Let's Talk Tyranid Fluff

So I'll preface this with a disclaimer: I hold no ill will towards the bugs. My brother played them while still into 40k, so I was certainly acquainted with them.

Having said that, I find the Nids to be really dull. They have a wide range of colors, wild variety of forms and some truly outlandish weaponry. Yet for all this, this unknowable scourge from beyond the stars seem all to familiar, all too terrestrial: Eat, breed, thrive, change, decimate, dominate.

If you like Tyranids, I'd like to know- is there something I'm missing? Is wanting something more complicated drive from the Tyranids counter-intuitive to their faction appeal? Or do you wish to see some new developments as well?

Pic related: I feel like they work better from the oblivious perspective of some group like the genestealer cults than for us as an omniscient audience.

In 3rd and 4th ed codex they were an unstoppable unfathomable alien tide of hideous bioforms and beasts, an alien cancer gnawing away at the imperium, with loads of side effects like SITW nightmares and impending doom feeling, plants growing at a super accelerated rate etc..|

Recent codex stuff just feels more like "big scary space bugs are coming but don't worry, a space marine can totally kill 10000 solo, and they only win cause they outnumber us so badly and they will lose most fights in their own codex"

yeah that is pretty much it, and everything was told from the perspective of kryptman and the imperium
i miss the 4edition codex so much

I guess that's part of the reason I question the appeal. In a setting full of doomsday weapons and failsafes, an "impending doom" race feels almost redundant.

I've really enjoyed the genestealers more in Space Hulk because they feel very threatening there. They make Marines vulnerable (thus more human) and genuinely feel overwhelming rushing down corridors.

That sense of locality makes them more ominous to me. They're monsters lurking in the dark places we really don't want to be anyways.

yeah stealers are far more interresting than nids.

Nids realy lack character.

I for one would like something completley different done with them.
Maybe reveal a secondary purpose they got.

I mean they are the Lizardmen equivalent of 40k in terms of model design and variety of monsters.

Id like to see em revealed as one of the old ones creations that might eventually herald their return.

Or i just want space lizards..

It's partly that thing of viewpoint: you have a distinct lack of omniscient narration in most codex fluff, because most of them are Imperial anyway (so telling them from the Imperium's viewpoint - or near enough - helps to keep them from looking like the ridiculous, pompous, doomed half-wits they really are), because Chaos and Orks don't really give two shits about history (other than the fights they lost), because Eldar/Deldar don't really give two shits about anything that isn't Eldar, because Tau are revisionist technocrats. The closest you really get to a comprehensive overview is through the Necron, Eldar and then Imperial histories read together, but you're not supposed to have this rock-solid historical background to work from. It's supposed to be flowing and a little bit loose so that you can Forge the Narrative™ in the gaps. Where it breaks from the in-universe level of knowledge is often where the story is weakest.

The extension of that for space bugs is that short of having the Hive Mind itself (which is supposed to be totally alien, not your dad) narrate their history, all you can present in their own codex is their appearance on Imperial and familiar alien worlds and how that went down. Well, if an unlimited number of space bugs is supposed to be scary, you can't have them present no threat - the Imperium is complacent enough to think it can deal with a few new alien fleets turning up on its borders, it loses and gains sectors at a time and always has - so you have to scale that threat up. Behemoth; it's unthinkably vast, and takes a huge amount of conflict, but is eventually stopped. Then Kraken arrives and suddenly you're doing it all again and wondering how many of these fleets there are. Then Leviathan arrives...

The problem in turn with that is that if the bugs were any good, if they needed to be, they'd already have taken half the galaxy. Nothing would have stopped them. But they work by attrition, which is simpler.

Some of the older stories were great, red terrors origin were nice

One story was some IG outpost where they plants were growing so fast they were over running the compound, every hour they have to take flamers to the wall. The guard were all sick, one coughed up a thick spongey black wad that was part of his lungs due to the nid microbes in the air, then nids begin swarming through the jungle and scratching at the walls of the compound before a fex smashes the gate down and they swarm in killing everything. Its little stories like that I think that make them scarier? As opposed too "10 chapters of space marines fought them and there were 500000000000 tyranids and they ate the marines!!!!!" like its on such a high scale its hard to comprehend? Especially on an intimate level like fear

The problem isn't just that they're played as an "impending doom" faction in a setting like 40k, but that they fail so horribly at it. Their fluff, for all their victories, is filled mostly with them getting their asses kicked. In a setting with daemons and psychotic fungus and vampire rapists the 'Nids just want to - eat you. Big deal. When they first enter the galaxy as massive hive fleet's they're pretty intimidating, but soon after they're always just reduced to scavanging fleets.

