Tyranids

Warhammer 40,000 Tyranids News, Reviews, Editorials & Unboxings.

The Tyranids are a faction from UK-Based Games Workshop's Tabletop Wargame Warhammer 40,000. The Tyranids, also known as The Great Devourer are an extragalactic alien race, whose sole purpose is the consumption of all forms of genetic and biological material in order to evolve and reproduce. Tyranid technology is based entirely on biological engineering. Every function is carried out by living, engineered creatures, each of which collectively forms the Hive Fleet, directed by a single Hive Mind.

The Tyranid forces are constantly changing and evolving at an unnatural speed. It is unlikely that all types of Tyranids have been seen by the Imperium. However a few key traits are identical to nearly all Tyranids, such as tough chitinous armor, a hexapedal anatomy, and multiple redundant organs which make them incredibly difficult to kill.

Every weapon and projectile used by the hive fleets is a living organism, grown from the reconstituted biomatter of previous invasions. The Tyranids have no form of mechanical technology and, instead, harness an advanced form of biotechnology. These creatures live in a highly symbiotic fashion, fusing into each other’s flesh so that it is often impossible to say where one Tyranid creature ends, and another begins. In this way, Tyranid warrior-beasts wield living weapons that are literally extensions of their own bodies, each one a killing machine, perfectly adapted to slaughter its victims. In addition, Tyranids are highly toxic to all forms of life, and many of their organisms expel toxic spores during invasions to make a world uninhabitable to non-Tyranid life.

Within the Tyranid swarm there is no idea of individualism as each unit is linked to the next in a form of swarm consciousness. There is only one reason for the creation of any of the forces involved in Tyranid armies: to implement the will of the swarm, be it a Hive Tyrant or Ripper Swarm. This gestalt consciousness is commonly referred to as the Hive Mind.

Planetary consumption, the Tyranid process of assimilating a planet's biological and inorganic materials, begins with the location of a suitable target. The most common method is the use of vanguard organisms such as genestealers and lictors, millions of which range hundreds of light-years ahead of each Hive Fleet, investigating each star system they encounter for signs of life. As the psychic beacon of the infiltrator-organisms flourishes, indicating a rich feeding ground, the Hive Fleet homes in on it, in the process cutting off all interstellar communications as the Shadow in the Warp blankets the target system.

Upon arrival to the planet, the Hive Fleet will disperse within the planet's upper atmosphere and begin launching millions of Mycetic Spores containing Tyranid organisms of various strains. Other spores are nothing more than giant cyst-bombs, filled with viral and poisonous organisms which burst over population centers, killing millions of people in the opening hours of the attack. The defenders, often underestimating the Tyranids' intelligence, make fighting retreats to buy themselves time to regroup from the invasion, only to be herded into prepared killing grounds. They are destroyed by larger Tyranid species, from Warriors to Carnifexes and Bio-Titans, which eradicate the few survivors with sheer offensive power.

With resistance ended, consumption of the planet's resources begins. Vast tracts of feeder organisms ravage the landscape of every ounce of biological matter before being collected into Reclamation Pools, where the matter is rendered into a thick, nutrient-rich gruel. The Hive Fleet's ships cluster in low orbit as vast capillary towers emerge to link with proboscis-like feeding tubes and pump the biomass into them. Finally consumption of the world's atmosphere and seas begins, with vast drone-ship haulers descending to low orbit and sucking up every useful element left.

The Tyranid Hive Fleet now departs, having left the world a desolate airless rock stripped down to the molecular level.