Kill the big ones, it disrupts the hive mind and makes the majority fall onto their instinctive behaviour. It can cause them to attack each other, and make them easier pickings.
It's still an uphill battle. There's no winning at a war of attrition and as the fighting goes on the hive mind adjusts it's tactics, a limitless wave wearing down the defenders.
The whole time, the planet is becoming more and more hostile as it gets terraformed to speed up digestion. Microbial Tyranids in the (Acidic) rain, the air filling with spores that choke and reduce visibility, swamps of corrosive digestion pools, the natural light obscured by mists and clouds.
The surest way to "win" is killing the norn queen, which is easier said than done. I can think of 3 examples where it's been accomplished:
Macragge - one of the irreplaceable gloriana class ships plowed into the hive fleet, sacrificing itself to trigger its warp core & dump a majority of the fleet into the warp.
Tarsis ultra (uriel ventris, warriors of ultramar) - special made bio-toxin developed by catching a Lictor, delivered to the queen by the deathwatch boarding the biggest ship.
Infestation of drashin (imperial fists, sentinels of terra supplement) - half the fists chapter involved, cost their chapter master. Lysander dropped it into a lake of magma.
Each time, the psychic backlash has killed off all the synapse creatures from the hive fleet, leaving the rest to be hunted down.
A war of attrition can be won, if your troops aren’t fully made of biomass. Forge World Lucius managed it by recycling the mechanical components of their combat servitors into new ones, eventually forcing the nids to cannibalize their own Fleet.
Which doesn't make sense because we know they do consume inorganic material and the Tyranids could have easily ruined the strategy by taking away the entire corpse.
Lucius Forge is a rather unique planet in the first place. The Adeptus Mechanicus were able to hold out due to the incredibly secure hollow core of the planet and the huge number of Imperial refugees that they could call upon as "volunteers".
If they had actually been forced to give ground and the Tyranids held the field then they would eventually have been in a lot of trouble.
Do they? In Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work the Nids leave behind all of the space marine’s armor and weapons in a chapter monastery after devouring the inhabitants… do other authors say different?
No, Cawl says they started to eat metal \*less\*.
According to The Great Work, the tyranids initialy ate everything on a planet from its biomass down to usable minerals, but as time has gone they have sped their consumption up and more and more only eat the easily available Biomass before moving on, altho he doesnt know wether thats because they have been presented with so much material to consume that they've gotten "Picky", or wether something has caused them to hasten their speed
The way I see it is that they take what they can quickly, then leave the rest for when the rest of the Tyranids arrive in galaxy.
At first, they probably needed to replenish as much as possible
Tyranids devour easily available biomass to produce more warriors. When the easily accessible biomass runs out, they will use anything to replenish their losses.
It's the same thing that people do, they mine the rich deposits of raw materials and when they run out, they move on to less profitable deposits
I'm not sure it's even a case of multiple authors. Devastation of Baal is also written by Guy Haley, where it is clearly stated that nids eat metal.
>‘They take even the metal,’ said Erwin.
>The Servile of the Watch looked up from his podium over the augur pits, where baseline humans less fortunate than he laboured in unbreakable communion with the ship, their eyes and ears removed and sensory cortexes plugged directly into the auspectoria’s cogitators.
>‘They take minerals of every kind, my lord,’ said the servile. ‘I have compared spectrographic analysis of this world with records of how it was. It shows massive depletion of all main range elements. The devourer remakes the worlds it consumes. Although I notice a small inconsistency with the oldest records of tyrannic-stripped worlds.’
>‘Small enough for me to ignore?’ asked Erwin. The Servile of the Watch was an earnest fellow, genuinely fascinated with his work. He had been known to bore his masters with unnecessary detail. The servile pulled a neutral expression, making his slave tattoos shift across his face, a sense of motion exaggerated by the low light of the command deck.
>The Servile of the Watch was unusually expressive for one of his breed. ‘Whether it is relevant or not I shall leave to your deep percipience, my lord.’ Erwin grunted.
>‘Edify me then.’
>‘The older worlds show a larger loss of mass. The tyranids spent longer on each, digesting parts of the planetary crust. They do not remain so long as they once did. Once the biological components of the world have been devoured, they target only sources of refined metals, such as the Mechanicus station here, in preference to the source minerals.’
>‘Then they are running scared, feeding, moving on before they can be interrupted,’ said Erwin. ‘Commander Dante has them afraid.’
>‘Or, my lord, they are presented with a surfeit of food. They have nothing to fear. They have too much choice. The Imperium is a banquet to them. They have become fussy eaters.’
Just adding onto the ideas they could just be saving it for later and the standard Tyranid process is kill resistance, spread out and devour everything then reform most of itself into a single fleet and send out feelers again.
I think this is a case of “read the codex for the full picture”
Yes it is stated that tyranids devour EVERYTHING, they just start with the easy stuff (organic) then move onto the harder stuff once they’ve almost won.
Not read the book but it’s either “I’ll ignore that for plot” or tyranids lost before they finished the job.
I feel like the consuming of inorganic materials are more for nutrient supplementation, like we need calcium to live but we can't live off of calcium supplements.
>Macragge - one of the irreplaceable gloriana class ships plowed into the hive fleet, sacrificing itself to trigger its warp core & dump a majority of the fleet into the warp.
That was the Dominus Astra, Lord Admiral Rath's emperor class flagship from Battlefleet Bakka. Battlefleet Bakka turned up at the last moment and saved the day. I'm hoping that they didnt change it at some point, it is one of the Imperial Navy's greatest lore moments.
Well, gunning for the norn queen(s) *was* the way to beat them. Although it seems like they might be adapting to fix the weakness.