The Tyranids need to be even bigger, even nastier, and even more numerous. They need to show more stuff of the Hive Mind brain-raping daemons and Chaos Lords, they need more Tyranids who won't just eat you, but will do horrible things to you (remember from alien when the colonists were kept alive as hosts?), and they need the next Hive Fleet that shows up to be absolutely fucking ginormous. Have it come from below the galaxy like a giant lamprey trying to eat a pie-plate.

Too some degree they've begun to rectify this, with the silent king realising how huge and shit they are, seeing the full "hive fleet" outside the galaxy, even stating if things carrying on the way they are, that a fully awakened united necron force couldn't stop them

Another factor that I think underplays them is that EVERYONE knows no matter what happens, orks, dark eldar, necrons, tyranids... will all be cucked by chaos, because no matter how close you are to winning chaos is the big bad and always will be not matter what so...

I agree with this, especially the part about a massive hive fleet emerging from "below" the galaxy. That'd be a nice and ominous picture and perhaps make the Tyranids look like a real threat.

Like others have already said, the Tyranids are sort of redundant in 40K as there are plenty of other massive threats and the Tyranids just seem to fall short. They show up in great numbers but are always beaten back. They lack an extra layer of terror that I think could be implemented with the right point of view and the right way of storytelling.

They aren't properly depicted as a thing to be feared but as a thing to be pushed back when it grows too large. Like weeds.

You uh... you do know that Leviathan is emerging from below the galaxy, right?

Like it's literally appearing across the entire lower plane, and there are smaller fleets that have come in from weird angles and the implication is that they may well have been surrounding us for millions of years of travel-time.

Exactly. I'm saying get to the part where the REAL fleet shows up already.

Also, maybe the setting could keep Chaos as a big bad but still have the Tyranids seem intimidating: remove humanity from the equation.

I'm not saying destroy the Imperium outright, I'm saying word the fluff more and more like in the end it's going to be a big throwdown between Bug and Daemon. Like the other races are just a bump in the road between these two clashing forces.

Whether or not that's TRUE is irrelevant to that being how it should be worded in the Tyranids codex, as opposed to just stories of them getting shat on.

I know of this picture and it shows that, but I'm talking one that looks like a maw about to engulf the entire galaxy.

I woiluld like to see them also add plague bombs as another way to destroy worlds beyond omnomnoming them. Take a shit in the enemy so to speak

That's a great point. I think in general, 40k's scale has almost become too bloated to really land that sense of horror on a level we can wrap our heads around as individuals. But it's especially apparent with Nids.

It would be cool to see the Nids go back to their roots, yeah, be a bit more "terrifying" rather than "horrifying". We need some good kill-team tyranid fluff, as in small groups of clever-girl tyranids.

All of the problems with Tyranid fluff these days are a result of Robin Cruddace writing the last two Codexes.

The 4th ed book was fucking perfect in both crunch and fluff for the time it was released.

What do you feel could be improved in terms of crunch? I'm of the subscription that troop choices need to be cheaper and focused on being the tar-iest tarpits, while elites/HQ should have a whole slew of disparate upgrades to reflect tyranid adaptivity.

Bumping for interest.
Nids are the only faction I cannot see the appeal from any angle. All else, I see something interesting, even in the Tau.

Really? How so? I used to feel the same way about DEldar, what don't you get about the Nids?

>perfect in both crunch

Eh. Hormagaunts were overpriced and melee Carnifexes didn't have a hope in hell of reaching close combat. 4th edition was the era which birthed the plague of Quad-Devourer monstrous creatures, remember.

The more I think about it, the more I think that from 3rd edition onwards, Tyranids have never had a genuinely great Codex. They had two okay ones, a poor one, then the current abysmal one.

First of all, they need to be faster. Like, significantly faster.

Tyranids have never had transports as part of their Faction identity, but they also never needed them. In previous editions a hormagaunt had an assault threat range double, or MORE than double that of a guardsman. Now, it's literally the same amount. In the fluff, Tyranid swarms are so fucking fast they run down Eldar on fucking jetbikes, leap on and rip them bodily from their rides.

