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My personal headcanon is that the Great Game was made for 5 players, but malice didn't really want to play, so the God Emperor is the game's NPC fill in, and the Tyranids exist as the turn counter/timer until the game ends
I really like the lore bits around Hive Fleet Cronos. They mainly use psykers, ranged bioforms and artillery because any battles against Chaos are a net loss for the 'nids and it attempts to minimise loses in a total subversion of usual tyranid tactics. When it needs to recover from it's engagements with Chaos, other hive fleets escort Cronos to defenseless worlds and allow it to consume their biomass in their stead.
Just like many ant species IRL. Many of them have soldiers ants that can't feed themselves so they rely on workers ants to feed them. The workers can fight too but they are obviously not optimized for that job.
@@belafeldbusch3397nah there not related it's like cells of a body if you want an example it would be closer to red blood cells supplying the immune system with nutrients to fight off infections
I think we can all just deeply appreciate what it takes for him to find and compile all of this lore into Deepdives as well as the background imagery that brings his videos even more to life! Thank you WesHammer!!! Also, does anyone know the names of the different soundtracks used throughout his video?
Anything with piano or violen is from "ghost stories incorporated" on Bandcamp. Everything else is from story blocks. A subscription site for stock videos and background music
Agreed. I did a bunch of research when trying to decide which Hive Fleet color scheme I wanted to paint, and this is waaay more info than I could scrounge up.
As someone just got into warhammer and is to lazy to read all the book, thank you. I love these hour long lore deep dives. The tyranids are my favorite faction. Love your channel. May the god emperor’s light shine on you.
I was just explaining the tyranids to my coworker because he was interested in space marine 2. A few minutes later, Wes does it better than I ever could lol what mad lad. Keep it up battle brother!
I had the same experience at work yesterday. I seriously haven't stopped playing the mobile game or the game on xbox, and I seriously want to play table top. The world this company made is fucking bad ass
What is super terrifying is that it has taken the Tyranids around 400 years to reach the middle of the Milky Way. This is 50,000 light years so an average speed of 125 light years per annum. Given that setting off the Pharos device around 10,000 years ago in M31 is the canon reason for the Tyranids coming to the Milky Way that gives them a travel distance or 1,250,000 light years. Even factoring 10% tolerance for error the furthest away they came from is 1,500,000 light years. Why is this terrifying? Well, the nearest true galaxy to the Milky Way (Barnard’s Galaxy) is 1,760,000 light years away. Therefore the Tyranids had already reached the satellite mini galaxies of the Milky Way and given they are coming from above, below and both sides in M42 they must have already surrounded the Milky Way before the Pharos device was triggered. They are everywhere. They are legion. They are coming. Drums. Drums in the deep.
The way they travel through space liner math like this does not work. Basically, the further they are from the destination the faster the average speed, and the closer they are to it the slower. Like xenos paradox travel but actually xenos paradox travel ☺. Similar to if they keep halving the distance.
"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only food." This was an *epic* line to close on- well done. The manic nuttery of the orks make them my first love in the setting, but nids are awesome- I love them as the ultimate expression of evolution, just natural process run to its utter apogee. (And if they are ever explained away as an engineered bioweapon I will riot.)
@@JohnSmith-tt3go If they're truly primordial they could have evolved without even being on a planet, at one point billions of years ago the entire universe was warm and dense.
Why would it be bad if they are a bioweapon? That would only be bad if they are still just a bioweapon for an even more powerful species. But them having started as a bioweapon that got out of control and simply consumed their creators would be a very cool and very likely origin for them.
its the opposite, the tyrannids are the ones with true plot armor because nobody know how to write them. In lore they are said to be adaptable to anything, capable of beating almost every civilization given enough time, but that would mean GWS just wrote themselves into a corner because 40k isn't about nids at all. They don't know how to power scale things and so you get nonsense like Narwhals that cause decades of natural disasters to planets while manipulating the fabric of gravity itself. Things like these don't make any sense for organic life. Because only Silicone based lifeforms would have any sort of chance in the vacuum of space, that would mean the whole design of space krakens and tyrannid transport is flawed. But the Hive mind is the ex machina for that because "hey i got genes of billions of species''. Its a whole echo chamber of pseudo science applied in the craziest fictional setting that is 40k. Every other faction would have to be given plot armor because people don't know how to balance the nids.
Majorkill did the nyds dirty saying that no matter what they couldn't take terra, but I'm so glad that you actually give them the respect they deserve. They are so amazingly terrifying and only you and Leutin do them justice. Thank you Wes!
@@TonklinFallen Not really the tyranid are overhyped lmao, the invasion of baal proves their ego can sometime be more important than being strategically efficient
@@zettgundam6317Nah. plot armor. Enough said. It's why everyone not humans are depicted as weak and incapable that the humans can easily deal and cope with. And remember, the humans are pretty much fighting every other factions at this point.
I played tyranid too. Made my own splinter fleet: Barghest, had a focus on psychological warfare, attacking preferably in the dark, with dark colouration but with markings down the centre of their carapace, making them seem much more numerous than they were when attacking, hit and run (was the intention) tactics use of howls in the night, keeping their prey alert until they are too exhausted to fight at full power... Almost always lost my matches but i liked the splinter i had created.
The reason why I love Tyranids the most is because their capabilities are only as limited as the things they can eat and absorb, which is limitless. They're like chaos factions, but not bound to worship or motives of the Chaos Gods. And no, I don't count the Tyranid cultists which are just wololo'd human pawns that can merely grasp the idea of hive mind let alone being a part of it. Every other faction needs to work real hard just to act in unity while they're just one big mind altogether. I'd say the center or the living embodiment of the hive mind is stronger, wiser and older than the God Emperor himself since nobody knows their origin and keep in mind that they entered the 40K universe from ALL angles, which means they're multidimensional and have knowledge of god knows how many other universes and beings waay beyond the comprehension of even the big G. They're not unholy, they're not holy. They just are. An ever-evolving hive mind with ever-evolving, endless swarms of biological tools.
They entered the milky way galaxy from multiple angles, not the universe. As far as we know they are from this universe, just not from this galaxy. Which is still absolutely insane.
I like Tyranids becouse i like the zerg and the IDEA of BE the hive mind behind it. This toghter with D&D when i aways liked to be the necromancer or summoner. To be the mind behind the pets. Like human intellect behind strong beasts fascinate me.
@penileymajorey7174well we have a good amount of millenia left before the Emperor will reveal himself to us. We just get the shadow version for now lol
You and Luetin really do an excellent job of conveying the lore to a much larger audience without being a smartass (looking at you, MajorKill). I dare say this is way more entertaining than the billion dollar failures Hollywood craps out. Love from The Netherlands and keep it up.
I think the scariest Tyranid is Cyrax. He's got bugs crawling on him, he wields a stylus covered in his own poop, and his rage would make korhn think he needs anger management.
I love these deep dives. Factions like the Tyranids and Flood have always been fascinating to me. There is something about the manifestation of mortality for seemingly god like races that is both terrifying and beautiful.
