We Need To Talk About The Tyranid Problem. | Warhammer 40K Lore

[@weshammer]

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[@khristopherheiss52]

Soo.. I don't think the turnips are op. As the flood in halo, and the yuzanvong in starters where similar. I think the imperium is too op they have way too much plot armor. I feel humanity can win yes. But it should be at great cost. One of the reasons halo is so popular is because humanity was the under dog. While we could win a ground battle it was at great lengths and we never really won a space battle. In war hammer humanity is just a number and is so big it can't fail. Pluss you have dozens of space marine chapters that all have plot armor. Look at star craft and the zerg. Psy emitters broke the swarm maybe a similar tech could be developed by the taught a race that embraces tech. Sure it would fuck over the imperium phykers but it could break the tyrinids command structure creating chaos in the ranks as individual tyrinids start fighting each other.

[@TheMightsparrow]

Why isn't there a TV series or a movie about this franchise? Missed opportunity IMO.

[@hyperwing5374]

I kinda want to see a thorough video on what non 40k faction and creatures could survive or thrive in 40k.

[@khristopherheiss52]

@@hyperwing5374 xenomorghs from aliens would thrive. So would zerg from starcraft.

[@hyperwing5374]

@@khristopherheiss52 i was thinking samus, the metroids, x parasites, galactic federation, the pirates from Metroid. Maybe a more in depth analysis of the forerunners and covenant and maybe the unsc from halo.

[@Tehstampede]

The problem with Tyranids is that they are conceptually the most powerful faction in 40k and could probably get all the way to Terra "realistically," but the status quo needs to be maintained because if several factions united to wipe out the Tyranids as would be the most appropriate response, the faction would either be gone or drastically reduced in threat and scope. Something GW could do story-wise is to have a massive fuck-off war where the Imperium, Eldar, Necrons and maybe Tau or whatever unite to wipe out the Tyranids that made it into the galaxy. After this campaign, the Tyranids could be reduced to a smaller faction that's still a threat lurking in the galactic shadows but nowhere near the sizeable all-consuming threat they used to pose. Maybe the Hive Mind would evolve to cope with this new status quo by empowering synapse creatures with a higher level of sentience so that you can start seeing more Tyranid characters with their own personalities and lore.

[@georgeblair3894]

Even Chaos would get involved since 'Nids have apparently "evolved" to eat Chaos worlds. Slaneesh has no sway since the 'Nids aren't motivated by emotions, Khorne realizes it's a self-defeating paradigm (because 'Nids keep coming), Tzeentch - how did you not see this coming? Nurgle loses worlds to spread his "gifts". Can't have rebirth if the worlds is dead.

[@goldendoomslayer6301]

Your forgetting that there is far more tyranids outside of our galaxy than what currently are in. The current speculation is that there are more hive fleets than stars in our galaxy

[@ColdNorth0628]

​@@goldendoomslayer6301this is still just a speculation, there will be as many hive fleets as GW wants em.

[@goldendoomslayer6301]

@@ColdNorth0628 hence why i said speculation....

[@altersol7255]

I had a whole independent rant but will contribute to this one as I had a similar idea. GW kinda did write themselves into a corner as the tyranids are simply not allowed to showcase their strength. Honestly this may be why, heretical as it may be to say, the Zerg from Starcraft are more loved, of all things. Now I know Starcraft is a bit of a parody/bootleg of 40K but the Zerg had a more meaningful impact because of something that was taken from the Tyranids that we rarely see or hear, the Hive Mind. The Zerg Hive Mind played an active role to foil it's predetermined design by Amon but had no means to do so until a psychic human came into the picture. Now would I want GW to rip off Starcraft? No. They have the very tools to give the Tyranids more agency as the swarms own units can have agency of their own like with the Hive Queens of the Zerg when Kerrigan left/lost her authority. Remember, as well, the Zerg had less planets to invade but the story showcased their potential, importance and strength through their numbers and evolution, something the Tyranids have but are somehow not allowed to showcase unless they or their opposition have that plot armor. The Hive Mind, by itself, could shake up the status quo without needing to do much, but GW is not okay with change, as Wes has already pointed out extensively. That one, unused item of the Tyranids could shake up everything and they either forgot it exists or don't want to use it, which is sad. If the Hive Mind ever got its own story and did what Kerrigan did with - hot take idea - Hive Lords, the Tyranids would have the same impact in 40K as the Zerg in Starcraft. Just that one validation and formula would be more than enough to make the tyranids just as or more loved than their Starcraft counterparts. As a side note: I can image the Hive Mind making its own body and make it a parody of the Primarus Marines, Dreadnaughts or even the Emperor. This would make it more engaging in many ways as it is taking that more active role alongside it's 'children'.

[@SmoketySm0ke]

1: You had me at "Like Raptor Red". 2: As a Nid player, I have found that the way to have "character" in my playgroup (for campaigns and such) is to create an ordo xenos inquisitor whose career is dedicated to researching my hive fleet. Allows for fun fluff when we try to make fluff for campaigns.

[@macm5542]

I usually go the dawn of war way and describe what they do alomg with it's anumalistic thought process and having a couple of words acting as "the thoughs" of the hive mind, and from time to time bringing an outside perspective like you do

[@stax6092]

A Attenborough Documentary style would work.

[@VickyAmaru]

I think making Hive Fleet Tiamet the focus of a book or a series of books would go a long way to solving a lot of these problems, since they're the one hive fleet that takes and keeps planets instead of eating them. The added mystery to their methods and agenda could make for a great story, I think.

[@qmazing9614]

No cap I think and hope that maybe there using the biomass of these planets to make planet sized tyranids, like the tyranid bioform uses the planets crust like an eggshell.

[@Oath3knight]

100% agree with you here 👍🏻

[@bobbobbington7308]

But there wouldn't be any characters or perspectives to shift from, just the one or at most, two (hive mind and whatever the general of tiamat is called)

[@ernstbergerbrent]

I like the idea. It's gonna be very difficult to write from the tyranids point of view. It'll have to be from the point of view of a guardsmen or techpreist to be relatable

[@tobydawes6007]

So do follow-up books to the recent ultramarine tyranid book?

[@009_Ghostly_Systematic]

Strange... in battle feet gothic, you have a tyranid campaign and I found it so unique because the narrative revolves on the opposing factions reaction for dialogue. Making a story about tyranid as a main focus is difficult but it is possible, although they are really better treated as a force of nature and really put more emphasis on the factions reaction.

[@BarakYisrael]

That sounds dope. You are talking about battlefleet gothic 2?

[@zombiefishers]

Drukhari are also a major expert in exterminating nids. Shit they do it for hire! At a price… a very steep price. The tau know all about it lol

[@Cryptic0013]

Indeed. The trouble with the Tyranids is that, narratively speaking, they aren't people. They're "Things." You almost have to treat them like a blizzard or a flood. You wouldn't tell a story about those phenomena moving from one point to another and expect the water to be the point of interest--it's the humans (or Eldar or whatever) that are caught in its path who make it a story.

[@danilooliveira6580]

the problem with writing stories about tyranids is the same problem with zombie stories. the tyranids are not a character, they are a plot device. meaning that if you want conflict you need to create conflict between the protagonists, not the "plot device". its something that I actually find silly, not all stories desperately need conflict, we need more stories where the enemy is just a force of nature and people's struggle to overcome it and survive.

[@BarakYisrael]

@@danilooliveira6580 yess brother!

[@immagoingbacktobed1742]

Another thing to consider is scale. While the tyranids have conquered multiplied galaxies, there is no reason to assume they are doing they're conquest one galaxy at a time. The hive mind may be fighting multiple wars, across multiple galaxies. This may be why the Hive mind makes mistakes in battle as its focus is spread thin at times.

[@keegobricks9734]

Says who? When has it ever been established that they've conquered multiple galaxies?

[@immagoingbacktobed1742]

@@keegobricks9734 There was an excerpt from when a space Marine managed to peak into the hive mind.

[@dogs-game-too]

This is my head cannon

[@thizloliboi7523]

The tyranids lack something... Plot armor... Except that one time in the octarius campaign or when they defeated the orcs..

[@jollygrapefruit786]

Poor orks...

[@Hot_Dice]

One eye?

[@Archon3960]

And even then, I don't think the green mushrooms are defeated yet. ;/

[@54relly96]

The octarius war is when they beat the orks

[@mattmark94]

they always had plot armor, no matter how many you kill their numbers feel infinite

[@bigbangrafa8435]

The Tyranids are there as a plot device for whenever GW wants to reset the setting like what they did with Fantasy. But until we get to that point, just like Chaos they will keep losing to inferior forces and named characters, that's how Warhammer always worked. It's the same reason why smaller factions like the Tau and Votann still exist despite the fact that any of the other factions could have wiped them out, this is a product seller and not just a narrative.

[@JackStefan-pj4wh]

The leagues of votann aren’t a small faction the control basically the entire galactic core which is like 10% of the galaxy and have tech far beyond everyone but the necrons and all their planets are near Cadia levels of fortified you can make this argument for the tau but not the leagues and as for the tyranids while they are ridiculously op they aren’t unrivaled the necrons are their hard counter and dedicated to defeating them and as for GW itself they are stupid but not stupid enough to do anything close to endtimesing 40k.

[@hellodelightfulrando]

Yeah that’s the hard part when you’re not just making lore but you’re also trying to continuously sell figures. Every faction has to survive bc you have to give players options (as much as I’m sure GW would love nothing more than to just sell Space Marines forever). Any faction going permanently extinct is a bad business decision unless you’re doing a setting reset

[@brandonlyon730]

Man considering how much GW screwed up fantasy end times imagine what more they could do to screw up the 40k equivalent.

[@viktorgabriel2554]

@@JackStefan-pj4wh thing is according to the Necrons themselves they cant beat the Tyranids unless the other factions unite whit them

[@luca-ou8pv]

The tyranids are absolutely not a plot device to restart the setting 💀💀💀💀 they're literally the only faction who's most unlikely to win on a meta level: Orks wins? They'll still keep the other race arounda for a good fight Necrons wins? Some of them don't want all life to end and will still keep other races around Aeldar or tau wins? They wont massacre to extinsions other races Chaos wins? Just look at fantasy endtimes The imperium wins? We'll just get another horus heresy and the setting will return to original But the tyranids? If they win they wont keep other races around, if they win there will be no warp or life to restart the setting, They'll just move on or go to hybernation

[@sergentharker7182]

I think nids have the same problem that Worf does in Next Gen. Worf was the big badass tough guy on the Enterprise, so every time that a new threat came aboard they would fight Worf immediately to establish that this is a serious threat, but it happened so often it undermined the idea of Worf being a badass in the first place.