They're also perfectly adapted to whatever terrain they're deployed in - always. They should completely ignore difficult terrain and not need assault grenades whatsoever. If you're fighting Tyranids, you're being hunted on their own territory, period. They make whatever terrain a battle happens in on their own terms, they always have home turf advantage. They're all amphibious, capable of scaling walls, many are capable of tunneling or evolving wings, and they have literally millions of eyes everywhere to coordinate their movements as one perfectly synchronized network.

TL;DR Tyranids should be the most mobile army to represent the fact that they are everywhere, underneath you, above you, all around you, closing in, the trees are now part Tyranid, there are nests growing under the soil, there are eggs gestating in the dead bodies left behind on the field from the last battle, there are spores choking the clouds, there are genestealers hiding in the cargo bay on your flying transport coming in from Reserves, there are hibernating Tyranids pretending to be dead hiding in the corpse piles waiting for you to wander closer, they are everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, your entire planet is under assault by a coordinated alien ecosystem that infected the entire atmosphere before you even had a chance to fire the first shot.

This might sound weird, but I am describing a feeling, so bare with me.

40k is many things, but it could be described best as a "space opera". It focuses more on romantic elements, and science is just secondary to that.
Where as Nids are much more like a sci-fi villain race. With their "superior lifeform(tm)". Like the Replicators from Star Gate, or the Borg from Start Trek. I don't feel like they fit into the 40k theme from any angle.
Yes they are ANOTHER horrible doom threatening the galaxy, sure. But they don't have an interesting motivation or goals, other than "devour material." This could have been nice, and mysterious, but as others described; in latest editions, it really isn't.

What I think is the worst, is that any scary Deathwatch-tier, non-faction xeno that the extended universe could conjure up, can all just be swatted off as "Meh, they are nothing compared to the Tyranids"

Mentioning the DEldar; I didn't hold them in high regard, but after a time I could really go with the Hedonist Space-Pirate theme they have.

The best part of the 'Nids is that they're running from something.

>In the fluff, Tyranid swarms are so fucking fast they run down Eldar on fucking jetbikes, leap on and rip them bodily from their rides.

Citation required? Seriously, while some parts of them are fast I've never heard 'Faster than a jetbike'

Having them be that fast would also have the issue of 'You need ranged armies to be able to actually fight them and not instant-lose' which is likely to happen if they move fast enough that barely any shooting can happen against a melee army.

I don't think 40k is a space opera at all.

Not faster than a jetike 1 to 1, but fast enough that a bunch of them closing in from multiple angles can corner a jetbike and then make a running leap and land on it.

It happens in the 4th ed Codex in one of the first fluff blurbs. There are windriders in the battle of Iyanden pushing their rides "to the limits" because they have hormagaunts hot on their ass and they can't even afford to stop and shoot.

It ends when a fucking CARNIFEX scaling the craftworld dome ceiling like a massive spider times its drop perfectly so it lands in front of them and they crash and the main viewpoint chick gets eaten.

If the Imperium or any other faction is incapable of seeing a hive fleet the size of Behemoth until it's already in the galaxy, why would they have any idea how deep Leviathan had truly penetrated?

They already have an entire segmentum linked to a single fleet invasion, and it's spreading into ultima as well and probably solar. We're not talking about the bugs that ate the Segmentum Pacificus with the total loss of both worlds. That's a major invasion and in-universe just a few years old.

You're right that 40k doesn't focus on science, but it really isn't "space opera" at all. As I understand the term, at least. Space opera is something light and kitschy like Star Wars, while 40k is gothic space fantasy.

Isn't that just a theory and not 100% confirmed?

Mind you, most in-codex fluff should generally be taken as 'this is what they can do at the very best' not so much 'This is what they do all the time'.

I mean, the SOB codex has Seraphim squad managing to out-tactics and ambush a farseer and her bodyguards despite her precognition. That's not really a normal situation.

It isn't even slightly confirmed. It's mentioned once, in one codex, as one of several possible reasons why the Tyranids are attacking our galaxy. That's all.

Yeah, it's not even a serious theory, it's one of a bunch of them mentioned in 4e dex by an unreliable narrator as a single throwaway line buried in a ton of other shit.

I think so; its more of a fantasty than Sci-fi, while also being way more dramatic. Its a setting with knights, demons and evil skeletons thats goofy in a grimdark way.

With Tyranids that distinction isn't a thing.

They don't have exceptional individuals. What a swarm does, it's always capable of doing, and they only ever get better, not worse.

I guess I'm one of the few that like the 'Nids. They have so many possible paint schemes. I like the whole dino-bug aspect too. I hope their next codex is beastly.

