makers and essentially directing them into poor decisions.
Likely just end up being spawned / born with terminator armor en masse after adapting to metallics vs carbon based resources.
Be better off feeding tyrannids “USDA inspected “ filled with microplastics to weaken the gene pool.
🥲😅
They do, but imagine for a moment your own diet. You need calcium, iron, a lot of various vitamins, fats proteins and sugars to survive right? Now imagine you only get to eat iron and a tiny bit of protein.
How exactly are they supposed to replenish their bioforns if all they eat is metal? Not only that but fighting against the mechanicus they also face shit that makes their own soldiers almost inedible, like radioactive guns and toxic stuff.
Yes you're right they would do in a sense. The whole lore and "biomass" is a bit sketchy. Humans contain all sorts of shit that in its base form we wouldn't consider edible but in trace amounts we contain plenty of.
You've got to have a piece of plot armour though to use against the plot armour that Nids are super quick at adapting to combat and consume different things.
You talking about octarius? The last update we got on that the swarmlord killed the warboss in command of the orks so seems like it’s gonna be a tyranid win.
There are different ways to consume "metal".
Even humans (and basically all living things on earth) need some amount of "metal", like iron, in their food. But we consume it in its "ionized" form, as part of other molecules.
Metals in their metallic form aren't edible thou. Like chlorine Cl² being a poison, but combine it with sodium to form NaCl and you have table salt...
That being said, I don't know the exact lore about it in the 40k universe.
Ionized (salt) is "metallic" iron.
Metallic Iron commonly in the form of iron powder is edible and certainly not poisonous. Enriched foods from bread, oats and ceral all contain iron powder and is were majority of people get their iron. The main difference in digestion between ionized and iron powder is that ionized easily disolves in water leaving behind a single iron atom which quickly oxidizes in the stomach for absorption. Which is why there is larger amount of iron powder in ceral as you arent expected to be able to digest it all. Woodchips burn faster than logs.
The are both "metallic" iron; the only people who try to differentiate the two are tiktok health guru trying to sell shitty vitamins.
Fun fact, cicadas actually have a lot of metal in their ovipositors. They need them hard enough to be able to stab into trees and lay eggs inside them.
What if the Tyranids somehow discover a way to integrate technology into their biology? They end up integrating Grey Goo nanomachine tech into biological makeup. They then can now eat and digest metal and download data. They then turn into a biomechanical monstrosity and are now even able to eat Necrons now. Also there's iron snail in real life.
https://preview.redd.it/wql0et6izu9d1.png?width=440&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a025f5f1a97ad606f041082eccbf12974e412d1
Living creatures have bioelectricity so presumably the Tyranids could create an interface that could communicate between biological and mechanical parts. Basically Cyborg Tyranids. The Tyranids could end up developing special organs to house mechanical parts.
(Trigger Warning: Mild Gore) [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3268304/chinese-scientists-create-robot-brain-made-human-stem-cells#](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3268304/chinese-scientists-create-robot-brain-made-human-stem-cells#)
We've made a cyborg that uses human brain cells to control a robot.
Trygons used bio-electricity as a weapon so we know the Tyranids have it. I think the reason why the Tyranids don't do certain things even though they could (other than theme) is that they do not need to... the Hive Mind doesn't go for "perfect" it goes for "Good enough". Every Tyranid organism fufills it's job and it works, and as long as it works there is no need to change or fix it.
This is actually something that irritates me in the lore tbh. Not because nobody is smart enough to use this tactic, but because every time this happens(by design or by coincidence) it's a coin flip if the splinter fleet starves or miraculously sucks the planet dry of raw materials and somehow makes biomass out of iron ore and granite.
I know consistency is anathema to the writers at GW and all, but goddamn.
Granite is made up of Silicone, potassium, oxygen, sodium, iron, magnesium, titanium, calcium and Carbon.
With the exception of titanium, all of these are naturally found (and important to the function of) the human body and most living creatures on earth.
I see no reason why granite wouldn't be an extremely valuable mineral to consume.
I think you're missing my point, I want them to choose one or the other, I'm fine with them turning sheer raw materials into biomass. Go for it. If you have mastery over chemistry, I don't see why you couldn't get literal blood from a stone.
My problem is that they waffle between "this planet doesn't have enough life to keep the splinter from starving!" And "The hive fleet is unstoppable! It sucked the very stone from the ground to feed their armies!"
Depends. The hive mind is (meant to be) smart: it might well learn "This is inefficient use of our time and resources when there's better prey elsewhere" and leave.
It'll look like a victory for short-sighted mortals.
I'd argue "metal" IS biomass.
Most people are think of Iron or other alloys of it and we have lots of iron in our blood, it is what moves the oxygen when we breathe.
Magnesium, sodium, zinc, coppy, etc, etc.
All metals, all important to us. Ergo, IMO metals are biomass.
The lore is pretty inconsistent on what the nids can actually eat (because its usually told from an in universe imperium research perspective), but several times they have shown the ability to eat raw metals and minerals.
I think its just a preference they have for more complex biologicals, like getting takeout that's already prepared rather than cooking for themselves with the raw elements.
Eh, the Tyranids can break down metal and non organic matter Also….
Seeing as plenty of organic material is built up by elements like carbon, oxygen, Iron and hydrogen, the Tyranids would break down those things aswell to make biomatter.
The tyranids chew through bedrock to get to rich ore deposits, a bunch of servitors is just a nice gift! Unless the hivemind has some particular allergies it would just chew up the metal too. But to be fair, it might take a while to get metallovores out in the field to pick up the scraps. Double but, it the hive should have recognized the tactic after a few rounds of this and had their units drag away the metal or rip it apart if they can't metabolize it on the field.