[@troikas3353]

The Borg are a good comparison when relating it to Trek. They are the franchises boogey man, the bad ass big bad that is a thing of rumor and nightmare for people who live in this world. But the nature of the Borg means the only way to use them in a story that isn't set in some far-flung isloated place no one cares about is to have them lose. The Borg of the TNG era could never get a real win as any real win would radically alter the status quo of the fiction and the franchise was just not willing to ever do that. It kept going that way until their repeated use in Voyager basically completely ruined them as any kind of credible threat since they kept getting their ass beat by a single tiny light cruise with plot armor.

[@TheRaidenLP]

@@troikas3353I‘d say that during Voyager, they asked the community on how they‘d destroy a borg cube and went with all the whacky ideas (i.e. beam explosives on board). And to be fair, the Borg are oblivious to a lot of shit lore wise.

[@avinashtyagi2]

Except the Nids keep winning, a killed hive fleet for the nids is like you chipping a nail, an annoyance at worst

[@avinashtyagi2]

For every other species, a loss is a planet or system gone forever

[@avinashtyagi2]

In a war of attrition, Nids win

[@jamespuliin2847]

RAPTOR RED!!! I've always thought that - you CAN write from the Tyranid perspective and characterise them, exactly as is done in Raptor Red. But every time I try to explain this to someone, the explanation falls down, because they've never heard of or read Raptor Red. Weshammer, that one mention has escalated you to "Legend" status IMHO. Keep up the great work.

[@ChesterSam89]

Let’s also not forget the additional nerf they got in Belasarius Cawl’s book where he determined tyranids only strip a planet’s surface. He then casually started the terraforming process of Sotha after it was destroyed by the nids-using “subsurface” minerals and bacteria to restore life to the dead world

[@plmokm33]

That doesn't seem too out of place though, we have some subsurface caves on Earth that have diverse but ultimately very small ecosystems. It would probably cost more bio-matter to find and dig them all up then the nids would get from them.

[@danilooliveira6580]

makes sense, around 15% of earth's biomass is deep underground.

[@Dingus_Khaan]

I think this does make some of the "ongoing struggle" aspect of Tyranids a little easier to work with, if GW and BL handle it right (they won't). You can have major planets get invaded by the Nids, stripped _almost_ to the bare rock, and then the rest of the struggle comes from recolonization while fending off scavengers like Orks, Drukhari, and the Kin.

[@ChesterSam89]

Man, this makes so much sense! Agreed, this definitely makes the Nids a little less OP. It also fits the theory that the Nids are essentially a factory reset for the galaxy created by the Old Ones. Let's see what GW and BL come up with. To your point, though, I won't hold my breath! @@Dingus_Khaan

[@neko-zq2mv]

It might depend on the planet some planets might be easier to dig into or have large enough biomass reserves to make it worth while whereas sotha wasn't worth the calories I dunno its just my head canon

[@nguyenhieu6031]

I think this problem also applies for any xenos faction in 40k. They are kinda just being there like the T’au or Eldar, or become punching bags for everyone else like the orks and dark eldar. The main antagonist of 40k is always Chaos, so they are the only faction that are allowed to make a great impact on the universe

[@tenshimusouka5820]

Orks and Eldar have several excellent stories where they not only won, but are the protagonists. I’m sure T’au do too. In fact, the Ghazghkull novel is one of the most enjoyable 40K novels I’ve read!

[@refusem6016]

Did you watch Pariah Nexus? This was such a nice show with big F for the imp and win for xenos :D

[@JackStefan-pj4wh]

Yeah I agree and what’s worse is that almost every Xenos faction is far more interesting then chaos and the imperium and yet gw is still clinging to chaos trying to convince us it’s an actual threat and in my mind they need to give up on chaos as they have failed to make chaos interesting time and time again mainly because gw can’t stop jerking of the imperium even though the imperium isn’t even in the top 3 most powerful factions and the factions more powerful than them are all Xenos that are more interesting and amusing then the imperium or chaos yet gw is still so far up it’s own ass it refuses to see that the main 2 factions are stale and no threat.

[@jablue4329]

I don't think that's fair to the T'au, but the Eldar... yeah, it must suck being an Eldar fan.

[@undercovertakodachi4301]

​​@@jablue4329yup eldars are Just Massive L right now. they are a Dying Race but they're so Divided. Necrons Too busy waking Up. Tau Is so Miniscular that If One Faction looks at them they're dead. Nids Have Kaiju's and Still manages to lose. Imperium Is so Powerful but They're fighting everyone so their Forces are So Divided. Chaos Is Just so Goddamn strong If they move something the Galaxy just Collapse no more Games. Orkz? they Ballin.

[@P1rr0]

Many forgot that the Necron are an hard (very Hard) counter to the tyranid from a lore prospective.

[@jeffy1862]

Yeah, but GW won’t ever put them in a fight against the Nids for that very reason. When they finally put the Silent King in the setting he went out of his way to not fight the Nids, and tricked the blood angels instead.

[@Zenden1ST]

and robots are even harder

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

They shouldn't though. There are organisms that eat plastic. And all of us intake some amount of metal (like the iron in our blood) The Necron are made of some kind of living metal anyway, surely the Tyranids could find a way to consume them.

[@rxonmymind8362]

But once they are dead then they can't reproduce. If it's one for one then the necrons would lose against the nids. If the nids went all out necrons would no longer be a threat. Sure at great losses but gone none the less. Then the nids could rebuild.

[@sentoo7606]

​@@kamikeserpentail3778i dont think you can go that realistic in the 40k universe, otherwise everthing collaps.

[@Enja_Near]

I would absolutely love to read a novel of a guardsman's final months on Tyran, ending by revealing it was a blackbox recording that Kryptman was watching.

[@Cyber.Oni.Ink.]

Months? Tyran lasted a few hours LMAO

[@Enja_Near]

@@Cyber.Oni.Ink. I'm including genestealer cults and the side effects of the narval's gravity well as the fleet arrives. You're dealing with cataclysmic natural disasters and cultist rebellions for years or even decades before the big bugs even show up.

[@royce9018]

@@Cyber.Oni.Ink.you do realize cults take generations

[@ffejpsycho]

Hello, idea for the 40k Cavill film (him being Marneus Calgar)... Opening: The desperate final stand on Tyran, ending by revealing it was a blackbox recording Kryptman is watching. Exposition: Kryptman and his desperate hunt for any other information on this unknown foe. Rising Action: Hive fleet Behemoth's rampage across Ultramar towards Macragge. Heightened Stakes: The crushing defeat failing to save the planet of Prandia, jewel of Ultramar. Climax: The insane battle for macragge, and void battle and eventual destruction of Behemoth. Falling Action: Mop up efforts, and discovering the grim fate of the entirety of the 1st company. Resolution: Surveying the untold devastation of Macragge, in this ultimately pyrrhic victory. End: Contemplating what this new threat means for the Imperium's already perilous and uncertain existence going forward!

[@TGHM_]

I started a short story on this and gave up because at the time I was a lore noob and realised I wouldn't be able to do it justice 😂

[@cognitiveresonance339]

They do this crap with Dark Eldar too. Some space marine ship got stranded in Cammorragh and GW just couldn't bring themselves to let DE capture and enslave them. Despite being vastly overwhelmed by a race with superior tech, SMs managed to escape. Lame. SMs are never allowed to fail.

[@kotlolish]

Indeed.. I do not like that as well. Like.. how did a space marine ship ALONE get this close to Cammorragh? That story is fine in some places but the whole atomsphere should been like Halo Reach. "Survive"

[@nerdyguyfatman]

I think the reason you don’t hear about Tyranid victories is because there are no survivors to tell you about them. You only hear about the invasions where they were narrowly defeated. In a empire spanning millions of worlds, where many are forgotten, this could be commonplace

[@Yotrymp]

Good point. The shadow in the warp stops almost all communication, so the world dissappears from the Imperium and is likely just forgotten. That's actual cosmic horror. There has to be a way the Imperium would eventually discover these worlds though, when delivering something. Unless the Imperium is so careless that they just don't check on any planets unless prompted by those planets.

[@HauntingSpectre]

@@Yotrymp In the Space Skaven video, Rk. whatever number, he mentions that the Imperium has Billions if not Trillions of unexplored planets. Either lost to time, forgotten, or undiscovered. How easy it would be for them to be erased from the map, when no one was looking for them to begin with. The Reason the bugs don't come eat everyone is because they are probably off devouring other planets as well.

[@jimmyellis5196]

We the readers would hear about them...and characters in the book would know too(eventually) as all planets have taxes and tributes to send and them ceasing would mean either heresy or destruction both of which would be investigated

[@Kindlesmith70]

A planet falling silent would be quite noticable. Someone would investigate if the planet or someone on the planet was important enough. Tyranid presence is also quite noticable by psykers when they know what to look for (hive fleets blank out the warp).

[@Darksky1001able]

That's a terrifying thought.

[@marza339]

In case anyone is interested in a 40k book where the Tyranids win, I would recommend Desert Raiders by Lucien Soulban

[@Fyrijou]

The only thing literally holding back the Tyranids are GW‘s writing team, otherwise, in lore, yes, they are too OP. They are a unstoppable force of infinite numbers, they have creatures that rip apart Dreadnaughts, Terminators and sometimes even Custodes with sheer power as if it’s nothing. They have the shadow of the warp who basically handicaps all psykers in the vicinity of a planet (which is INCREDIBLY OP since most creatures need Warp power to have a chance against the Tyranids) whilst at the same time having power Psykers themselves, they adapt to anything that killed them prior, basically making them GW‘s version of DC‘s Doomsday who is also just written without character and to only be OP and they only grow stronger. All of this screams someone who read DC, saw Doomsday and wanted him in the setting. Most things special about them, the Orks were doing already beforehand except now they’re scary instead of funny. And again, the only reason they lose is because of the power of the pen, otherwise, they would’ve eaten everything up already

[@thekaiser1156]

I disagree that they're too op. Plenty of factions hard counter them with the demons of Nurgle and the Necrons being able to seriously mess them up. We've seen a fraction of the necrons tomb world's opened yet they've already started recreating their empire and they're not going to want them eating their future bodies. The more worlds open up, the more hard defs the Nids have to face. And all you really need to do to take them out is take our their hive queen and the Necrons literally fought with God's in space, they'll just walk up to a hive queens fleet and destroy it at a molecular level, causing the fleet to fall apart. A book where Imotep or the Silent King fucking them up would be pretty dope ngl. Nurgle is pretty obvious as well since he could just create a disease so powerful that even if the Death Gaurd lose a battle, the biomass would be so corrupted that they won't be able to devour it. Even the Tau once created a poison which killed a hive fleet despite their planet falling. Nurgle is their hard counter but all the other gods aren't going to just sit there and see their great game stop thanks to their worshippers getting eaten by a bunch of bugs. And most importantly of all, they need biomass to survive. You deprive them of that and they'll eventually have to start starving and eating each other fighting the orcs for the rest of time, who aren't exactly slouchs themselves. I think the imperium is going to start putting virus bombs on all their planets thatll turn everyrhing into toxic sludge so even if they lose, they take out the hive fleets. Honestly, I just think they have too many things against them to ever truly win, just like all the other factions.