Yup, the Necrons seem to want to rule. They do exterminate but they still have something of an ego. They don't want to see their tomb worlds turned into goo. After all, what point is there in ruling over baren empty rocks? I think the problem comes down to trust and bias.
Well Necrons kinda are... they once close the warp, and now Szarekh are number one enemy of the Tyranids. It would be kinda poetic. They lost their bodys and become artificial to get imortality, then they kind use imortality to preserve mortality from their biological ever evolving predator lololol.
I think it would be cool if the Old Ones left some horrible weapon designs in the Orks DNA but that knowledge was locked until now because nothing put up enough of a fight for the Orks to need it.
@@channelsofash Nah, because Golden Age humanity was such a powerhouse that Orks didn't even bother fighting them. It was too one-sided it wasn't even fun for the boiz.
56:09 I always had a problem with nids not consuming the whole planet but now I'm just gonna make it my headcannon that nids leave some of the planet alive so it's ecosystem can recover and be consumed again
One thing to note is that since Kronos doesn’t get much or any biomass with fighting chaos, leviathan will actually be nearby and give a portion of its biomass to help replenish their losses. Which to me seems like leviathan considers Kronos a valuable asset in order to make the invasion and consumption of planets easier without the interruption of chaos.
My headcannon is the Tyranids (besides the cults) are deathly silent. There is no evolutionary need for lungs, especially for a species with living spaceships and one that removes the atmosphere of planets they devour. They communicate directly through the hivemind. There is no use to communicate vocally or negotiate with their prey. Just a giant wave of death, with no roars or growls; the silence only broken by sizzling of acid, clanking of exoskeletons rubbing against each other, and the futile gunfire and screams of food.
When Cawl says that the Tyranids are surface level feeders, that reminds me of the theory that several of the most hostile aliens in the Milky Way are Tyranid descendants. Combining the information of these two... It may be possible that the Tyranids do some sort of "cyclical harvesting", where they would consume almost all the life on one galaxy, move on to another, cycle through a selection of galaxies for eons, giving enough time for the survivors of the previous attacks to re-evolve and regrow, only for the nids to eventually come back again and eat again. Thus... We are worse than prey. We are mere crops.
One of the scariest things to me about the Nids is their pure ability to adapt to everything If you fly - they will grow wings to catch you if you have tanks/armor - They'll adapt and shoot shit to chew through it If you use Titans - They'll grow shit out of your nightmares to touch you If you hide - they will find you
@@realmcafee the best way to think about how they would react to things like titans is by realizing that donuts answer to if you fly is wrong if you build walls and hide on mountains it will grow wings and dig to make the walls and mountains irrelevant while your planes best solution will be turning the engines air intakes clogged by spores until they can no longer work titans will depends how large until biotitans can no longer work and they disappear the nids will be gone and the titans will think they have won and walk and then the ground will collapse beneath them as the nids have turned the earth into honeycombs that cant support them the nids wont respond in kind, they will solve the problem and evolve the solution onto the world
@@subzero1658 im low iq and without education. can promise i have read his answer 3 times, so his energy was not wasted. the honeycomb ground as a trap is something im glad to hear specially when visualizing such extreme forces clashing together.
As a 30+ year veteran (the OG Tiamat) we have to salute you, sir. Was particularly happy to see the brief mention of some of the "retired" bioforms. We will be watching your video of Tiamat next, friend.
Man I gotta say as noob dipping his toe into the lore with an appetite that mirrors the tyranids you make some incredibly in depth videos. You really do your homework and provide so much info. Thank you for your time and dedication 🙏 keep up the amazing work my man thank you.
Appreciate your way of explanation that can be engaged with at any level. You don’t talk negatively about your fans or other channels. You just continue on making great content.
One of the things I like most about the new Tyranid codex is the piece of flavour text that suggests that it is likely that the Norn Emissaries and Norn Assimilators are actually parts of the greater mass of a Norn Queen that separate off to perform that Norn Queen's will, and by extension the will of the Hive Mind, in a warzone before returning and reconnecting to the greater mass after the mission is compete (should the Norn Emissary or Assimilator be killed or captured, the Queen just grows a replacement as part of her body). It is as if a human could separate their appendix, gall bladder, or some other organ from the rest of their body and send it off to run errands. It makes for a very strong and creepy image as the Norn Emissary or Assimilator is a true extension of the Queen's will, and it is the Norn Queen's own unknowable alien sentience that watches its prey through these creatures' eyes. It also explains why these critters behave as they do and pursue their own 'missions' that don't reflect how the rest of the Swarm fights its wars - if a Norn Emissary or Assimilator comes after you, you have been singled out for special attention by the higher forms among the nightmare cosmic horror space bug monsters, and that is not a good thing for you at all...
Counter-point to the Bellisarius Cawl reference: in Devestation of Baal, a Blood Angels ship finds a planet, quite literally stripped of everything, even down to anything within the planet's make-up that the Hive fleet would find usable. I think the level of scrutiny within its feeding depends on the Hive Fleet.
When you describe them "giant, psychic, alien, space dinosaurs", it makes me want to go build an entire hive fleet. As a teen, after painting and playing some CSM, I started looking at other factions; and whether it was the utter alien nature of them, or just teenage angst, Tyranids were the next faction I looked at (yea, the dark eldar are the apex of angst, but I wasn't into dark elves back then). Now I'm 40, and still looking at them like "damn, I need to build a hive fleet", and the biggest obstacle that I can see is my inability to choose a color scheme.
Tyranids can also be seen as a futuristic evolution of a similarly powerful species found in Magic The Gathering. They are known as Slivers. Very formidable, causing fear in even very powerful Plainswalkers. There are also the consumers of Plains, the Eldrazi. Like the Tyranids, the Eldrazi leave entire Plains void of anything. So the Tyranids might be running from the Warhammer 40k version of Eldrazi.
It's not a stretch to imagine the smaller hive fleets as experiments in their own right. Creative one shots just to see the results. And hive fleet hydra. It's not a stretch to imagine it's like a GAN (generative adversarial network). Basically attacking itself, to become more deadly. But l do like the analogy used in the video more.
The fact that these dudes make both alien and the Zerg look like little mites. Also i like to think they also strip the planet of important minerals as well, leaving the planet a dry husk
@@MrWarCraft3Fan Much like how I think Warcraft was heavily inspired by or originally supposed to be a fantasy Warhammer game. I think it's kind of funny how Wes was talking about the misconceptions players have about the Tyranids being controlled by a single intelligence when the Tyranids are actually just a part of the same organism, because the Zerg were controlled by a single intelligence (the Overmind and then later on Kerrigan). True IRL hive species like ants or bees don't have a single entity controlling the actions of a hive/nest, instead relying on communication with pheromones and movement amongst individuals that then dictates the actions of the whole group.
@SordidusFellatioYeah but its important to say... its not a deep strip. Its a superficial strip. Like its seen in Cawl book. It will leave the planet baren but caves underground stuff remain.