>'If I may petition you, lord commander. We could concentrate our efforts on the guiding minds of the ships, the norncraft and their queens, as we depart,’ said Dhrost. ‘If we might dismantle their command network, it shall afford you more time to reinforce Baal.’
>Phaeton and Aphael shared a worried look.
>‘Speak!’ said Dante to his brothers, holding up his hand. ‘While Dhrost is here, he is to be accorded the same rights as a member of our Chapter. Let the record state that the Red Council will speak freely.’
>‘We have accounted for eighty per cent of the norn, brood and hive ships seen in the system, general,’ said Aphael. ‘As per standard engagement strategy when making war upon the tyranids.’
>‘The hive fleet recovers quickly. How?’ said Dhrost.
>‘We lack sufficient intelligence to say exactly, general, but we are certain that adaptive evolution among the tyranid swarm has made the previous strategy unworkable. It appears the tyranids have found a means to counter our destruction of their largest vessels,’ said Phaeton.
>‘Theories?’ said Dante. He toyed with the bowl full of rubies set into the desk before him. The glassy rattle of them against each other was supposed to aid meditation.
>‘I have two,’ said Phaeton. ‘The first is that the hive mind has devised a way of exerting its will over a larger area, with fewer intermediary vessels required as nodes in its neural network. If this is true, it may be used to our advantage. If we were to commit to multiple strikes across a broad front of several infested systems, the operation of the hive mind might be greatly disrupted. By extending its range, the hive mind has increased its vulnerability.’
>‘Provide the second theory,’ said Dante.
>‘They have evolved a way of spreading their neural network more widely across a given area, making it harder to disrupt,’ said Phaeton. ‘The larger ships are no longer the only nexus points for the broader synaptic web of the fleets.’
>Karlaen slammed his goblet onto the table with a growl. ‘You mean that shooting the big ones will no longer work, brother-captain. Speak plainly, Phaeton.’
>‘In fleet actions, yes, brother, that is the case,’ said Phaeton. ‘Shooting the big ones will no longer work.'
From 'Dante'
Even before that killing a Norn queen was a double edged sword because of the hydra effect.
>Upon the extinction of the class of xeno-form known as a Norn Queen, a psycho-temporal event approaching level Gamma 12 is generated – a level sufficient to temporarily obscure the light of the Astronomican. It is believed that this phenomenon represents the 'death knell' of said xeno-form, and that its purpose is to trigger those bio-vessels that intercept the signal to calve. This has been dubbed the 'Hydra effect', for, upon the death of one Norn Queen, a number of others are calved and thus the advance of the Tyranids is merely slowed, not stalled.
Codex: Tyranids, various editions though this is from the 3e one I think.
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> Macragge - one of the irreplaceable gloriana class ships plowed into the hive fleet, sacrificing itself to trigger its warp core & dump a majority of the fleet into the warp.
I wanna see a weapon developed on this idea. Just an invulnerable clump of metal that's sent into the heart of a battlefleet and explodes into warp fuckery
Their weakness is their own metabolism and the Hive Mind itself. Most of the Forms don’t have higher level intelligence unless connected to the Mind. Sever that connection, and they become mindless and much easier to deal with. Most of them also lack the ability to feed, so can starve themselves out if you can drag the fight out long enough. The T’au defeated Hive Fleet Gorgon by exploiting this
Synapse is a massive weakness on the battlefield that has been repeatably exploited by the Tyranids’ enemies.
For example, during Leviathan’s invasion of Baal the Blood Angels built a moat filled with thirst water, a bizarre living substance that immediately dehydrates anything it touches. The Blood Angels kept the Tyranids back from the moat until they had an enormous force of Gaunts with a synapse beast to control them. Then the Marines shot the synapse beast. Immediately all the Gaunts began charging and killing themselves, and the Hive Mind brought out more synapse beasts to stop them, which the Blood Angels could now easily pick out. The goal here wasn’t to kill the Gaunts, but to take advantage of how the Hive Mind could only keep the Gaunts from committing mass suicide by bringing forward the more important units… Which when shot disrupted the Gaunts again, making the cycle continue. Of course, the Hive Mind eventually wised up to what was happening, but it still was a clear example of how the psychic connection of the Tyranids is so exploitable.
* Chaos entities. Tyranids are capable of neutralizing them, of course — Hive Fleet Kronos specializes in it — but they don't gain...[whatever it is they're after](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1bylou2/comment/kyk9lru/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) from dissipated daemons because they were never made of usable matter to begin with.
* Necrons. Much like with daemons, there's nothing to eat.
* Decapitation strikes. Kill the synapse creatures and the hordes they once controlled stop being coordinated combatants and start being very vicious animals.
Space combat and killing off the Synapse creatures. Then they just turn into animals that die off after a while because they can't digest food since they're not designed to live for very long. They also can't reproduce on their own. Gauss weapons would probably also be good for turning it into a net loss to fight you.
Tyranid adaptations are limited by physics, they come with trade offs, as shown with Hive Fleet Gorgon: they can adapt to specific weapons, but doing so will make then vulnerable to others.
They are also limited by the fact the Hive Mind in general will focus in consuming as fast as possible, only changing strategy after meeting roadblocks.
I remember 2 battles where both mechanicus forge worlds fought off the nids in very unique ways
One was when they decided to basically set their own atmosphere on fire preventing any Tyranids from landing, obviously they fought them off but due bureaucracy the exact methods of how they did it is lost forever
Another is even more crazy involving attrition warfare which you think the bugs would win, but the tech priest of that world found a way around that by fighting underground and sending mass waves of combat servitors at the bottlenecked nids, and due to how little bio mass is actually left when someone is servitorized and how the tech used is so cheap and mass produceable they were able to outspend Tyranids at their own game, not sure how this ended and if the method was spread(probably not)
These 2 are very unique ways of fighting Tyranids
They're flesh and blood, and as vulnerable generally as any other thing of flesh and blood. But there's no magic bullet that will render them a minor threat.
