Images of a Tyranid and a Genestealer from Warhammer: 40K. — Image Source: CultureSlate

Like an unending swarm of locusts, the Tyranids are more a force of nature than a faction that thinks, feels, trades or builds. Instead, they are a species of infinitely transforming lifeforms that seek to survive by consuming resources to feed their vast numbers. Their offshoot, the Genestealer Cults, are groups created from the slow, tactical manipulation of a society by singular or a few powerful Tyranid organism, who help the great Hive Fleets that are now arriving in the Milky Way by offering themselves and their worlds up to these “great saviors.” But in reality, the Tyranids are a tide of eldritch alien horror many factions have struggled to contain. Maybe, just maybe, their great power will one day break, but for now it appears unending and unstoppable.

The Tyranids

A Tyranid Hive Fleet moving through space. — Image Source: YouTube

The Tyranids come from beyond the known galaxy, and are assembled into vast yet slow-traveling forces called Hive Fleets. Everything about them is alive, from their ships to their ammunition, all derived from the same extraordinarily malleable and morphable genetic material. After perhaps millennia of dormancy as they drifted through the void between galaxies, the Tyranids have but one drive at present: to feed. Their Hive Fleets surge across the galaxy from multiple different directions, spreading out various Tendrils as they encounter a range of targets to choose from for their dark harvest. One of the biggest threats from the Tyranids is simply their nature as a Hive Mind, as with their approach, the Warp is blocked out due to the shadow cast by the power of this great mental network. Called the Shadow in the Warp, losing contact with worlds, or worlds being unable to contact others nearby, is a possible sign of Tyranid invasion. Starships being unable or struggling to travel is also a sign, since they rely on the Warp to jump between distant stars, which is difficult when the Tyranids are approaching.

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An invasion truly begins as the Tyranid bioships reach the targeted solar system or world of their hunger. Tyranid bioforms deploy from their living ships in living drop pods to land on the surface of a world while other forces blanket the atmosphere with living mines and forces in orbit fight against any defenders. These “seeds” of Tyranid mass that make planetfall begin to create smaller forms which commence the breakdown of all organic matter and useful inorganic matter, which soon accelerates as more and more biomass is accumulated. Should life on the surface of a world look to fight back, combat bioforms are deployed, in greater and greater numbers, while the Tyranids begin to build vast towers that reach into the sky. These are able to connect to Tyranid ships hanging in low orbit, which proceed to suck a world dry of its valuable biomass accumulated by the Tyranid swarms on the world below.

A full-scale Tyranid invasion with the defenders being Orks. — Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com

When the job is done, and the biomass has been accumulated, the Tyranid organisms will then throw themselves into the pools of biomass and die, recycling themselves to ensure maximum. However, this entire process can be prevented should key Synapse organisms be killed. Control nodes for the call of the Hive Mind, the death of powerful Tyranid lifeforms will see their numbers revert to an animalistic nature, chaotically tearing each other apart or wildly diverging from their original purpose. Planetary defenders also sometimes wait for key moments in the invasion process, when the weight of biomass spent perhaps outweighs what might be gained, and then hit hard, forcing the Tyranids to either withdraw or fight a losing battle. This is incredibly rare though, as the Tyranids exist in such numbers that they can blot out the sun of a world with the density of their forces on occasion, or even be seen with the naked eye by people on the ground. When all organic material has been consumed, alongside useful minerals, the Tyranid fleet moves on, leaving behind a dead world, without even germs or microscopic life in the atmosphere (if the world even has one anymore).

Tyranid Bioforms

There are literally hundreds of different Tyranid bioforms because of the Hive’s greatest asset: adaptability. This is not some gradual process, but instead, within a matter of perhaps hours, the Tyranids can begin to spawn new organisms better suited to combat specific forces the Hive Fleet has encountered. For example, if the Tyranids encounter a population who makes heavy use of flamethrowers, they can rapidly craft a new form of soldier with a resilience to heat. Now, they do not expend vast quantities of biomass to do this, and would not fire-proof every unit of their forces, or even ensure that the frontline troops are impervious to fire, but they make these small adaptations to tough their species’ resistance to external threats and to help refine their military approach.

This unique ability also extends to individuals and units of people. The Hive Fleets appear to be aware of when they are fighting an enemy they have faced before, and can engineer units better than previous encounters to better combat this repeated foe. This can manifest in the form of specific Synapse creatures, great leaders in the Tyranid lines who will pursue certain targets and try to kill “rivals” from the enemy side. This replication means that with each return, the Tyranid organism learns more and more about its enemy. However, this too is overall rare, as broadly, the Tyrannids are looking to feed, not get bogged down in an endless battle.

Here follows a list of some of the most commonly seen Tyranid bioforms, with the note that there are many variants of each and the Hive Mind is always creating new ones to solve the various problems and hostile threats that the swarms might encounter.