My favorite aspects to focus on are when the giant hungry space bugs do anything that isn't eatting. Growing and cultivating an unknown thing in a space system? Evolving to fight chaos while getting leftovers from other hive fleets? Anything off the beaten track is really fascinating to me!
Honestly I'd love just a story about the Hive mind, love the little snippets of the vast emptiness and indifference towards it's prey Know it's not going to happen, certainly not any decade soon, but the more psychologically dynamic perspective sounds fun - more so than some basic detective novel
I can remember a snippet where the hive mind basically possesses a gaunt and it stares with unbelievable hatred at a the main character. From that I got the impression the hivemind totally cares. It's just that it absolutely HATES other lifeforms and wants to extinguish them all. You do not see this conscious malice in single creatures usually. But that is probably just because the hive mind is busy devouring or preparing to devour 100 worlds at once at any given moment and does not have time to give every mortal its full attention and hatred.
I wish bigE could get a look at tyrranids as he created the astartes, imaging how much he could have improved them using the genitic knowledge of the hive mind.
Tbh I'm curious if a means to attack the hive-mind directly will occur. The Imperium is already aware of synapse-link the Hive-Fleets use to communicate and that it can be compromised either by killing the monster or with a strong enough psyker to imprint false information. How if there was a way to implant codes within the nids that would activate once absorbed into the hive mind, actual lasting damage could be done to the tyranids. (This has been one of their noted weaknesses... the Tyranids are so obsessed with eating biomass they don't actually check what they are eating. The Hive-Fleet that Farsight's Enclave beat was baited into consuming poison that broke them down at a cellular level and the Tyranids couldn't adapt to it, likely because it infected the Norn Queen first.)
@@eiric6958how I understand it is that it’s a gestalt consciousness from all the Nids coalesced into ‘one’ with higher order nids influencing/contributing more. Much like l eusocial insects such as ant or bee colonies (where even queens are following the collective instinctual urges and hormonal signals from drones and workers) but ramped up and psychic
People like to think who would win, the Zerg or the tyranids. I dont want them to fight simply because I know one would win, and the result would be too much to anyone to handle. The tyranids would provide the zerg with the numbers to actually zerg rush a galaxy, while the zerg would provide the tyranids with better FTL. Not to mention the plethora of DNA to spin new warrior breeds.
While I'm not a fan of the tyranids, to see you put this much time into this video tells me I need to hear this. I've only been watching your videos for about a year now but I'm new to the 40k universe. Your videos are incredibly informative and I feel that, like yourself, I'm more intrigued by the novels and lore. With that said, I'm looking for a good book to start with. Would anyone mind making a recommendation? And could we possibly get a raven guard video if you haven't done one already? Thanks.
It really depends what you're interested in the 40k books are like comic books. You can jump in anywhere. My beginner recommendations would be -ciaphas Cain hero of the imperium (if your look for something fun) -the nightlord trilogy (if you want a story about the bad guys that's super dark) -the Uriel ventras series (if you want a great straight up space marine story) -gaunts ghosts series (if your more a fan of human perspective and like military fiction) -the dark imperium trilogy (if your more interested in the most recent stuff in the timeline) -the Inquisitor series (my personal favorite. A great smaller story set in the 40k universe, great for people who like detective and/or heist storys or want to know more about the inquisition) All that said, the main advice I always give is to pick a faction you think looks cool, than look up and grab a book based on them. You'll have more fun if your actually interested in the characters🙂 Hope that helps!
Oh if you want necrons than read infinite and the Devine for a fun read about trazyn and his rival orikan. Or the twice dead king for a more serious necrons story
I know that ship sailed decades ago, but it still bothers me that GW doesn't understand the difference between evolution, metamorphosis, and expression. I _do_ think that the Tyranid consumption of biomass rather than colonizing and generating new Tyranids indefinitely suggests that they really are just trying to build numbers and keep moving, which suggests that whatever is following them is _far_ more terrifying.
Crazy fan theory: The Great Devourer is the 5th C'tan, the Outsider. He is said to have spent the War in Heaven "consuming" all life he encountered, including his C'tan brethren and to be in his presense would drive any sentient insane (Shadow in the warp?). When the Necrons turned on the C'tan, shattering three and killing one, the outsider fled the galaxy, never to be seen again.
The Outsider is listed among the C'tan shattered alongside the rest, dozens not just four. You're citing outdated lore. Also, the C'tan are completely material beings and are unable to utilize warp energy. Very much unlike the tyranids which extensively use a warp based presence. The C'tan can influence the minds of mortals, but this is not a warp based ability.
Thank You! This! This was what I was asking about! Bringing the game and stories together! Thank you! I'm an outsider... during my last military orders I worked with two Army Sgt that played regularly... And the boxes and boxes of pieces - were awesome!
Finally! Me personally I've always had a hard time getting into the tyranids, never really liked them that much but I actually was able to watch this and was interested!
The main problem its that theres no books... realy. But from the last ones we probably will see more intresting things, after all the hive mind can feel stuff. Like getting pissed at the food fighting.
Somewhere, on an impossibly distant and ancient world in a galaxy long forgotten by the universe, lies the buried remains of a truly alien laboratory. And a single, broken test tube covered in scratch marks.
After listening about hivefleets It sounds like hive mind is just testing things out for ultimate assult Which sounds cool, i know this might not be the case but i like to think that hivemind is testing universe for what there is and then with perfected force They come for feast
After watching a bunch of Kurzgesagt videos on the immune system, it's become my view that the best way to think of Tyranids is akin to an intelligence guided immune system
Halfway through this video. I just wanted to add that clearly the inspiration for Tyrannids is the H.R. Gieger monster from the movie Alien, and Gieger was probably inspired by H. Bosch paintings. But, after Gieger came the Marvel X-Men comic where we were introduced to a horrific alien race called the Brood. They closely resemble Alien, but they are winged and intelligent, with a Queen running the show. The Marvel "homage" of Alien is probably where GW got the basic design for Tyrannids. If I'm wrong, please let me know, nerds, I just know you will
You're not *entirely* wrong, but not entirely correct. The Tyranids as they look now is not what they initially looked like. See; Starcraft was originally intended to be a Warhammer Product, but GW said "Nah, we don't think that'll be profitable enough for us" so Blizz went off and made their own thing, incorporating some of Geiger's alien design to make the Zerg. When GW saw how wildly popular it was they decided that to adopt some designs to try and soak up some more money they went and remodeled their Tyranids to look more like the Zerg.
Tyranids are only incidentally horrifying. Dark Eldar would render an entire sector down into fear juice just to hear a particular rival's exquisite scream. There's no contest! Otherwise, good stuff.
Well yeah. Even if the Hive Mind is truly sentient, it's still just doing what you would expect an animal to do (feed and spread). Dark Eldar (as well as most of the other factions to a much lesser degree) are actually malicious.
