Just How Powerful is the Swarmlord Really? by Majorkill - Reaction

[@FriendlyArchpriest]

Well, from the very little I know, I'd say that the reason these get wrecked every time is because them dying is probably already an accounted probability, meanwhile if a hundred/thousands of years old character from another factions wielding ultra rare artifacts and wearing special unique armor dies, they probably can't be easily replaced, so I wouldn't even count killing any tyranid as defeating it, it's more like the expected and only makes it better next time it comes back.

[@Br0ck3nRealities]

It. There is ONE Swarmlord that keeps ALL of its experience when it dies. Swarmlord and Old One Eye are both Tyranid Characters, with only one of each being around at any given time. Edit: They're also capable of acting independently from the Hive Mind.

[@freddymcshreddy6586]

I always kinda saw them dying as sort of a positive things since it’s a learning entity that evolves and maintains its memory every time it dies. So in a way it gets more and more dangerous every time it’s killed.

[@loyalhoodini4944]

If you think about it, the swarmlord is kind of like a darksouls player. They have the ability to always come back from a death, and use that death to learn about how to beat the enemy. It can bring different loadouts to a fight, but it choses quad swords cause strength build go burr. And let's not lie, if players had the option to bullrush Ornstein and Smough with half a dozen heavily armored NPC's and not die to them again, we would do it.

[@Br0ck3nRealities]

Someone in another comment section theorized that the Swarmlord HAD to die in order to "upload" its experience to the Hive Mind, and that's just what I've been using as the reason it dies so often.

[@teoteous]

Had a pleasant flashback to the TTS trilogy.

[@enoughothis]

The Swarmlord is a BORING Tuesday for the Lion.

[@Nightmare-go7kf]

i think it dies 3 times before the lion starts needing plot armor

[@lunarlegion7157]

I recommend the arch video tyrannid bio weapons.

[@Alexrenda]

A swarm lord is basically General Grevious

[@RealCodreX]

Curses uppon you, Filoni!!

[@themalcontent100]

Can't win because it destroys the setting and having them lose all the time may hurt sales. It is a bit like the Eldar situation. You can't really do much with them. GW has created a great money making enemy. because of their evolution powers and the recent fight with the ork, the tryanids could make some cool evolutions. Toss in some orgens and hobits and you could make some real fun enemies. A tiny sniper that also steals would make a great unit. And if it ever got an evorsore you could see some exploding units. GW realy... I get it. You don't want to make something that wont sell, but they really need to make some cheap units. They have increased their prices to the point that people who want to get into the Hobby can't.

[@rickychapman3377]

there's a book called deathworlder the swarm lord is a Bucher it slaughters people

[@thorshammer7883]

A group of Swarm Lords would have quite a extreme disadvantage even if they had multiple large hivefleets were forced to command a Tyranid invasion against very hyper advance, organized, prepared, cohesive, resourceful, flexible, and precise armed forces who can easily reinforce and arm itself much greater then the Imperium of Man and logistically, strategically, and tactically adapt at the same time while using different unit competitions with combined arms and hybrid options in a varies courses of actions to keep the Swarm Lords distracted with what decisions to make against such powerful army fronts. Like the Forerunners, the endgame Stellaris nations, Delta Commanders in Planetary Annihilation, and the Supreme Commander series UEF, Aeon, and Cybrans. Swarm Lords would get identified real quickly when they reveal their locations and any foolish enough to be near the frontlines to observe the battlefield or go melee may get caught extremely fast with either lightning or hypersonic fast high explosive ballistic missile systems targeting it. It's pretty hard for Tyranids to adapt their overwhelming numbers combat doctrine at the face of a empire that powerful above their relative ground and naval capabilities. These factions would immediately capitalize their advantages and mop up a large amount of forces the replacing Swarm Lords would have commanded as they cut them off and break their command structure, hiveships, biomass spawning pools, and remaining manpower down. Against factions like that Tyranid solar system invasions would be near complete total losses as these are settings that are not regressive, slow, stagnating, un-coordinating, un-flexible, and rigid. No they can keep up the pace and develop new weapons, infrastructure, mobilize, and innovative and stable doctrines very quickly. Something Tyranids are not used to fighting and pacing with for long periods of time. Even against a RP setting like Ancerious Galactic they would be met with the same kind of situation but then there are dozens of factions who have adaptive aspects like those in a even bigger galaxy who fought a galactic destroying hell like dimensional horde known as the Draken who used both innovative tactics and overwhelming numbers, galactic blitzkrieg, and phycological warfare and were successful many times at their campaigns.

[@Br0ck3nRealities]

The thing is, there's only ever one Swarmlord. There's multiple Hive Tyrants, but both the Swarmlord and Old One Eye are singular Characters that can act independently from the Hive Mind.

[@thorshammer7883]

@@Br0ck3nRealities There is only so much a Swarmlord can do though against such fundamental disadvantages against such forces. Tyranid hivefleets travel very slowly and against these settings we are talking about ftl technologies that have access to subspaces and hyperspaces much safer, flexible, and effectively faster then Warp drives. Allowing much better tactical and strageic maneuvers and logistics to be planned out and coordinated to support fleets and ground forces. The swarmlords are not exactly as easy to produce and deploy into commanding hordes cohesively as the Flood can with their varies Keymind networks which can be produced very quickly in a outbreak's consolidation. The other bad thing about Swarmlords are is that just like the Hivemind they don't adapt the technologies they could use as weaponry against their enemies into their armies.

[@Br0ck3nRealities]

@@thorshammer7883 I agree with everything you've said here, I just wanted to mention that a GROUP of Swarmlords isn't actually possible

[@thorshammer7883]

@@Br0ck3nRealities It's hypothetical if the invasion force was a group of Hivefleets which is a much larger force then what simply one Swarmlord would usually command at a time and would require a extra amount of Swarmlords to manage the command effectively instead of relying solely on one Swarmlord to do all the work. That would be rigid and too flat of an organization structure. Not that Tyranid really have a high level organization structure to begin with in function.

[@Br0ck3nRealities]

@@thorshammer7883 But the Swarmlord is a semi-independant consciousness? It can't inhabit more than one body.

[@richardch.4356]

Its just another day for the Lion

[@ReinaSaurus]

general grievous in space bug form