Hi all.

Im currently planing a mission where the kill team will be assaulting a Hive Ship thats in the process of consuming all the biomass collector from pools of the stuff.

Now my question is what will be on the planet during the final stage of a tryanid invasion as in what kind of nids will be on the surface?

I know that there will be countless ripper swarms and hive guard.

What else would there be?

Thanks all.

If it's in the 'final stages' (as in: no resistance remaining) I would assume that the main organisms would be non-combat types that fulfill specific planet-stripping roles. Things that regurgitate mucus that hardens into the gigantic tubes (like termites building those big mounds in Africa) that connect the reclamation pools to the hive ships, and huge elephantine things that slurp up pools that don't have adjacent tubes and waddle over to vomit into an active pool, stuff like that. Tyranids are all about specialization, and they aren't limited to the combat forms presented in the tabletop game- but you'll have to make up any non-combat stuff yourself.

I'd say a shitload of everything more or less. I think you can basically justify throwing almost any kind of mix of Tyranids at the players in this situation.

Since most of the resistance has been wiped out by that point, most of the need to keep big things like Carnifex, gaunts, warriors etc is a little bit unnecessary. What is there left for them to fight? Likely they will be brought back to the reclamation pools.

Next they will unleash shedloads of rippers to consume every bit of organic or any digestible matter. Most of the plantlife has likely mutated.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tyranid#.U0MNnahdWDs

So at the end you're looking like having billions of rippers and any Tyranids that were not fully absorbed back into the fleet, odd mutated plantlife messed with during the earlier stages. Terrain where they have yet to clear will be full of likely large tendrils and hostile nid plants and bits they have cleared will likely be barren desert wastelands.

Personally, I'd assume that a warrior presence would still be there, if only as a "rear guard" of sorts. The Hive may not produce new ones anymore, but the ones that have already landed would remain (possibly dormant, similar to the warriors in Alien 2) until they are about to starve, at which point they'll slither into the reclamation pools, like with the legend about elephant graveyards where the animals are drawn to a specific place where they just lie down and die.

To me, such a "delayed absorption" would make more sense than immediate recycling (it just feels more ... "natural" this way) - and it makes for a more dangerous (and thus potentially interesting?) terrain for the players to navigate! Speaking of Alien 2 ... you could even adopt the idea of Tyranid Warriors "sleeping" in nests, just waiting for a bunch of Space Marines to wander through their place, so that they can do a last stand of sorts before "retirement" in the bio-pools.

But in the end, we are all just throwing ideas out there. Pick what you think suits your game best.

Thanks for the thoughts.

My idea was to have crap tons of rippers everywhere with warriors leading each brood of them wondering around consuming things.

Hive guard will be back at the tendrills guarding the pools from any interlopers that get too close.

The mission will be to deliver a toxin that will hopefully cripple the hive fleet by using the pools as a delivery method of sorts.

The first mission i used was the into one out of the corebook and am using the vyakai created a toxin thing for the main story arc currently.

Oh by all means keep some behind. The Hive Mind would not likely keep it totally left alone, besides need some synapse units on the ground to co-ordinate the rippers

Might want to look at using the Alpha Warrior Beasts from Mark of the Xenos, Master level enemies I think (or very tough elites) and make for very good challenges but also strong swarm leaders.