A highly mutagenic and adaptable force is always capable of having distinction. It's easy to believe that those were speed-adapted, rather than an indication of what all of them are adapted for at any given time.

The swarmlord, old one eye and doom all also show that the nids are capable of exceptional individuals.

We should call in an Oldcron fan to debate points on character-less armies with you, user.

But yeah, I do think it's stupid 40k characters are always going "Meh, Tyranids are worse" when we've seen worse shit from Orks.

Well it isn't exactly that, and it is really up to debate.
But it's really far from a Hard Sci-fi

I admit that is really closer to what 40k is, but the point still stands.
I look at these guys and ask "what the fuck do they want?" and when I get the answer "they eat shit and multiply" I just have to compare them to the Zerg, and everyone who likes them goes berserk.

>I guess it would be interesting that if they get their claws on the planet they use it up 100% to create more of their own horrific kind
Except we got Deamon Worlds

>I guess it would be scary to think they are very very hard to purge. One spore gets away, and the entire fleet can return.
Too bad Orks already do that

I am just getting lost.
Another thing that annoys me that their introduction feels like throwing away any hopes of the ten thousand year long story of 40k come to a satisfying conclusion. It will be just; then the Nids ate everyone. THE END.

Though the existing Tyranid models are good, I hope future ones are a bit - idk "goopier". Not like Nurgle tier, but I'd like them to feel a bit more "viral-lizard-bugs" and not JUST "lizard-bugs".

You're not alone, there's a lot of nid fans. They're just a race that has a very distinct appeal which is invisible to a whole subset of the playerbase.

Nids are specifically visceral sci-fi horror based on classic franchises like Alien. There's nothing else that does that aesthetic or that tone the same way. Daemons aren't really scary because they're too relatable and human - they talk like people, have personalities like people, just "evullllll" saturday morning bad guys.

Necrons used to be faceless horrors like Tyranids but just a much weaker attempt at the same thing, since they suffered from similar problems of being too familiar, too human and boring.

Tyranids are completely alien, nature gone horribly wrong. They're appeal is IN the fact that they have no personalities, no allies, no communication, they are unfathomable (outside of stuff like Genestealer Cults which is a related breed of Lovecraftian horror). Occasionally you get dumbasses who completely miss the point of this and say Tyranids would be more interesting if they were given a human mascot with tits like Kerrigan in Starcraft, but this would seriously ruin the point of the Faction and is partially why Cruddace's retarded "swarmlord" fluff is so egregiously bad and distasteful to 90% of Tyranid players that were around pre-5th edition.

Should Tyranids hold their guns or no?

Yeah, every faction really should get a chance to shine and go 'Yeah, these guys could doom/save everything'.

It's something that really, really shits me off with Chaos wank. The idea that 'No, chaos is certain to win so nothing matters' kinda makes playing literally anyone else dull. Fighting a near impossible fight against huge odds is not the same as fighting a pre-determined fight.

I don't know if I can support the idea that one faction is ever a hands down "Welp! I mean THEY'RE clearly gonna win!" You could say that for Tyranids, Orks, Necrons, Chaos - I agree there should be some advancing the storyline, but after the whole Sigmar fiasco let's not be asking for "conclusions" JUST yet.

No, that's a problem I do have with the current Nid models. Give them like cannon-hands or gun-tongues, don't have them HOLD a gun like a human does.

>I look at these guys and ask "what the fuck do they want?"

Dig up the old short story "Hive Fleet Horror". It gives a plausible motivation for the Tyranids. They want to ensure their species survives forever, and believe the way to do this is to constantly consume new, fresh genetic material. Rather than letting the whims of natural evolution possibly lead them into a dead end, they can constantly adapt to anything the galaxy throws at them, along with refreshing their own genetic material as it wears out over the eons. The Hive Mind isn't some animal mindlessly feeding on the galaxy, but a ruthless intelligence entirely willing to commit unthinkable genocides again and again to ensure its own survival.

You seem to have them all down as Synapse creatures. I'm sure the average gaunt is just as shit-scared in war as the average guardsman without that close-range hive mind whispering reassuring thoughts. Just as susceptible to stumbling or getting distracted too - terrain shouldn't be a thing they ignore.