[@woomod2445]

I think orks are scarier BECAUSE they are funny. Orks are 90% comedy and 10% "Oh, right, Orks are LEGITIMATELY terrifying when they want to be, they just think playing fair is more fun than going full gurren lagann." The nids meanwhile are painfully one note, there is never a "oh right" moment. Note genestealers are infact great, but were originally their own seperate thing so i don't hold the nids against them.

[@rickkcir2151]

You pretty much described why the Tyranids are my least favorite faction. They’re written to be completely overpowered. Yet constantly lose because of plot armor. Every faction in 40K realistically has a “win” condition. Tyranids already have theirs by existing, yet don’t win cause the plot demands them not to.

[@redking36]

What if it comes down to the method and pace that they devour a planet? I don’t know enough about the lore, but has it been explained? Do they have critical creatures or infrastructure that are responsible for ingesting everything and birthing the swarms? Can regular cannon fodder evolve into these more advanced creatures by eating their kin? How fast does it take from egg to adult, assuming that is how they work? Is it possible to destroy the entire army by simply destroying a few key elements of their forces responsible for propagation, or again can a swarm sacrifice itself to somehow produce another creature to fulfill this purpose? If the lowest of all the life forms can multiply quickly, then it could try to overwhelm with speed and numbers, as well as strategically leaving enough biomass behind the front lines for the higher beings to use. On the other hand, if the lowest life forms can produce higher life forms all on their own given enough food, then it’s possible that everyone is just totally screwed. At the very least, even if they don’t destroy the planet, they could devastate or even completely destroy everything weak that exists.

[@FaceD0wnDagon]

Yeah the "oh I adapted now I'm immune" trope is honestly more annoying than interesting. I don't think it gets invoked too often, at least.

[@EmperorFawful]

In all honesty, I'd argue that there is a way in terms of writing to make Tyranids more meaningful and interesting for the reader: Go the Lovecraft approach and turn them into a horror story. And tell it from the perspective of either gathered reports from survivors that the Imperium finds or especially unlucky individuals that are pretty much in the flight path of the swarm. Sure, it would still revolve around following characters around, that are not the Tyranids, but there's enough alien elements out there that can be used to describe the scout activities of the hive fleets within a system, before their tendrils arrives, while being also able to describe these worlds beforehand before they fall. Even if they are unimportant worlds, it doesn't hurt to describe for what the Imperium and Mankind do actually fight for. Maybe we'll even get worlds out of these, that we might mourn once we have heard of them and what's going on there only to witness them getting devoured. But that's most likely the problem: If it's a horror story ----> most likely no Space Marine protagonist -----> most likely also no references to Horus Heresy and Primarchs ----> majority of 40k fans not interested -----> less sales, so instead GW rather decides to put the focus on a Space Marine VS Tyranid novel BUUUUUT in order to avoid any Space Marine player being butthurt if they have to take a loss, they make it a dramatic battle where at the final end the Space Marines somehow win for whatever reason and that pretty much sums up the problem, why GW won't change their stance. As long as the entirety of Tyranids won't sell better than an average Space Marine kit, they'll maintain the status quo, as cynic as that might sound. But then again people would yell at me, if I say, that I actually wouldn't mind when Hive Fleet Leviathan would not only consume a majority of the Macharian sector, but the world of Krieg on it's path towards Terra as well, so yeah... guess we'll just remain at status quo to have it more comfortable.

[@Audentior_Ito]

Bingo, ya' nailed it exactly. Sperg-Marines are basically good-story kryptonite. Immortal asexual psuedo-"demigods" who's primary trait is always winning are fundamentally boring in a way humans... aren't As a rule, weakness makes characters interesting.

[@Darksky1001able]

​@YourOneAndOnlyZalgo You know its funny you mention the Tyranids being unrelatable and unknown. Because, and I know I'm going off topic but still, I was talking to my friend about how some people thought whoever wrote the Dark Eldar and Slaneesh must have been some pervert psycho with a gore fetish, when the entire point is lost on them that these are fucking aliens and they don't give a shit about us. They're aliens. How can you prove or say that they WOULDNT be as depraved as they are? Have you ever met an alien? Have you ever been off world? We don't even get along with each other let alone aliens. He'll, look at what happens to women in India, dear lord. If a human can do that, what stops an alien from being much much worse? Linking this to the Tyranids, they're not even the kind of alien we can even befriend. They're like Polar bears, they will hunt humans and they will consume humanity. You can't bargain with them, you can't beg with them, you can't negotiate with them, you can only just burn them off the face of the Earth... and then there the Genestealers.

[@parteebear]

“Day of Ascension” was a really good take on a Tyranid win imo. It gave them characters to root for, highlighted their inevitable nature by having a group waiting on their arrival for generations and then hammered home their lethality by having the invasion happen almost instantly in the epilogue. Since the heroine lived at the end and she’s meant to travel to more worlds and repeat the process I think a sequel with her and her group on a world we’re familiar with would be prefect.

[@pineapplepizzasandwich1974]

Thanks for the tip!

[@johanlarsen7656]

One way to use the Tyranids for novels is to have stories set in a hiveworld where the Tyranids are invading. Can you imagine how cool it would be to follow the gangs as they are fighting the invasion of their levels, or horror stories of people attempting to flee the Tyranids through a hiveworld, maybe they win, maybe they won't, but you won't know until the end of the book

[@GoblinKing667]

I want a book written from the perspective of a swarmlord, ordering his army around but Everytime the battlefield changes, the swarmlord re-experiences other battles where similar tactics were being used by the enemies and how they turned out. Kinda like a frame story. Maybe the tyrant can argue against the hive mind (but ends up obeying anyway) to build up a personality

[@dreamingflurry2729]

Doesn't a single tyranid control nothing - aren't they just "wifi-repeaters" (the will of the hive-mind controlls every fight and every tyranid - right?)

[@chimderahokigbo5229]

To be honest old one eye might fit in this

[@tenaciousb4731]

GW would just find a way to f*** that idea up. The story would end up with the swarmlord developing and experiencing the emotion of love. Or the story would end with him realizing the ultimate power in the universe, the power of friendship

[@GoblinKing667]

@@tenaciousb4731 more likely they'd stick to their grimdark roots and the swarmlord would act against the orders of the hive mind, making a successful change to the plan at a critical point in the battle. Emboldened by their success, it careens into battle, routes the enemy commander, and as it starts to think it has proven the hive mind wrong, he remembers all the times he's corrected the hive mind in the past and it's always been part of the hive minds plans from the beginning. Then the swarmlord returns to the biomass pools to be unmade while the hive mind sits backs with its fingers steepled like Mr. Burns... Excellent.

[@lorentzcoffin4957]

Black library authors don’t have the imaginative capacity or willpower to sit down and put into words a good representation of the Swarmlord’s thought processes.

[@nidhogghulk]

Perhaps a story about the development of Genestealer cult from the perspective of the cult itself could be the line into perhaps Tyranid stories. How each subsequent generation of the cult's mind processes and outlooks change as they are assimilated & a true perspective on how a cult takes a planet and all the small acts of rebellion and subterfuge that they perform to begin the process. The big finale could be the moment of revolt and what the cult is doing, planet wide, now that their day has come. Also, Raptor Red is an amazing book that was able to give a compelling and emotional story to a Utahraptor. If a dino can be written well, so too could the Nids.

[@Audentior_Ito]

Hard agree on the genestealer cults; massively underutilized at the moment. Yeah - they're not a match in combat for sperg marines... but they're really perfect for small-scale, almost Lovecraftian story! The big difference between Nids & dinos is that at least dinos are individual animals (which we can extrapolate to) rather than a totally alien hivemind :/

[@kotlolish]

It's so odd that Genestealers and Nids aren't some sort of buddy buddy. Or atleast aware of eachothers need to consume and evolve. At the same time...Nids probably aren't smart enough to work with Genestealers. Genestealers are abit of a small faction... but it would be cool that if their stuff might involve wanting to take nid samples wich can summon a nid invasion within the genestealer faction.

[@NecroGoblin-yl2fx]

as a long time tyranid player, i'm missing some of the older Nid models and units that are in the lore. would be awesome if we got some of the old named nids and ofc we all want shrikes back now that we got the winged prime.

[@CteCrassus]

What pisses me off is that now you have the Winged Prime but they removed the regular on-foot Warrior Prime, which I took the effort to convert.

[@tenshimusouka5820]

@@CteCrassus The Warrior Primes on foot are now the squad leaders for Warrior units, rather than a separate unit entry.

[@CteCrassus]

@@tenshimusouka5820 Which have neither unique gear nor a separate statblock. It'd be as if the Broodlord was made to be a Genestealer sergeant with the exact same stats as any other Genestealer. It's kinda infuriating that you have Warriors on foot but no true Warrior Prime on foot and yet you have a Winged Warrior Prime when Shrikes no longer exist.

[@tenshimusouka5820]

@@CteCrassus oh I thought this was about you not being able to use the model you took the effort to convert. You can, you just want it to function differently.

[@CteCrassus]

@@tenshimusouka5820 I'd like it to function similarly to how it functioned when I made the conversion, yes, specially when it not doing so makes so little sense. Technically you can use whatever mini you wish for whatever purpose you fancy, specially in friendly games, but to pretend nothing has been lost is rather disingenuous. Again, there is already a *Winged* Tyranid Prime, and no, it doesn't function like a random unit sergeant.

[@MrCovi2955]

Someone once tried to argue to me that the Tyranids were the only "realistic" faction in the setting, because they were the only ones without any plot armor. I had to bring up the boring concepts of logistics and conservation of energy to point out that the fact that the tyranids turn 100% of biomass collected into new tyranids, with zero concern for ever needing to eat food, that they have crossed intergalactic space at slower than the speed of light without starving, and their uncountable hyper predators that should be consuming huge amounts of energy to exist, is their plot armor. While every other faction gets their deus ex machina wins, the Tyranids existing and remaining scary (as boring of a plot armor as that is) is their plot armor. They should have arrived at the milky way galaxy nearly starved to death, and struggling to just get food, scouring unpopulated worlds to get any shreds of biomatter they could possibly eat to resupply. Instead they go straight into apocalypse war because "there's just so many of them."