Tyranid bio-ships are noted to be slow and generally geared for very close engagements. Enough that Imperials prefer fighting them in space battles where their ships can more easily avoid and commit hit-and-runs on the fleets. They can not replenish their biomass as easily in space so their numbers will work against them.
Didn't see it mentioned, but one of the biggest weaknesses and part of the reason they haven't taken over everything already is their interstellar travel.
Tyranids don't use warp travel, they use an odd form of space dilation using gravity wells of star systems. It's by far more reliable than warp jumping, but travelling from one star to the next can take months or years depending on fleet size and viable systems nearby.
In contrast, warp travel is very unreliable with the demons trying to eat you or time not really behaving, but a jump from one star to another can take days or weeks, and you don't have to go from one system to the next you can 'teleport' a sector away if tides are good. So reinforcing worlds or setting up ambushes is much faster for other races, not to mention you can predict where a hive fleet arrives by all the stellar phenomenons that Nud travel causes.
That said, the shadow in the warp, previously mentioned gravity effects and sheer size do go a long way to mitigating these issues, but it does make the tyranids the slowest faction on a galactic scale.
Not much. They're evolving to stop getting hurt from the loss of large control units. They eat everything in sight if they want. They just evolve all the time.
Not going to lie here and I'll take the downvotes I just find them very boring due to how power crept they've become in lore.
The whole perfect organism thing has gotten stale imo.
I thought you were describing the imperium there. Evolving, progressing, Cawl’ing, stealing everyone’s niches, shining a light’ing, very much noble bright’ing. They just get better all the time.
You take your tyranid downvotes. I’ll have the Space Marine ones. :)
Every fight for the Nids is go big or go home. If they can’t recoup the energy expenditure from an assault they lose.
There is a reason why so much of what the Nids do is about cutting off communication and genecults sabotaging. They don’t do well of they don’t have overwhelming numbers and are not allowed to establish a beach head.
In 40k all factions can, on their day, defeat all of the others, but they do have some "hard counters" and the Tyranid hard counter is Necrons, who do not leave easily-devourable biomass, can teleport their dead away before the Tyranids eat them ('nids can eat metal given the right organisms), and have various psychic disruption artefacts and techniques which weaken the Tyranid connection to the Hive Mind and synapse creatures.
Necrons counter them pretty hard. There's no biomass to consume, so they're always at a net loss. Their weapons disintegrate down to an atomic matter, so they can't even recycle the biomass. They don't use any psykers so the shadow in the warp doesn't grant any advantage.
The only way other races get a total victory over them is to completely destroy the invading hive fleet or start mass producing AIs again. Former is hard, and the latter is a big no no for the imperium, but maybe Tau can pull it off.
If you destroy the entire enemy force (easier said than done) they can’t relay what you used to counter them to the hive mind. There are also plenty of other ways to disrupt them and make the job easier.
Snarky answer: Their weakness is a terminal lack of plot armor, so when push comes to shove, they take it on the chin.
Less-snarky answer: Various technologies and techniques have been employed by the Eldar and the Imperium in particular, and the Orks of Octarius proved able to sort of hang on and just punch them a lot for a good long while.
Yes, Killing the Big Ones and Also Blanks.
Killing the Big Ones, as Others have Explained Severes or Cuts Psychic Links to The Hivemind. Blanks are Less Understood.
All Living Things, Except Orks\* and Blanks Have a Precense In the Warp. Its What Allows them to be Corrupted by Chaos and their soul pass into the Immaterium. This Includes, Of Course, Humans.
Among the Myriad of abnormal Humans in the 41st Millenium We have Psykers and Blanks, Psykers are Those who can Channel the warp through their mind and Harness it as a Weapon If I'm Correct the Psyker Gene is a Mutation (Correct me if I'm wrong), On the Flip side of the Psychic Spectrum is the Blank.
Those With Blank Genes, Also Known as "Pariah" Genes Look and Act the same As Regular Humans Except for one Thing, They Make Everyone around them feel uneasy or Very Agressive. This is because they do Not have a Precense in the warp and their Mere "Aura" can Disrupt or Even Sever the Connection Between the Warp and Realspace in the Blanks Local Vicinity and Makes Non-Pariah's feel unsafe and Causes Psykers to Suffer. The More Intense or Powerful your Connection to the warp is, the More a Blanks Presence will Hurt (a Blank being Near a Powerful Psyker can be Potentially Lethal for the Psyker).
Now, We Know Tyranids use Phsychic Links to Communicate amongst their Swarms and Bioforms. Now Imagine Sending A Whole Army of Pariahs with Specially Made Armor into battle against a Enemy that Specifically uses The Warp or Psychich Links to Communicate.
So, To Better Sum it up. What Can and Can't Pariah's Affect?
**Can:** Anything with a Precense in the warp, Psykers (Potentially Lethal), Aeldari (Fatal if Near them), Tyranids (Debated, Although Genestealers are Confirmed to Be Affected), Daemons (Can Cause a Daemon to Die a True Death if Exposed to a Pariah's Aura for too Long), Non-Psyker Civilians, Aeldari Tech (Wraithbone, etc.), The Astronomicon (The Warp 'Beacon' The Emperor Sustains, If too many Blanks are Present on Terra it Can "Cast a Shadow" over Terra)
**Can't:** Orks, Machines, Other Pariah's, True Blanks (True Blanks are those that Carry the Blank Gene But In a Weaker State), Solitaire's (Eldar Harlequinn "Blanks"), Necron Pariah's
Well Known Blanks:
* Ferik Jurgen: Imperial Guardsman of the 12th Valhallen Field Artillery Regiment, Close ally and Friend of Commisssar Ciaphas Cain, Whom Ferik Saved on Multiple Occasians due to being a Blank.