As for transports... they've got drop pods with models, so it's getting there. They've got gargoyle-transports (if you've got a bajillion dollars, and they really should transport sky-slashers too) from FW, you can turn a large part of the basic force into FMC with Harpies, Hive Crones, Flyrant; then you've got Shrikes, Mucolids, Lictors, Tyrannocytes, Sporocysts, Trygons, Mawlocs, Raveners - you've got plenty of infiltrators, deep strikers and just plain fast and heavy shit to reach the enemy, even before you consider formations, without getting in the ol' Spider5001 and giving a cheeky toot on the horn every time you run down a Terminator Captain.

I remain to be convinced about Tyranids and the need for reusable transports or any more mobile or sneaky units.

There's a possibility for Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids to win. Definitely not Orks, and definitely no one else.

If Orks were ever going to "win" 40k they would have done it already, they've been around longer than humans, and Tyranids do everything they do better anyways in terms of efficacy.

Necrons and Chaos just ignore all the fucking rules and can pull out whatever bullshit they want.

Tyranids are probably the most interesting endgame Faction because they can potentially, if I may, "legitimately" win without "cheating" like Chaos/Crons.

But really none of that should matter, people should just play the races they like and the story should never progress beyond a certain point.

>They've got gargoyle-transports

No, they don't. Harridans lost that special rule a couple of editions ago.

I agree with some of your points but I'm kinda tired of the words "Lovecraftian" and "unfathomable" being thrown around so much in 40k. The tyranids are completely "fathomable": they eat shit. They're built to eat shit and they'll never stop until all shit has been eaten.

Even the Chaos Gods, who are said to be "unfathomable", yet they're entirely composed of sapient thoughts. Sure they're the COMBINED force of ALL those thoughts, and they also have some alien thoughts in there, but I can FATHOM "combined rage", I just can't "experience" it.

Which makes it very annoying that it is brought up in EVERY Tyranid related thread since then.

Technically Necrons are playing 100% within the rules. They use super-science, not magic like Chaos.

I think the Orks have a fair shot. They throw the Necrons for loops, they can be just as infestive as the Tyranids, they give the finger to Chaos. In fact their biggest strength seems to be something you just highlighted: they're always underestimated because they're the comedy faction.

>There's a possibility for Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids to win. Definitely not Orks, and definitely no one else.

Which is an issue. Everyone should have a shot at it, if you want people invested.

That and they've layed down some 'Maybe' options for Imperial victory (The entire race becoming psykers without exploding into chaos, a working STC)

I think it depends on the nid, it'd make sense for basic infantry to be able to toss their armaments into a reclamation pool and just regrow a new gun if they need as that's more time efficient than growing new peons every time you need a different load-out. The bigger the nid the more integrate the weaponry should be I think.

I don't get it. So if an evil outsider has two legs, arms, one head, then it's no longer scary?

>Tyranids would be more interesting if they were given a human mascot with tits like Kerrigan in Starcraft
Fucknoway "humanizing" Nids would be the worst thing to do. Stealer Cults do that perfectly.

I guess you and have made me realize my problem; This is a space-fantasy setting. Forcing Lovecraft's style into it is really out of place, it doesn't fit well with anything. It feels.. hamfisted, for a lack of better word


True, but consider this;
>setting's lore is approx. 10 000 years
>they just throw in a brand new faction into the last few centuries
>they make the same progress during that time than the other badguys of the setting
>they don't really get stopped, they just run out of the time the setting is written

It smells like the final victor for me, even if I don't like it.

That's cool. A first I felt like the "they are immune to Deamonfuckery" thing like a "just BECAUSE". But if Psykers trough willpower and conditioning can keep he Warp at bay, it makes sense that an alien hive-mind can do something similar on a GIGANTIC scale

THIS. That's why people still cling to the Star Child. 40k may be grimdark, but nobody wants to feel like they're sided with the absolute shit faction.

The Imperium/humanity should have a slimslimslim shot at winning, but it should be there. It should be there for every race, every faction should get a chance to shine, rather than just Chaos and Space Marines constantly being tugged off by GW.

Personally, I think the Tyranids just aren't scary. They are just another vague threat, same as Daemons, Oldcrons and any other BBEG faction that lacks a lot of the more intresting facets. Chaos is faaaar more intresting as a villian, since not only does it do the whole "Unending tide of doom" thing, but it also does a whole variety of things, like corruption, magic, eldritch monsters, giant beasts, etc. Even Genestealer Cults are far more interesting than the Tyranids, because they are nefarious and evil, while still bringing mutiple threats to the table. Tyranids will always, ALWAYS just be attack the planet, eat the biomass, move on. There is no satisfaction in that. Nothing scary or evil or valient or heroic or mysterious or anything. They're just bugs, and they have a personality as shallow as a puddle.

