Games Workshop Warhammer 40,000 Tyranid Broodlord

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Tyranid Warrior ( Shrike) • Ravener • Genestealer • Gaunt ( Termagant • Hormagaunt • Barbgaunt • Neurogaunt) • Ripper ( Sky-Slasher) The spread of infestations has become even more rampant since the opening of the Great Rift, with countless refugee craft in desperate flight providing ideal transportation for the xenos beasts. Their olfactory organ is linked at its base to the rear of their palate, combining their scent and taste for possible use as a sophisticated air-analysis method. They also display respiratory gill systems along the dermis/valves between their fused exo-ribs. This system is then somehow linked to breathing holes on their limbs and cranium. [4a] It is not known whether the crashed bio-ship was on a scouting mission when it was lost, was a casualty in a pre-Imperial Tyranid invasion force that was defeated by unknown adversaries, or part of a plan by a Tyranid super-intelligence that may have "seeded" the galaxy with many such slumbering broods.

However Genestealers are notoriously independent from the Hive Mind and have a great will to survive. During a planetary invasion Genestealers wanting to survive are innately driven onward and outward from the Hive Fleet by infiltrating fleeing ships. Or, after the invasion, the Genestealers are reabsorbed into the Hive Fleet as pure bio-matter like all other life is. The infiltrating Genestealers go on to infest more worlds and then in turn lead the Hive Fleet to them. No one amongst the Imperium knows how deep and widespread the Genestealer infestation of the galaxy has become. [1b] Notable Encounters with Imperium In 942.M41, Commissar Ciaphas Cain, while on a mission on the Ice World of Nusquam Fundumentibus, discovered hibernating Tyranids buried deep in the permafrost; the swarm was apparently carried to the planet by a Hive Ship that had crashed on the planet seven millennia earlier, prior to any human colonisation.M40 — Blood Angels Chapter boarded of unknown Space Hulk with Genestealers aboard - of all Chapter only 50 Space Marines survived. You then make a Charge roll for the charging unit by rolling 2D6. The result is the maximum number of inches each model in that unit can be moved if a Charge move is possible. For a Charge move to be possible, the Charge roll must be sufficient to enable the charging unit to end that move: Unlike most Tyranid bio-ships, the Narvhal is almost completely defenceless, and possesses almost no bio-weaponry and only a very thin protective carapace. A cluster of monofilament spines on the Narvhal's bow allow it to take in a wide variety of sensory input, including a broad spectrum of gravimetric and electromagnetic signals. Tyrant Guard - The Tyrant Guards are a special species of Tyranid spawned in small broods for the sole purpose of defending the Hive Tyrant. They are large, tough, and difficult to harm, and it is nearly impossible to surpass their defense. Tyrant Guard are completely blind, utterly controlled by the synapse creatures they protect. On occasion Carnifex also benefit from the Tyrant Guard's protection. Tyrant Guard are believed by some Adeptus Mechanicus Magi to contain the DNA of the defeated Space Marine Chapters, but the Imperium considers this blasphemy and denies its very likely possibility.

At the same time, the cult's hybrid members, united by a smaller psychic gestalt known as the Broodmind, begin to emit a collective psychic signal through the Warp that acts as a beacon for the approaching Tyranid hive fleet. The Tyranid species is ultimately dedicated solely to its own survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Tyranids collectively form a monstrous superorganism that travels across the universe in their great hive fleets of biomechanical Hive Ships, systematically consuming all other biomatter to enable their own rapid evolution and reproduction.

Tyranid Hive Fleets

As the Leviathan pushed ever further towards Holy Terra, Primarch Guilliman has despatched dozens of newly founded Primaris Marine Chapters to the front lines of the Third Tyrannic War.

Some of these pods are filled with microbial life. These hostile micro-organisms immediately begin to change the planet's atmosphere, oceans, soil, flora, and fauna. Complex organic molecules are broken down and recreated in formats that are best suited for absorption by the swarm. Other spores bear more complex Tyranid creatures. All of these creatures are born to serve the single entity that is the Hive Ship, and the ship itself exists only as part of the entity that is the hive fleet.

While the towers may appear to be a Tyranid plant analogue, they are no less aggressive than the more mobile bioforms. Capillary Towers extend tendrils throughout the planet that can absorb indigenous species -- both plants and any small or slower moving organisms. As they do this, the towers also filter the planet's atmosphere, absorbing the biomass of microbes and small flying creatures. Given that each of the different Tyranid hive fleets has approached the Milky Way from a different direction, this may imply that the Tyranids have consumed a disturbingly large number of nearby galaxies.

The Genestealers have no true genders, and require a creature of any species, of any gender, to reproduce. The Genestealer will find a suitable host and hypnotise them into passivity using an effect induced with its eyes. Every weapon and projectile used by the hive fleets is a living organism or " biomorph," grown from the reconstituted biomatter of previous invasions. The Tyranids have no form of mechanical technology and, instead, harness an advanced form of biotechnology to create organic equivalents of the tools, weaponry and ammunition used by other intelligent species. The Tyranid genetic taint extends to the microbial level, and all of these xenos bioforms are strongly resistant to biological and chemical toxins. Even the tiniest Tyranid organism could have the potential to spawn more dangerous organisms given time and opportunity. If a permanent spell with ravenous is copied, the copy will have the same value for X, and the token permanent that the spell becomes as it enters the battlefield will enter with X counters. The xenos emerged from the intergalactic space of the Local Group of galaxies, their Hive Mind drawn to the Milky Way by the psychic beacon of the Astronomican transmitted by the Emperor's presence in the Warp from Terra.The Tyranids are unlike any other intelligent species encountered by Humanity. They are the ultimate predators; to them, all living things, from the lowliest insect to the most advanced starfaring civilisation, are mere prey. Only now are the inhabitants of the galaxy realising the scale of the threat; unless the Tyranids can be stopped, it will mean nothing less than the extinction of all life. Genestealers, like virtually all Tyranid organisms, are characterised by their six limbs and resilient, armoured exoskeletal carapace. They are bipedal and able to move with lightning speed on their reverse-jointed, clawed lower limbs. The upper sets of limbs are distinctly different, the foremost pair ending in razor-sharp claws capable of slicing even through Tactical Dreadnought Armour (ref. Battle of Macragge. Ultramarines 1st Company.qv). The Genestealer DNA will be incorporated into the host's germ cells and so any child that results from this union will be a Genestealer hybrid, which now has the complete loyalty of its parents through a psychic bond. The Tyranids do not build their starships and weapons from metal and plastic like the other intelligent races of the Milky Way Galaxy; instead, they use gene-splicing and bioengineering to grow them from the organic biomatter harvested from the planets they consume.