@@malcire The thing is... from the few things we have seen in material from the hive mind ITS FAR FROM ANIMAL, it feels. Read the blood angels books in teh attack of their planet. The hive mind its getting pissed. But dark eldar its the race i totaly would hunt and exterminate, they dont deserve to live.
@@malcire An interesting thing to think about: The Nids absorb all the knowledge of the creatures they ingest. Which means they fully well know about compassion, art, charity, romanticism, etc. But the hive mind still deems these traits unnecessary to their prime directive. They understand these concepts better than any single human ever could and yet they have no need for any of it.
Thank you for this Deep Dive it made me love the space bugs even more, I have always been a fan of the Tyranids ever since I discovered them leading me to the rabbit hole known as Warhammer 40k
56:37 if the hive mind is this intelligent, it would make more sense to give the ecosystems she attacks a way to recuperate. This validates the hypothesis that the Tyranids are an old ones' weapon that they unleashed (or escaped) to raze the Galaxy and terraform later.
I’m pretty sure they can’t recuperate if they actually have the time to consume the whole planet They eat everything and anything you’d need for the ecosystem to bounce back
1 she? 2 the old ones are extinct 3 there is no way the old ones created the tyranids since traveling between galaxy's takes a LONG time even with FTL travel, there's no way they sat around after the war in heaven for millions for years and then randomly decided to create them and the pharos device attracted the tyranids which implies they weren't on a path to the milky way before,halo lore and why would they even create the hive mind
It might be a cool bit of lore if a mad Old One was exiled before the War in Heaven and the Tyranids are their revenge for that exile. They have to be some form of bio-weapon since a consume all species would starve before it could evolve space travel.
@@channelsofash I assume their space travel came about like something akin to Phaaze from the Metroid Prime series. Essentially a living planet that took chunks of itself and flung them into space to propagate.
It wouldn't actually, the oceans and atmosphere of habitable planets contain vast amounts of essential molecules. The amount of carbon in the ocean far surpasses that in living beings whilst also containing a whole host of other essential atoms. Considering how they travel having to make an approach through normal space and how long it would take for life to reform (far longer than it would take to clear a sector) it's just more efficient to consume and move on. Eventually through processes like super nova ect the planets will be reformed and life can occur again with atmosphere and oceans. If we talking galactic scale a wait and regrow approach simply isn't energy efficient
The apperence of the biomoon makes me think we may have underestimated the size of the tyranid race. Rather then each tyranid being a cell in the greater body, it may be that every FLEET is a cell and the biomoon is the nucleus emerging at last..
@@firesidemike3846I haven't heard of them before either, but it's probably what it sounds like. A moon sized bio-ship like the death star (without the death laser, but it could have something similar, but biological) but just made out of biological matter. Also if we just keep this thing up it could be that there's like 100s or 1000s of hive fleets 10s and hundreds of bio-moons, so maybe there's one or a few central bio-PLANETS😳 (Or something of similar size) that is like a main hub for many many norn-queens and where the hive mind is the strongest. Like established Tyranid planets.
@@firesidemike3846 in the last story of the new rule book, the captin of the raven guard gets a transsmission of a fleet headed towards sanctuary, the world at the center of thebnrw tyramid imvasion. In the middle of the fleet is a tyranid organism larger then a moon, headed straight for the planet. Looking at it is the closest the space marine has ever come to feeling Fear..
So Wes would you say a terrifying crossover would be if a Tyranid ate a Xenomorph? Edit: y'all realize I'm not asking for a comparison between the two different types of all consuming creatures but how terrifying a mix of the two would be right?
I love races like this, Zergs, Slivers, Tyranids, all evolution on steroids and hive minds and my favorite in their game but I can't help but acknowledge they shouldn't look like another of their race. They are all about efficient killing and being as strong as possible but they for some reason all make sure every single one of their race resembles the base, you look at them and you automatically know they belong to the race when a stealth based one shouldn't look like them at all because it's stealth. Slivers have the excuse of they don't work exactly like the other two and are basic slivers who gained the ability which is why they look like a sliver, zerg just all look like bugs same with tyranids, they feel more like they are made to invoke fear instead of efficiency which works for games and I do understand that it's mainly because they are games and having a race that can look like a human or a tiger with biological spears and extra legs can cause confusion but idk I wish they looked wild as full combinations of animals mixed with something else because they are something humans have never seen because they killed every last one. Basically I just wish one of these races looked more diverse seeing as they consume DNA and should look completely different based on what they were made to do.
This goes a long way to explain why they only care about eating. The great devourer's mind is so complex and infinite. They're far beyond the petty squabbles of humanity and any of the other xenos. The only one that might come remotely close is a complete Tzeench.
The really cool thing about the tyrannids that always keep my interest, is their creation. They're kinda like chimera's, able to change form and forever evolving. But how did something like this even start to exist? Makes you wonder what the creation/birth of it was even like. Maybe it was an experiment in a distant galaxy that got so out of control it consumed everything, or maybe it was a small organism that slowly made its way of the food chain, eventually consuming things that contain things like physhic powers, weapons, conciense etc. They have so many horrific angles they could take with them, its so sick.
54:35 I have an inkling that this is actually super insideous detailing hinting at how utterly screwed the galaxy is... Think about it. If Tyranids eat ALL other life in the universe... no more food becomes an actual issue. They'd be stuck each subsisting on each other or dying out. The fact that Tyranids leave enough that Cawl thinks he could "regrow" life on the planet with some help makes me think that said life might eventually germinate over time again on it's own. "Life finds a way", and over the course of billions of years, life begins anew. Single celled organisms restart the process of evolution, ecosystems slowly start growing again, flora and fauna spring up in the endless cycle of nature. Perhaps some of them eventually even grow another sentient species. Perhaps they even spread across the galaxy and bring life to other planets... So, potentially... The Tyranids are intentionally leaving "seeds" to grow, so they can harvest them again later... The Milky Way, and potentially the entire universe, is nothing more to them than a field of crops that they reap, sow, and reap again. And who knows how many times this has happened already... all the races of the Milky Way squabbling with each other about who the galaxy belongs to, not realising they are little more than livestock for a species far beyond their understanding... It's so... Grimdark... that it kinda just makes sense.
55:00 This is a change in Tyranid behaviour. When they first arrived in the galaxy they stripped planets entirely, to the point that planets were noticeably smaller. They have since adapted and are taking what is quickly available, leaving things behind and generally being less thorough. The reason for this is that the natives of the galaxy have started destroying planets during the feeding process, and so the Tyranids have reduced their feeding window dramatically, reducing the risk of the feast being spoiled.
If I may make a suggestion for a future video, you should make a reverse Horus heresy video. You have the in depth knowledge, the passion, and appreciation for literary know what’s to give us an amazing story.
Love the deep dives. Want one like this for each faction. Very well done. You got me into more of the lore with this video and I have started my journey into warhammer. Picked up the leviathan box and bunch of supplies to start.
