On a scale of yes to no how dumb is a fleet of tyranids that

1. Why would they need it when they have their own bioiships.
2. When have you ever heard of Tyranids looting something, much less a living being, like that as if they were orks. No, GSC don't do that, so don't say GSC does it.
3. Why woiuldn't they consume all the biomass.

Awesome idea bit this poster >>54651756 pointed out a few problems. Maybe genestealers or a single boarding party/small bioship lacking the usual tyranid tools but with some sort of enslaver mutation could do it?

>>54651733
They would just eat it and assimilate any useful traits and maybe make their own void-whale sized Hive Ship.

>>54651756
>>54651929
>>54651898
This is why Tyranids are dumb:
>Hey guys, I have a neat Idea!
>>Tyranids eat it
>But-
>>No exceptions.

>>54651959
It's a stupid idea. Tyranids are great because they don't leave room for bad ideas.

>>54651959
>>54651959
I mean, they're not wrong, And it's part of why tyranids are fuggin' great. They eat EVERYTHING.

>>54651929
>>54651929
That's why I'm thinking a small group, perhaps from a lone, small, badly damaged bio ship that barely survived a battle. They wouldnt have the tools to get the biomass back to their now destroyed hive fleet. Still need to think of some sort of mutation to explain why/how they'd control it or even how they'd come up with the idea though.

OP I like the idea but it'll take some work to get it to make sense

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>>54651993
Personally I'm liking the eat-it-and-make-a-void-whale-sized-ship spin

>>54651993
I was thinking that too, if it was a lone injured bioship that only managed to seed the void whale with some spores before dying, and now the whale is slowly being eaten alive as parasitic creatures multiply under its skin, and they attach swarms of cortex leeches to its brain so they can control its direction for the temporary time it's alive while they grow new bioships in its inner cavity to eventually burst forth like giant space-borne xenomorph chestbursters... that would be cool as fuck.

They key idea here is that it's only a temporary state. They wouldn't keep the whale alive any longer than they have to. It could be the introduction story for the fleet but not a running thing.

>>54651972
>It's a stupid idea
95% of everything that happens in 40k is a stupid idea. Chaos is a stupid idea. The Primarchs were stupid ideas. Orkz as a species thrives on stupid ideas. "Being a bad idea" is not a arguement.

>>54651983
Yeah, woohoo, the bugs win and eat everything. How intresting! I wonder: Will they eat the planet in a month? Or a week?

No, Tyranids are a set piece for other races to defeat, or be defeated by. They offer nothing but a prop for other factions to use. The word NPC race is them to a tee.

>>54651756
How about Orks looting the void whale?

>>54651929
What if it's a small splinter group, like survivors, that lacks the means? Let's say it would take them a century to fully harvest and convert the whale biomass into a hiveship. In the mean time they're using it to fly around the space.

>>54651733

Because Orks did it first and it works for them better.

Now if you wanted they could have consumed a Void whale for bio-mass to create a larger fleet or something like a new species of "ship"

>>54652030
That works pretty well.

>>54652068
>Let's say it would take them a century to fully harvest and convert the whale biomass into a hiveship.
They strip the entire biomass content of a planet and all of the oceans and atmosphere in about 3 months. A void whale is entirely made of meat, which would only hasten the process. There's no way it would take them more than a few weeks.

>>54652065
It probably already happened. They call it the "Da Sky Squiggoth".

>>54652048
You could say same about the Borg, yet even they had individuals with personalities like the Borg Queen.

>>54652102
Probably happened during the Beasts days if they could loot moons they looting a Void Whale would be a cake walk. I'd like to imagine the Beast riding one through space.

>>54652089
A void whale is probably a lot more useable mass than a planet. Planets are mostly rock and ore; I know nids shave off a significant portion of planetary mass but a void whale is likely a bigger mouthful.

>>54652048
>No, Tyranids are a set piece for other races to defeat, or be defeated by. They offer nothing but a prop for other factions to use. The word NPC race is them to a tee.
They're the horror movie monster for telling scary sci-fi stories, and they do wonderfully at it, what more do you need from them? Not everyone is an insecure fag who needs to project and self-insert themselves on huge almost parodically overcompensating muscle marine men to tell EBIC STORIES about, some people just like playing cool space-dinosaur-monsters.