They strip them of the most convenient materials to gather. So they will dig through bedrock to take the richest veins but they will not travel down into the liquid core and slurp up the iron there. They will also suck up a planets atmosphere, but will not spend the time to break apart the bedrock to free all the gasses trapped inside the rocks. (That last one is talked about by Kotov in the Forges of Mars series when he begins to terraform a planet that was stripped by tyranids.)
The problem is, humanity makes up a very small percentage of the biomass of a planet, the bacterial content alone dwarfs us, let alone plants, Archeaens, Protist, Fungi and insects.
If I lose more biomass killing the sentient population than I get from the sentient population, it’s probable I can more than make up the difference eating the non sentient animals, and grossly exceed it by using Venomthropes and Spores to digest the Microbial life alone.
Just a tinnie winnie little bittle flaw in that plan. That is, out of an entire planet's worth of biomass [humans make out approximately 0,01% of Earth's biomass.](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in-one-graphic/)
Tyranids are after all the easy biomass of a planet, why would they stay for that last tiny bit, when they can just leave the spicy biomass and go find some other planet full of easier biomass to digest?
Forge worlds aren't comparable to Earth though. They don't have a natural ecosystem. They might sustain a population of billions, but it could all be hydroponic/factory farmed.
It could be that Tyranids can get a net biomass gain out of a Forge World, as long as they can get through the hard shell into the gooey centre.
Or it could be strategic, and a gain in biomass was never the goal? Maybe it's fine or a Tyranid fleet to nreak even or burn itself out attacking a Forge World, if that means it's distracted or incapacitated enough that it can't provide weapons to help other picnic baskets protect themselves.
Or yeah, it could be something the writers overlooked.
People who say that haven't read the lore. Yes Tyranids eat metal and other minerals but not Necrodermis. Tyranids have overrun Tomb Worlds before but they won the same way they always win... overwhelming numbers.
Sincerely a Tyranid fan.
Tyranid Hive Fleets: actively steering the fuck away from the planets with haunted robots that disintegrate them
The worst Tyranid fans: I'll ignore that
I mean, it's just sensible. The tyranids want to nom and can't nom the mummies, and they'll zap you a bunch, so why bother? Go eat something else.
The hive mind is smart. It'll take on the Necrons when it figures doing so will deter them from being an existential threat, otherwise there's not much point.
I hate this lore tbh. Tyranids should absolutely be able to re-purpose metal for stuff like exoskeletons. And the incident when they were beaten because they just left the servitor parts lying on the ground for the mechanicus to retrive and re-use pisses me off so so much.
Metal is biomass… Also daemons wouldn’t work either. There’s an entire tyrannid fleet dedicated to fighting the warp. Unfortunately for the galaxy of warhammer the tyrannids are going to win. The only threat to them are necrons. For some reason they can’t use the living metal as biomass.
You can emulate this in real life! 3d print edible models. Make an army of grots and make the nid player you face eat EVERY. SINGLE. MODEL. He destroys!
Best way is to send chaos demons somehow, they leave no biomass when defeated.
Hive Fleet Kronos: nom nom nom
Even Kronos needs to be fed by the other Fleets to remain active
Even then I think Kronos remove demon infestation rather than consuming it. Which is extremely funny cuz it's cleaning the great rift currently
Kronos is like a maggot hive ship
Now the IoM has to find a way of yeeting it into the warp. Having a shitload of ships open their warp drive but hold it open might work
Wouldn’t work really. Kronos is kinda a sub force hive fleet. Iirc Leviathan will conquer worlds but leave biomass for Kronos rather then grow their own fleet, just taking what they need to replenish then off to the next. Kronos later swings by for the free meal. The Warp there isn’t really a free meal to allow Kronos to replenish. Unless it developed a way to identify mortals / cultists trapped in the warp to consume, and managed to jump to them while not sustaining to much damage between feedings.
It would be really funny though for a hive fleet to just show up in the warp but yeah they ain't that stupid shirt of someone setting off a warp rift bomb, which chaos wouldn't intentionally allow to happen. So either some kind of reverse pylons or a bunch of psykers who are about to explode in hibernation just get shot at them and hope something happens.
There's been accounts of hive fleets getting sucked into the warp when the great rift opened and getting spat out decades to centuries later and light years away from where they entered. We also know the nids were completely unaffected by the mutating powers of chaos afterwards. So they could have been up to all sorts of shenanigans and were thrown out by the chaos gods for making too much trouble for them.
It would not work I think. There are limit on the power of the shadow in the warp. So I think that it would probably fail to "purge" under the weight of the actual chaos gods
do you want the hive mind to find out how to become a chaos god? because thats what would probably happen eventually with enough exposure alternatively, you get daemons bonded into tyranid flesh descending onto the nearest imperial world, removing their need to maintain physical bodies.
Szarekh: https://preview.redd.it/obpt5mrjdx9d1.jpeg?width=2791&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6bbee0813119d245742e675794bc1cc2825008c5
Well Hive Fleet Kronos doesn't actually gain any biomass from Daemons, they're just the hive fleet specifically tailor made to deal with Daemons, Hive Fleet Leviathan if I remember correctly has to basically donate biomass to them in order for them to keep their numbers up.
No wonder the Hivemind is starting to hate the Grimdark: if I was eating Nurgle forces and losing weight anyway, I'd get frustrated too.
Hive fleet Kronos can DRINK the diet cola called chaos demons all they want but they won't get fat off of it.
