What kind of drive-mechanism has a bioship from the Tyranids? How do they travel through the void?

They must make use of some kind of backstroke, mustn't they? But how exactly do they generate backstroke?

I would be glad if you could help me – I will have to offer a good explanation to my players soon...

Graf said:

It's not entirely clear. Some of them seem to use gas jets as thrusters, but some descriptions seem to describe 'swimming' motions, even though there's nothing for them to push against...

Graf said:

Even the Magos-Genetor's of the Adeptus Mechanicus and other xeno-biologists are not sure how exactly the Tyranids go about traveling the void. Unless your players are going to risk being eaten by a hive fleet to study the 'Nids and find out, it should be mostly speculation on their part anyway. One might presume that since they can generate a form of bio-plasma as a weapon, they might propel themselves similarly. Really, ask your players how they think the 'Nids travel through the void? Any answer they give is as likely correct or wrong as one we could give you.

BaronIveagh said:

Perhaps said "swimming" motion somehow plays on the interaction of the bioships own gravitational field and that of various celestial bodies and phenomena. Or, if the do jet gases for propulsion and maneuvering, maybe the swimming motions are for stability purposes.

Really, the biological workings of the species is poorly understood by the Imperium at best. I don't believe there's been much opportunity to study them due to their lethality and, if I'm remembering correctly, their heightened rates of decomposition. Bio-plasma propulsion, gravity manipulation or even some form of telekinesis? Any of them might be right, and could be wrong. What makes sense to you?

-=Brother Praetus=-

... in all honesty, nothing to do with tyranid bioships 'makes sense' to me. I just chalk them up as one more case of the writers opting for rule of cool over sense...

@Brother Praetus

...and all of those methods would be viable (as viable as all of 40k, at least) before factoring in the extreme level of psychic ability a hive fleet posesses.

I think they teleport on a massive scale, each hive ship having the necessary powers to enter the warp and shield itself and others.

However, I thought they just drifted along?

Tyanids don't enter the warp (in fact they can actually prevent ships from entering the warp) but the actual means of propulsion in real space is more questionable. I think that they push themselves forward off their spore clouds.

So... how does their FTL travel work?

Cifer said:

It's not really defined. I think it may function similarly to what the Necron do, without the "make this star go Supernova" side effect. Though there seems to be some material which indicates that they actually do not traverse the void at FTL speeds. So, relativistically might be the best description. They are one of the great mysteries of 40K.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Well - the "Hive Fleets" are just tendrils right?

All the pictures I've seen show these massive clouds of tendril-like extensions reaching out from some endless point in space. Yes, I'm aware those are just swarms of tyranids...

But - what if the tyranids "grow" into our space from somewhere else... suggesting an endless organism - a "God-Tyrannid" reaching into our galaxy.

If I recall - all Tyranid incursions come from one "side" of the galaxy. ((Could be way wrong on this.)) So the "body" of the "God-Tyrannid" could be somewhere out there and - like an octopus - it's simply reaching into our galaxy with its arms.

Even ignoring the "God-Tyranid" concept - the maps seem to show them "growing" into our galaxy... whereas a true fleet up ships usually get things like arrows show their direction.

It's a subject of some dispute. Some BL books give them the ability to access the warp. However, in the last Codex, the Narwal class bioship basically folds space, reducing the distance real space between two points over a short distance (a few light years). Without them, the rest of the fleet has no ftl ability at all.

Previous to this, fluffwise, they had no FTL ability at all. They simply hibernated, drifting between worlds until they found something.

Well, if the BL and other Fluff sources choose the "coasting through darkness" method of space travel it would make the Tyranid threat far more manageable then it would be with FTL. As it would take over hundreds of years for them to move even the shortest of distances between systems under the speed of light, greater recovery time would be allowed between engagements for their targets. If it wasn't for the warp shadow they created it would almost be crippling.

Necrons on the other hand would slowly and methodicly murder non-FTL hive fleets. Inertia-less drive hit and runs would go a long way for a race that doesn't need to resupply, rest, or refit so long as they have power and none warp-based galaxy spanning teleportation technology.

Of course, that might make it a tad tough on the necrons, as... well, the tyranid swarms seem to be as large as some entire sectors, easilly.... and the whole thing is alive...

Well... I always saw the Tyranid swarm "tendril" map impressions as artistic licence on the part of Imperial cartographers. I don't personally believe that the Sectors that have been stripped of life actually contain much in the way of Tyranid fleets at all; the Tyranid fleets are at the forefront of the "tendrils" on the maps, leaving wasteland behind them. Tyranid hive fleets may be vast, but they don't cover whole sectors any more than Imperial Battlefleets do.

And I always imagined that Necrons and Tyranids would probably not actually have much to fight about, to be honest, whatever their drive methods. Tyranids actively seek out biomass, and the Necrons just don't have any: they are non-organic entities living on dead worlds or constructs. There is a diagramatic suggestion in the Necron Codex in fact that the Tyranid hive fleets are actively avoiding a gigantic Necron construct (which may be a Dyson sphere) in deep space. This would be pretty unprecedented; Tyranids aren't really the type to shy away from a fight.

