Space Hulk usage by Nids

How the hell do genestealers make use of space hulks? In 4th ed it is mentioned that Nids consider it to be a very effective tactic of scouting out potential victim worlds and seeding them with vanguard organisms.

>1. How the hell do you scout out new worlds as genestealer while inside the wrecked mass of metal and electronics, let alone fly towards it? Genestealers controlling a space hulk is a dumb as if Alien took control over Nostromo and started drifting towards Earth.
>2. How the hell do you land that thing on a planet, let alone in a discreet fashion? Yeah, there is gigantic fuckhuge spacecraft crashing into planet with a fuckton of biomass on it and not responding to radio calls, why not just bathe the landing sight with promethium and call it a day?

My knowledge on Nid lore is not that great, so forgive me if the answer is mentioned somewhere in their fluff.

They use space hulks as a stepping stone in world invasions. Genestealer broods have very limited space travel capabilities, so they stay on space hulks until they drift close to inhabited star systems, at which point some leave and the rest presumably hang around to wait for it to drift into another system.
Also Space hulks are planet-sized.

They put their own ships inside the space hulk. Basically they use it as a poorly controlled aircraft carrier.

But just by drifting it'd take like centuries to get from point A to point B. Does not seem that effective.
Oh, so an infested Space Hulk is sort of like a tyranid ship that has bio-engines and ways to drop spoores on planets? So it does not need to land on a planet, but rather go on low-orbit and start snowing out its goods on the masses below.

I think what you might be missing is that Space Hulks do actually travel system to system, they don't exclusively drift through dark space at sublight speeds.

I have no idea precisely why but it's definitely canonical that space hulks drift through the warp a lot of the time and come out on collision courses with local systems, presumably the warp drives of some of the ships involved are sufficient to drag the rest along for a ride, and their automated systems are pretty good at charting a course towards the nearest inhabited star even with a lot of extra weight attached.

But who is controlling navigation systems then? Genestealers with their awkward claws?

No idea it could be anything it varies from hulk to hulk. Just think of it as one of the terrors that prowls deep space filled with treasures and monsters.

space hulks are often an amalgamation of millennia-old wrecks, lot of them a treasure trove of archeotech dating back to the Dark Age of Technology - which is as you know, invaluable to the Imperium.
therefore they are irresistible to scavengers, tech-adeptts, treasure hunters, and rogue traders. basically to everyone who wants to get filthy rich very fast.
hapless schmucks go in to loot and get dateraped by genestealers. they go back, remembering nothing of the incident, and then they procreate, siring/birthing ugly hybrid babies.

there. now you know.
as to the question of how they go in and out of the warp. fuck if I know.

Space Hulks drift through the Warp, not realspace. They can cover vast distances (and more rarely, times) without input.

Also, a century isn't a long time by 40k's scale.

>I have no idea precisely why but it's definitely canonical that space hulks drift through the warp a lot of the time
Because they're made in the warp. They're ships that crash and fuse in warpspace that the warp occasionally vomits out somewhere, because warp. And then, like Draigo, the warp eventually decides it wants the space hulk back.

Wouldn't genestealers get raped by daemons? Also how do they know if they will end up near an inhabitted world when they get spat out

Because space hulks randomly exit the warp inside solar systems and the Imperium is very hesitant to destroy them because they're such treasure piles of ancient technology.

Genestealers don't really care where they go as long as there are things there to infect.

Possibly spores or they may have small ships inside that they can use to reach a nearby planet.

If they're above an imperial world they may not have to go anywhere to get the opportunity to infect someone as illegal looters would flock to a space hulk in hope of riches.

Nobody, typically. Space hulks just pop up near solar massed objects so they get from system to system

There are notable space hulks which are daemon infested hellholes but tyranids are capable of making their own Gellar field equivalents

Space Hulks are an amalgamation of thousands of different ships from different points in space and time. They potentially hold enough tech that a single forage can buy you a planet because you find an STC for anything from a knife to a plasma cannon that doesnt disintegrate it's user.

That makes it INSANELY valuable to salvage/explore them and the risk is definitely worth it for anyone with a vessel.

The genestealers just chill in these Hulks and wait for people to step onboard. They then infect them, hijack their ships and head to their planet/colony and expand the infection across the world.

Hulks are just massive mouse traps with planet sized gold ingots instead of cheese.

How do you know someone will step on a landmine? You don't, but the reward is much greater than the cost.

How do nids deal with warptravel in space hulks? The gellar fields on these things are probably fucked so the time they spend in the immaterium would be non stop spookfests as one otherwordly intelect interacts with another.

And on the opposite side of the experience, would daemons even bother trying to shit up a space hulk knowing there isnt much to spook but nids.

>Nobody, typically. Space hulks just pop up near solar massed objects so they get from system to system
This usually changes when a bunch of Freeboota Orkz arrive and their Meks turn the hulk's mishmash of engines into something that actually works. Still travels about as accurate as a blind Attack Squig with a cold most of the time, but its definitely moving faster than before.