Hive Fleet Kronos can eat all the daemons it wants, but those are empty calories.
> Hive Fleet Kronos can eat all the daemons it wants, but those are empty calories. Daemons are soda and energy drinks?
No, no, Daemons are more like chewing gum.
Like chewing gum made of solid rock. You can chew it down but it hurts, leaves a bloody trail and you gain nothing by it.
Me: new headcanon image of Kronos psi-critters fat AF yet malnourished anyway.
Tyranids really are Mary sues that can do anything huh
They don't get any real benefit from demons but yeah pretty much
But also if you’re a named character you’ll probably get to kill a hive tyrant with little effort so idk what they are.
The main trick is that they can, but at the same time it's kind of very tricky and resource-intensive for them to deal with things like Daemons and Necrons in particular, to the point where it's a pyrrhic victory for them whenever they do win
Yeah, the biggest problem with Kronos is that Tyranids still lose even when they win against Chaos. You killed 6 million demons and only lost 500 Tyranids? Those demons will all reform and be back next week and you didn't make enough Biomass to replenish your losses, oops. Nids are one of the heaviest hitters in the setting but they aren't much further ahead than Chaos or necrons. Those 3 are a weight class all their own in terms of bullshit. Honorable mention to Orkz for also having near infinite troops and tech, if the writers didn't love using you as a punching bag you'd probably be just as scary as those 3.
Orks always win.
The real question is: Can a 'nid kill Lucius without Slaanesh activating Lucius' bullshit powers? And if Lucius can't revive from the 'nid, how will Slaanesh go about reviving Lucius because we all know Slaanesh isn't about to let Lucius die permanently and escape his eternal torment.
Except fight effectively in space. They get absolutely fucking wrecked in long range space engagements. Though, the issue with that is the Shadow in the Warp prevents warp travel and communication, so it’s a bid hard to engage them with a large enough fleet.
Nah, they dont get biomass from it. They get fed by other hive fleets (primarily leviathan)
Hive fleet but it's a baby that hunts demons
Nah, best way is to convince a necron Tomb world to fight them. Absolutely no biomass from the dead but their weapons also de-atomize their targets meaning the nids can't even eat their own dead to recoup losses. Every fight between nids and crons is a huge net loss for nids even if they take the planet
Nids suck up the atmosphere, right? So de-atomizing would just mean less chewing.
Nah its stated in lore that being de-atmoized by crons leaves absolutely nothing for the nids. Theirs a reason all of their Hive fleets actively avoid Tomb worlds if they can help it
The lore always contradicts itself. It's consistent that tyranids can't digest necrodermis, but also consistent that tyrandis consume all the atmosphere of a planet. De-atomizing turns biomass into gas, which is atmosphere. It may be too difficult and too inefficient to maintain a fighting force off the gas of only the corpses of your own dead, but if they are "de-atomizing" then it is atmosphere and tyranids eat atmosphere. Maybe the lore is wrong about "de-atomizing" then? Dunno. Pick your poison.
With zero research and just dissecting the word "de-atomizing". We can assume they are reducing them to *less* than atoms. If they atomized them they would just be their basic atoms. If they de-atomized them then they are less than atoms, reduced to their basic components of quarks and gluons. Can nids reassmble atoms from their basic parts? I have no ficking clue.
I think they can, considering they alter atoms/molecules all the time, but 40k isn't hard sci-fi, so I imagine it is up to whatever writer writes the story. I wouldn't be surprised if the person who originally wrote the word "de-atomized" just thought it was a cool sci-fi word. So, I also have no ficking clue. I know I have a hard time beating necrons when I play against them with my tyranid army.
They don't alter non organic material though. If they could they'd eat the entire planet, rocks and all. But they leave it bare of organic life. De atomizing reduces you to less than organic material. They can consume the dust sure but they can't make any new nids with it.
Isn't it more like they terraform the planet and alter its atmosphere in order to consume the biosphere and strip the planet off organic life? I know they erect their capillary towers and veins to poison the atmosphere and further break the last pockets of resistance but all biomass has to be broken down to its very basic nutrients in acid pools for the hive ships to take that in. But maybe I am wrong here. I am no Tyranid player.
The capillary towers is what suck the pools up to the ships. But that's kinda what I'm saying. De-atomized tyranid corpse is in atmosphere. Atmosphere is dissolved into pools, and tyranids drink the planet milkshake.
In general, if matter is destroyed by a directed energy weapon, you should assume the majority of that matter has been converted into energy (usually heat and light). Gauss flayers strips away the target's mass atom by atom, but that doesn't mean an equal amount of matter is now just floating in the atmosphere. The bright flash implies much of that matter has been converted into energy and sent off into the universe.
Yeah We haven't found a way around them. It especially hurts that we can't even eat our own bodies due to the atomizing effects of the gaus wepons
Doesn't the Shadow in the Warp just kinda displace all daemons tho
Just the weak ones
There *are* bloodthirster skulls in the skulls pack for some reason though. I'm gonna guess they do leave behind trophies when orkz kill them, because they expect there to be.
Hive fleet kraken https://preview.redd.it/xnxouwe08x9d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=01fec8e4d6239a3570845305a32e7c55b18e2a4c Choo Choo muthafukaaaaaaa
They cant manifest. The shadow in the warp bashes their very being into nothingness
Yeah it’s weird anything from chaos that could be considered biomass straight up disappears when the connection to the warp is gone or the demon is banished. I’m not sure how consistent it is in lore but it happens a few times in the plague wars books.