It may be that the Tyranids encountered the Necrons fairly early on, and assumed that they were the mechanical vanguard of some organic race, and enthusiastically attacked them, only to end up in a series of incredibly wasteful conflicts. I'm not saying Tyranids are inherently inferior in a fight to Necrons, its just that their whole way of life is a headlong onslaught devoted to gathering new resources, and the Necrons simply don't have any to give.

The Necrons probably don't value Tyranid life too much either: perhaps Tyranids just aren't that much fun to consume / torment.

Medhia Nox said:

Initially they hit from the Eastern Fringe; Behemoth and Kraken . Leviathon actually came up from "under" the galactic plane closer to the nougaty center.

• " Three major Hive Fleets have invaded the galaxy, each coming into conflict with the Imperium. Of the three major Hive Fleet invasions, two entered the galaxy through the Eastern Fringe, but one is moving up from below the galactic plane. " - Codex: Tyranids (4th Edition)

I've not really had a chance to check out the new codex beyond skimming a few units, but I think that much of the background material stayed the same.

To date there have been no known engagements pitting a Tyranid hive fleet against a Necron harvest fleet. The fact that the Necron lack both biomass and a significant psychic signature (which seems to be how the 'Nids hunt) makes them unlikely to cross paths too often. There is some speculation that the Tyraind may even be an engineered race, the product of The Deceiver which was said to have fled the galaxy at some point after the war between the Necrontyr and the Old Ones.

Another oddity of the Tyranid threat is how long various bio-forms now known or suspected to be of Tyrannic origin have actually troubled the galaxy. Besides the genestealers (the Ymgarl subspecies most notably) the kraken of Fenris and the Catachan Devil bear seem to bear similarities on a genetic level with the Tyranid. This has lead to widely varied speculation on the part of many "fluff-junkies."

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Possibly - and I speculate here - the Tyranid race has become more homogenous over time, while still retaining the ability to vary spectacularly when needs arise. It may be that the "lost" hive fleets are remnants of earlier, unsuccessful attempts by the Tyranids to conquer the galaxy. The existence of the Zoats also points to earlier Tyranids being somewhat more like a traditional race, with slave species adopted wholesale into the Hive Fleets.

Later Tyranids, from the more successful and voracious Hive Fleets like Kraken, Leviathan etc are remarkably similar to each other, suggesting that some momentous event happened during their long transit between galaxies. Perhaps some hideous "ethnic cleansing" style genocidal event took place within the fleets, as the Tyranids turned themselves delibarately from a race resembling those of the Milky Way Galaxy to the single superorganism they are now.

Speaking as a fluff-junky, of course!

BaronIveagh said:

They've got nothing but time baby. Time, and a only one deck of cards...

...and Gauss weapons.

One of the greatest aspects of the nids *which I was constantly reminded by their players* was the fact that any casualties they suffer mean nothing.The broken, burnt, and liquified biomass can always be recovered after all resistance has been crushed, meaning they 'never' take causality if the swarm isn't ultimately defeated.

Gauss weapons on the other hand like to unravel atoms and give you a less colourful 'Mars Attacks' style of disintegration that pulls the distablised matter back through the Gauss beam. That and due to the indigestible qualities of living metal, instant teleporation recovery, none warp based faster then light travel, and the Necron past time of winter homemaking on dead worlds makes them probably the Ideal defenders against the Tyranid... you know, if they weren't trying to strip the galaxy of all life for themselves.

One of the greatest aspects of the nids *which I was constantly reminded by their players* was the fact that any casualties they suffer mean nothing.The broken, burnt, and liquified biomass can always be recovered after all resistance has been crushed, meaning they 'never' take causality if the swarm isn't ultimately defeated.

While technically correct, it's highly probable the 'nids still suffer attrition from destroyed organisms - it's not likely the transformation from burnt husk to reformed 'nid happens without loss in transition. If the tyranids were able to transform the biomass of consumed worlds into more nids at 100% efficiency, the Imperium could pretty much give up right now: just compare the mass of six milliard men from earth (of which only a few millions are soldiers) to that of the entire organic parts of earth.

Homeworld: Cataclysm got that one right - as soon as the Tyranid-meets-Borg enemy of the game consumes a whole planet, it's already too late to stop it.

So on the topic of 'nid ships, is there anything in the way of rules for them? I've been trying to convert their statistics from BFG without much success so far.

from france

i remenber a old topic in the dh forum about "the big evil three" chaos, necrons and tyranids. what i recall is that nyds if unstoped will likely feed on itself by lack of prey. but the chaos need follower so if the imperium can't stop them the chaos will come to end their appetit. if the chaos fail for example by lack of warp contact it will end. so what are the nids? living organsime and someone sentient so because of the purpose of the necrons to end of life or to feed the c tan they will turn on the nids.

maybe this why the nids avoid the necrons it s the big suprise when you discover that if your a apex predator on the galactic scale something can beat you to pulp.

i remenber that in the book about the iron warior they have captured a tyranid bio ship and corupted it tn the warp. so maybe they can't enter on their own but can be bring in.

also if they can't use warp to travel faster the space hulk can. it s not unimaginable to think that if stealer can use them other organisme can. they can grow slower than ork spores? and suddently after then thousand years of fuc*** the atheist dream of the emperor you wake up with a beast at your door.