Ive been building my swarm since the late 90s. The best advice i can give is dont rush your hormagaunts. They move like that to reinforce waves of termis and genestealers.
Every time I see you upload, ever since following you with 15k on tik tok you instantly make my day better and you’re always the first channel i check to see if new uploads. Thanks Wes
Sadly Wes... my guess is that the High Lords are too busy arguing over something involving bowel movements, the legality of bodily actions, or their caught up in whatever the Fabricator General is vibing about. Thats why nothing gets done in the imperium.
I love your deep dives into factions. Something I'd like to see you cover is the relationship between necrons and tyranids. Also, you sparked my curiosity about outdated units that don't have a modern equivalent and I'd be interested to see you dive into those units we don't really see or hear about any more from all the factions.
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Thanks for the code 😊
4 days late
Hé bud, thanx for the code
Uh link to Tiamat video??
I'm listening at work
Everyone else is playing a strategy game. The Tyranids are doing a chews your own adventure.
Nice 👍🏽
Lol
Ba dum tzz 🥁
I saw this and thought it had 5k likes honestly
Inshallah my friend@@Widdawysigmagriffith
My personal headcanon is that the Great Game was made for 5 players, but malice didn't really want to play, so the God Emperor is the game's NPC fill in, and the Tyranids exist as the turn counter/timer until the game ends
Ngl.. That's pretty good
Wow.
It's a 5 player Stellaris game and the Tyranids are the Crisis.
Like R-rated civ
An hour and a half of Tyranid lore. What a way to end a week of work.
Seriously, doesn't get any better than this! :)
Fr I love how he fills me with 1.5 hours of cream deep inside me
Same time next year?
vlad pls let my family go
Wes really comes through.
This golden age of 40k lore masters is too good!
I really like the lore bits around Hive Fleet Cronos. They mainly use psykers, ranged bioforms and artillery because any battles against Chaos are a net loss for the 'nids and it attempts to minimise loses in a total subversion of usual tyranid tactics.
When it needs to recover from it's engagements with Chaos, other hive fleets escort Cronos to defenseless worlds and allow it to consume their biomass in their stead.
That’s kinda like your sibling sharing their food during lunch break because you didn’t bring any…but with a big side helping of genocide
That’s… actually really nice of them. Weird.
@@Antlover12386 It's like being nice to yourself tho.
Just like many ant species IRL. Many of them have soldiers ants that can't feed themselves so they rely on workers ants to feed them. The workers can fight too but they are obviously not optimized for that job.
@@belafeldbusch3397nah there not related it's like cells of a body if you want an example it would be closer to red blood cells supplying the immune system with nutrients to fight off infections
I think we can all just deeply appreciate what it takes for him to find and compile all of this lore into Deepdives as well as the background imagery that brings his videos even more to life! Thank you WesHammer!!!
Also, does anyone know the names of the different soundtracks used throughout his video?
Anything with piano or violen is from "ghost stories incorporated" on Bandcamp. Everything else is from story blocks. A subscription site for stock videos and background music
@@weshammer Wow!!! That was a fast reply haha; Thank you so much Weshammer!
Agreed. I did a bunch of research when trying to decide which Hive Fleet color scheme I wanted to paint, and this is waaay more info than I could scrounge up.
Your so right. I'm new but have seen others .His is the best. Now I really understand them.
As someone just got into warhammer and is to lazy to read all the book, thank you. I love these hour long lore deep dives. The tyranids are my favorite faction. Love your channel. May the god emperor’s light shine on you.
I'm really glad you enjoy them! Hope you're having a great day! 🙂
I was just explaining the tyranids to my coworker because he was interested in space marine 2. A few minutes later, Wes does it better than I ever could lol what mad lad. Keep it up battle brother!
huff.... so you wasted the time of yourself and your co-worker?:(
@@erimo506huh?
@@erimo506if you find friendly interaction between two humans waste of time then there is some kind of problem with you
@@marcinwitkowski217 tyrabids do suck, but dont be mad
I had the same experience at work yesterday. I seriously haven't stopped playing the mobile game or the game on xbox, and I seriously want to play table top. The world this company made is fucking bad ass
What is super terrifying is that it has taken the Tyranids around 400 years to reach the middle of the Milky Way. This is 50,000 light years so an average speed of 125 light years per annum.
Given that setting off the Pharos device around 10,000 years ago in M31 is the canon reason for the Tyranids coming to the Milky Way that gives them a travel distance or 1,250,000 light years. Even factoring 10% tolerance for error the furthest away they came from is 1,500,000 light years.
Why is this terrifying? Well, the nearest true galaxy to the Milky Way (Barnard’s Galaxy) is 1,760,000 light years away. Therefore the Tyranids had already reached the satellite mini galaxies of the Milky Way and given they are coming from above, below and both sides
in M42 they must have already surrounded the Milky Way before the Pharos device was triggered.
They are everywhere. They are legion. They are coming.
Drums. Drums in the deep.
Congratulations. Your comment caused me a shiver of existential dread and the Nids aren't even real.
Hopefully.
No it's just the authors being retarded and forgetting that tyrannids travel without the warp. They should still be on the edges of the galaxy.
It's possible they travel deep space faster than while swarming planets, so should be some added calculations for that I'd think
The way they travel through space liner math like this does not work. Basically, the further they are from the destination the faster the average speed, and the closer they are to it the slower. Like xenos paradox travel but actually xenos paradox travel ☺. Similar to if they keep halving the distance.
This leads me to the logical conclusion that only two things exist in the universe:
1. The Milky Way Galaxy
2. Tyranids
"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only food." This was an *epic* line to close on- well done. The manic nuttery of the orks make them my first love in the setting, but nids are awesome- I love them as the ultimate expression of evolution, just natural process run to its utter apogee. (And if they are ever explained away as an engineered bioweapon I will riot.)
I like the theory that they’re running from something 🏃♂️
@@vc8538The fact they're coming from the _other_ direction as well kinda disproves that.
I mean they've got to be bio engineered because if they evolved naturally they wouldn't have had enough biomass to get into space.
@@JohnSmith-tt3go If they're truly primordial they could have evolved without even being on a planet, at one point billions of years ago the entire universe was warm and dense.
Why would it be bad if they are a bioweapon? That would only be bad if they are still just a bioweapon for an even more powerful species. But them having started as a bioweapon that got out of control and simply consumed their creators would be a very cool and very likely origin for them.
No matter how much the tyranids evolve, or how far they spread, they will never be able to penetrate humanity's plot armor.
what plot armor lol the imperium is at its weakest its ever been.
@texasallstar6969 that's the plot armour.its the fact they are still alive after being at its weakest
@@waihenenterprise they're still alive because two primarchs have returned lol
@@texasallstar6969your blind mate
its the opposite, the tyrannids are the ones with true plot armor because nobody know how to write them. In lore they are said to be adaptable to anything, capable of beating almost every civilization given enough time, but that would mean GWS just wrote themselves into a corner because 40k isn't about nids at all. They don't know how to power scale things and so you get nonsense like Narwhals that cause decades of natural disasters to planets while manipulating the fabric of gravity itself.