[@peterlepper5199]

This is only tangentially related to your main point, but when you were talking about Black Library novels and different perspectives, you reminded me of one of the big problems that I have with 40k fiction in general. Novels with Imperium protagonists always end in victory. Even if its a Pyrrhic victory, even if the cost is enormous, the Imperium always pulls out a clutch win at the last minute, by banishing the Greater Daemon or infiltrating the hive ship or whatever. Novels with Chaos protagonists, though? They're treated more like character studies, and more often than not end in failure or defeat. I'm entirely serious, by the way. Just compare, say, the Uriel Ventris novels to the Ahriman novels. Sure, Uriel faces challenges and setbacks, but he always wins in the end because he's a Big Damn Hero. Ahriman, meanwhile, spends the majority of his own books getting the shit kicked out of him, and the trilogy ends with his scheme in ruins and him in full retreat. Full disclosure, the Ahriman books are some of my favorites, but still. It gets to feeling like fans of Chaos or Xenos factions can't get hyped about their factions in the same way that Imperium - and especially Space Marine - fans can. You pick up something like the Devastation of Baal as a Blood Angels fan and you walk away from it feeling like a sports fan after a big win. The Ahriman books are awesome, but they don't produce that same feeling. They're more contemplative. Same problem with all the Primarch duels. I genuinely cannot get excited for Primarch duels any more because they always end the same way. Let's tally up the recent score: Siege of Terra: Dorn vs Fulgrim (Loyalist wins), Jaghatai vs Mortarion (Loyalist wins), Vulkan vs Magnus (Loyalist wins), Sanguinius vs Angron (Loyalist wins). Score: 4-0 Loyalists. 40k: Guilliman vs Magnus (Loyalist wins), Guilliman vs Mortarion (Loyalist wins), Lion vs Angron (Loyalist wins). Score: 3-0 Loyalists. See what I mean? They try to hype these things up like WWE grudge matches, but when I can see the result from a hundred miles away - and it never goes the way I would like - I can't buy into it. I genuinely don't want Russ to come back at this point, because I know he'd have a big rematch with Magnus, and I know he would win again. Being a fan of anything other than an Imperium faction gets exhausting sometimes, to be honest.

[@hawk4192]

You seem to have forgotten which faction has dead primarchs in your tally.

[@peterlepper5199]

@@hawk4192 The only Loyalist Primarch who is guaranteed perma-dead is Sanguinius. Ferrus is probably going to come back if they ever flesh out the LotD, and Dorn is only confirmed to be missing a hand. Meanwhile dead Traitor Primarchs are Horus, Kurze, and (probably not) Alpharius. So it's actually pretty much even, with a tally of 1-3 each.

[@hawk4192]

@@peterlepper5199 I see you don't subscribe to the loyalist Alpharius theory lol

[@Vaniity_Velvet]

It's because in most Literature the Hero always wins. It's an innate thing we're taught at young age. Thank back to the stories you'd get read as a child, how often did the bad guys in those stories ever win? Or if you didn't have stories read to you as a kid, think back to the films you'd watch. Just how often did the bad guys ever actually win? Writing a Hero is very easy, you'll do it without ever even realizing it. But, writing a Villain? Now that's trickier. You have to go into thinking "Okay, at some point this Bad Dude will win" And a lot of people don't want to do that. When a Hero people have grown attached to dies, it's a more negative reaction on the reader or viewers mind versus when the Villain dies. The Walking Dead being a good example, the series effectively died when Glenn was killed.

[@peterlepper5199]

@@Vaniity_Velvet The problem with that is it assumes there is a single "Hero." WH40k / HH is a setting based on a miniatures game where players can choose what faction they play and what characters they identify with. The Imperium are only the "good guys" if you choose to play as them. And no, the Imperium is no better than any other faction, morally speaking. They are a totalitarian military dictatorship that views blind obedience as the highest virtue (possibly second only to xenophobia) and independent thought as incredibly dangerous. Billions of people work degrading, menial, and utterly unnecessary jobs in manufactorums where they are literally chained to their workbench for their entire life. The Emperor consumes the souls of a thousand innocent humans every day. Inquisitors have the power to destroy planets and little to no oversight. 40k is - or should be - a setting without a "Hero." The Imperium fanwank that the majority of BL fiction has devolved into seems to ignore this fact.

[@troutwarrior6735]

I think one of the big reasons is that they have no real “downsides” as a faction. One of the major traits of 40K is the theme of lost potential- all of the factions have immense potential, but they will never achieve them due to their own limitations and the hostility of the galaxy. The imperium is so inefficiently organized that they’ll never emerge victorious, chaos is too busy shooting itself in the foot, the necrons are constantly infighting and there’s not enough of them, the elder are a dying race , and the tau will likely never reach their potential due to the seriously hostile nature of the galaxy. I think if GW added a bit of lore that “they were seriously weakened by their trip through the galaxy,” and that their current numbers are really all there are. I think that would do a lot to make the nids more down to earth and manageable, but because hive fleets can reproduce with biomass they would never go away.

[@bosskaiju4834]

What about the orks, they don't really have a downside ?

[@ianbyrne465]

​@@bosskaiju4834the orks are worse about infighting than even chaos and 'crons. Their whole story is devolving from the larger, stronger and smarter Krorks, and now just being an insane, stupid mob (whom I love)

[@dereenaldoambun9158]

@@bosskaiju4834 Just like Necron, the Ork also have their own infighting but cranked up to 100. If the greenskin united, they would kick the Imperium ass long time ago.

[@bosskaiju4834]

@@ianbyrne465 Well yes, but given that orks love nothing more than to fight, I think they consider this a positive trait, since it give them an endless suply of fighting.

[@ianbyrne465]

@@bosskaiju4834 You are right, but I think OPs point is more that there's nothing keeping the tyranids from... well, winning already. Like, these other points are all things holding the other factions back from winning the war and being done with it, but there's no such thing for the 'nids.

[@mattofiron1884]

When you're such a fan you know exactly what this video will be about just by the title.

[@drokles]

That's how titles work

[@SomeTuberr]

This makes sense why GW won’t take too much risk. I mean, a bad comparison is with the transformers. During the animated movie Hasbro decided to kill off characters that weren’t selling and deemed unpopular. One of them being Optimus Prime This caused such an uproar from kids and subsequently parents that they had to bring him back. So GW, and companies of this industry have to be careful because we can imagine how adults playing with toys will react to a shift like that

[@Cryptic0013]

I mean, you raise an excellent point. The adults of today are literally the same kids who raised that stink over Optimus.

[@SomeTuberr]

@@Cryptic0013 facts lmao

[@jczerzzz]

OMG Wes so happy to have met you at the Tampa Open last weekend! (I was the guy w/ the blue and red Farsight Enclaves army) You were so nice thank you again for your compliment on my paint job! Keep on truckin dude hope Henry Cavil gives you a call for a guardsman role in his show!!!

[@weshammer]

Hey dude no worries! It was really nice meeting you! Your tau looked awesome! Hope you had a good time at the tournament 😃

[@cobaltmuffin1802]

Maybe they can do something where a character is able to tap into the hivemind and read the Tyranid's communications and thoughts. With a bit of a creative revision maybe they could give notable Tyranids like the Swarmlord and Old One Eye some character and interesting enough for a book from their prespective. Making notable Tyranids command their armies but still follow and receive orders from the norn queen.

[@seanread5556]

to me, I see the Tyranids as less a 'faction' and more of a literal force of nature. While intelligent, their intelligence has an animal side to it that makes them kind of predictable so you pretty much know what to broadly expect from them. They are widespread enough to be ever-present, but not organised enough to earn meaningful victories. They are effectively in the same situation as Orks, never going away but not really advancing too much plot wise. (I wrote this before watching the video so Wes said a lot of this too lol) As for that whole 'all the Tyranids we've ever seen are only the tiniest tendril of the true threat that is coming' thats just a theory from a SINGLE inquisitor with little to no evidence to back it up. And speaking from a meta perspective, GW will NEVER make this confirmed canon because that's a win-condition and they will never give a faction a true win-condition because that would end the setting.

[@TheBall12]

The implication is enough in regards to Lore, if there isnt (to be fair possible) redcon in the future. You and the people that liked your comment are just coping. Whole hive fleets coming from totaly diffrent directions of the galaxy is another hint also.

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

End the setting and move to 50K. :P

[@rprlunn93]

Tyranids stem from the worlds live of the Alien movies or Starship troopers and gives you a horde enemy to create that Theoden in Helms Deep moment "what can one do vs such recklass hate" and are all about setting a shrinking border so it means eventually everyone will be in a smaller area and need to fight and no one can just run away

[@mothichorror446]

Today I learned the Tyranids are 40K's version of Fortnite's storm thing

[@klavakkhazga3996]

I like the lore of tyranids as the terrifying, alien unknown. Something nobody understands but everyone is scared of. IMO the more we know about them and the more they appear in lore the less interesting they become.

[@Xingmey]

Exactly. We also don't need to know what and if they are running from something

[@ege8240]

not so sure. in stuff like this mystery must be kept for a while sure, but it has been such a long time warhammer existed. we might be given pieces now

[@dudarino666]

I depends on how they put Tyranids in lore. No one wants a full Tyranid book. But learning about some of the unique tyranid units and how they terrify the other factions is always interesting. There needs to be a bit of a mystery behind it. It seems to me that the writers or GW just doesnt know how to write consistently in a universe this huge and diverse. Some stuff works, other stuff feels bland. They are hive minded, destroying specific tyranids might eliminate certain factions. Necrons are tyranid murder machines in lore. Well should/could be more. And then they can be the next big threat. until someone takes them out. And so on.

[@BarakYisrael]

Yea i like their enigma a lot. I would be fine with a type of origin system, but i just highly doubt a human mind can really capture an appealing enough origin explanation that still captures their mystery, eldritch, unknoiwn type of vibe. It's kinda like capturing a paradox. I agree with u though.

[@Tommybotham]

They are already not interesting. All they do is eat stuff. They're just mindless animals with an insatiable hunger.

[@garyryodane9160]

Best defence against the Tyranids is have a lot of Necron tomb worlds between you and the Tyranids they will leave you alone

[@deaclavilis6760]

Then some Necron armies might invade your a$$ lol

[@Senrabekim]

Here's an idea, have the tyranids invade Commorragh. They press the Drukhari until they need to ask for outside help. Now you can have a whole host of people arguing constantly over whether or not they should. The Dark Eldar are colossal assholes vs tyranids having control of the webway. Vect having secret meetings with various leaders promising untold riches and power for their assistance. But it doesn't work. In the end the Drukhari open the gate, flee their home, drop another star in there for good measure and push the big red button that causes Commorragh to fall into the warp. Now you have a lot of routes you can go, the Tyranids have a victory and you have taken care of one of the most narratively problematic locations in the setting. And if, in a few years you want warp nids on jetbikes to come bursting forth into realspace, we got you.

[@marrowkaiproductions7053]

The Tyranids never use the Warp, They travel through realspace.