>>54652048
This is why I went over to stealer cults many years ago (finally becoming a recognized faction helped). Tyranids in 40k are like bouncers in movies - they only exist to establish how badass the guy who beats them is. Its sad because they do have a lot of potential, which is why I'm happy to help anyone like OP who wants a unique backstory for them.

>>54652089
>3 months
Well, that's of course stupid but the way 40k works is that you ignore the stupid bits and replace them with your own fluff as needed. It's always been a DIY setting.

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>>54652048

>>54652125
The thing is the process speeds up exponentially. As Tyranids harvest from it, they use that biomass to make more Tyranids. Every bite they eat is enough biomass to splursh out another fistful of parasitic fleshworms. The fact that planets aren't entirely biomass actually slows them down. A giant living thing like a voidwhale would go real, real fast.

>>54652089
It would take them longer due to the amount of food, but it really depends on how quickly they can use that mass to increase their numbers to eat it quicker

>>54652151
>Well, that's of course stupid
Why?

>>54652169
>but it really depends on how quickly they can use that mass to increase their numbers to eat it quicker
They spawn waves of gaunts overnight. I imagine ripper swarms would multiply exponentially in cycles of hours.

>>54652184
Strip mining an entire planet in three months is stupid, anon. 40k writers never have had any sense of scale.

>>54652213
>>54652169
>>54652168
>>54652089
Came up with an idea to slow the process down.

The voidwhale maybe goes into some sort of hibernating/catatonic state as a result of the trauma from the parasitic Tyranids eating it, as a result its body temperature drops to far below freezing and the nids inside it mostly freeze as a result, the few survivors that adapt to the cold are much slower acting and slower gestating so it takes them longer to eat and multiply their way across the host.

Seems to be a reasonable way to work around the fluff and make it possible.

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The vision of a void whale in agony, popping into existence next to an imperial planet with its last burst of energy and festering with nids, as well as the ensuing battle as the nid forces grow exponentially stronger and rain down on said planet, is pretty fukken COOL.

>>54652263
Why are you pushing your retarded idea so hard to begin with.

>>54652263
Void whales are also crawling inside and out with god-knows-what kinds of gribblies that the tyranids would have to fight through.

>>54652249
>Strip mining an entire planet in three months is stupid, anon
Not when you're a constantly multiplying ecosystem of genetically engineered super-organisms consisting of everything from rapidly spreading funguses, microbes and rock-digesting subterranean root-plants to giant walking thresher-maws that relentlessly eat their way across a whole forest in hours.

Just for those will don't seem to understand the size of a void whale, its not like most sci-fi space whales.

They're 12 ,000 miles long. To put that into perspective, the earth is 7,917 miles in diameter.

Depending on shape, it could have similar mass to our entire planet, but all flesh and bone. Even a full strength hive fleet would take a while to eat that (And be fucking unstoppable after)

>>54652283
It's not my idea retard, I'm suggesting ways for OP to make it work.

>>54652283
> Everyone should only do what I like and only play ultramarines

>>54652291
Oh that's significantly bigger than I was expecting.

Still as I mentioned in a previous post, the fact that it's ALL flesh and bone might make the process go faster, not slower. That's why I also suggested >>54652263

Also >>54652271 was how I pictured this eventually turning out, too.

>>54651733
Nurgle's forces are known for doing exactly that. Using horrible diseased void whales for ships

>>54651733
I had a similar idea actually, though my thought process with it was to have them to latch onto it like parasites and control it, directing it towards ships and other biomass-rich targets. They'd have the whale eat stuff, and then siphon the nutrients from its blood later. Basically a Genestealer Voidwhale.

They'd be from a hive fleet that was had huge chunks of it blown up in space combat, and got stuck in a rather sparse sector. So, they decided to essentially camouflage themselves as a void whale, and then attack ships carrying food and crew on the sly.

Idea being, those stupid meatsacks will assume it's just pirates and voidwhale attacks, rather than a tyranid hive fleet. And if they do figure out there's a hive fleet, who's going to look at the still-living voidwhale? Of course they're not there, Tyranids would have eaten it.

>>54652348
Oh shit, I didn't think of keeping it alive as camouflage. Almost like an ambush predator using mimicry. That's also a cool option.