Kronos exists
context: forge world lucius suffered an invasion by the tyranids, this world commanded the legio cibernetica and its servitors to defeat the tyranids, while the high command of that world controlled the armies underground Every time the tyranids defeated an army, servo skulls collected the metal fragments that they did not eat, and implanted them in new servitors, sending those new servitors to the battlefield, each time they were sent they had more and more metal and less biomass, making that the tyranids little by little run out of food In the end the tyranids were surpassed in both numbers and power, because they ate each other to obtain biomass, so they lost that war Sources: codex adeptus mechanicus, Eighth edition
*Tyranids invade forgeword* Mechanicum: "ha, get necroned looser!"
They are basically on their way to become necrons anyway
Considering they likely were influenced by a C‘tan shared that Jimmy Space left on Mars, they definitely are. That and their unhealthy fascination with Necrons themselves.
That reminds me https://preview.redd.it/1pb9bblzzu9d1.jpeg?width=576&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e423b8133a0505f2524eeaf662367d6c95628df8 And whos willing to bet the horse was a precursor to the stodes n thunder warriors?
So custodes are hung like horses?
Wheres that copypasta of applying a ratio to cock length to weight for horses and applied the same formula to humans to figure out that you need 4 inches in length and something to be as hung as a horse Edit: The name checks out funnily enough
Horses are hung like custodes
Fun fact about Horus Lupercal, the Emperor's favourite son: He often considered himself kin to horses, for they were great and powerful beasts designed for war and to stride across battlefields. The entire reason he stopped to try and make peace with the Interex were because they used centaur mech suits, and Horus was emotionally touched that they used horses. Horus was also a Sagittarius, which is DEEPLY vital to the lore and eventually led to the heresy via his interactions with the Interex.
>horus was also a sagittarius, wich is DEEPLY vital to the lore and eventually led to the heresy via his interactions with the interex Sorry, I haven't read the books, but why is the zodiac sign important? "oh brother, I'm a total Sagittarius, that means I have to burn half the galaxy, silly things hehe"
It was part of what led to him having a love of horses lol. Here is the excerpt. >"I'll tell you a thing," said Horus, walking back to them and resuming his seat. "The first thing my father gave me was an astrological text. It was a simple thing, a child's primer. I have it here somewhere. He noticed my wonder in the stars, and wished me to learn and understand." ... >"My father said he admired my choices, but was surprised that I had not picked one in particular. He showed me again the horseman with the bow, the galloping warrior. The Dreadful Sagittary, he said. Most warlike of all. Strong, relentless, unbridled, swift and sure of his mark. In ancient times, he said, this had been the greatest sign of all. The centaur, the horse-man, the hunter-warrior, who had been beloved in the old age. In Anatoly, in his own childhood, the centaur had been a revered symbol. A rider upon a horse, he said, armed with a bow. The most potent martial instrument of the age, conquering all before it. Over time, myth had blended horseman and steed together into one form; the perfect synthesis of man and war machine. That is what you must learn to be, he told me. That is what you must master. One day, you must command my armies, my instruments of war, as if they were extensions of your own person. Man and horse, as one, galloping the heavens, submitting to no foe. At Ullanor, he gave me this." >Horus set down his cup, and leaned forward to show them the weathered gold ring he wore on the smallest finger of his left hand. It was so eroded by age that the image was indistinct. Loken thought he could detect hooves, a man's arm, a bent bow. First thing the Emperor ever gave Horus was an Astrology book. That's canon lmao.
Thanks!
Also, he met mutants that looked like centaurs who told him about chaos and had the blade that caused his vision.
A single Kreig affixing his bayonet, * excited gasmask noises *
I think you will find that horse is still around and being ridden by the lord solar
I'm just hoping that said C'tan is a little more chill than his pals. Because the AdMech getting truly Necron'd would literally end the Imperium *that day.* And I'm not being facetious; Without the AdMech, Big E's golden toilet stops working and the Astronomicon goes poof. Additionally, the sudden whammying of the Adeptus Mechanicus would utterly fuck all manufacturing, maintenance, and logistics across the entire (now former) Imperium. So, practically speaking, either that C'tan will never wake up or that C'tan is chill, because the alternative would end Warhammer 40,000. And GW won't do that. So he's chill and/or eepy.
Third option: he's not chill or eepy, he's scheming. The Void Dragon wants revenge on the Necrons for shattering it, and now he has a willing army to do it. He just needs to shepherd the AdMech into being competent enough. No need to scare them off with the biotransference forges.
> He just needs to shepherd the AdMech into being competent enough. So it’s not a problem then
It's probably the void dragon so very not chill
We've seen C'tan that are chill >! Nomos in Rogue Trader and Orikan at the end of the Infinite and the Divine!< so it's possible Big E forced whatever C'tan is under Mars to chill out. It's likely that the C'tan from the War in Heaven only became assholes due to influence from the Necrontyr who were even bigger life hating assholes, so a C'tan influenced by Jimmy Space might end up being chill
I can only imagine the Imperium's reaction if they found out that there was a Xenos God under Mars this entire time. And not just that, but that all the divine knowledge being beamed into the Adeptus Mechanicus' heads wasn't the Omnissiah (who is objectively real and intertwined with the Motive Force), but a C'tan that sees humanity as its little blorbos; *"D'awww, look at all those little organics, they're so squishy I love them."* Sidenote: I love how the 40k community has collectively agreed that Big E's full legal name and title is Jimmy Space, Man-Emperor of Mankind.