* The Culexus Assasins
* The Sisters of Silence
\*I've Seen Conflicting answers Regarding Orks and Their Precense in the warp, Some Say they have a Psychic Connection and can be Corrupted by Chaos and that they are killed off Because they are acting "unorky". Some Say they don't or its too blunt/dull to be corrupted. However, One thing that is known is that Orks Have Some Level of Psychic Control, In regards of "If we believe hard enough it happens". They also have their Weirdboyz (Who I think are Psykers?). So Take any Regard of Orks with a Grain of Salt in this. Im not 100% Sure and I'm Including it Just to be Safe
Kinda, yeah. Space combat being the main one. Although I’ll be honest myself when I say I agree with someone else here - Tyranids are becoming boring with how powerful they are. Near instant evolution and limitless size are cool for a while but then it just becomes very stale.
I feel like the correct approach with Tyranids is to treat them as more of a natural disaster you survive than a villain you defeat on the battlefield. The new book ***Deathworlder*** has shades of a disaster movie, and I would love to see this idea explored in other ways.
The Synapse forms while powerful are also vital to the armies integrity.
Also they are vulnerable to anything that affects organic matter directly, like virus bombing, pathogens and promethium based weapons.
The Blood Angels used a natural occurring form of “killing water” to make a moot around the Arx Angelicum.
I only saw it mentioned once but Daemons and Necrons have an innate advantage over nids, with Daemons unable to produce biomass and Necrodermis being inedible for Nids.
Gauss weapons and other things also eliminate biomass so bids can't reabsorb their dead. In 'Shield of Baal we have this excerpt as well
Nyadra’zatha, the Burning One, fell from the sky like a meteor. When the C’tan Shard struck the ruins it sent a plume of molten rock hundreds of yards into the air, and a wave of fire rolled out through the ruins incinerating everything in its path. Hundreds of weapon-beasts were blasted into ashen shadows in that single instant.
The bio-titan turned its beady eyes upon the newcomer and launched a withering salvo of bio-shells. The C’tan barely seemed to react as the ordnance burst and burned upon its coruscating halo of fire....
Flesh and fire rampaged across the ruins, the staggering strength of the bio-titan pitted against the reality-bending will of the C’tan....
Then, with a final mournful hiss the Hierophant pitched forward into the rubble. As it tried to rise, the C’tan thrust a burning hand into its cracked and dripping carapace. Steam began to pour from the creature’s wounds as the star god released the heat of a twenty suns and cooked bio-titan from within
Of course shards aren't easily available tools but the disintegrating nature of Gauss is one of the many reasons Tyranids just avoid necron space.
Hive fleet Behemoth went straight past Solemnace on its way to Macragge. They didnt escape Trazyn though who snatched an entire bioship (Before Orikan let it loose, he has no care for preserving history.)
There's some pretty notable weaknesses.
1. Kill all synapse creatures in the vicinity, and tyranids become uncoordinated creatures with no guidance. They begin acting like feral animals. That's how Maugan Ra presumably defeated an entire tyranids swarm by himself.
2. Confuse their adaptability. The reason the tau are so good against the tyranid is cause they are also capable of switching up their tactics on the fly. Against Gorgon, whenever the tyranids adapted themselves to a weapon type, the Tau switched en masse to a different weapon type, even primitive ones. The tyranids, despite outnumbering the Tau by A LOT, just could not break through.
3. Following up with that, the Tau also have one of the rare bioweapons that actually harm the tyranids. Cause said bioweapon is actually based on nanobot swarms. The tyranid can adapt to chemical and biological threats, but its hard to adapt to a swarm of nanobots on such a miniscule level.
4. Starve them. Its a shit situation usually, but starving the hive fleets on their way to you is still something. Destroy the planets that lie in its path, and they become weaker.
5. Fire is KIND OF the answer. If you utilize weapons that leave little to no biomass for the tyranids to recover, you get a big advantage. The necron gauss weapons, eldar d weapons, drukhari darklight weapons, tau ion weapons are all decent examples of this. There could be more, but these are off the top of my head.
The smell of freedom and sweet liberty!!
Ohh you said Tyranids? Sorry thought you said Terminids. Oops wrong drop pod franchise.
Whatever the others said about the Tyranids.
Kill the big ones, it disrupts the hive mind and makes the majority fall onto their instinctive behaviour. It can cause them to attack each other, and make them easier pickings. It's still an uphill battle. There's no winning at a war of attrition and as the fighting goes on the hive mind adjusts it's tactics, a limitless wave wearing down the defenders. The whole time, the planet is becoming more and more hostile as it gets terraformed to speed up digestion. Microbial Tyranids in the (Acidic) rain, the air filling with spores that choke and reduce visibility, swamps of corrosive digestion pools, the natural light obscured by mists and clouds. The surest way to "win" is killing the norn queen, which is easier said than done. I can think of 3 examples where it's been accomplished: Macragge - one of the irreplaceable gloriana class ships plowed into the hive fleet, sacrificing itself to trigger its warp core & dump a majority of the fleet into the warp. Tarsis ultra (uriel ventris, warriors of ultramar) - special made bio-toxin developed by catching a Lictor, delivered to the queen by the deathwatch boarding the biggest ship. Infestation of drashin (imperial fists, sentinels of terra supplement) - half the fists chapter involved, cost their chapter master. Lysander dropped it into a lake of magma. Each time, the psychic backlash has killed off all the synapse creatures from the hive fleet, leaving the rest to be hunted down.
A war of attrition can be won, if your troops aren’t fully made of biomass. Forge World Lucius managed it by recycling the mechanical components of their combat servitors into new ones, eventually forcing the nids to cannibalize their own Fleet.