[@YargonK]

One way i can really see a novel for the Tyranids working out is if it were to follow a new hive fleet. Imagine, if you will, the Tyranid Hive Mind decides that "hey, all of this biomass, all of these thoughts we've been absorbing, are all from 'individuals'. Isn't that weird? Maybe, as the ultimate life form, I should try that, just to see how it goes." A rough idea could be: The novel is entirely in one POV, starting with the hive mind's pov. Describing the indescribable pain of feeling a trillion of your rippers and gaunts destroyed every second, and the indescribable hunger. This insatiable lust like desire to feed. The incomprehensible thoughts and intelligence behind the bugs. An inteligence solely focused on one thing, satisfying it's basest urges; it's hunger. It thinks and ponders, it scheems and plots, and devises a plan. It decides to try something, an experiment. Deciding to create a new Hive fleet, one with individuality. See the hive mind has encoutnered so many uncountable trillions of souls, and each one has been an individual, not beholden to any greater hive mind like itself. So, the Tyranid Hive mind creates this hive fleet. It focuses it's attention, for a moment, on one of it's hive fleets, feeding on a dying world. And with these new resources, it splits off a new hive tyrant. But this one it grants some semblance of intellect to, some intelligence... and independance. It slowly withdraws it's tendrals from the mind of the new Hive Tyrant, and in doing so it's revealed that this has been the POV character all along. Once an intrinsic part of the whole, but now, not at all. The Hive Mind would likely still be capable of controlling this individual Hive Tyrant, should it wish, so it should be shown dominating the mind of the Hive Tyrant, to proove it can do so. Then, it leaves. The book could follow this new Hive Tyrant as it chases down a goal imprinted upon it by the Hive Mind, say, it's told "find the light that brought us here", and told to find the the Pharos device. It doesn't know what it was, nor that it's destroyed, but it wants to learn. To grow. So this new Hive Fleet, is given the directive to find it, and learn. To return that knowledge to the Hive Mind once it is done, So that the Hive Mind may consume this knowledge too. The Book follows as the new Hive Fleet has to grow, consuming worlds without the power, or guidance, of the Hive Mind. It has to learn how to fight on it's own. The POV could shift from form to form as it has to guide its creations, taking control to fight astartes when they show up, or devising new tactics to overrun a regiment of the guard that are too entrenched. Over all, it's less effective than the Hive Mind, but shows it's capabilities improving as it moves towards where the Hive Mind saw the Pharos Device's light. It doesn't have to reach the Pharos Device's location, but if it does, it probably shouldn't find anything major. It doesn't matter at the end of the day, the whole point is to show the Tyranid's point of view, and not so much "Humanise" but "Characterise" them more. At the end, the Hive Mind may re-absorb the Hive Fleet, or may not, but either way it learns a lot, gains some victories, and confirms to itself that it's the most supreme entity in all the galaxy, and more.

[@tomt7986]

Perfectly said 😁

[@Ghaztoir]

This is a very interesting premise, any pov from the hive mind or its underlings would have to be lovecraftian in scope and detail, provoking an alien characterization that can be related to bugs interacting with humans snd such.

[@kurtcrean]

I should stop reading comments like this because I'll just get disappointed when it doesn't become reality 😢

[@postmodernmining]

The Hive Mind could also read Ayn Rand and start annoying the other Hive Minds talking about the Federal Reserve.

[@screeno42]

Icing on top: The Individualist Fleet is going to be reabsorbed, and doesn't want to. It asks, bargains, pleas, and eventually fights back. But it's too small before the might of it's creator. The ending narration is the POV returning to the Hive Mind in reverse of how it left at the start.

[@BrokenTwiggs]

Personally i believe 10th ed is the start of the Tyranids true impact on the 40K universe. I feel like they have been building them up as a faction alot more and Tyranid units on table top are dominating recently. That 10th ed starter kit (Leviathan set) with the Tyranids is baddass and i feel they are gaining more and more attention from everyone this edition. I'm hoping they introduce more impactful Tyranid characters/events really soon. At least i hope this happens, Tyranids vs the Imperium is really interesting to me. Great video BTW! love your content!

[@goprochef6352]

I think it’s a fundamental grimdark problem- how can you tell a satisfying story in a hopeless universe? You have to tone down the hopelessness…

[@cameronward9443]

I agree, this is the problem with 40k in general. Having been in and out of the hobby since Rogue Trader days, the entire premise of the universe is OP. The setting really wasn't made to have advancing lore. If you take a snippit from lets say, 3rd edition, Necrons were introduced, the entire universe was on the cusp of complete Armageddon. Then each edition the writers decide to introduce new units and new factions, so they march the timeline forward in order to introduce these elements... the problem is... is we were on the brink of complete apocalyptic collapse. We had the eye of terror going crazy, we had necrons waking up, we had like two hive fleets bearing down... Maybe the writers were going to move into a more post apocalypse 40k... but instead they got cold feet and spun up some nonsense and everything just got more OP. 40k was never meant to have an advancing story. That's the problem. It is a table top game where everyone is at war with each other and you play it out. 40k Lore was always super detailed and cool, but the actual current timeline was always a cluster @##@ since literally everything is going wrong at the same time.

[@goprochef6352]

​@@cameronward9443 I'm reminded of Helsreach (the novel) - amazingly amazing writing and detail. Totally shite plot. I think that's why the best 40k plot is in the past -- because that's a universe able to be moulded, with entire species and planets wiped out. In the present setup.. nothing can be wiped out.. the commercial existence of a set of soldiers is the greatest plot armour. In fact, the apparent commercial failure of old fantasy was exactly why it didn't have plot armour (RIP, I still play fantasy lol)

[@Tomas-gw6rd]

That's not really the point of 40k lore, or at least it wasn't in the past when most of the lore was developed. This is a problem of players not expecting or understand the war gaming heritage of the game. In war gaming, it's common have have an army that represents a particular and relatively exact time in history, like the Wehrmacht on the East Front before Stalingrad. What happens before or after that period doesn't really matter for the table top. The analog to 40k is that it's the year 39,999 and every implication about the future is that all hope is lost, and that the baggage of history is why things are the way the are. The key word is implication. The point was never to resolve any "narrative threads," it was to create the same vibe as Operation Barbarosa would have for the USSR, if that makes sense. Doom and gloom, grimdark. Story, character development, resolution are not the same as lore, and don't really work for war gaming in the same way they might for a modern table top RPG or video game, which are now expected to also have simpler set ups and pay offs to movies, tv shows, and books.

[@goprochef6352]

@@Tomas-gw6rd That makes a lot of sense. It's more about adding to the experience through depth, detail and context. As a bigger gamer than a book reader these narrative issues don't bother me, but I can also see how fans of the fiction (or anyone expecting a really strong plot) might get frustrated -- maybe they're expecting too much from a context that is designed to result in an endless stalemate

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

And what's more hopeful than a story of bugs eating everything? There's no grimdarkness to that when you're a bug.

[@Emidretrauqe]

I would prefer to see the Tyranids destroy Baal, Macragge and the Tau Empire and route them all westward as refugees desperate for a new home. It'll never happen.

[@TheDrexxus]

Nearly all long running franchises have the same problem. They don't want anything meaningful to EVER happen because they gotta keep all those important lore characters, lore planets, lore factions alive to keep selling toys--I mean figures. Cowards always fear change because its less profitable than edging you for eternity. Then you have "the comic book method" where they will sometimes kill off characters or have major events happen, because none of it is permanent and they just reset continuity every few years anyway so none of it matters at all. Reminds me of the MANY episodes of various Star Trek series where their starship, or at the very least major characters on it, would die/be destroyed but it only happened because there is some kind of time travel component that renders it pointless and say "just kidding, didnt actually happen". Companies are cowards that only care about their bottom line. Can't let anything threaten that cash cow. So Tyranids get to be this impossible to defeat enemy for nerds to talk about at the lunch room table while in the actual continuity they never accomplish a damn thing.

[@GrandMasterNutBusterYoda]

i think a fine example of weird plot armor was the Zoanthrope that some how by incredible means infiltrated what is supposed to be the most secured location in any craftworld and had a smorgasbord of souls with strangely no one there to stop it.

[@CteCrassus]

In its defense, the rest of the Craftworld's defenders were kinda busy hopelessly trying to repel the rest of the colossal invasion fleet that was barreling down their throats at the moment.

[@Psychoangel-d23]

@@CteCrassus Except the souls in the circuit have access to the craftworld systems. So everyone on the craftworld would have known immediatly if that thing came anywhere CLOSE to the infinity circuit because the souls would be screamin "OH F*CK! HELP! IT`S TRYING TO EAT US!"

[@CteCrassus]

@@Psychoangel-d23 The souls in the Circuit have access to *nothing.* They're not even aware to their surroundings because they're in a sort of afterlife, and the Eldar are loathe to disturb them for any reason precisely because they've earned eternal rest. The only time they would've been cognizant of the danger is when all the Crystal Seers had been killed and the monster was already feasting, and by then it would've been far too late. Problem is, they don't have the capacity to communicate beyond their chamber, and the only ones that could've heard them were likely all dead.

[@tomleary508]

And then we never heard of it again.

[@CteCrassus]

@@tomleary508 The same edition that removed the Doom of Malan'Tai saw the inclusion of the Neurothrope as a sort of Zoanthrope commander who had a nerfed version of his rules, which would indicate his genome was reabsorbed and included into the Hive Mind resources so it can mass-produce knock-off copies of it.

[@sataki82]

Funny idea. At the end, they fight all together against the tyranids. Chaos need humanity to survive, so they fight WITH the Emporer. The Necrons wake up and fight for living hosts for theit transmutation back. The Tau will fight with all other factions in the name of the greater good. Even the Orks know, that they have to deal with the nids for a proper fighting later... So... they all fight together against the tyranids and at the edge of destruction the fight against each other. the Tyranids are a smaller thread and can be better handled and for the rest, there is no change.

[@raylenn4444]

Too risky for the GW lore hippies. The setting's ruined by their aversion of risk

[@alexdurain3753]

If we could get a book focusing on the perspective of a planet getting successfully devoured by the Tyrannids, that’d be pretty cool.

[@darkwraithjinx228]

A warhammer horror story about a defeat at the hands of the nids could be really good though, like the eaten by a hive ship one, it‘s a tragedy, you know the whole time theyre doomed and it‘s merely accounts of the last ditch effort as they all fall in time

[@Nobodywithabeard]

I think one way to improve the tyranids would be hearing about their victories in the third person. Example could be a Captain walking to get orders or something like that and he over hears " Lost communications with Zulu sector, no warpstorms detected. Possible tyranid force, caution advised. Famine guaranteed in Armageddon sector if unresolved".

[@Draxynnic]

That's basically just still the "entire worlds are consumed in the background fluff but none of them matter" syndrome.

[@darkhighwayman1757]

They made the Nids way too powerful. No way anyone could really ever even slow them down. Trillions of them who are all hiveminded together.