Gaunts: A class of lower Tyranid lifeform that comes in all kinds of forms, Gaunts are the footsoldiers and worker bees of a Tyranid invasion. Be they in possession of bladed limbs to slash, or living guns that fire burrowing organisms, they are innumerable and persistent.
Lictors: These are the scouts and assassins of the Tyranid Hive Fleets. In possession of huge slashing blade-limbs with significant camouflaging abilities and a great deal of independence, they are a vital tool in the Tyranid arsenal.
Warriors: The Warriors are the next step up from the Gaunts, and are generally bigger, tougher, and fewer in number. They help direct Gaunts on the field of battle as well.
Trygons: Huge serpentine Tyranids built for tunneling attacks, Trygons are heavily armored and are known for generating powerful bioelectrical shocks that can devastate the unprepared.
Hive Tyrants: The commanders on the ground, Hive Tyrants are huge, hulking Tyranids that function in a key role in the Hive Mind’s Synapse network. Taking one out is always tough, but worth it.
Psychophages: Created to hunt Psykers, this bioform gains power as it successfully kills its targets. They generally keep back from the worst of the fighting, but can be used to devastating effect against Psyker-heavy combatants.
Biotitans: Biotitans are massive, Titan-sized Tyrannid forms that exist to combat the biggest threats able to be thrown against the Hive Fleets. There are many variations, capable of feats like flying, but generally can be found on the ground.
Genestealers: These stealthy, intelligent bioforms exist to weaken worlds before the arrival of a Hive Fleet. They and their Broodlord leaders are highly psychically gifted, and are spread across the galaxy, sowing seeds of discord for the Tyranids to exploit.
Norn Queen: The greatest leader organisms often located far from any fighting, these ultimate Synapse creatures help govern the creation of new organisms. If they are killed, a Tyranid fleet is almost certain to fall into chaos.

The Genestealers

A gathering of a Genestealer Cult far away from outside eyes. — Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com

It is important to tackle one key element to the Tyranids we haven’t discussed yet: the Genestealers and the Genestealer Cults. Genestealers are a specific form of Tyranid bioform mentioned earlier, which are incredibly independent, intelligent, and stealthy. They will steal away aboard ships or silently drop onto worlds, and begin to spread their insidious influence usually under the command of a Broodlord. Their first target are low-ranking people in society, whom they will abduct, and use as their first followers but also the first carriers for their genetics. They pull a similar routine to a Xenomorph facehugger, and implant their genetics into women so that the children born will be heavily influenced by Tyranid DNA. However, over subsequent generations, as the gestating cult spreads its message, gathers more followers, and has more offspring, the prominent Tyranid features will fade from an individual. In time, many Genestealer offspring appear human, with concealment of altered eyes, hands and other body parts very common. Through this method, a vast, loyal, fighting force is assembled, as the Patriarch of this brood exerts a strong psychic will over his original adherents, their children, and other leaders to ensure compliance and uniform acceptance.

Various Genestealer soldiers representing the most human-looking among their number. — Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com

The nature of the Cult is also insidious as it generally targets the lowest in society, and its members preach a message of salvation. They claim that the toil and hardship of the average citizen of the Imperium will be rewarded by the rebirth of the Emperor, and the salvation of those loyal to his imminent return or the return of his divine messengers. They perform acts of charity, and generally seem like harmless offshoots of the state religion, but if allowed to persist, will quickly move to gain significant power and more aggressively spread their message. Local leaders who do not convert or accept the Cult’s role will be removed and replaced by Cult members, and the same is true of local military and security forces. Genestealer Cults also, sometimes, take charge of key resources like water, and contaminate it with genetic material that will spread their numbers. In the end, within a matter of decades, a vast, insurrection-ready force is prepared for the great signal that will make them rise up.

Members of a Genestealer Cult rising up on Ascension Day. — Image Source: Amazon

On Ascension Day, with the Genestealer Patriarch aware of the approach of a Hive Fleet, the Cult will rise up. Removing whatever last remnant of resistance there is in the local population, they will take down defenses, leave open doors, and massacre those who refuse to be enlightened, before simply waiting for the arrival of their promised salvation. It is only now that the Patriarch’s intense psychic control over his flock can waver, as people are not saved, but instead devoured and slaughtered by the arriving Tyranids. They can do little to save themselves though, and ultimately, the world they were once loyal to is consumed and left a husk by the Tyranids. The Imperium of Man struggles to fight Genestealer Cults because of their resiliency, as even if the Patriarch dies, his warped children and offspring will lurk as deep as they need beneath a world to wait for a time to rise back up, and take their revenge. They can also survive atrocious conditions, as the Malformed Genestealers of Necromunda show, though not without scars and difficulties to their own survival.

The Tyrannic Wars

A still from Space Marine 2 depicting the vast swarms of Tyranid organisms during one of their invasions. — Image Source: YouTube

The Tyrannic Wars are a series of four conflicts fought by the Imperium of Man against three different Hive Fleets. While there is evidence that the Tyranids reached the Milky Way millennia in the past, and many other factions in the 40K universe have fought their own desperate conflicts against the Tyranids, the wars involving the Imperium are the most notable given humanity controls the most worlds in the galaxy. Accordingly, the Tyranids are hitting the Imperium the hardest out of all the factions as hundreds if not thousands of their worlds are threatened or outright devoured with each passing decade.

