40k Charted: First Contact With The Tyranids
October 3, 2016 by warzan
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Can’t wait to get home and watch this
I was never really a massive fan of the ‘nids, however I think there’s something really interesting and grim-dark about the cult. I think the models GW have come out with (and are coming out with next week) for the cultists look great and would make for a really neat narrative game – with the inquisition quelling a potential uprising or something of the sort.
I think to be fair my dislike of the ‘nids was perhaps rooted in ignorance, and after watching the video they seem much more sinister and creepy than I imagined. i think their gribbly, consume-all and horde-like nature is rather appealing in a grim kind of way.
I’ve heard tyranids are only allies of convenience with the genestealer cult which I think initially sounds a bit odd, considering the motives of the cult. But it does make more sense if you imagine the ‘nids are really only using the cult for disruption and consumption purposes. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if it was almost a one-sided allegiance where the cult benefited somehow from allying with the hive-fleet, however there was a chance they might be consumed by their tyranid masters each turn? Not sure.
Either way, great video!
These are my favourite videos now!
What happened to the chap that was going to be doing all the 40K stuff
Ah ok there he is
Okay so so much to say!!!
Well the Tyranids are really really interesting they are my team, the one I play. I think some people may like this, the reason that I played them is because when I heard about 40k I said well I want to play the good guys, and well… there are no good guys.
So I decided if there are no good guys the Tyranids are the good guys, because they just want a meal, they are just looking for lunch they just want to live…
However this was somewhat suberveted when someone told me this theory that they are just slaves of the hivemind, that this Alien intelligence slowly took over whole races until they have become what they are, just meat for a intelligence beyond reason.
Anyway first up, don’t think of the Tyranids as different species or different types of creatures, that kind of thinking has gotten the Imperium into far too much trouble. Think of them as cells of an organism. Those aren’t termigaunts they are Killer T cells, infact only the tervigons (the things that spew termigaunts) are awake during the long deep space travel, they act as ships white blood cells waking the ships up to threat and spewing termigaunts to deal with the threat.
The other thing is that it is only recently that gargoyals became the first wave, for the longest time, and as far as I can still see for oncoming hive fleets (ones where the main force is yet to arrive). Hormagaunts are the first wave, they come in two lots, ones that are fully developed and ones that are seeded in the world. Once the ships come with in range, they spew forth from the ground and charge the locals. The worst thing, is they aren’t even meant to win. They are meant to exhaust the locals ammo supplies.
Oh man So much I want to say about them.
But the big thing to see is that Tyranids aren’t fleets, or anything else, they are a singular body. A collective will, nothing else.
Oh also just getting up to the weapon thing. Don’t think of them as Sword, whips or anything like that. They aren’t they are sentient creatures designed for a singular purpose. The whips are living tendrils which are attempting to get around the opponents defences in concert with their host but separate from them. The bone sword has semi control over it’s hosts limbs, look and you will see the eye in most designs, this yet another fail safe for them.
This is why the larger Tyranids always have such high weapon skills, beyond their natural ability if you are fighting one on one, your outnumbered your fighting as many as five different creatures depending on the weapons being used.
I miss the Zoats from way back in the day. I wish they would re-design and re-introduce them. They used to be the most powerful thing you could field besides the Carnifax. They are obviously way out classed now, but they used to be cool as hell. Oh, nostalgia.
Yeah, I think the part that was touched upon, but not really nailed home, was the fact that the Genestealer cults are just a big sonar “ping” for the hive fleet. Space is HUGE, and even something as large as the tyranids can’ts spend resources combing every square meter of dead space for biomatter to consume.
So, genestealer cults are formed. The stealers arrive at a planet through various means (hidden in transports, crashing on hulks, sent out as spores), and begin a cult. The richer a planet is in biomass, the faster and larger the cult will grow. As they mentioned, the larger the cult grows, the larger the mini-hive-mind presence produced by the cult and the patriarch. The larger the mini-hive-mind signature, the “lounder” the psychic “dinner bell” is ringing for the hive fleet in space. The tyranids then home in on the strongest signals, and consume.
Not 100% sure of the allies of convenience of the cults-to-tyranids, but in a way it makes sense. I forget the exact background, but with the exception of perhaps the patriarch, most don’t know the cults true purpose. The cult members themselves don’t know their role is to attrack the hive fleet, they are just driven to breed, survive, and grow. The side effect of that growth is (1) attraction of the hive fleet and (2) the distabalizing of the planets infrastructure, which makes a hive fleet attach easier.
Once the hive fleet arrives, the cult aren’t really “allied-with”. They are consumed just like any other bio mass on the planet.
But I agree with how sinister the hive fleet’s attacks can be. Like the initial attacks, the waves of termaguants and hormagaunts. Those help deplete ammunition, but also cause a known reaction in their prey. Facing such waves of attacks causes defenders to group-up into defendable locations “for protection”. However, from the hive fleet’s perspective, this makes their job eaisier. By grouping all your defenses in one place, you alllow the fleet to smash isolated pockets of resistance rather than having to hunt them all over the place.
To alter a commonly used analogy, the fleet already has a hammer (carnifexes, bio-titans, other larger “seige bugs”), they are using the hordes of termagaunts and hormaguants to turn the defenders into a nail.
ace stuff – fascinating episode of this series.
i’d love to hear more about the “Hive Fleet” what it actually comprises of? how it operates in deep space – does it use warp travel or can they travel near relativistic speeds? surely one of the ways to tackle the tyranids is to fight them in deep space where their access to new resources are non-existant.