It also does Good/Evil duality. Even if the Imperium isn't exactly good

>is there something I'm missing?
They are supposed to be a simple faction centered around recognizable themes and tropes, it's not otherworldly daemons or eldritch entities with impossible toughts we're talking about, it's simply an exaggerated vision of life as a growing and adapting entity.
Personally part of their appeal is not differently childish than the one for dinosaurs.

Things like the shadow in the warp and the genestesler cults are nice plus, on top of the painting and converting freedom.

I honestly feel the exact opposite, I've never felt like chaos was a serious or threatening faction. Every time they leave the eye they get bitch-slapped own by the Imperium and everything goes back to normal while they collapse into infighting for another millennia because they inherently have no discipline.

When the hive fleet invades it does so with precision and cold alien logic, and attacks with absolutely totally overwhelming force. it leaves a trail of once verdant planets as empty and barren planets which can never be reclaimed, and every thrust leaves the Galaxy permanently weaker.

I guess that's the most straightforward answer I ever got.

Not the same guy, but I feel like Chaos doesn't "win" for the same reason Orks don't do.
They are fine with the things they are. Steady supply of souls for the Demons and Gods, steady supply of large-scale battle for the Orks

Bouncing off this...

What if other races could direct Tyranids? Not in a major way, and definitely not in the usual chaos-style, corruption sort of way.

Like, for instance, Necrons using large volumes of Pariah on certain planets to direct the motion of hive fleets. 'Nids are repelled by anti-psyker and Necron stuff, so you could influence their motion like that.

A barely controlled, terrifying force that's basically used as exterminatus for the more clever, pragmatic, non-imperium factions that are still terrifying on their own.

I'm here to help

I agree, they've always just felt like emo orks to me.

But thats wrong; Chaos allows for more narrative, and allows for more stories to continue and take place. And they only get pushed back when the Imperium throws EVERYTHING they have at them, in a desperate bid to stop them. And if they fail, they all know the horrors and tortures that will befall those who are captured by Chaos. There is a verifiable fear in the possibility that Chaos will win. That they will twist and corrupt and make a horrific mockery of everything we know and love.

If the Tyranids win, it means nothing. If the Tyranids win, there is nothing. They dont play with the whims of man, or make good men into monsters. They just eat. It may eat to become better, or to simply survive, but in the end, thats ALL they do. Eat. There is no greater purpose. No reason for the Tyranids to exist, execpt to make more Tyranids in the least efficient way possible. I hate the Tyranid lore, from the sole fact that they possess no other niche or storyline than "The Tyranids are attacking!"

From in-universe, sure, its scary. But out of it? Every battle, every fight, every skirmish is the same. Either you win and the Tyramids die, or the Tyranids die and you win. Nothing more, nothing less.

You're looking for the wrong thing in the wrong direction: the storylines involving nids are the ones emerging from the guys fighting against them not the nids themselves, like in zombie movies.

The interest stems from seeing how a magos would study them, how the common man faces his own doubts in front of the enroaching oblivion and how the superdudes mount their last stands.

Sure other factions could hold the same role, but they couldn't hold it in the same way as the animaliatic creatures that are alien dinobugs.

Geanstealers with boobs when?

But than that just goes back to the original question; Why bother? The Orks fufill that role just as well as Tyranids, while retaining a interesting and characterful faction overall, that can function with or without other factions.

However, Tyranids are called a NPC race for a reason. They are a static character, that goes spiritually unchanged. No matter what they do, what they fight, their character remains the same. And since the Character of the Tyranids IS their faction, they are always the same. They fill a role that is filled by at LEAST 2 other factions. They need someway to be internalized.

One thing that has always bugged about Tyranid lore, was the description of the Hivemind. And how that is a utterly inaccurate description of how the Tyranid's mind acctually works. As I've seen so far, the Tyranids work on a single mind controlling mutiple bodies. Calling the Tyranids a Hivemind is essentially calling your atypical RTS player a hive mind. In reality, a Hivemind is the collection of minds that work together. If the Tyranids were a hivemind, each organism would have input; but they dont.

