Games Workshop Warhammer 40,000 Tyranid Broodlord

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For species such as the humans of the Imperium of Man, whose means of interstellar communication and travel rely upon highly specialised psykers such as Astropaths and Navigators, the Shadow in the Warp is one of the deadliest facets of the Tyranid menace. Tyranid Warrior ( Shrike) • Ravener • Genestealer • Gaunt ( Termagant • Hormagaunt • Barbgaunt • Neurogaunt) • Ripper ( Sky-Slasher) While the Orks managed to stall the main Tyranid hive fleet's advance in what has become known as the Octarian War, tendrils of the Leviathan have already begun to reemerge from these battles, victorious and stronger than ever after having absorbed potent Orkoid genetic material into their own genetic pool. Genestealers are bipedal, standing in a perpetual crouch, and have two sets of arms, one equipped with Human-like hands, one with powerful ripping claws. Their dense musculature and the distending hinge of their jaw allows the generation of incredible bite-pressure. [4a]

Thus can a hive fleet adapt to generate a force capable of overwhelming any opposition, unleashing a vast throng of ferocious alien monsters that can fly, run, burrow and stalk through the defences of any foe. Cunning and independent, Genestealers are also one of the few Tyranid bioforms that can exist away from the nurturing and controlling influence of the Hive Mind, using their own innate intelligence and brood telepathy to form tight-knit groups. Over time, this can have an effect on the planet's atmosphere and climate as plant life is unable to synthesise oxygen. The only effective recourse at this stage of the invasion is all-out war. By this stage, the invading forces have firmly established a presence on the target planet. Eliminating the Hive Ship would not avert the damage done. 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. As the Great Rift tore open reality, Warp Storms ravaged the Baal System even as its worlds faced the Leviathan. Upon Baal itself, the battle between BloodBiomass is drawn up the towers, through a combination of massive pumping organs and suction. Once the last of the defenders have fallen, the surviving creatures of the Tyranid hordes hurl themselves into the digestive pools near the Capillary Towers. Their bodies are broken down and devoured so that the biomass may be returned to the fleet to be recycled into new creatures for future conquests. 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 If divorced from the greater swarm of a Tyranid invasion, Hive Fleet Genestealers can evolve into a purestrain form, their life cycle optimised to infect new hosts once new feeding grounds are viable.

In the final days of the 41st Millennium, the bulk of Hive Fleet Leviathan moved to consume Baal, the homeworld of the Blood Angels Chapter. The Blood Angels called a gathering of all their Successor Chapters, most of whom sent forces to aid the defence of their Primarch's adopted home. But the sheer size of the Leviathan fleet threatened to overwhelm all the sons of Sanguinius. The mutable, inconstant psychic energy of Chaos provides none of this vital sustenance. With every passing season, more planets and systems are swallowed up by the roiling tide of empyric madness, denying the Tyranids the precious biomass that sustains them. Along the battlefront, Termagants use their ranged weapons to lay waste to opposition, while Hormagaunts boldly engage any opposition in close combat. These xenos, along with other variants of the Gaunt genus, may be found in swarms of hundreds coordinated by Tyranid Warriors. This means that, by the time the Shadow in the Warp falls, it is already too late; these beleaguered planets are effectively on their own. They must fend for themselves and face the Tyranid swarm with the weapons they have to hand, or die in the attempt. The components of a Tyranid hive fleet travel almost exclusively in large groups known as "swarms" that possess specialised biomechanical creatures for destroying and consuming a wide variety of prey life forms.

The host victims, or Contagii, return to their own societies and begin to have an urgent need to find a mate and begin a family. This mate also becomes infected with Genestealer DNA through sexual intercourse with the infected host. Yet the Tyranids crossed this expanse nonetheless, moving through the empty darkness for countless millennia to reach the rim of the galaxy.