The First Tyrannic War was the Imperium’s introduction to the Tyranids when the then-unnamed aliens invaded the frontier ocean world of Tyran Prime to the far southeast. The local garrison of a modest Adeptus Mechanicus research outpost was totally overrun, and the planet was rendered an inert husk by the time an Inquisition investigation team arrived. Realizing the dire situation, as the Shadow in the Warp isolated those informed of this threat, Inquisitor Kryptman rushed toward the nearest facility capable of helping them communicate with distant Terra. Along the way, more destruction by the Tyranids was noted, and when at last the Imperium learned what Kryptman had discovered, they redirected him to the realm of Ultramar. The ancient core of the Ultramarines Space Marines Chapter was a bulwark of might and resources in the east of the Imperium, but what was now titled Hive Fleet Behemoth was bearing right down onto the core star system. In a desperate, punishing battle, the Ultramarines homeworld of Macragge was saved but at an atrocious cost to the Space Marine defenders, the planet’s surface, and other nearby worlds. The Hive Fleet’s punishing advance then slowed as Tendrils splintered off elsewhere, giving the Ultramarines and Imperium some respite though clean-up continued for decades afterward.

Ultramarines fighting against the Tyranids. — Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com

The Second Tyrannic War saw the Imperium face the might of Hive Fleet Kraken, who employed a very different strategy in its approach into the Milky Way. Rather than a headlong charge, Kraken broke into multiple Tendrils which approached a range of worlds in different ways, but this conflict also saw the great reveal of the link between the Tyranids and the Genestealer Cults. While Genestealers were now known to be Tyrannic organisms after their appearance in the First War, the wider Imperium did not understand the unique mechanisms of the organisms until this conflict.

On the world of Ichar IV, a Genestealer Cult rose and might have collapsed a key point in the surrounding sector’s defense and logistics, had the Inquisition not arrived and successfully helped lead operations that defeated the Cult. Kraken turned toward Ichar IV regardless, called toward the world by the scream of death let out by their operative, but also focused on attacking the Aeldari Craftworld called Iyanden. Here, in both cases, Kraken was thwarted. On Ichar, it was due to the staunch defense of the Ultramarines, called to fight back a grave threat they had been preparing themselves to face for decades following the First War. Meanwhile, Iyanden was saved when the exiled Prince Yriel, at the head of his Corsair forces, cut through to his homeship and helped save it from the Tyranid invasion. Ultimately, the Craftworld lost 80% of its populace, but it survived.

The Third Tyrannic War, meanwhile, saw the Tyranids adapting once again. In a massive, galaxy-spanning attack, the main thrust of Hive Fleet Leviathan began to push upward through the galactic plane from the south of the galaxy. This massive move, like the opening of jaws, allowed multiple Tendrils to push up into Imperium territory to devastating results, while also casting the Shadow in the Warp across vast distances. A still-living Inquisitor Kryptman, now a Lord Inquisitor, realized the spread of this threat and chose to enact a horrific strategy of resource denial to the Tyranids. Worlds in Leviathan’s path were ordered to evacuate, and if they did not, or if their biomass was needed as a lure for the Tyranids, they were considered collateral damage as the Lord Inquisitor issued multiple orders of Exterminatus. This devastating decree allows the Imperium to use forbidden weaponry to scour any world clean of life, and while he did slow Leviathan by denying the hostile forces biomass, the cost to civilian lives was immense.

Stripped of rank and kicked out of the Inquisition, Kryptman still employed one last gambit, an attempt to pit the Orks and the Tyranids against each other using allies in the Deathwatch, though this seems to have largely failed as the Tyranids are thriving on the hardy biomass of the Orks. What really stopped Levithan’s attack was the opening of the Great Rift. While attempting to invade the homeworld of the Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter, the galaxy was divided in two, and this tear in reality opened right above the world of Baal. Daemons loyal to Khorne immediately invaded and began to slaughter everyone, while the Tyranids lost a vast part of their orbiting fleet. Then came Roboute Guilliman, at the head of a vast force of Primaris Marines, to reinforce the Blood Angels, which helped to finish off the core of the Tyranid menace.

The Ultramarines once again fighting the Tyranids, this time Tyranids from Hive Fleet Leviathan. — Image Source: Amazon

The Fourth Tyrannic War is the most recent major conflict with the Tyranids, and sees the return of Hive Fleet Leviathan mere years following the events of the formation of the Great Rift. However, rather than attacking from the galactic east or south, they are now attacking from the west. This conflict is different from all of the others for two main reasons: the involvement of the Adeptus Custodes, the Emperor’s personal guards, and the fairly organized response led by the High Lords of Terra, because of that political clout and direct threat to Terra itself. Led by Lord Solar Leontus, the forces of the Imperium created bastions in the path of Leviathan’s new Tendrils, and also deployed elite strike forces called Solblades to slow the Hive Fleet’s advance. The conflict has reached something of a stalemate, but this was also the conflict that kicked off Warhammer 10th Edition nearly 3 years ago. With 11th Edition approaching, this and some other storylines from elsewhere in the universe are likely to get revisited and wrapped up in the coming months. If they are not, this Fourth War is still a potent example of the strength of the Tyranid forces.

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