So, why not expand the Tyranids that way? In a similiar vain to the Swarmlord, why not have reacurring conciousnesses appear amongst the Tyranids, representing different chunks that reside inside of the Hivemind

Fluff wise the fact they surrounded the Galaxy, have conquered other galaxies, are immune to chaos to the point Nurgle cant do shit to them, have gene stealer cultist, are numberless to the point "if every pieces of ammo in the known galaxy killed a tyranid it wouldn't make a dent in their numbers" shows how stupidly OP they already are. Tyranids are fine horror wise, its already implied that they're going to fucking overrun everything eventually because they're so numberless. Again they're fucking numberless and have conquered other galaxies. What more do you want really?

They aren't running from anything you fuckwit, the Horus Heresy revealed that Tyranids were brought to the galaxy by somebody accidentally activating a Necron tachyon beacon.

>official fluff is wrong my head canon is correct

How about you shut the fuck up?
>2. Psychology, Sociology.
>a collective consciousness, analogous to the behavior of social insects, in which a group of people become aware of their commonality and think and act as a community, sharing their knowledge, thoughts, and resources

Note the Word "Community"; the Tyranids are ruled by a single mind, spread out across billions of bodies, not a community of minds.

i thought the other races did have end conditions?

Weren't the Eldar building a god from all the soulstones they picked up?

Orks need to unify into the grand Wagggh that wipes everything out.

Imperium something about star child/Emprah wakes up.

Dunno about Deldar, Tau, Squats

But the Nid hivemind is made of countless minds.

Page 6 of my codex describes the Hivemind as a "gestalt sentience". Do you need me to explain what gestalt means?

SITW?

Again, I feel this is an all or nothing attitude. Either the nids are worthless and without a good hat, or they're stupid OP lore wise. Most factions in 40k are set up on the basis of aesthetics first and lore later. I think every faction should have strengths and weaknesses in lore - some strengths may be big and daunting as all hell, but they'll still have weaknesses that give the other factions a fighting chance.

Well to be fair to the other guy, the genestealer cults are pretty clearly inspired by HP's Shadow Over Innsmouth, with half human half fish people serving fully fish people who in turn serve a terrible alien. Right down to the web page describing it as Esoteric (Esoteric Order of Dagon, anyone?)

But you still prove a good point, going back to the reason I initially made the thread. The Tyranids being truly bestial animals is fine... It just seems like GW themselves seem like they're trying to present them as something different.

Necrons needed to be reworked because they would have faced the same issues Nids do now, the "unknow spooky horror" can only last for so long until you get boarded with it.

The longer a story goes on and we dont know anything else it just makes them come off as hollow and shollow

hence why nids are mock as npc faction

The necrons were able to take the transition to a more character-laced faction, but I don't think that could happen to the nids.

So if they ARE locked as an "NPC faction" then the question stands: what would make them a GOOD npc faction? Besides just alternate color schemes? How can we improve them?

Than its not a fucking hive kind, its gestalt sentience, you nitwit. Im saying that we should actually make it a hivemind, if they're gonna keep calling it one. It would explain why shit like Ol' One Eye, the Red Terror, and the Swarmlord keep popping up out of any Hivefleet at anytime, or why the Hive Fleets attack each other.

>Their fluff, for all their victories, is filled mostly with them getting their asses kicked.
Tyranids can't boast of the amazing victories they have had, like Eldar, Orks, and Chaos can.

I honestly feel like with all the other races having deep motivations and fighting for their own different ideological beliefs it's refreshing to have a race that's just pure nature. I love the Tyranids because of their simplicity. They eat, evolve, survive. They are a force of nature that cannot be reasoned with.

a gestalt sentience is a hive mind.
they're different names for the same thing.

Nids already tried characters: Zoats. They sucked.

Btw, what the hell is the explanation for Zoats? Literally completely at odds with current lore.

shadow in the warp

there is no explanation for them.
They've essentially been retconned through omission and haven't been mentioned since 2e.

Once again, your wrong:
>gestalt. The definition of a gestalt is something unified in a way in which the elements cannot be broken down into its parts and the total piece cannot just be thought of as a sum of all its parts. An example of a gestalt is the complexity of the human soul.
The Tyranid Hivemind can be broken down, ala the Swarm Lord and the seperate Hive Fleets. Not only that, but it is made clear that the Hive Mind is part of ALL Tyranids, and without the Tyranid race, it would cease to exist.

thats one definition of gestalt.
gestalt also means an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts

gestalt sentience and hive mind are synonyms.

>Btw, what the hell is the explanation for Zoats?
Hive fleet colossus subdued the race and tried to use it to trick planets through diplomacy, it really didn't go well and were eaten.
They were not actual tyranids.