Things like these don't make any sense for organic life. Because only Silicone based lifeforms would have any sort of chance in the vacuum of space, that would mean the whole design of space krakens and tyrannid transport is flawed. But the Hive mind is the ex machina for that because "hey i got genes of billions of species''. Its a whole echo chamber of pseudo science applied in the craziest fictional setting that is 40k. Every other faction would have to be given plot armor because people don't know how to balance the nids.
Majorkill did the nyds dirty saying that no matter what they couldn't take terra, but I'm so glad that you actually give them the respect they deserve. They are so amazingly terrifying and only you and Leutin do them justice. Thank you Wes!
majorkill is right tho
If they take terra, the storyline takes a nosedive. Unless the want to turn 180 and make a story where humanity abandons terra for a new planet.
Majorkill is right only because of plot Armor. Without plot Armor, terra would be another platter on the buffet of the Milky Way.
@@TonklinFallen Not really the tyranid are overhyped lmao, the invasion of baal proves their ego can sometime be more important than being strategically efficient
@@zettgundam6317Nah. plot armor. Enough said. It's why everyone not humans are depicted as weak and incapable that the humans can easily deal and cope with. And remember, the humans are pretty much fighting every other factions at this point.
I played tyranid too. Made my own splinter fleet: Barghest, had a focus on psychological warfare, attacking preferably in the dark, with dark colouration but with markings down the centre of their carapace, making them seem much more numerous than they were when attacking, hit and run (was the intention) tactics use of howls in the night, keeping their prey alert until they are too exhausted to fight at full power...
Almost always lost my matches but i liked the splinter i had created.
Yeah even in universe this combat style would be very niche, but great concept
The reason why I love Tyranids the most is because their capabilities are only as limited as the things they can eat and absorb, which is limitless. They're like chaos factions, but not bound to worship or motives of the Chaos Gods. And no, I don't count the Tyranid cultists which are just wololo'd human pawns that can merely grasp the idea of hive mind let alone being a part of it. Every other faction needs to work real hard just to act in unity while they're just one big mind altogether. I'd say the center or the living embodiment of the hive mind is stronger, wiser and older than the God Emperor himself since nobody knows their origin and keep in mind that they entered the 40K universe from ALL angles, which means they're multidimensional and have knowledge of god knows how many other universes and beings waay beyond the comprehension of even the big G. They're not unholy, they're not holy. They just are. An ever-evolving hive mind with ever-evolving, endless swarms of biological tools.
They entered the milky way galaxy from multiple angles, not the universe. As far as we know they are from this universe, just not from this galaxy. Which is still absolutely insane.
I like Tyranids becouse i like the zerg and the IDEA of BE the hive mind behind it.
This toghter with D&D when i aways liked to be the necromancer or summoner. To be the mind behind the pets. Like human intellect behind strong beasts fascinate me.
@@ArantyrDarkhandwithout Nids there would be no zergs
@@marcinwitkowski217And without the arachnids from stsrship troopers, or xenomorphs from aliens, there would be no tyranids
@penileymajorey7174well we have a good amount of millenia left before the Emperor will reveal himself to us. We just get the shadow version for now lol
You and Luetin really do an excellent job of conveying the lore to a much larger audience without being a smartass (looking at you, MajorKill). I dare say this is way more entertaining than the billion dollar failures Hollywood craps out. Love from The Netherlands and keep it up.
As fellow dutchman i can only agree with those words 💪🏻💪🏻
Funny how you see him as smartass and in my eyes he is more like clown
Majorkill a smartass? But he is dumb AF
I do enjoy both of them tho. Majorkill Is the guy Who got me into Warhammer 40k, but i do like weshammer too
I agree. Can't stand majorkill.
I think the scariest Tyranid is Cyrax. He's got bugs crawling on him, he wields a stylus covered in his own poop, and his rage would make korhn think he needs anger management.
Ok :(
Bro what?
*Cyraxx
Lol wouldn't he be a green skin that for some reason follows Nurgle as a well regarded shaman of a sort.....
Everywhere I go I see his name
I love these deep dives. Factions like the Tyranids and Flood have always been fascinating to me. There is something about the manifestation of mortality for seemingly god like races that is both terrifying and beautiful.
Tyranids make Necron look like the last hope in 40K Universe
Yup, the Necrons seem to want to rule. They do exterminate but they still have something of an ego. They don't want to see their tomb worlds turned into goo. After all, what point is there in ruling over baren empty rocks? I think the problem comes down to trust and bias.
Well Necrons kinda are... they once close the warp, and now Szarekh are number one enemy of the Tyranids. It would be kinda poetic. They lost their bodys and become artificial to get imortality, then they kind use imortality to preserve mortality from their biological ever evolving predator lololol.
I think it would be cool if the Old Ones left some horrible weapon designs in the Orks DNA but that knowledge was locked until now because nothing put up enough of a fight for the Orks to need it.
@@channelsofash
Nah, because Golden Age humanity was such a powerhouse that Orks didn't even bother fighting them. It was too one-sided it wasn't even fun for the boiz.
56:09 I always had a problem with nids not consuming the whole planet but now I'm just gonna make it my headcannon that nids leave some of the planet alive so it's ecosystem can recover and be consumed again
Wes! You killed it this time! Thank you so much! This video definitely deserves more likes, stay healthy
One thing to note is that since Kronos doesn’t get much or any biomass with fighting chaos, leviathan will actually be nearby and give a portion of its biomass to help replenish their losses. Which to me seems like leviathan considers Kronos a valuable asset in order to make the invasion and consumption of planets easier without the interruption of chaos.
My headcannon is the Tyranids (besides the cults) are deathly silent. There is no evolutionary need for lungs, especially for a species with living spaceships and one that removes the atmosphere of planets they devour. They communicate directly through the hivemind. There is no use to communicate vocally or negotiate with their prey. Just a giant wave of death, with no roars or growls; the silence only broken by sizzling of acid, clanking of exoskeletons rubbing against each other, and the futile gunfire and screams of food.
When Cawl says that the Tyranids are surface level feeders, that reminds me of the theory that several of the most hostile aliens in the Milky Way are Tyranid descendants. Combining the information of these two... It may be possible that the Tyranids do some sort of "cyclical harvesting", where they would consume almost all the life on one galaxy, move on to another, cycle through a selection of galaxies for eons, giving enough time for the survivors of the previous attacks to re-evolve and regrow, only for the nids to eventually come back again and eat again.
Thus... We are worse than prey. We are mere crops.
I love that "Avenge me brother" shirt, love me some Flashgitz reference.
Anyone else here after playing space marines 2?😂
Yup
🙋♂️ Yup. I just wanted to learn more about the background of the giant bugs I’m looking to Multi-Melta.