>unhealthy It's not unhealthy at all! Blackstone is the secret to defeating Chaos! Don't worry about the mind-numbing effects on lesser mortals. They too should aspire to the purity of the machine.
This lore snippet is what inspired me to begin painting my admech as Lucius soon after I joined the hobby
It's a little counter to lore, as Tyranids absorb the mineral and metal deposits of the planets they devour as well. But it's such a cool concept that I'll let it slide.
Those require specialized bioforms that are usually saved for after the planet has been taken over. And metal probably has far less nutritional value than flesh.
Also as lore it doesn't massively make sense (if you've eaten *all* the mineral animal and vegetable wealth of a planet haven't you just eaten the planet?) Which leads me to my head canon: Tyranids poop a form of inert wraithbone made of crystalline nothingness, it happens to look like rock, and whenever they eat a planets crust they cover the planet in a couple of kilometres of the stuff. This is why Tyranid conquests are so hard to teraform back into livable worlds.
I always assumed they don't grab all the mineral wealth but just big deposits, the kinda stuff humans would mine. If you like your planets consumed wholly look no further than the votann, who will just blow a planet into chunks to feed into a giant grinder and poop out the worthless rest as a giant cloud of debris.
I like to presume that the silicone and oxygen that makes up most of what we know as "rocks" they already have in abundance and so don''t need to collect more.
This is more or less covered in Belisarius Cawl: The Great work. Basically, they don't actually eat everything. Just everything convenient.
Fair enough!
Pyrovores are relatively commonplace Digestion Organisms, specifically built for digesting minerals and metals.
That just sounds like Necrons with extra steps
This right here is way I struggle with the bugs being such a massive threat in 40K. with the technology around you should be able to starve them like the mechanicus did or just grab the super nov gun and blow up the sun near the fleet.
To be fair, they were attacking a forgeworld, very few planets are going to have such combat potential as well as such little biosphere for the 'Nids to replenish themselves. They were basically attacking their Stalingrad.
The main fighting forces of all but, at most, three of the main factions are fleshy: The imperium has: Guard, arguably marines. Splitting the imperium up still nets you marines, guard, sisters, and admech/skitarii. Eldar has guardians and aspect warriors. Drukhari have khabalyte warriors of seventeen different flavors. Tau still deploy a metric tonne of fire warriors, Gue'vesa and other auxiliaries. Orks are, well, Orks. Necrons are also non-fleshy, though I'm not sure whether they can currently be consumed or not. Chaos' presence in realspace is generally also cultists, heretic guard and traitor astartes. There's an argument to be made for demons though. Tl;Dr: the Lucius trick is very hard to pull off given how little factions can deploy units that aren't canned beef at best.
Necrons cannot be consumed. In fact the Tyranids actively try to avoid tomb worlds because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain from fucking with the Necrons. Gauss flayers disintegrate matter at the molecular level, so the Nids wouldn't even be able to recycle their own corpses.
I vaguely remember there being a tidbit about the Nids being able to consume necrodermis, but I didn't recall if it was actually canon or not.
I'm sure I recall that they can too, but the ratio of effort to gains is so poor that they tend to just go for easier, more delicious pickin's
Chaos have the thousand sons. They are literally just dust possessing a suit of power armor
Nids are already shown to be able to consume metals and minerals and also be able to heavily adapt to different environments. If GW was smart, they’d have them adapt some new bioforms that were specialized in attacking non-biological life. Think a bioform that was 90% metal, 10% fleshy bits, with specialized organs to consume and digest metal.
> If GW was smart, they’d have them adapt some nee bioforms that were specialized in attacking non-biological life. They actually have, though only for daemons. Hive Fleet Kronos basically rolls around with an extremely powerful Shadow in the Warp, engaging with Daemon corruption via ranged combat, and actively gets fed by other fleets to make up for any loss in biomass. https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_Fleet_Kronos
I mean pretty much all factions have been shown to defeat Tyranids multiple times in conventional war. They are supposed to be a threat mainly because "we see only the vanguard of a much greater hive"
Well, yes and no. Multiple worlds were obliterated ny the Imperium itself just to *slow Leviathan down*. The Scythes of the Emperor were completely bodied by Kraken, with both their home world and their outpost world consumed. The Baal system was completely wrecked, with almost 14 Marine chapters annihilated. It's true that the Nids are often ultimately defeated. But it's always at a huge cost, while the Nids themselves show no signs of running out of numbers.
It’s weird, people assume animals and periodically plants as the main biomass of the planet but completely neglect the microbial life, which frankly are the only things to rival plants for their share of at least terrestrial biomass.
The nids would still get Biomass from the Servitors if GW writers could stop fucking nids over. I mean as long as the mechanicus doesnt destroy the biomass of the dead nids they can just recycle their dead and get the little bit of biomass core from the servitors.
The nids *did* get biomass from the servitors, but it became less and less, as the servitors sent to fight became increasingly mechanical, less biological. Eventually it was so little, fighting became a loss, even if the nids won. Recycling biomass isn't a lossless process, they probably couldn't regain more than 85% from fallen nid units, even in good condition.
Why couldn't the tyranids have done the same thing, and starting making the carapaces out of their bioforms out of metal? There are animals on earth that can and you're telling the MF'ing hive-mind couldn't couldn't start putting out steel-shelled gaunts to make up for the lack of organic materials? Not to mention servitors can't function on their own, so they could have easily pulled decapitation strikes on their commanders to shut them down, much like the Tyranids themselves.