Human consciousness is gestalt yet it can be broken down into parts and would cease to exist without the nervous cells compoaing it.

The tyranid hive mind is fine, you just want to see a problem with it because you want to hate the tyranids but can't find a valid reason.
>inb4 but they are npcs?!
and they fulfill their role egregiously, better than the other races could.

>every faction really should get a chance to shine
40k has really changed, i stopped playing 5 years ago and every new codex back then was fellatio for its faction
is it the opposite now?

>If the Tyranids were a hivemind, each organism would have input; but they dont.

The fluff specifically mentions that Hive Tyrants and other higher Tyranids are intelligent creatures capable of learning and understanding on an individual level, who's consciousnesses are reabsorbed upon death and reborn in new bodies.

Lower forms like Gaunts are barely even alive. They don't really have minds of their own. They're animals at best, biological machines to be expended like ammunition at worst.

I dislike the nids for some reason. This is odd since on the paper I should love them. I'm into all kinds of weird biology and creepy crawly things, so an army of biological horrors should be right up my alley. But for some reason the nids fail to interest me much.
I think the problem is largely due to the models. Most of them look too toylike and "plasticy" instead of properly organic. You've got some nice gribbly things, but those seem to be a minority. Also, for purpose-build biological killing machines they don't look nearly outlandish enough. Are you telling me a six limbed dinosaur with a shell is the perfect form for pretty much any battlefield role?

Also, I'm not really fond of how the nids are simultaneously the boring invincible army and the punching bag. They're written so that they can't really be beaten due to their sheer numbers, rendering every other conflict moot (who cares wheter the 13th Black Crusade succeeds, or wheter orks or Imperium wins the 3rd war of Armageddon, when in the end the nids eat everybody anyway? ), yet at the same time 90% of stories involving nids result in them getting their asses handed to them, as having your protagonists eaten by the faceless horde of dinobugs isn't something most writers are likely to do.

I used to find Tyranids boring as well, but when I was reading Shield of Baal they kind of grew on me. Maybe it's because they're basically monsters and unlike any other faction in 40k make use entirely of their own biology to fight.

Genestealers are more interesting.

Honestly I think Tyranids are fine because even when they lose it's usually a pyrrhic victory and you're reminded that there are still a ton of them out there.

Almost every army has gotten BTFO at one point or another depending on the plot. Shit, I can recall the Dark Angels in the Dark Vengeance novels dying to cultists who somehow managed to shoot or stab at the seal below their helmet where their necks are.

Tyranids are still up there with Chaos, Necrons, and united Orks as one of the factions who could win the 40k bowl.

Leviathan is also on a crash course for Baal, which means the potential wiping out of the Blood Angels.

> partially why Cruddace's retarded "swarmlord" fluff is so egregiously bad and distasteful to 90% of Tyranid players that were around pre-5th edition.

I will say that that while you can blame Cruddace for the Swarmlord's lore and rules, its actual creation was likely out of his hands.

GW has admitted numerous times that the sculptors create the models and then they show them off to the Design Team so they can write lore and rules.

I'm guessing maybe someone sculpted the Swarmlord and Cruddace or someone else thought the model was two unique to just be a Hive Tyrant variation. Maybe they were inspired by the Zerg having Kerrigan and the Borg having a queen.

>which means the potential wiping out of the Blood Angels.

But it won't, because the Blood Angels are a long-established faction, while Hive Fleet Leviathan is 'just' another Hive Fleet. There's about a dozen roaming around the galaxy and the fleet heading for Baal is just one of Leviathan's tendrils.

I'm pretty sure that story point ended in Shield of Baal's sequel as well. Necrons turned up and killed all the Tyranids, then fucked off.

The thing is, Tyranids don't just lose; they lose in their own Codex. They lose when they take starring roles in the fluff. They get to wipe out some no-name planets to make them look threatening, then get stopped in a big climactic battle by the protagonist armies. Tyranids don't get to be cool; GW has decided they exist to make other factions look cool.

Oh, and the Swarmlord had rules before he had a model. The 5th edition Codex had a whole bunch of Tyranid special characters that you had to convert up yourself; the Swarmlord was the only one to get an actual model and survive to the current codex.

RIP the Parasite of Mortrex.

the main issue with Tyranids in Wh40k is that the setting already has an "Eventual Victory" Villain, being Chaos, so people are already desesnistized against the "Doomsday" looming in every codex.