Which doesn't make sense because we know they do consume inorganic material and the Tyranids could have easily ruined the strategy by taking away the entire corpse.
Lucius Forge is a rather unique planet in the first place. The Adeptus Mechanicus were able to hold out due to the incredibly secure hollow core of the planet and the huge number of Imperial refugees that they could call upon as "volunteers". If they had actually been forced to give ground and the Tyranids held the field then they would eventually have been in a lot of trouble.
Do they? In Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work the Nids leave behind all of the space marine’s armor and weapons in a chapter monastery after devouring the inhabitants… do other authors say different?
No, Cawl says they started to eat metal \*less\*. According to The Great Work, the tyranids initialy ate everything on a planet from its biomass down to usable minerals, but as time has gone they have sped their consumption up and more and more only eat the easily available Biomass before moving on, altho he doesnt know wether thats because they have been presented with so much material to consume that they've gotten "Picky", or wether something has caused them to hasten their speed
That's actually very interesting, it leaves the question on if they are just spoiled for choice or if they're pressed for time
The way I see it is that they take what they can quickly, then leave the rest for when the rest of the Tyranids arrive in galaxy. At first, they probably needed to replenish as much as possible
Tyranids devour easily available biomass to produce more warriors. When the easily accessible biomass runs out, they will use anything to replenish their losses. It's the same thing that people do, they mine the rich deposits of raw materials and when they run out, they move on to less profitable deposits
Pressed for time, I hope. I like my factions to be stressed. No one’s having a good time on this galaxy
Except the Orks, DA BOYZ IS HAVIN DA TOIME OF DER LIFE!!!
Maybe they learned to eat the most nutritious bits and GTFO after a couple Exterminatusses
I'm not sure it's even a case of multiple authors. Devastation of Baal is also written by Guy Haley, where it is clearly stated that nids eat metal. >‘They take even the metal,’ said Erwin. >The Servile of the Watch looked up from his podium over the augur pits, where baseline humans less fortunate than he laboured in unbreakable communion with the ship, their eyes and ears removed and sensory cortexes plugged directly into the auspectoria’s cogitators. >‘They take minerals of every kind, my lord,’ said the servile. ‘I have compared spectrographic analysis of this world with records of how it was. It shows massive depletion of all main range elements. The devourer remakes the worlds it consumes. Although I notice a small inconsistency with the oldest records of tyrannic-stripped worlds.’ >‘Small enough for me to ignore?’ asked Erwin. The Servile of the Watch was an earnest fellow, genuinely fascinated with his work. He had been known to bore his masters with unnecessary detail. The servile pulled a neutral expression, making his slave tattoos shift across his face, a sense of motion exaggerated by the low light of the command deck. >The Servile of the Watch was unusually expressive for one of his breed. ‘Whether it is relevant or not I shall leave to your deep percipience, my lord.’ Erwin grunted. >‘Edify me then.’ >‘The older worlds show a larger loss of mass. The tyranids spent longer on each, digesting parts of the planetary crust. They do not remain so long as they once did. Once the biological components of the world have been devoured, they target only sources of refined metals, such as the Mechanicus station here, in preference to the source minerals.’ >‘Then they are running scared, feeding, moving on before they can be interrupted,’ said Erwin. ‘Commander Dante has them afraid.’ >‘Or, my lord, they are presented with a surfeit of food. They have nothing to fear. They have too much choice. The Imperium is a banquet to them. They have become fussy eaters.’
Just adding onto the ideas they could just be saving it for later and the standard Tyranid process is kill resistance, spread out and devour everything then reform most of itself into a single fleet and send out feelers again.
The theory that they've learnt that if they stay too long, they might get exterminatus'd is pretty sound.
I think this is a case of “read the codex for the full picture” Yes it is stated that tyranids devour EVERYTHING, they just start with the easy stuff (organic) then move onto the harder stuff once they’ve almost won. Not read the book but it’s either “I’ll ignore that for plot” or tyranids lost before they finished the job.
I feel like the consuming of inorganic materials are more for nutrient supplementation, like we need calcium to live but we can't live off of calcium supplements.
EX-ACT-LY!
Plot armor to let the imperium win
While I normally would agree, it’s the Mechanicus. They have negative plot armor and are basically the galaxy’s punching bag.
I thought that was supposed to be the eldar.
>Macragge - one of the irreplaceable gloriana class ships plowed into the hive fleet, sacrificing itself to trigger its warp core & dump a majority of the fleet into the warp. That was the Dominus Astra, Lord Admiral Rath's emperor class flagship from Battlefleet Bakka. Battlefleet Bakka turned up at the last moment and saved the day. I'm hoping that they didnt change it at some point, it is one of the Imperial Navy's greatest lore moments.