I’m here before I play the game 😂 I wanna know what I’m getting into. So far I’ve learned about tyranids, daemonculaba and Penitent Engines
Haha yea bro obviously
Tyannids synopsis needs more expanded in
One of the scariest things to me about the Nids is their pure ability to adapt to everything
If you fly - they will grow wings to catch you
if you have tanks/armor - They'll adapt and shoot shit to chew through it
If you use Titans - They'll grow shit out of your nightmares to touch you
If you hide - they will find you
where can i find further information about what happens when faced with titans?
@@realmcafee the best way to think about how they would react to things like titans is by realizing that donuts answer to if you fly is wrong
if you build walls and hide on mountains it will grow wings and dig to make the walls and mountains irrelevant
while your planes best solution will be turning the engines air intakes clogged by spores until they can no longer work
titans will depends how large until biotitans can no longer work and they disappear
the nids will be gone and the titans will think they have won and walk and then the ground will collapse beneath them as the nids have turned the earth into honeycombs that cant support them
the nids wont respond in kind, they will solve the problem and evolve the solution onto the world
@@ashardalondragnipurake
His Answer was definitely more of a humours giddy than a serious answer (I think the joke may have flown over your head)
@@subzero1658 the question came after the answer
was just using the original post as a reference
@@subzero1658 im low iq and without education. can promise i have read his answer 3 times, so his energy was not wasted.
the honeycomb ground as a trap is something im glad to hear specially when visualizing such extreme forces clashing together.
For most factions : "I the grim darkness of the far future there is only war"
Tyranids : "Neat, an all you can eat buffet"
Underrated comment lol
Thank you.
Tyrannids are my favorite.
I've been waiting for this.
As a 30+ year veteran (the OG Tiamat) we have to salute you, sir. Was particularly happy to see the brief mention of some of the "retired" bioforms. We will be watching your video of Tiamat next, friend.
Man I gotta say as noob dipping his toe into the lore with an appetite that mirrors the tyranids you make some incredibly in depth videos. You really do your homework and provide so much info. Thank you for your time and dedication 🙏 keep up the amazing work my man thank you.
Bricky: THEY HANGRY AND WE FOOD.
Wes you have no idea how nice it is see this video so freshly released while looking for something to listen to while I do college work.
One part THE THING, one part Xenomorph, and a dash of Yuuzhan Vong. Splendid!😳
Appreciate your way of explanation that can be engaged with at any level. You don’t talk negatively about your fans or other channels. You just continue on making great content.
I just like Warhammer and talking about it with other people who are also interested in all things grim dark 🙂
"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only food"
Sounds like a good thing to live by XDD
One of the things I like most about the new Tyranid codex is the piece of flavour text that suggests that it is likely that the Norn Emissaries and Norn Assimilators are actually parts of the greater mass of a Norn Queen that separate off to perform that Norn Queen's will, and by extension the will of the Hive Mind, in a warzone before returning and reconnecting to the greater mass after the mission is compete (should the Norn Emissary or Assimilator be killed or captured, the Queen just grows a replacement as part of her body). It is as if a human could separate their appendix, gall bladder, or some other organ from the rest of their body and send it off to run errands. It makes for a very strong and creepy image as the Norn Emissary or Assimilator is a true extension of the Queen's will, and it is the Norn Queen's own unknowable alien sentience that watches its prey through these creatures' eyes. It also explains why these critters behave as they do and pursue their own 'missions' that don't reflect how the rest of the Swarm fights its wars - if a Norn Emissary or Assimilator comes after you, you have been singled out for special attention by the higher forms among the nightmare cosmic horror space bug monsters, and that is not a good thing for you at all...
Counter-point to the Bellisarius Cawl reference: in Devestation of Baal, a Blood Angels ship finds a planet, quite literally stripped of everything, even down to anything within the planet's make-up that the Hive fleet would find usable.
I think the level of scrutiny within its feeding depends on the Hive Fleet.
10/10 masterpiece
Thank you Wes
This is a great video
When you describe them "giant, psychic, alien, space dinosaurs", it makes me want to go build an entire hive fleet. As a teen, after painting and playing some CSM, I started looking at other factions; and whether it was the utter alien nature of them, or just teenage angst, Tyranids were the next faction I looked at (yea, the dark eldar are the apex of angst, but I wasn't into dark elves back then). Now I'm 40, and still looking at them like "damn, I need to build a hive fleet", and the biggest obstacle that I can see is my inability to choose a color scheme.
Tyranids can also be seen as a futuristic evolution of a similarly powerful species found in Magic The Gathering. They are known as Slivers. Very formidable, causing fear in even very powerful Plainswalkers. There are also the consumers of Plains, the Eldrazi. Like the Tyranids, the Eldrazi leave entire Plains void of anything. So the Tyranids might be running from the Warhammer 40k version of Eldrazi.
It's not a stretch to imagine the smaller hive fleets as experiments in their own right. Creative one shots just to see the results.
And hive fleet hydra. It's not a stretch to imagine it's like a GAN (generative adversarial network). Basically attacking itself, to become more deadly. But l do like the analogy used in the video more.
The fact that these dudes make both alien and the Zerg look like little mites. Also i like to think they also strip the planet of important minerals as well, leaving the planet a dry husk
They take everything including the athmosphere. rock or basic carbon lets, becouse precious minerals are take too.
well the zerg actually were heavily inspired by tyranids, as starcraft originally was supposed to be a wh40k game
@@MrWarCraft3Fan Much like how I think Warcraft was heavily inspired by or originally supposed to be a fantasy Warhammer game.
I think it's kind of funny how Wes was talking about the misconceptions players have about the Tyranids being controlled by a single intelligence when the Tyranids are actually just a part of the same organism, because the Zerg were controlled by a single intelligence (the Overmind and then later on Kerrigan).
True IRL hive species like ants or bees don't have a single entity controlling the actions of a hive/nest, instead relying on communication with pheromones and movement amongst individuals that then dictates the actions of the whole group.
@SordidusFellatioYeah but its important to say... its not a deep strip. Its a superficial strip. Like its seen in Cawl book.
It will leave the planet baren but caves underground stuff remain.
My favorite aspects to focus on are when the giant hungry space bugs do anything that isn't eatting. Growing and cultivating an unknown thing in a space system? Evolving to fight chaos while getting leftovers from other hive fleets? Anything off the beaten track is really fascinating to me!
The tyranids are the embodiment of axiology. Great video.
What's axiology?
Honestly I'd love just a story about the Hive mind, love the little snippets of the vast emptiness and indifference towards it's prey
Know it's not going to happen, certainly not any decade soon, but the more psychologically dynamic perspective sounds fun - more so than some basic detective novel
Ya I agree! The tiny little snippits we get where we just brush the surface of its mind are super creepy and enjoyable reads!
I can remember a snippet where the hive mind basically possesses a gaunt and it stares with unbelievable hatred at a the main character. From that I got the impression the hivemind totally cares. It's just that it absolutely HATES other lifeforms and wants to extinguish them all. You do not see this conscious malice in single creatures usually. But that is probably just because the hive mind is busy devouring or preparing to devour 100 worlds at once at any given moment and does not have time to give every mortal its full attention and hatred.