Energy inefficiency. Making more durable units = requires more energy and biomass. The metal doesn't dissolve itself for free to become armor. Quite possible that they didn't have any Bioforms available to even absorb the metal, as another commenter mentioned. They tend to scour metal only after the planet is pacified, due to it being an arduous and expensive process. \[Citation needed\] And it does say that the Techpriests were bunkered deep underground. I find it reasonable to assume that the Tyranids either didn't know where to strike or tried and failed already.
Energy is lost in the process of fighting, expelled as heat (or in the case of tyranids very calorically costly plasma) and sound. That energy cannot be reclaimed by the tyranids essentially ever and so fighting a non-stop war against a barely flesh opponent would be a slow battle of attrition, tyranid energy loss vs Admech population loss
>expelled as heat (or in the case of tyranids very calorically costly plasma) and sound. And light! Anything that bioluminesces is burning energy that will not be retrievable.
Thanks for that, would have expected the servitors to run out of 'biomass' long before the tyranids. I'm positive I've read somewhere that tyranids also consume natural minerals and break down metal too.
When Tyranid comes to devour you, just say loudly that you do not consent. Tyranid will be legally obligated to leave.
Get Necron'd
Don’t tyranids also eat the metals and other mineral resources of worlds they consume as well?
I believe they need to be in the invasion stage where all planet biomass is consumed before they start eating metals and mineral. So not practical when the planet is still fighting you off.
Pretty much. They do strip planets bare of all their resources, but the more basic and inorganic they are, the more „infrastructure“ they need. Which is why they start with the ecosystem first. That‘s much easier to absorb and use as it’s already in a readily available form. Getting elementary Iron and other minerals into a usable form takes a lot more energy and even more time.
Tyranids big superpower is adaptability. If this becomes the default strategy, I'd be surprised if they didn't evolve forms designed to defeat and consume servators without the infrastructure. I now wat to kitbash some genestealer servators.
>I now wat to kitbash some genestealer servators This sorta happens. GSC’s are not considered much a problem to many forge worlds because the answer is to just turn all the cultists into servators. It becomes problematic when Tech Priests get infected, though.
Even when that happens the damage is usually uncovered fairly quickly. The Ciaphas Cain books touch on the subject, and the priest themself even partially figured it out do to their implants when presented with the evidence. Ad Mech are in every way a natural counter to the tyranids, there's just not enough of them, and GW doesn't like them anyway
Yeah the concept that tech priests are really competent in their specific niche but there just are never enough is really cool but GW seems unwilling to ever portrait them as such. Like when a fucking Marine initiate defeated a magis dominus.
That’s crazy, a Magos outfitted for war should be among the most dangerous imperial combatants out there. I recall one pulling essentially a pocket Lascannon in Brutal Cunning when faced with some Orks.
I think the author didn't know that "dominus" is kinda the doctorate for warfare. I think the marine winning can work if he wins the swordfight but then the magos fucking shoots him from under the robe and reveals that he could nuke anybody in the room at any point and that duels are a stupid waste of time in a war. Like have that honorable warrior thing many marines have crash against the cold calculus of the admech.
Absolutely, like yes the marine can beat him in a fist fight but good luck since depending on the Magos, he could weigh thrice that in combat augments and the like.
Really liking this idea. But sadly GW won’t let something like that pass. We are talking about Space Marines here.
Nah, the Necrons are a natural counter to Tyranids. The Necrons directly created the Mechanicus with the whole Void Dragon thing. Technically, this is just a further extension of the bullshit of their strategy against the Tyranids, without disintegrating the bioforms too.
That’s a bit like saying that the Roman’s created Christianity. It certainly wouldn’t exist in its modern context without them, but the ad mech would still counter them without the crons. They grew to revere augmentation not because of the religious aspect, but because of the realities of life on mars. The religion amplified this, but it was already present in the early age of strife
And then a Hive Fleet nears and reasserts its influence over the GSC-turned-Servitors lol. Though maybe it's less likely to happen to a Servitor than a Skitarii, not sure how differently or similarly each is lobotomized. But if even a nascent, barely realized Magus is able to turn a high-ranking Skitarii that served faithfully for many campaigns back to the cultists' side, I can only imagine how much stronger the full psychic influence of a Hive Fleet would be.
I’d love to see a better writer show how something like a Neurotyrant can properly disorder enemy defenses like how it did in Leviathan, directly attacking the minds of high level decision makers and essentially directing them into poor decisions.
Likely just end up being spawned / born with terminator armor en masse after adapting to metallics vs carbon based resources. Be better off feeding tyrannids “USDA inspected “ filled with microplastics to weaken the gene pool. 🥲😅
It's Warhammer. What happens will change from source to source, based on what is cool.
The rule of cool is above all other rules. One rule to rule the rules
"He knows, do what you have to" -James Workmart
They do, but imagine for a moment your own diet. You need calcium, iron, a lot of various vitamins, fats proteins and sugars to survive right? Now imagine you only get to eat iron and a tiny bit of protein. How exactly are they supposed to replenish their bioforns if all they eat is metal? Not only that but fighting against the mechanicus they also face shit that makes their own soldiers almost inedible, like radioactive guns and toxic stuff.
Apparently not seeing how the quote’s source is a faction codex
Yes you're right they would do in a sense. The whole lore and "biomass" is a bit sketchy. Humans contain all sorts of shit that in its base form we wouldn't consider edible but in trace amounts we contain plenty of. You've got to have a piece of plot armour though to use against the plot armour that Nids are super quick at adapting to combat and consume different things.
Organics are their bread and butter. While mineral and metals are the flint stone vitamins.
I beloeve they eat metal through the terraforming phase of the planet and not durong its invasion phase.