I can’t add much more than what caladors and foehammer888 have mentioned.
I have seen an interview from GW with Phil Kelly and somebody else about the genestealer cult, that explains a bit more about how they work.
Great show yet again gentlemen!
Why did AJ not get a cup of tea tho? I think he deserves a beverage by now 😉
I have a two hour drive up to the BoW studios, so I manage to chugg down plenty of energy drinks/Coffee. Bathroom breaks are common!!! 🙂
Great video, opened my eyes to what the nids are all about. Just getting back into 40k and I am really enjoying the charted videos. Any chance AJ is up for doing a report on Kill team and some cool suggestions on 250pt army combos?…
6:18 I started to look at the cup next to @warzan 😉
All in all, a very informative episode. These things are scary.
btw. Where is the Emperor, he used to visit us here.
Jokes on the Tyranids; they’ve completely underestimated how toxic the Imperial hive words are. All the polymers and carcinogens produced over ten to twenty millenia (and disease, don’t forget Papa Nurgle’s lovely diseases) are getting absorbed right along with everything else. There’s only so much even they should be able to adapt and evolve (heck, mutating too fast and too much could be a sign of something going wrong inside) and with every hive and forge world they devour the toxins keep building up into their systems..
In short, the Hive Fleets are all going to get cancer and die.
Lets say thats true, and the Hive worlds are toxic enough to poison Tyranids (which I honestly have to doubt, if humans can live there nids won’t have much problem eating it) but even if that where the case, the Hive ,ind would simply isolate and destroy the contaminated biomass.
As for papa Nurgle, Tyranids have fought chaos before, including Nurgle, and they have won, don’t underestimate the power of the hive mind and the nids.
AJ, the timeline diagram of the Tyranid invasion is in the 5th edition 40k core rule book (hardback version). It’s a beautiful thing.
I’ll have another look at that! well designed rulebook that one!
great video guys nids with Ork DNA a really scary combination.
I’ve loved the ‘Nids ever since they first appeared on the edge of the 40k galaxy (They were in fact my first Sci Fi army way back in my teenage years). Great video 🙂
Great video. Have loved the Tyranids since I first played Space Crusade at the age of 7-8 and shat myself whenever a Genestealer would leap out and attack my Imperial Fists. Advanced Space Crusade was a great proper intro to them showing the inside of a hive ship and some larger gribblies. Shame you don’t see more battles taking place in hive ships. Always wanted to build a full 3d hive ship table since playing on those garish looking tiles with sphincters for doors.
Can’t remember where I read it but remember a story about how to best defend against a hive fleet invasion.
Find a nice juicy agri / hive world ripe for consumption and seed it with Exterminatus devices. Wait for the hive fleet to arrive and begin consumption. The local inhabitants defend as best they can causing the fleet to deploy as many organisms as possible. Detonate the Exterminatus devices at the last possible point before the biomass can be taken back to the hive ships, destroying the planet and all of its occupants, leaving the hive fleet at its weakest possible state (i.e. it has used all of its available resources to create organisms to attack the planet) and then attack the fleet with ships.
Grim as hell but makes some sense (at least to the Inquisition) as you only have to sacrifice a single planet and a paltry few billion inhabitants to save entire systems from being consumed.
You’re talking about what Kryptman did during the war with Hive Fleet Leviathan.
Space Crusade!
I used to scare my wee brother by jumping out from behind trees and yelling ‘Genestealer!’
I liked this video but I was hoping to see the changing of the nid model range in it. First Nid Contacts, the first models to current. They have changed a lot since the first gens.
Nids have been around for a loooooong time
All I will say (for those that haven’t read it yet) is read Pharos from the Horus Heresy series
I really like the thought of Zoats being first-contact ‘ambassadors’
– should quote the bit in Ian Watson’s ‘Space Marine’ where the Zoat explains the Hive Mind to the Space Marine Scouts – a single preserving consciousness that will save mankind from Chaos :-O
that’s right – they were supposed to be Space Dinosaurs! my intro to 40k was Advanced Space Crusade – Punks vs Dinosaurs what could be more awesome!!
in Advanced Space Crusade the Scouts could find captives who were psychically absorbed into the Hive Mind or ‘tuned in’ so they could overhear the thoughts of Tyranids 🙂
the old 40k lore described an approaching – ‘Shadow in the Warp’ – that made psykers go crazy.
There was an Kryptman story were a psyker was ordered to ‘link’ with a deathspitter and got ‘possessed’ by the bio-weapon 🙂
There was an Imperial Guard story in the 2nd edition Tyranid Codex that narrated the whole invasion – it really upset me 🙁
I would love to see a Tyranid invasion force in 6mm epic scale 🙂
can genestealers ‘impregnate’ worlds were there is no intelligent life? Do Lyctors read your thoughts (learning battle-plans) by eating your brain??
I love these 40k charted videos, I could sit and listen to you guys explaining stuff for ages. It’s calming and interesting at the same time; the way you interact is great and Warrens reactions are brilliant and remind me of my own. Tyranids have always fascinated me, they were actually the thing that got me into 40k about 19 years ago. The first 40K minis I saw were a group of genestealers from the space hulk board game at a local car boot sale and I was hooked from there on out. I remember begging my dad to buy them for me, I must have been about 7 or 8 at the time. Luckily he did and so began the obsession! I ended up going to the sales every weekend with my dad from then on out hoping to find more. Was always exciting when I stumbled upon the “gold mine” hidden among all the junk.