[@tenaciousb4731]

They would never make it past Sly Marbo

[@faselfasel2864]

​@@tenaciousb4731fk off with that comic relief character. Necrons could probably stop the Tyranids tho. If robot gelman ever finishes up the Indomitus Crusade, there will probably be an alliance by everyone who is not necron or chaos to stop them.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@faselfasel2864 Necrons can only work with Dead Biomass/Converted to Dead Biomass, while Tryanids can consume Dead and Living Biomass. Tyranids win by this one factor because of biomass convergence rate. But Tyranids lose to the Flood, who can utilize all Biomass and control Technologies. Of course... A similar species born of Cyber Genetics exceeds all three. With the strength of Tech and Genetics, without the weaknesses of both. The only issue between all 3 is the Hive Mind Connection. Of which, a Cyber Genetic Entity has no such weaknesses as all are "it" and "it" is all, even in one form or infinite.

[@joshuabecker3647]

@@faselfasel2864there isn’t enough necrons to stop the tyranid flood. If you are saying after waking every necron that exists then maybe but they couldn’t stop the eldar at their peak and went to sleep to try and outlive them. They won’t be stopping the unending tide of nids.

[@faselfasel2864]

@@joshuabecker3647 That's because the Necrons are extremely vulnerable to psychic attacks and the War in Heaven Eldar were basically THE psykers. Tyranids are different though. They are more or less incapable of psionics, hence why they employ the shadow in the warp to defend themselves against it. Necrons dont provide any biomass for tyranids and they will always lose more biomass to necron gauss weapons than they can gain by invading a tomb world. If the necrons were ever to attack the Nids on a full scale (and also use their celestial orrery on a strategic level) they could stop them.

[@haggardfalcone]

Characters like the Tyranids suffer from the nature of narrative storytelling. Much like the xenomorphs in the Alien franchise, or the Demogorgons in Stranger Things, they have no true personality to make them sympathetic or relatable to the audience. They can only be used as a plot device; a scary one, a cool one, a fun one, but never anything more. If you try to introduce more complex characterisation to them they run the risk of becoming less threatening and losing their mystery to the point where they're no longer interesting like the Borg in star Trek when they introduced the Queen. The 'Nids exist to provide an existential threat in the beginning of a story and a punching bag at the end.

[@ColdNorth0628]

Honestly the borg could have been better executed with the idea of like hive fleets. There are seperate cubes with favoring certain types of information and individuals to assimilate. And from there you could basically make a machine copying life without the empathy or compassion, maybe even once humans were put in, a bit more open minded strategy and out of the box thinking. But that is my opinion, the Borg Queen could have been a lot better. Like a central ai puppeting a corpse more than a living body with an actual personality.

[@QCAlpha-212]

This plus the fact that the Nids last TOO LONG. All these frightening monsters with mystery are in and out and sometimes leave more questions than answers. The Nids have been around for decades and the mystery is gone now, so now they're just uninteresting.

[@brandonlyon730]

Pretty much why many people have issues with Prometheus and Alien covenant making the “aliens” more attached to humanity.

[@RaptorZefier]

Problem is, as Wes pointed out. They're kinda failing at being threatening too. I mean lore wise sure they're scary, but like Wes said. When you *know* the Tyranid will never kill off anyone important or destroy any important planets? Where's the fear? The illusion of their threat is stripped from them. No one, picks up a book with Tyranid in it and expects them to do anything meaningful anymore. They're antagonists yes, but the best antagonists have *teeth*, they kill someone or do something that keeps you guessing if they'll cause more damage. I mean let's look at the Tyranids lesser cousin, the Zerg. Kerrigan was an ABSOLUTE threat who you never knew who she was gonna kill, after killing Fenix and Edmund Duke you *knew* She wasn't restricted by the narrative. She could kill anyone, anytime, and it made her genuinely scary. Even if we take faceless threats into account, things like say a zombie movie. It's the zombies killing main characters that give them teeth, give the story stakes. Tyranid, they just don't have that. They're cool but, they just have no punch in the story, and so they're not scary. Because there's nothing to be scared of.

[@rommdan2716]

​@@RaptorZefierYeah and I could see a book with a zerg protagonist

[@JackThor]

I like to think that the Milky way is like the ocean and the Tyrranids are eagles. It just a bad environment for them to thrive. Warp storm probably causes distortion in space affecting gravity and preventing them from mass travelling, slowing down their momentum and every defeat stops them in their tracks. Cluster of Tombs world making up a system is probably not very appetizing and thus is lower priority, acting as a natural deterrent since there are so many in our galaxy. And the "beam" from the Astronomican probably act like a flashlight being shined directly into to the hive mind every time it tries to pay attention to our galaxy.

[@ArtaniaVIII]

I was thinking that there is a clear solution to this already established in the lore. I can't remember the name, but the Tyranid Hive Fleet that is dedicated to fighting Chaos. Give us a Tyranid book, game, or both even, and they can give us unique intelligent Tyranids with character facing off against Chaos where they can have actual real victories with real stakes, and since the important chaos are dudes are functionally immortal, it can make a major dent in the Chaos plans, even weaken them for a time, but without permanent damage to the setting

[@nordfald3740]

This was also a problem for blizzard when they "borrowed" tyranids in making the Zerg. They adapted though, using a character we already knew, a character we played in the game, as a plot device, giving the Zerg much needed personality. Obviously talking about Sarah Kerrigan. The tyranids would very quickly become much more interesting if they received similar treatment, with some breakoff hives that had their own motivations and characters. He'll, one could argue that when they consume a world with a lot of powerful psykers, some of that warp energy influences them in some way

[@CteCrassus]

The Zerg also had the Overmind and the Cerebrates, who had individuality and distinct personalities. I personally find interesting that the Tyranids are, for all intents and purposes, a single macro-organism of incomprehensible size, with each individual Tyranid as a sort of cell and every Synapse creature as a neuron in a galaxy-spanning brain. It makes them truly unique and original.

[@Zen-rd9np]

Make it a lost primarch, imprisoned on some planet or whatever. They wouldn’t even need to flesh them out. Everyone who knew about them are dead or under personal oath not to even speak their names.

[@zacky7572]

This problem also reminds me of the Eldrazi from MtG lore.

[@davidbodor1762]

Blizzard also does stories where the zerg wins, but their opponents also achieve their goals. Hold-out missions are one of the easiest ways of making a force like the Tyranids get a couple of wins. Ragtag group of survivors on a doomed world have to survive until they find a way off-world is the easiest story to tell, where both sides can win.

[@austinmontalvo3273]

Really the nids mirror the "Worf problem" in TNG. When you write, one of the tropes you can use to show how strong an enemy is-- is to have them overcome a strong character. In TNG this shorthand results in Worf getting overpowered many times by the alien of the week; this happens so often tho.. that Worf ends-up looking weak, even tho we're TOLD he's a big strong Klingon warrior. Nids are used in a similar shorthand. Too often being used to showcase the strength of others by comparison, making them just seem weak. "How do we how badass this space marine chapter guy is?" "OH I know, they could turn back an entire tryanid XYZ"

[@Masheen187]

I think the tyranid looming doom is something that threatens every faction in 40k. Yeah it sucks plot armor saves key worlds but you have to look at them through the eyes of the imperium. Every world they consume off screen makes them stronger. Even if its a 'no one cares world' it still will make them even deadlier down the road. Also if the marines and imperium focus on them solely they open there back door to the other threats. I think they are fine as the looming doom bad guys

[@Lothrean]

The reason Tyranids lose the important planets is because they just do not care so much. The tyranids eat the easy prey first. There is no reason for them to waste so much energy on a heavily defended planet while they are able to eat multiple other planets with less energy.

[@wessfall]

14:25 This is why i prefer Warhammer Fantasy to 40k. Dont get me wrong 40k is awesome af but literally nothing matters in an almost infinite Universe. But if Castle Reikguard or another Town in empire territory gets raided, its actually important, it opens up the possibility for an attack on a key city of the Empire. Theres less ''no name locations'' and Altdorf can be reached on horse. Good luck even reaching Terra if your not in the same Galaxy atleast lmao. All these 40k threat seem far away, but every threat in Warhammer Fantasy can get close real fast.

[@KeepCalmSoldierOn]

I think there are a few things to keep in mind. A: in cannon for every one purric victory the empirouim achieves (and they are Purric since the world's are usually borderline uninhabitable) there are 10-15 completely wiped out. B: a victory VERY rarely stops the whole hive fleet, rather just an individual tendril as the rest of the fleet goes around the planet. C: most importantly, every planet closer to the galactic core is a massive increase in planetary density. If they get to the parts of thr Galaxy where star systems are sub planets away they could rapidly snow ball into something much much worse

[@CroviusBlackfeather]

The warhammer community literally voted that Tyranids should be winning the start of the newest war

[@polaris_draws]

I'd love to see more videos like this from you, covering your thoughts on the writing decisions of Warhammer/GamesWorkshop. One of the most interesting things about 40k to me, from the perspective of an aspiring writer, is that the storylines of 40k exist primarily to support the Wargame, a game that GamesWorkshop wants to keep selling until we're reaching the year 40thousand if they can help it. That need for endless perpetual narrative is interesting to me

[@Flipadelphiia]

Arent they essentially just organic matter? We all know the necrons possess weapons specifically designed to deal with organics, and im sure the Empire has similar weapons

[@elenadirectorofmiiss7942]

I think the solve is actually pretty easy… give the Tyranids a higher intelligence through some means (due to some thing similar to the Flood by reaching a certain threshold, a bioweapon, or something they assimilate) that would cause them develop the fatal flaw of every faction in 40K: ego. Once ego becomes involved, it will become an issue of the Tyranids’ unwillingness to change, belief they are superior, or inability to see their own failures, etc. that will simultaneously allow them to be a major threat but still maintain the status quo. Edit: And if you can make this a Pyrrhic victory for whatever force figures this out and pulls this off… like it destroys a major forge world or the home of a major chapter that pulls into this trap.

[@haldir56]

I think the Tyranids are fine, but I agree, GW’s story telling potential is definitely hampered by their unwillingness for change within the setting.

[@brandonlyon730]

Not much they can do considering the setting is attached to the Tabletop game.

[@ianbyrne465]

​@@brandonlyon730and that no matter what you change, some portion of the fandom is going to be upset. The drawback to such an expansive setting

[@haldir56]

@@brandonlyon730 I think there’s probably a middle point they could reach between “stagnating the setting for 2 decades” and “having one faction achieve ultimate victory, ending the setting.” Like, the Great Rift was a big event that changed the status quo of the lore without directly effecting the tabletop, I think they could probably throw events like that in more often than once every 20 years.

[@WildZephyr]

@@brandonlyon730 I think they should be willing to let the lore and the tabletop diverge. When are the Night Lords attacking Ulthwe again? Ugh, I liked that story!