>How do nids deal with warptravel in space hulks? The gellar fields on these things are probably fucked so the time they spend in the immaterium would be non stop spookfests as one otherwordly intelect interacts with another.
I think the nid hivemind acts as an organic Gellar Field.

>I think the nid hivemind acts as an organic Gellar Field.
Now I'm an Orkfag so I'm not 100% up-to-date on my nid fluff, but I'm almost certain the Hive Mind does not have that ability to protect genestealers. In fact, Hive Fleets don't even travel through the Warp to begin with (they used some planetary gravity to create compressed space corridor so the fleets can get from point A to point B (something about Narvhal ships), which, while more reliable than Warp travel, it's still much slower than traveling through the immaterium.

I suspect a couple ships that fused into the space hulk at one point still retain their Gellar field, and genestealers mostly congregate in those areas during Warp Travel.

So basically that scene from phantom menace where darth maul glares at jedi taken as they wait for the shield walls to open.

What exactly is the Shadow in the Warp?

>I suspect a couple ships that fused into the space hulk at one point still retain their Gellar field, and genestealers mostly congregate in those areas during Warp Travel.
I like this idea too.

>So basically that scene from phantom menace where darth maul glares at jedi taken as they wait for the shield walls to open.
Something like that, except as the pic provided, it's more like glaring at the jedi from the other side of the shield wall, while the jedi can move in and out of it whenever they please (at least in the case of Orks).

>What exactly is the Shadow in the Warp?
It's a nid psychic ability essentially blocks out people's connection to the Warp(apparently this ability is only limited to Hive Fleets, leaving genestealers high and dry since they don't have those last I checked):
It does, among other things:
>give your average citizen a near-constant feeling uneasiness and terrible nightmares.
>Anyone sensitive to the Warp (especially Psykers) suffers severe headaches, uncontrollable screaming, bleeding eyes and unconsciousness.
>Most astropathic signals are blocked, leading to...
>Warp travel in areas under the 'shadow' becoming essentially impossible
>Supposedly disrupts psychic phenomena

What's amusing is that, judging by how more and more Orks are flowing in from all corners of the galaxy to the Ork Empire of Octarius to for a 'roight proppa scrap' in the Octarius' war since Ghazghkull arrived and started stomping nids left and right despite several systems in the sector already being covered by the Shadow of the Warp shows the greenskins can just straight-up IGNORE IT ALTOGETHER!?!

I mean, I'm an Orkfag and was caught off-guard by this. I mean, I can see Ghazghkull being able to bypass the Shadow because he's 'Da Prophet o' da WAAAGH!' and all, but regular Orks doing it is both amusing and confusing. I guess Waaagh! energy operates differently from the rest of the Warp or something like that...

Pretty sure Orks just don't give a fuck when the Weirdboyz start bleeding out of their eyes and scream about the pain.

Also, the amount of Orks heading to the Octarius system and never getting there thanks to the Shadow of the Warp probably outnumber the amounts of Orks that actually get to the Octarius system.

Remember, think Orky. Orks don't fucking care about losses.

Also, hulks are full of valuable stuff to steal. So often, small salvage teams will come on board and be the perfect vector to infect an entire system.

Tyranids FTL travel is usually a lot slower than Warp travel.
It is safer (for the nids) but very slow compared to a warp jump and so stealers use space hulk to get places fast.

>Also, the amount of Orks heading to the Octarius system and never getting there thanks to the Shadow of the Warp probably outnumber the amounts of Orks that actually get to the Octarius system.
Maybe, but the fact any of them are making it through AT ALL is what's surprises me. I can't remember any other faction pulling that off before the Orks started doing it en masse in the Octarius War, which has spread to the entire Octarius sector at this point.

Side note: GG Kryptmann. Pointing the space bugs at the one race that grows stronger the more they fight was short-sighted as hell.

>soulless alien monsters
>giving a fuck about chaos

Daemons don't generally attack something that lacks an actual presence. There's only a handful of cases of them doing so and it's normally due to a hive fleet appearing mid daemonic incursion.

The rest are things like Iron Warriors purposely infecting a hive ship with the Obliterator virus to make a warship.

Generally Chaos and Daemons don't aim for Tyranids because it's a pointless waste of energy when there's no soul to consume.

since Orks have the whole "collective belief makes it work" thing going on? So Ghazghkull just has enough boys that pumped up that they're bullshit is enough to get through the Nid's bullshit?

>since Orks have the whole "collective belief makes it work" thing going on? So Ghazghkull just has enough boys that pumped up that they're bullshit is enough to get through the Nid's bullshit?
Considering he's uniting all of the Orks within the Milky Way (no idea if the Orks lurking out in the darkness of intergalactic space can hear him or not), I would not be surprised if this was the case.

Gork and Mork > Hive Mind confirmed?