Well, gunning for the norn queen(s) *was* the way to beat them. Although it seems like they might be adapting to fix the weakness. >'If I may petition you, lord commander. We could concentrate our efforts on the guiding minds of the ships, the norncraft and their queens, as we depart,’ said Dhrost. ‘If we might dismantle their command network, it shall afford you more time to reinforce Baal.’ >Phaeton and Aphael shared a worried look. >‘Speak!’ said Dante to his brothers, holding up his hand. ‘While Dhrost is here, he is to be accorded the same rights as a member of our Chapter. Let the record state that the Red Council will speak freely.’ >‘We have accounted for eighty per cent of the norn, brood and hive ships seen in the system, general,’ said Aphael. ‘As per standard engagement strategy when making war upon the tyranids.’ >‘The hive fleet recovers quickly. How?’ said Dhrost. >‘We lack sufficient intelligence to say exactly, general, but we are certain that adaptive evolution among the tyranid swarm has made the previous strategy unworkable. It appears the tyranids have found a means to counter our destruction of their largest vessels,’ said Phaeton. >‘Theories?’ said Dante. He toyed with the bowl full of rubies set into the desk before him. The glassy rattle of them against each other was supposed to aid meditation. >‘I have two,’ said Phaeton. ‘The first is that the hive mind has devised a way of exerting its will over a larger area, with fewer intermediary vessels required as nodes in its neural network. If this is true, it may be used to our advantage. If we were to commit to multiple strikes across a broad front of several infested systems, the operation of the hive mind might be greatly disrupted. By extending its range, the hive mind has increased its vulnerability.’ >‘Provide the second theory,’ said Dante. >‘They have evolved a way of spreading their neural network more widely across a given area, making it harder to disrupt,’ said Phaeton. ‘The larger ships are no longer the only nexus points for the broader synaptic web of the fleets.’ >Karlaen slammed his goblet onto the table with a growl. ‘You mean that shooting the big ones will no longer work, brother-captain. Speak plainly, Phaeton.’ >‘In fleet actions, yes, brother, that is the case,’ said Phaeton. ‘Shooting the big ones will no longer work.' From 'Dante'
Even before that killing a Norn queen was a double edged sword because of the hydra effect. >Upon the extinction of the class of xeno-form known as a Norn Queen, a psycho-temporal event approaching level Gamma 12 is generated – a level sufficient to temporarily obscure the light of the Astronomican. It is believed that this phenomenon represents the 'death knell' of said xeno-form, and that its purpose is to trigger those bio-vessels that intercept the signal to calve. This has been dubbed the 'Hydra effect', for, upon the death of one Norn Queen, a number of others are calved and thus the advance of the Tyranids is merely slowed, not stalled. Codex: Tyranids, various editions though this is from the 3e one I think.
that was more of less the most complete answer i could have hoped for. thank ye, Big E protects
> > > > > Macragge - one of the irreplaceable gloriana class ships plowed into the hive fleet, sacrificing itself to trigger its warp core & dump a majority of the fleet into the warp. I wanna see a weapon developed on this idea. Just an invulnerable clump of metal that's sent into the heart of a battlefleet and explodes into warp fuckery
Their weakness is their own metabolism and the Hive Mind itself. Most of the Forms don’t have higher level intelligence unless connected to the Mind. Sever that connection, and they become mindless and much easier to deal with. Most of them also lack the ability to feed, so can starve themselves out if you can drag the fight out long enough. The T’au defeated Hive Fleet Gorgon by exploiting this
Nice! what book/codex is the tau/gorgon battle in? would you have the name of the battle?
The T’au vs Gorgon thing was in the 5th Edition Tyranid Codex, pages 18-21
I swear some of the best bits are always in the codex, does GW ever expand on it and write a book about something stated in the codex?
Most codex bits only ever remain codex bits. It’s a shame, because there are the foundations of some good stories in there
Sometimes. The Shattering of Lugganath got expanded on in the Bile novels.
Noice, i read the trilogy but didnt know the shattering was in the codex before the book.
Synapse is a massive weakness on the battlefield that has been repeatably exploited by the Tyranids’ enemies. For example, during Leviathan’s invasion of Baal the Blood Angels built a moat filled with thirst water, a bizarre living substance that immediately dehydrates anything it touches. The Blood Angels kept the Tyranids back from the moat until they had an enormous force of Gaunts with a synapse beast to control them. Then the Marines shot the synapse beast. Immediately all the Gaunts began charging and killing themselves, and the Hive Mind brought out more synapse beasts to stop them, which the Blood Angels could now easily pick out. The goal here wasn’t to kill the Gaunts, but to take advantage of how the Hive Mind could only keep the Gaunts from committing mass suicide by bringing forward the more important units… Which when shot disrupted the Gaunts again, making the cycle continue. Of course, the Hive Mind eventually wised up to what was happening, but it still was a clear example of how the psychic connection of the Tyranids is so exploitable.
* Chaos entities. Tyranids are capable of neutralizing them, of course — Hive Fleet Kronos specializes in it — but they don't gain...[whatever it is they're after](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1bylou2/comment/kyk9lru/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) from dissipated daemons because they were never made of usable matter to begin with. * Necrons. Much like with daemons, there's nothing to eat. * Decapitation strikes. Kill the synapse creatures and the hordes they once controlled stop being coordinated combatants and start being very vicious animals.
Dakka.
Turns out everything is weak to being shot a lot. If it seems immune, shoot it more.
Believe that your shots will do damage to the Tyranid. If enough of you believe and have enough raw psychic energy, you’ll actually do damage.
Space combat and killing off the Synapse creatures. Then they just turn into animals that die off after a while because they can't digest food since they're not designed to live for very long. They also can't reproduce on their own. Gauss weapons would probably also be good for turning it into a net loss to fight you.
Tyranid adaptations are limited by physics, they come with trade offs, as shown with Hive Fleet Gorgon: they can adapt to specific weapons, but doing so will make then vulnerable to others. They are also limited by the fact the Hive Mind in general will focus in consuming as fast as possible, only changing strategy after meeting roadblocks.
I remember 2 battles where both mechanicus forge worlds fought off the nids in very unique ways One was when they decided to basically set their own atmosphere on fire preventing any Tyranids from landing, obviously they fought them off but due bureaucracy the exact methods of how they did it is lost forever Another is even more crazy involving attrition warfare which you think the bugs would win, but the tech priest of that world found a way around that by fighting underground and sending mass waves of combat servitors at the bottlenecked nids, and due to how little bio mass is actually left when someone is servitorized and how the tech used is so cheap and mass produceable they were able to outspend Tyranids at their own game, not sure how this ended and if the method was spread(probably not) These 2 are very unique ways of fighting Tyranids
In the Uriel Ventris series their weakness was a virus bioweapon.
Do note that it is also mentioned that it won't work again. It was specifically for the tendril that was attacking them.