[@WolfBoy-om6dw]

@@haldir56 I love that idea let the community have more of an effect on the story

[@BunAndDun]

A Tyranids victory is like the death of the universe. No matter what we do, we can't stop it, and none of us will live long enough to see it. Anyway, I love how you show more respect for the Tyranids than almost anyone else, especially GW. Great video 👍

[@Ralathym]

A few ideas for stories where tyranids win: The Imperium trying to colonize a world devastated by the tyranids. A feral fleet that somehow mutated inteligence Genestealers "This world from a rival faction has an artifact we want, but its too well fortified. Luckily they are in the path of a tyranid invasion! We will send a small team to infiltrate and recover the artifact in the chaos"

[@ashardalondragnipurake]

mutating intelligence is just saying to win they need to stop existing desert raiders is one of the best novels there is nothing stopping nids from winning except bad writing

[@doombybbr]

Or maybe Horror novel

[@morelstrike]

@@ashardalondragnipurake "there is nothing stopping nids from winning except bad writing" Aaaand like 3 other factions that could do it on their own

[@ashardalondragnipurake]

@@morelstrike we are talking in specific novels not the overall war but yes, its usually also bad writing causing chaos to lose vs the imperium because for some reason every novel needs to end in an imperial win i miss the days where on page 1 you didnt know how the story ended there used to be some good writing that could build tension, keep you guessing about the next page now there is basically marvel, and the constant need for primarchs proves it

[@muajin]

There was a vid someone made awhile back basically saying khorne is afraid of hive Kronos and their ways of wiping out chaos forces. I’m pretty sure if tyranids ever engaged him, khorne would retreat.

[@andersj91]

I don't think plot armor is needed for their destruction or balancing... The destruction of the hivemind could lead to them fracturing or losing power.

[@akumaking1]

When as Games Workshop ever written balanced lore for a faction?

[@ru_gamerandotaku2431]

I personally feel that pancreas had a point on how to make the nids a bit more meaningful and menacing is to have atleast 1 or 2 survivor of a planet they've eaten and basically explain the horro and have them be driven to insanity that death is the only mercy for them

[@montaviasable]

Until GW state differently within the lore my theory is that the at least one of the old ones escaped the war in heaven to another galaxy, now maybe due to what the old one suffered it decided that it was time to scour the galaxy clean and thus created the Tyranids as a means to that end. The hive mind could even be the old one itself, long corrupted by it's anger of the galaxy so that it no longer can recollect that it was once an old one and is now acting purely on instinct to consume everything.

[@Blencs]

This I like 👍

[@jimmycarburator2012]

sounds a lot like Halo lore.

[@TonklinFallen]

I do not like this lore, it takes a completely alien, unknowable eldritch horror and makes it mundane and knowable. Like when the Borg was given a Queen, and the Flood was just ground down old ones.

[@montaviasable]

@@TonklinFallen that's fair enough, but at the same time what i gave was just a fairly simple theory, with the right writers behind it there are plenty of ways to give this an enitrely unique experience full of the grimdark horror we love from 40k

[@durrangodsgrief6503]

more Starcraft than halo@@jimmycarburator2012

[@zacwinton2415]

I think they could do something where the tyranids attack macragge again or even suddenly show up outside of Ophelia. There could be a massive war where if or when the tyranids win the imperium retreats whatever they can and it leads to some space warfare only for the imperium to return and find that planet devastated. The entity on those planets aren't lost entirely but the forces that once inhabited it would be lost. Which would be a nasty blow but things could pivot from there. Now, the genestealers that were found on terra, goodness that would be a fun book to read with hopefully a loss for the xenos, but imagine tyranids invading terra.

[@cyberpunkzombie9461]

This is prolly my fave vid you have done. It's also very correct and perfectly on time. GW needs to learn to let some things die, so that the game as a whole can grow.. also "Sad Bug Noises"... i'd get that on a mug...

[@scalesthejojo4741]

Bruh the bugs can be killed by the Rock with prothemium flame throwers going through the hive fleet. Just as Afubasa emperor said. We need grimdark raid and a lighter.

[@c0ya1]

"RAID!!!!" *POOF* Tyranids, M42

[@guyperson754]

I want a Tyranid and/or Ultramarines book where Hive Fleet Behemoth returns to Macragge and ACTUALLY destroys it. Now that Guilliman is alive and off world, there would be nothing huge lost, and the Ultramarines still have the other 499 worlds of Ultramar to recruit from. It would be a huge (and I mean fucking HUGE) victory for the Tyranids, political and morale loss for the Imperium, and would be the perfect start for stories like how Guilliman would deal with his home being lost. It could be treated like the Fall of Cadia, where the planet is gone but it’s not like everyone that plays Cadians are just told their army is no longer supported.

[@johnsonjj117]

I have a feeling there’s going to be a massive team up of basically all other races against the tyranids

[@loveluclins]

This is why I do like starcraft's zerg better. Because even before they started to introduce assimilated characters and zerg queens, there were the cerebrates with different personalities. GW really needs to start borrowing back and do something similar.

[@OtakuLiseK]

As for chaos, there is tyranids fleet Kronos which was created to destroy chaos demons with little to no penalties at all. They have most powerful weapons which allows them striking chaos without losing much of biomass themselves.

[@Mordroth-the-daemonwhisperer]

As long there are sentient beeings there are Chaos-gods so Chaos is by far the stronger than anything else sadly it is not only hard to enter the Real-space but they seem to have more fun fighting themself in a never ending war....

[@walterlaten7662]

What are u on 1 grey knight went vs slaanesh and almost killed em in the last second he got corrupted so imagine 5 grey knights if 1 gets turned the other 4 will kill it oh yeah its a grey knight thats why if they were so badass wouldnt the imperium be way stronger hmmmmm chaos isnt that strong they are puppets of our emotions nothing else

[@Mordroth-the-daemonwhisperer]

@@walterlaten7662 That is the wrongest thing I ever heard he got through the realms but as soon as he only blinked at Slaanesh he was done.... Next time you say/ write/ something inform yourself better....

[@Mordroth-the-daemonwhisperer]

4th edition Codex Chaos demons....

[@CteCrassus]

Chaos is represented by eight arrows pulling in different directions for a reason... Additionally, the Chaos Gods are *not* necessary entities; There was a time when they didn't exist. Three were created by the atrocity of the War in Heaven and the fourth due to The Fall of the Eldar, meaning that you can perfectly well have sentient beings in the galaxy and no Chaos Gods.

[@Mordroth-the-daemonwhisperer]

@@CteCrassus The Chaos gods were formed with the first emotional beeings as long as there is any emotional race (not necessarily in the same galaxis) there is Chaos and the Eight-star stands for the endless possibilities and ways....

[@FrostyTheSwoleman]

I disagree that a novel or even series of novels where the nids win wouldn't sell tbh. The whole Alien Franchise is pretty much exactly what you described and people absolutely love those. Not only that but you have the genestealers which can add a more "human and conniving" element to the story if that what GWS thinks will sell. However stories about/to explain forces of nature and about the way that the people around them around them or in the wake of them to live are incredibly popular.

[@danilooliveira6580]

personally I think if you wanted a cool story where nids win it has to be a game. it would be kinda awesome to have a strategy game where you play with a hive fleet trying to expand its influence.

[@techytube7764]

I have always wondered if the tyranids are the creation of the last old one and was sent out to reset the universe

[@RorikH]

On the one hand that would be cool, on the other hand they suck against Necrons, so even after they purge the galaxy of all life there could still be Necron tomb worlds completely untouched ready to take on whatever evolves afterwards.

[@ashardalondragnipurake]

catachan has nid remnants on it from around old one age nids arnt old one created they passed by around that time, but too soon for old ones to be the creator, just the dinner bell as they cried dying to the enslavers

[@BillWD]

And for the sake of argument, if they were Old One created, who else did the Old Ones create? ...................Lizardmen in space baby, oh yeah!!!! Tyranids are running from 40k seraphon!!!

[@CteCrassus]

@@RorikH Tyranids can eat inorganic material, and that includes the Necrons themselves; That's why the Silent King initiated The Awakening early.

[@RorikH]

​@@CteCrassusThe Necrons mostly need to stop the 'Nids because if every organic being dies then there's no way for the Necrons to ever reverse the bio-transferrence and regain their living bodies. It's conceivable that the 'Nids could use some of the metals in them, but the possible minerals they could get from Necrons aren't worth getting disintegrated for, and the 'nids can mine worlds that aren't protected by Gauss Flayers.

[@gerritwellfexxstuckenschmi1437]

I dont know were i heard this stuff. It is most probably wrong. But i remember reading about a necron that ventured outside the milkyway in many Differential directions and in each one he only find more tyranids. Wich suggested that the milkyway is one of the last galaxys or the last galaxy in the local cluster that still has organic life in them other then other tyranids. I find it very intresting because it Would basicly force Major factions to work together.

[@Nikkish3]

When Humanity has Master Chief, commander Shepard, Raynor, Ellen ripley and Johnny Rico. There is really not much the Tyranid can do.

[@georgeblair3894]

They are poorly written and have been from the beginning. Sci-Fi trope has always been that an "insectoid", "comes at you in waves" enemy cannot defeat a soldier one on one. However, even the smallest (weakest) Tyrannid can best a Space Marine in said one-on-one combat.

[@tincano-beans2114]

Show me where a space marine walks into a room with single ripper in it and he walks in and slips on a banana peel and dies to it.

[@thegiantcrow7416]

I don’t think any space marine would lose a 1v1 against a single ripper(the smallest/weakest Nid). Tyranid Warriors were made to be able to go toe to toe against space marines, so that’s a fair fight. If you’re specifically referring to the gaunts….eh

[@cmw8426]

I mean ultimately it seems to me that the Tyranid bio forms are fragments of a single character when under it's influence - the Hive Mind. It could create really interesting scenarios where this ethereal hive mind becomes a nemesis character akin to that of the chaos gods. GW have just never been interested in forming any way in which to communicate to fragments of the HM through synapse creatures. Not thinking anything as cheesy as the HM being able to speak in perfect high or low gothic but even if it could 'communicate' through images, dreams or emotions this would be something to give some personality and back story without having to give the whole game away. Don't get me wrong, I think they need to stay as remorseless killing machines with a compulsion to consume but you can definitely flesh them out a bit without having to lose that. I could envisage some pretty interesting scenarios as to 'why' the Tyranids are compelled to keep consuming and evolving and why they left their original galaxy in the first place. Created as a 'reset' button weapon a la the reapers from ME and the only way to bring peace to the MW is to destroy all the warring factions within it? Running from something worse in their own galaxy? Sent to bring biomass back to their own home galaxy following a cataclysm? Genetic flaw that will eventually kill their creators and so built to integrate biomass to look for a solution? Not great I know but it needs something to spark them up a bit.