>>54652263
It could also be particularly bony which would at least slow them down, and be filled with protective organisms and things like stomach acid. Also, the size
>>54652291

>>54652372
>stomach acid
>inconveniencing nids in any way, shape, or form

They'd be in that with a crazy straw anon

>>54652372
The idea of a voidwhale with a giant complex living immune system that the Tyranids literally go to war with and have to fight their way through is awesome, and definitely could extend the lifespan if OP takes the parasitic infection route.

>>54652389
This yes, but >>54652403 / >>54652288
could actually work to slow them down.

>>54652367
Yeah, I came up with it when I was trying to think of a good way to do a more dedicated space-faring Hive Fleet, but Narwhals are vulnerable and their ships suck otherwise, but Voidwhales are huge, fast, and can sustain themselves for incredibly long periods of time. The perfect biological battleship.

>>54652095
War Against the Chtorr? Neat series

>>54652414
Thing is typically if it was such a useful creature, Tyranids would consume it and assimilate its DNA to mix with their own Hive Ships.

The part that makes your idea viable though is the idea that they hide inside the voidwhale leaving it intact as a way to infiltrate places without being detected, like Genestealers hidden on a space hulk. If Tyranids encountered a race that kept beating them in space battles (somehow, despite that they are ridiculously strong in space) maybe they would attempt this tactic as like a trojan horse to get past a defense fleet.

>>54652414
>a more dedicated space-faring Hive Fleet, but Narwhals are vulnerable and their ships suck otherwise
I'm not sure what you mean, all Hive Fleets are dedicated to being space faring, and their ships very very much DO NOT suck, they're probably one of the strongest 40k races in space.

>>54652367
They could even simply be a mutation, a strain evolved as parasites for larger creatures. Maybe the small splinter fleet/wounded ships actual fighting organisms were even killed off by the void whales defensive organisms, but parasites bred and evolved to the point where they replaced the defender organisms. It could be filled with hormagaunts and rippers who have been there alone for centuries to the point where they now fill an ecological niche (it happened on catachan and ymgarl so why not?), but are far worse for the organism, acting more like a disease, still needing the host to survive but slowly killing it over centuries.

>>54652414
Nid ships are pretty great anon. Living plasma batteries, giant hivemind psychic bolts, spore mines every-fuckin-where, and iirc even venom railcannons.

>>54652469
So effectively feral Tyranids left over from a space fight, that's interesting. But it doesn't really work as fluff for someone's playable Hive Fleet since feral nids wouldn't have synapse and so on. If you went this route with the fluff you couldn't really make fluffy army lists that are also decent to play on the tabletop.

>>54652469
Anyone watch the strain?

This made me think of that, but the host is still alive and wishing it were dead.

>>54652496
Hmm good point. Dammit, I liked that idea

>>54652443
>>54652460
>>54652485
I've heard nothing but the exact opposite. Tyranids always seemed to be closer to Ork level when it came to space combat.

I may be basing this off battlefleet gothic, where they have to get dangerously close to use their killing potential, and where the main thing they have going is numbers.

Either way, I would certainly not rate them as 'one of the strongest' in space. Necrons take that by a mile.

If you can't hammer the square peg of your dudesuntil it fits into a round hole of the 40k fluff, you're not trying hard enough.

>why did they loot it/why didn't they eat it
Because they were devastated in a battle and needed it as the basis for a new bio ship

There

>>54652526
I think some combination of >>54652403 and/or >>54652263 works really well to slow down the voidwhales death while still being fluffy and interesting.

>>54652531
>I may be basing this off battlefleet gothic, where they have to get dangerously close to use their killing potential, and where the main thing they have going is numbers.
Yeah, and they fucking demolish most armies in that game.

Once they get close enough to commit boarding actions, and they typically do, you just start removing your fucking ships because they basically delete whatever they touch.

They can swarm the board with more ordinance than anyone else.

They can field massive numbers of tough Kraken ships.

Hive Ships are absolute monsters that can trade blows with the biggest battleships and come out ahead.

Their bio-plasma is short-ranged but ignores armour AND shields and just melts stuff.

They're short-ranged but they just move up like an inexorable tide of death and because there is both minimum movement and maximum turning arcs/fire arcs in this game the other side can't just sit still and gunline them or fly back and kite, or they find their actions and firepower extremely restricted.