This is such mary sue bullshit lol
Wow, GW actually letting the Mechanicus win for once.
It's the Tyranids, *everybody* is allowed to beat them except maybe T'au.
I mean the T'au get to beat them with help from others. But when did the Orks beat them?
Apparently the orks and tyranids fought eachother for control of a single planet and the Imperium was afraid of what would get off that rock.
You talking about octarius? The last update we got on that the swarmlord killed the warboss in command of the orks so seems like it’s gonna be a tyranid win.
Ghaazkul beat the Octarius nids, then left, then the Octarius orks lost to the tyranids
Tyranids break down metals to use in their armor and weapons though?
Some, yes, but they're still mostly made of meat and need meat to make more 'Nids. They haven't figured out how to do RoboNids. Yet.
I mean they can put a few guys on metal duty while the majority are on flesh duty.
There are different ways to consume "metal". Even humans (and basically all living things on earth) need some amount of "metal", like iron, in their food. But we consume it in its "ionized" form, as part of other molecules. Metals in their metallic form aren't edible thou. Like chlorine Cl² being a poison, but combine it with sodium to form NaCl and you have table salt... That being said, I don't know the exact lore about it in the 40k universe.
Ionized (salt) is "metallic" iron. Metallic Iron commonly in the form of iron powder is edible and certainly not poisonous. Enriched foods from bread, oats and ceral all contain iron powder and is were majority of people get their iron. The main difference in digestion between ionized and iron powder is that ionized easily disolves in water leaving behind a single iron atom which quickly oxidizes in the stomach for absorption. Which is why there is larger amount of iron powder in ceral as you arent expected to be able to digest it all. Woodchips burn faster than logs. The are both "metallic" iron; the only people who try to differentiate the two are tiktok health guru trying to sell shitty vitamins.
Fun fact, cicadas actually have a lot of metal in their ovipositors. They need them hard enough to be able to stab into trees and lay eggs inside them.
What if the Tyranids somehow discover a way to integrate technology into their biology? They end up integrating Grey Goo nanomachine tech into biological makeup. They then can now eat and digest metal and download data. They then turn into a biomechanical monstrosity and are now even able to eat Necrons now. Also there's iron snail in real life. https://preview.redd.it/wql0et6izu9d1.png?width=440&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a025f5f1a97ad606f041082eccbf12974e412d1
Tyranids can already digest metals and other minerals and do incorperate it in their weapons and armour.
Living creatures have bioelectricity so presumably the Tyranids could create an interface that could communicate between biological and mechanical parts. Basically Cyborg Tyranids. The Tyranids could end up developing special organs to house mechanical parts. (Trigger Warning: Mild Gore) [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3268304/chinese-scientists-create-robot-brain-made-human-stem-cells#](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3268304/chinese-scientists-create-robot-brain-made-human-stem-cells#) We've made a cyborg that uses human brain cells to control a robot.
Trygons used bio-electricity as a weapon so we know the Tyranids have it. I think the reason why the Tyranids don't do certain things even though they could (other than theme) is that they do not need to... the Hive Mind doesn't go for "perfect" it goes for "Good enough". Every Tyranid organism fufills it's job and it works, and as long as it works there is no need to change or fix it.
The lore of my Hive fleet is that they recreated mechanicus tech but in Biological form, and actively try to fight them so they can do it again.
This is actually something that irritates me in the lore tbh. Not because nobody is smart enough to use this tactic, but because every time this happens(by design or by coincidence) it's a coin flip if the splinter fleet starves or miraculously sucks the planet dry of raw materials and somehow makes biomass out of iron ore and granite. I know consistency is anathema to the writers at GW and all, but goddamn.
Granite is made up of Silicone, potassium, oxygen, sodium, iron, magnesium, titanium, calcium and Carbon. With the exception of titanium, all of these are naturally found (and important to the function of) the human body and most living creatures on earth. I see no reason why granite wouldn't be an extremely valuable mineral to consume.
I think you're missing my point, I want them to choose one or the other, I'm fine with them turning sheer raw materials into biomass. Go for it. If you have mastery over chemistry, I don't see why you couldn't get literal blood from a stone. My problem is that they waffle between "this planet doesn't have enough life to keep the splinter from starving!" And "The hive fleet is unstoppable! It sucked the very stone from the ground to feed their armies!"
Then they learn and evolve,come back for revenge
Depends. The hive mind is (meant to be) smart: it might well learn "This is inefficient use of our time and resources when there's better prey elsewhere" and leave. It'll look like a victory for short-sighted mortals.
Cant learn and evolve against plot armor
necrons: look what they have to do to mimic a fraction of our power!
Horde skitarii was cannon all along
This doesn't make sense, the actual army Tyranids fight only make up a small portion of the biomass they consume.
They, uh... Tyranids digest metal as well as bio-mass.
I'd argue "metal" IS biomass. Most people are think of Iron or other alloys of it and we have lots of iron in our blood, it is what moves the oxygen when we breathe. Magnesium, sodium, zinc, coppy, etc, etc. All metals, all important to us. Ergo, IMO metals are biomass.
The lore is pretty inconsistent on what the nids can actually eat (because its usually told from an in universe imperium research perspective), but several times they have shown the ability to eat raw metals and minerals. I think its just a preference they have for more complex biologicals, like getting takeout that's already prepared rather than cooking for themselves with the raw elements.
Eh, the Tyranids can break down metal and non organic matter Also…. Seeing as plenty of organic material is built up by elements like carbon, oxygen, Iron and hydrogen, the Tyranids would break down those things aswell to make biomatter.