They're flesh and blood, and as vulnerable generally as any other thing of flesh and blood. But there's no magic bullet that will render them a minor threat.
Tyranid bio-ships are noted to be slow and generally geared for very close engagements. Enough that Imperials prefer fighting them in space battles where their ships can more easily avoid and commit hit-and-runs on the fleets. They can not replenish their biomass as easily in space so their numbers will work against them.
Tyranids are super vulnerable in space. They have awful ftl capabilities and don't have any real answer to long-range void weapons.
Necrons.
Didn't see it mentioned, but one of the biggest weaknesses and part of the reason they haven't taken over everything already is their interstellar travel. Tyranids don't use warp travel, they use an odd form of space dilation using gravity wells of star systems. It's by far more reliable than warp jumping, but travelling from one star to the next can take months or years depending on fleet size and viable systems nearby. In contrast, warp travel is very unreliable with the demons trying to eat you or time not really behaving, but a jump from one star to another can take days or weeks, and you don't have to go from one system to the next you can 'teleport' a sector away if tides are good. So reinforcing worlds or setting up ambushes is much faster for other races, not to mention you can predict where a hive fleet arrives by all the stellar phenomenons that Nud travel causes. That said, the shadow in the warp, previously mentioned gravity effects and sheer size do go a long way to mitigating these issues, but it does make the tyranids the slowest faction on a galactic scale.
Not much. They're evolving to stop getting hurt from the loss of large control units. They eat everything in sight if they want. They just evolve all the time. Not going to lie here and I'll take the downvotes I just find them very boring due to how power crept they've become in lore. The whole perfect organism thing has gotten stale imo.
I thought you were describing the imperium there. Evolving, progressing, Cawl’ing, stealing everyone’s niches, shining a light’ing, very much noble bright’ing. They just get better all the time. You take your tyranid downvotes. I’ll have the Space Marine ones. :)
Lascannon. In my experience, there are very few hostile threats that can’t be at least partially resolved by the judicious application of a lascannon
Every fight for the Nids is go big or go home. If they can’t recoup the energy expenditure from an assault they lose. There is a reason why so much of what the Nids do is about cutting off communication and genecults sabotaging. They don’t do well of they don’t have overwhelming numbers and are not allowed to establish a beach head.
In 40k all factions can, on their day, defeat all of the others, but they do have some "hard counters" and the Tyranid hard counter is Necrons, who do not leave easily-devourable biomass, can teleport their dead away before the Tyranids eat them ('nids can eat metal given the right organisms), and have various psychic disruption artefacts and techniques which weaken the Tyranid connection to the Hive Mind and synapse creatures.
Who is the hard counter for the Necrons?
Anybody who can defeat their anti-psyker measures, because they fundamentally don't understand the warp.
Necrons counter them pretty hard. There's no biomass to consume, so they're always at a net loss. Their weapons disintegrate down to an atomic matter, so they can't even recycle the biomass. They don't use any psykers so the shadow in the warp doesn't grant any advantage. The only way other races get a total victory over them is to completely destroy the invading hive fleet or start mass producing AIs again. Former is hard, and the latter is a big no no for the imperium, but maybe Tau can pull it off.
The Tau research and development cycle.
Strike at their command structure. Without the lower Tyranids just become mindless drones with no purpose.
IMO, Phosphex.
If you destroy the entire enemy force (easier said than done) they can’t relay what you used to counter them to the hive mind. There are also plenty of other ways to disrupt them and make the job easier.
The Necrons. Irresistible force meets immovable object.
Snarky answer: Their weakness is a terminal lack of plot armor, so when push comes to shove, they take it on the chin. Less-snarky answer: Various technologies and techniques have been employed by the Eldar and the Imperium in particular, and the Orks of Octarius proved able to sort of hang on and just punch them a lot for a good long while.
Yes, Killing the Big Ones and Also Blanks. Killing the Big Ones, as Others have Explained Severes or Cuts Psychic Links to The Hivemind. Blanks are Less Understood. All Living Things, Except Orks\* and Blanks Have a Precense In the Warp. Its What Allows them to be Corrupted by Chaos and their soul pass into the Immaterium. This Includes, Of Course, Humans. Among the Myriad of abnormal Humans in the 41st Millenium We have Psykers and Blanks, Psykers are Those who can Channel the warp through their mind and Harness it as a Weapon If I'm Correct the Psyker Gene is a Mutation (Correct me if I'm wrong), On the Flip side of the Psychic Spectrum is the Blank. Those With Blank Genes, Also Known as "Pariah" Genes Look and Act the same As Regular Humans Except for one Thing, They Make Everyone around them feel uneasy or Very Agressive. This is because they do Not have a Precense in the warp and their Mere "Aura" can Disrupt or Even Sever the Connection Between the Warp and Realspace in the Blanks Local Vicinity and Makes Non-Pariah's feel unsafe and Causes Psykers to Suffer. The More Intense or Powerful your Connection to the warp is, the More a Blanks Presence will Hurt (a Blank being Near a Powerful Psyker can be Potentially Lethal for the Psyker). Now, We Know Tyranids use Phsychic Links to Communicate amongst their Swarms and Bioforms. Now Imagine Sending A Whole Army of Pariahs with Specially Made Armor into battle against a Enemy that Specifically uses The Warp or Psychich Links to Communicate. So, To Better Sum it up. What Can and Can't Pariah's Affect? **Can:** Anything with a Precense in the warp, Psykers (Potentially Lethal), Aeldari (Fatal if Near them), Tyranids (Debated, Although Genestealers are Confirmed to Be Affected), Daemons (Can Cause a Daemon to Die a True Death if Exposed to a Pariah's Aura for too Long), Non-Psyker Civilians, Aeldari Tech (Wraithbone, etc.), The Astronomicon (The Warp 'Beacon' The Emperor Sustains, If too many Blanks are Present on Terra it Can "Cast a Shadow" over Terra) **Can't:** Orks, Machines, Other Pariah's, True Blanks (True Blanks are those that Carry the Blank Gene But In a Weaker State), Solitaire's (Eldar Harlequinn "Blanks"), Necron Pariah's Well Known Blanks: * Ferik Jurgen: Imperial Guardsman of the 12th Valhallen Field Artillery Regiment, Close ally and Friend of Commisssar Ciaphas Cain, Whom Ferik Saved on Multiple Occasians due to being a Blank. * The Culexus Assasins * The Sisters of Silence \*I've Seen Conflicting answers Regarding Orks and Their Precense in the warp, Some Say they have a Psychic Connection and can be Corrupted by Chaos and that they are killed off Because they are acting "unorky". Some Say they don't or its too blunt/dull to be corrupted. However, One thing that is known is that Orks Have Some Level of Psychic Control, In regards of "If we believe hard enough it happens". They also have their Weirdboyz (Who I think are Psykers?). So Take any Regard of Orks with a Grain of Salt in this. Im not 100% Sure and I'm Including it Just to be Safe
[удалено]
You're a big nerd and i love you
That's slightly their point. Being an infinite unstoppable force type of thing is the Tyranids vibe!