Not to mention the fluff almost always has the Tyranid fleets winning, even at planets where they eventually lost the overall battle like Tarsis Ultra and Baal.

>>54652606
Yeah, but if they win by getting more ships than everyone else, that means that individually, their ships would suck more in comparison, no?

>>54652640
Just like ground battles there are many different units with different roles. They have strengths and weaknesses. Some Tyranid ships are weak and numerous droneships with low maneuverability, others are powerful and versatile Cruisers that can perform as well as or better than Imperial Cruisers, and so on.

Termagants are worse than Marines, that doesn't mean that Tyranids always lose to Space Marines, or even that they always bring nothing but Termagants and just win through sheer numbers.

And once they start getting into CC, the other side is usually fucked. Even the cheapest weakest Tyranid ships hit more than twice as hard as their size in boarding actions compared to the other races, and even just a handful of them stacking together can take out a much, much bigger ship together.

They don't even need to rely on melee either, I once obliterated an enemy by just taking a shooty fleet stacking as much pyro-acid as I possibly could.

>>54652640
But as a whole, they are still one of the stronger factions. Maybe not as a one on one force, but that wasn't the original point. Tyranids (In the fluff at least) have always been a swarm army

>>54652531
>I've heard nothing but the exact opposite.
That's because "tyranids are bad in space" is one of those stupid misconceptions based on nothing but scrubs with bad knowledge of the fluff which I see echoed around /tg/ sometimes and then just picked up and believed by newfags who don't fact check their sources.

>Either way, I would certainly not rate them as 'one of the strongest' in space. Necrons take that by a mile.
What part of 'one of' don't you understand? Necrons and Eldar are pretty much the ONLY races better than nids in space.

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Thanks for the ideas brohemians

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>>54653249
You're welcome my bugbrother.

>>54652135
This guy gets it. It's similar to orks. And remember both orks and nids are intergalactic threats. We can't ever be truly exterminated.

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>>54651733
>hermit crab-like hive fleet symbiotically live inside the half living shell of a void whale and use its ability to traverse the warp for unexpected assaults

the only way it could be better was if the carcass ended up forming its own space hulk of derelicts as further shell and outer ecosystem

>>54653379
And if it has babies they eat too for added grimdark

>>54652526
>>54652496
Something to bear in mind is that left to their own devices feral tyranids do tend to spontaneously mutate new bioforms which do sometimes include synapse creatures or other very intelligent leader bugs.

>>54652348
You could also have literally genestealer voidwhales, in that the infestation swarm intends to warp the whales genes and keep it alive just long enough for it to breed with others of its kind. It might take centuries or even millennia to do the normal Genestealer infestation cycle with planet sized animals, but at some point down the line you could end up with some kind of horrifying purebred genestealer bioship accompanying an armada of half-formed abominations which can drop in and out of the warp at will. Remember, the point of Genestealers eating everything isn't just to absorb all the biomass to make more 'nids but also to hoover up any useful genetic adaptations. Void Whales would be absurdly useful to the Hive Mind in that regard.

This variant might work best if the seeder organisms are genestealers in the first place. 'Stealers infamously get into Space Hulks easily enough, and they're independent, intelligent and mutable enough to survive without direct supervision from the hive mind.

>>54652640
It does not.

>>54652606
>Not to mention the fluff almost always has the Tyranid fleets winning, even at planets where they eventually lost the overall battle like Tarsis Ultra and Baal.
>gorgon lost because fleet destroyed
>Iyanden invasion fleet destroyed
>Ultramar fleet destroyed
>fleet in Octarius destroyed so they had to rebuild from one planet
>hundreds of tendrils of cryptus fleet destroyed before they reached Baal
>fleet ripped apart by daemons after dark eldar teleport away planet
>jormungandr destroyed by imperial navy

It's quite the opposite really. Tyranids tend to annihalate on the ground until their ships get destroyed, the. They suddenly shit themselves

>>54652640
Why would it mean that?

I like this thread, Void Whales are one of the most underused parts of 40k fluff.

>>54652291
To add to this, I seem to remember Void Whales sometimes end up fusing with Space Hulks

>>54651733
Nurgle did it already.