[@jimmonroe5193]

The problem with the Tyranids is the focus on large creatures. Once a hive fleet arrives in a system, the system should be doomed at the microscopic level. Tyranid viruses, spores, and other pathogens could eliminate the life on a planet without a shot being fired. Once Tyranids enter the biosphere, even if you kill off all the large creatures, the tiny creatures will remain consuming and converting. Foes of the Tyranids might win the battle, but lose the war. Additionally, every planet they reach has resources and potentially biomass to consume. That deathworld the Imperium left alone is free lunch for the Tyranids.

[@jasonr4518]

"Games workshop doesn't like change, adverse to taking risks." months later at GW: "Hey everyone female Custodes exist now and always have, we're making changes now."

[@chrishamilton7516]

Well if we look at the scene from a novel featuring the siege of Baal when a Space marine saw a horde stop just before their macguffin trap and a single hormogaunt stop and look directly at him with “the whole of the hive mind behind those black eyes” you could say that the greater hive mind isn’t trying because it’s simply curious. “Can they withstand this? What if I up the pressure here and here? Interesting. How about these new bioforms?” Etc.

[@BarakYisrael]

I was also thinking that gw can do more with this idea. All these losses are simply a means to an end. To test all the lifeforms of this galaxy for the future final feast.

[@battle247]

I think the Tyranids offer a really unique opportunity for an epic plot twist. There are so many theories as to thier origins and thier goals and to what extent they have spread thier tendrils across the universe, it would be so cool if GW could eventually give us the answers to all of these questions in a way that we never saw coming and in so doing giving thier very existence in the universe more meaning and depth.

[@zemosion1129]

I feel like the Tyranids would be perfect for the more horror based stories

[@thoughtgaming492]

Orks being able to reproduce as fast as tyranids kill them would not be of detriment to tyranids, it would actually be beneficial. More bodies on the field means more biomass. Ork wars would function as hyper effective biomass farms.

[@AliRadicali]

Orcs are very similar to Tyranids in the sense that both races get stronger by fighting strong enemies, so I would say that whichever side wins a given fight is the one that gets a giant power-boost. If we assume that the outcome is a foregone conclusion in favour of the Tyranids, I have to wonder why they wouldn't already be using orcs as a source of infinite biomass. Surely the norn-queens are smart enough to figure out the concept of agriculture, even if it goes against their more predatory and animalistic nature.

[@thoughtgaming492]

@@AliRadicali they ARE using orcs as biomass farms though. Video just said that the orcs and nids have battles that have been going on for extremely long times. If the nids weren’t gaining something from it they’d move on like they did when they caught the tau. They’re only staying because it’s highly beneficial for them. And a note as well, tyranids don’t just get stronger by winning, but also by losing as they can come back with altered warriors that are better suited for the enemy they face.

[@AliRadicali]

@@thoughtgaming492 An ongoing battle whose outcome hasn't been decided is not the same thing as a biomass farm. Any Tyranid invasion involves a huge up-front investment in biomass in order to recoup (hopefully) a greater return once the planet has been conquered and stripped. It's possible the Tyranids in question can't afford to cut bait because they've already invested so much biomass, or because they can't let up on the offense without risking a decimating counterattack by the by-now extremely fighty orc boys. Hell, the video cites other examples of Tyranids making a self-destructive decision out of a lack of understanding; it's possible that confronting the orcs was an outright mistake for them, and they didn't understand the nature of orcs enough to see that. A mutually destructive war of attrition fundamentally goes against the goals of the Tyranid more so than those of the orcs, because no matter who wins there will be much less biomass when the dust settles. Ultimately, we don't know who would win until GW gives us the answer, but I think it is a bit premature to call it for the Tyranid and refer to their forever-wars with the orcs as biomass farms.

[@JJSijbesma]

The way id solve a problem like this is with different narrative time structures Say for example a Tyranid novel where we are told of how a world is consumed by them through the testimony of a lone survivor being interrogated by an inquisitor. I'd call it "no survivors" The plot could revolve around some crucial insight hinting to a weakness of the hive fleet. This is our mcguffin. The tension would be build around the how of the survival and the what of the information. You can go into all sorts of gruesome detail while the main character's survival is assured. All side characters die in some way or another and we get to read how in detail. Add in some interludes where you jump back to the present with the inquisitor and survivor interacting. Seeing some interesting back and forth. Continue until the survivor is safe,and debriefed. Now the info obviously can't be spread so have the inquisitor shoot him. When questioned by ... Let's say a space marine guarding the intelligence asset looming in the back. S: inquisitor? I: There are no survivors.

[@BreakerBeat]

Personally, I actually think Tyranids are the only faction that should be allowed to "win". Of course this "win" is going to happen so far into the 40k future that it's not part of the setting (we need to keep all factions alive for the game, after all). But setting them up for victory in the far future is fine. The reason I think this works is that Tyranids, unlike all other factions, are kind of "mindless". They simply devour, with no desires or goals aside from pure evolutionary progress. They are not even from this galaxy, they have no ties to it, they don't CARE about it. The second reason is that if Tyranids actually "win", it means they have devoured everything and by their very nature have no need to stay in the galaxy - they will move on to a new galaxy. Those two reasons essentially means the Tyranid "win" does not leave the winner as the sole ruler of the galaxy. What it leaves is a truly dead galaxy, nothing left. This to me is the pinnacle of grimdark. While it can never happen as we need a game to play and a setting to write books for, writing the story such that the Tyranids eventual win is certain means that we KNOW it will end in the most girmdark outcome possible, and that's what 40K is about to me. I don't want hope, I don't want to think my favourite heroes will prevail - I've got superhero stories for that. For 40K, I want to know that in the end, everyone have lost and the galaxy is a silent, death space where life will never return. That once nothing alive exists in the galaxy, it means all the war and pain have been for nothing. That EVERYTHING have been for nothing, because there is nothing left. This to me is much more grimdark than eternal war. War means there is still something to fight for, still hope that some goal can be achieved, even if that goal is nothing but survival. Absolute death should be the only outcome of 40K, because nothing is more grim than that.

[@kingofworms831]

I remember hearing that the necrons being retconned in that they went from empty minded to having full personalities, why don’t they do something similar to tyranids, that way we can have a plot to see how they function but also what they think about everything that is going on in the setting

[@airagog]

HEY THAT ME! THAT MY THING I SAID ON ANOTHER WESHAMMER VIDEO I REMEMBER YOU KING OF WORMS!

[@crispychips7161]

Good, so now on top of ruining the necrons they can now also ruin the nids.

[@BaldianOfIbelin]

​@@crispychips7161To be fair to WG, it is almost impossible to correctly write a character that is an AI without emotions and in practice it is impossible to do it with several characters, the same with giving them motivations.

[@kingofworms831]

@@airagog Lol that sounds about right

[@loopgru]

Nids have the Avatar of Khaine problem as an entire faction. They're trotted out as a jobber to take an L to show how badass their plot-armored opponent is. Also, rather than just letting the nids mulch a relevant planet, what I think would be far more fun is to let someone (not necessarily the imps, but we all know it would be) actually pull off a "win" against the Nids and kill some giant galactic-scale synapse brain. Then instead of one unified galactic-scale threat you've balkanized the various hive fleets, given them the potential for infighting and even given some possibility for the different hives to develop individuated personalities.

[@observingeye9579]

but isnt the whole thing with tyranids that if they lose connection the hive mind they just revert to their most primal instincts which is usually to go on a blind rampage, i dont think they'd develop personalities

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

Don't they already have different "personalities" hence the difference in how they normally choose to engage? I get what you're saying though, they're currently the Zerg with the Overmind. United. While Starcraft 2's Broodmothers were even tasked with fighting each other just to grow stronger.

[@rafaelfernandez6626]

Honestly I feel like they shot themselves in the foot when they originally made them not have personality and just be feral animals. Without properly named characters with back grounds it's really hard to be emotionally invested in whatever they're doing.

[@Archon3960]

Funny considering how I think GW shot themselves in the foot with the Eldar as well by making them "Oh so unknowable you can't even begin to comprehend them!" I guess it's all a matter of finding a middle ground. xD

[@rafaelfernandez6626]

@@Archon3960 it's the fundamental issue with writing things in extremes. The moment you start to pivot or backtrack it becomes character breaking

[@Draxynnic]

It's something I've seen in a number of properties. The "this enemy is completely impersonal and more like fighting a natural disaster than a rival" is something that franchise after franchise has thought seemed cool until they found themselves actually having to write for it, and then they either backtrack or are left with an antagonist that really is just as satisfying to fight as a hurricane. At the risk of heresy, this is something I think the Zerg did better. The 'middle management' does have personalities, even if ultimately subservient to whatever forms the core of the hive mind. Their primary goal is self-improvement rather than simply eating everything, so it is possible to negotiate with them. And while complete destruction of the biosphere of a planet is certainly grimdark, the zerg instead employ means of relatively sustainably exploiting the resources of a planet, which means that reclaiming a Zerg-ravaged world is at least theoretically possible, and the Zerg having a big win creates the possibility of a narrative beat where someone else tries to reclaim the planet.

[@t1tanfallpr025]

I personally think the way to sort out them is simple Have the hive queens and certain units high up on the food chain (so to speak) be intelligent and capable of higher brain funtions. This allows us to follow a book from their perspective allowing us to view fheir tactics and reasons closer. It could also open a door for a potential major victory as they would be a proper faction. Next slowly introduce new important planets that can serve as the battlegrounds like a system is captured by the imperium that acts as one of the few chokeholds towards another inportant planet/system so that holding it is imperativeto that systems continuedplot armour. (random example completely out of line with the lore) This would give GW plenty of time before an actual super important planet falls allowing them to write some stories about the planet before it finally goes.

[@bugdog81]

I think the best fix is there being a way for psykers to break their connection to the main hive mind and then there’s infighting which would take away the overpowered factor

[@anubishound8179]

Am I a heretic for thinking Slaanesh is hot

[@SodiusMax]

Nice try, Inquisitor Dan.

[@dang1099]

​@@SodiusMaxyou called?

[@stevenmarshall653]

No, you're a heretic for thinking. Mechanicus is accessing your survitor locator protocols.

[@singyiulim]

imperial is far too weak compared to other factions and that's the problem

[@Archon3960]

*_(Laughs in Indomitus Crusade.)_*

[@mozkuthehermit5909]

2nd video about Tyranid in short time?? Yes, thank you sir!

[@awesom1ser264]

hearing the argument reminded me of how starcraft writes the zerg they humanize the zerg with a higher rank such as the overmind, abathur also queens like niadra and zagara and others letting them have a degree of independent thought and motivations while still keeping the soldiers of the army as mindless slaves to the hive

[@Bobcat173rd]

They were probably written as a cool overall villain, but became the thing that painted a lot of stories into a corner.