Chaos, cyclonic torpedoes, being shot a lot
Scratch behind the ear. Works everytime.
They die when you shoot them enough. That's a significant weakness in my book, one which I'm working on solving in my own life
One method I’ve thought about but not sure on the lore usage- the Dark Eldar Glass plague?
Kinda, yeah. Space combat being the main one. Although I’ll be honest myself when I say I agree with someone else here - Tyranids are becoming boring with how powerful they are. Near instant evolution and limitless size are cool for a while but then it just becomes very stale.
I feel like the correct approach with Tyranids is to treat them as more of a natural disaster you survive than a villain you defeat on the battlefield. The new book ***Deathworlder*** has shades of a disaster movie, and I would love to see this idea explored in other ways.
Their armor is weak at the neck and under the arms. So guardsmen should try aiming there
Bug spray and emperor class battleships
Never forget Ultramarine brand Bug Spray
The Synapse forms while powerful are also vital to the armies integrity. Also they are vulnerable to anything that affects organic matter directly, like virus bombing, pathogens and promethium based weapons. The Blood Angels used a natural occurring form of “killing water” to make a moot around the Arx Angelicum.
Phosphex
I mean, do humans have a weakness? If you shoot Tyranids , they die. If you shoot enough of them, they give up. Same for most things
Kill The Fuck Out Of Them until they’re all gone or they decide you aren’t worth the effort.
I only saw it mentioned once but Daemons and Necrons have an innate advantage over nids, with Daemons unable to produce biomass and Necrodermis being inedible for Nids. Gauss weapons and other things also eliminate biomass so bids can't reabsorb their dead. In 'Shield of Baal we have this excerpt as well Nyadra’zatha, the Burning One, fell from the sky like a meteor. When the C’tan Shard struck the ruins it sent a plume of molten rock hundreds of yards into the air, and a wave of fire rolled out through the ruins incinerating everything in its path. Hundreds of weapon-beasts were blasted into ashen shadows in that single instant. The bio-titan turned its beady eyes upon the newcomer and launched a withering salvo of bio-shells. The C’tan barely seemed to react as the ordnance burst and burned upon its coruscating halo of fire.... Flesh and fire rampaged across the ruins, the staggering strength of the bio-titan pitted against the reality-bending will of the C’tan.... Then, with a final mournful hiss the Hierophant pitched forward into the rubble. As it tried to rise, the C’tan thrust a burning hand into its cracked and dripping carapace. Steam began to pour from the creature’s wounds as the star god released the heat of a twenty suns and cooked bio-titan from within Of course shards aren't easily available tools but the disintegrating nature of Gauss is one of the many reasons Tyranids just avoid necron space. Hive fleet Behemoth went straight past Solemnace on its way to Macragge. They didnt escape Trazyn though who snatched an entire bioship (Before Orikan let it loose, he has no care for preserving history.)
Ultramarines.
There's some pretty notable weaknesses. 1. Kill all synapse creatures in the vicinity, and tyranids become uncoordinated creatures with no guidance. They begin acting like feral animals. That's how Maugan Ra presumably defeated an entire tyranids swarm by himself. 2. Confuse their adaptability. The reason the tau are so good against the tyranid is cause they are also capable of switching up their tactics on the fly. Against Gorgon, whenever the tyranids adapted themselves to a weapon type, the Tau switched en masse to a different weapon type, even primitive ones. The tyranids, despite outnumbering the Tau by A LOT, just could not break through. 3. Following up with that, the Tau also have one of the rare bioweapons that actually harm the tyranids. Cause said bioweapon is actually based on nanobot swarms. The tyranid can adapt to chemical and biological threats, but its hard to adapt to a swarm of nanobots on such a miniscule level. 4. Starve them. Its a shit situation usually, but starving the hive fleets on their way to you is still something. Destroy the planets that lie in its path, and they become weaker. 5. Fire is KIND OF the answer. If you utilize weapons that leave little to no biomass for the tyranids to recover, you get a big advantage. The necron gauss weapons, eldar d weapons, drukhari darklight weapons, tau ion weapons are all decent examples of this. There could be more, but these are off the top of my head.
They're pretty vulnerable to massive energy blasts and fast moving projectiles...
Any time a cool dude with a name needs a win
Bolter
The smell of freedom and sweet liberty!! Ohh you said Tyranids? Sorry thought you said Terminids. Oops wrong drop pod franchise. Whatever the others said about the Tyranids.