The tyranids chew through bedrock to get to rich ore deposits, a bunch of servitors is just a nice gift! Unless the hivemind has some particular allergies it would just chew up the metal too. But to be fair, it might take a while to get metallovores out in the field to pick up the scraps. Double but, it the hive should have recognized the tactic after a few rounds of this and had their units drag away the metal or rip it apart if they can't metabolize it on the field.
See this is why my Hive Fleet makes prodigious usage of Pyrovores. Since those are the canon, commonly employed digestion agent for Metals
LOL, I'm gonna starve you by feeding you iron!!!
Ah, yes, the Plotarmium, the strongest material known to man, even nids cannot eat it, because”reasons”
Tyranid: "where flesh” Necron: _twenty-six pages of anguished lamentations_
Arnt nids able to process metals? As far as i understood they strip planets of literally everything until it is a completely barren husk
They strip them of the most convenient materials to gather. So they will dig through bedrock to take the richest veins but they will not travel down into the liquid core and slurp up the iron there. They will also suck up a planets atmosphere, but will not spend the time to break apart the bedrock to free all the gasses trapped inside the rocks. (That last one is talked about by Kotov in the Forges of Mars series when he begins to terraform a planet that was stripped by tyranids.)
I prefer to send Necrons.
Pretty sure Tyranids eat metal.
If only there was a faction in 40k that was made of metal. hmmm.
Aren't servitors legit just lobotomy patients bruh?
*Laughs in Necron*
The Tyranids eat whole planets. They don't give a fuck about servitors. They'll just eat their own dead and everything organic in the planet.
I don't think Tyranids get much biomass from fighting bio enemies. I imagine most their food comes from forests and sea life.
The problem is, humanity makes up a very small percentage of the biomass of a planet, the bacterial content alone dwarfs us, let alone plants, Archeaens, Protist, Fungi and insects. If I lose more biomass killing the sentient population than I get from the sentient population, it’s probable I can more than make up the difference eating the non sentient animals, and grossly exceed it by using Venomthropes and Spores to digest the Microbial life alone.
Just a tinnie winnie little bittle flaw in that plan. That is, out of an entire planet's worth of biomass [humans make out approximately 0,01% of Earth's biomass.](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in-one-graphic/) Tyranids are after all the easy biomass of a planet, why would they stay for that last tiny bit, when they can just leave the spicy biomass and go find some other planet full of easier biomass to digest?
Forge worlds aren't comparable to Earth though. They don't have a natural ecosystem. They might sustain a population of billions, but it could all be hydroponic/factory farmed. It could be that Tyranids can get a net biomass gain out of a Forge World, as long as they can get through the hard shell into the gooey centre. Or it could be strategic, and a gain in biomass was never the goal? Maybe it's fine or a Tyranid fleet to nreak even or burn itself out attacking a Forge World, if that means it's distracted or incapacitated enough that it can't provide weapons to help other picnic baskets protect themselves. Or yeah, it could be something the writers overlooked.
Tyranid fans: they can beat necrons too becaise they can eat metal.
People who say that haven't read the lore. Yes Tyranids eat metal and other minerals but not Necrodermis. Tyranids have overrun Tomb Worlds before but they won the same way they always win... overwhelming numbers. Sincerely a Tyranid fan.
Tyranid Hive Fleets: actively steering the fuck away from the planets with haunted robots that disintegrate them The worst Tyranid fans: I'll ignore that
I mean, it's just sensible. The tyranids want to nom and can't nom the mummies, and they'll zap you a bunch, so why bother? Go eat something else. The hive mind is smart. It'll take on the Necrons when it figures doing so will deter them from being an existential threat, otherwise there's not much point.
I thought tyranids melted down metals and such in acid pools in order to absorb it too
I hate this lore tbh. Tyranids should absolutely be able to re-purpose metal for stuff like exoskeletons. And the incident when they were beaten because they just left the servitor parts lying on the ground for the mechanicus to retrive and re-use pisses me off so so much.
Mfw writers forget about Mawlocs and trygons
The nids eat all the minerals on a planet as well. Don’t think some Temu T1000s are guna stop them. They’re just refined minerals
Don’t Tyranid eat metal and minerals, too? It’s just harder and takes longer, usually after a planet can’t fight back anymore
Metal is biomass… Also daemons wouldn’t work either. There’s an entire tyrannid fleet dedicated to fighting the warp. Unfortunately for the galaxy of warhammer the tyrannids are going to win. The only threat to them are necrons. For some reason they can’t use the living metal as biomass.
Tyranids adapt to everything. Why cant they digest metal after some time?
You can emulate this in real life! 3d print edible models. Make an army of grots and make the nid player you face eat EVERY. SINGLE. MODEL. He destroys!
Lucius best forgeworld
100% metal "Servitor" 😎
Zerg: Does this planet have any vespene gas?
Men of Iron: Gee, too bad we're not around. We'd love to have that whole Tyranid situation dealt with...
Genuinely I wonder why the Silent King was so worried about them. Did he forget he is made of metal? Is he stupid?
Ah yes. *Robots*
Maybe try dissecting some xenos filth and reverse engineer their DNA to create a degeneration virus?
It’s good to have a healthy amount of iron in your diet
So just open an Automaton / Terminie front and let them duke it out
That worked on Metallica if I remember right. Edit:I couldn't find it in the wiki so my bad
And that's how you get metal nids
Iron Hands would be best to combat them.
Phil? "Yes o necron lord assistant to the middle management department?" Send the servitors 2,000 points of necron scarabs. It will amuse me.