I wish bigE could get a look at tyrranids as he created the astartes, imaging how much he could have improved them using the genitic knowledge of the hive mind.
Tbh I'm curious if a means to attack the hive-mind directly will occur.
The Imperium is already aware of synapse-link the Hive-Fleets use to communicate and that it can be compromised either by killing the monster or with a strong enough psyker to imprint false information. How if there was a way to implant codes within the nids that would activate once absorbed into the hive mind, actual lasting damage could be done to the tyranids.
(This has been one of their noted weaknesses... the Tyranids are so obsessed with eating biomass they don't actually check what they are eating. The Hive-Fleet that Farsight's Enclave beat was baited into consuming poison that broke them down at a cellular level and the Tyranids couldn't adapt to it, likely because it infected the Norn Queen first.)
@@Makorze I assume the hive mind has a origin point, like a super norn queen, the size of a planet.
@@eiric6958how I understand it is that it’s a gestalt consciousness from all the Nids coalesced into ‘one’ with higher order nids influencing/contributing more. Much like l eusocial insects such as ant or bee colonies (where even queens are following the collective instinctual urges and hormonal signals from drones and workers) but ramped up and psychic
@@gideonmele1556 Having a colossal superbrain does sound pretty useful, so they might have some of those anyway.
That is the most heretical thing I have ever heard. I am not even in the empirical cult, but this offended me.
The very hungry definition of "what's yours is mine" and then some.
I fking love these things conceptually.
People like to think who would win, the Zerg or the tyranids.
I dont want them to fight simply because I know one would win, and the result would be too much to anyone to handle.
The tyranids would provide the zerg with the numbers to actually zerg rush a galaxy, while the zerg would provide the tyranids with
better FTL.
Not to mention the plethora of DNA to spin new warrior breeds.
This is so bad ass, thanks for taking your time to make this!
I love me some bug lore. Never stop never stopping. ❤
Man; In the grim darkness, there is only...War.
Tyranids; In the grim darkness, there is only ...Food.
Love this quote !!
While I'm not a fan of the tyranids, to see you put this much time into this video tells me I need to hear this.
I've only been watching your videos for about a year now but I'm new to the 40k universe. Your videos are incredibly informative and I feel that, like yourself, I'm more intrigued by the novels and lore. With that said, I'm looking for a good book to start with. Would anyone mind making a recommendation?
And could we possibly get a raven guard video if you haven't done one already? Thanks.
It really depends what you're interested in the 40k books are like comic books. You can jump in anywhere.
My beginner recommendations would be
-ciaphas Cain hero of the imperium (if your look for something fun)
-the nightlord trilogy (if you want a story about the bad guys that's super dark)
-the Uriel ventras series (if you want a great straight up space marine story)
-gaunts ghosts series (if your more a fan of human perspective and like military fiction)
-the dark imperium trilogy (if your more interested in the most recent stuff in the timeline)
-the Inquisitor series (my personal favorite. A great smaller story set in the 40k universe, great for people who like detective and/or heist storys or want to know more about the inquisition)
All that said, the main advice I always give is to pick a faction you think looks cool, than look up and grab a book based on them. You'll have more fun if your actually interested in the characters🙂
Hope that helps!
@@weshammer necrons, it is then. Thanks
Oh if you want necrons than read infinite and the Devine for a fun read about trazyn and his rival orikan. Or the twice dead king for a more serious necrons story
I know that ship sailed decades ago, but it still bothers me that GW doesn't understand the difference between evolution, metamorphosis, and expression.
I _do_ think that the Tyranid consumption of biomass rather than colonizing and generating new Tyranids indefinitely suggests that they really are just trying to build numbers and keep moving, which suggests that whatever is following them is _far_ more terrifying.
Crazy fan theory:
The Great Devourer is the 5th C'tan, the Outsider.
He is said to have spent the War in Heaven "consuming" all life he encountered, including his C'tan brethren and to be in his presense would drive any sentient insane (Shadow in the warp?).
When the Necrons turned on the C'tan, shattering three and killing one, the outsider fled the galaxy, never to be seen again.
The Outsider is listed among the C'tan shattered alongside the rest, dozens not just four. You're citing outdated lore. Also, the C'tan are completely material beings and are unable to utilize warp energy. Very much unlike the tyranids which extensively use a warp based presence. The C'tan can influence the minds of mortals, but this is not a warp based ability.
1:21:51 If these aren't THE FIRST WORDS you read/hear when you play a WH40K game where the Nids are the MAIN FACTION THAT YOU PLAY, Imma be mad!
with an intellect like this there isnt much to do but extend it and bring everything together into the harmony of the swarm
Thank You! This! This was what I was asking about! Bringing the game and stories together! Thank you!
I'm an outsider... during my last military orders I worked with two Army Sgt that played regularly... And the boxes and boxes of pieces - were awesome!
Love the work, Wes! Time to pour some good bourbon, perch on the balcony, and drift off into the world of Tyranids 🎉
I still have my Scream Killer Carnifex, the old old one, the lump of resin with scythes on it.
That's one of my favorite models of all time! I kind of want to try and track a few down for paint night with my buddies!
Finally! Me personally I've always had a hard time getting into the tyranids, never really liked them that much but I actually was able to watch this and was interested!
The main problem its that theres no books... realy. But from the last ones we probably will see more intresting things, after all the hive mind can feel stuff. Like getting pissed at the food fighting.
It always cracks me up how the word "inconceivable" is used so much in 40k lol, it is so fitting though.
Somewhere, on an impossibly distant and ancient world in a galaxy long forgotten by the universe, lies the buried remains of a truly alien laboratory.
And a single, broken test tube covered in scratch marks.
I just love that last line "in the Grim darkness of the 41st Millenium; there is only Food" 😆
After listening about hivefleets
It sounds like hive mind is just testing things out for ultimate assult
Which sounds cool, i know this might not be the case but i like to think that hivemind is testing universe for what there is and then with perfected force
They come for feast
Me: i now know of all the horrors in the galaxy.
40k: BUT IM NOT DONE YET!
Tyranids sounds so op until you realize the necrons exist which the tyranids try to avoid.
After watching a bunch of Kurzgesagt videos on the immune system, it's become my view that the best way to think of Tyranids is akin to an intelligence guided immune system
Halfway through this video. I just wanted to add that clearly the inspiration for Tyrannids is the H.R. Gieger monster from the movie Alien, and Gieger was probably inspired by H. Bosch paintings. But, after Gieger came the Marvel X-Men comic where we were introduced to a horrific alien race called the Brood. They closely resemble Alien, but they are winged and intelligent, with a Queen running the show. The Marvel "homage" of Alien is probably where GW got the basic design for Tyrannids. If I'm wrong, please let me know, nerds, I just know you will
You're not *entirely* wrong, but not entirely correct.
The Tyranids as they look now is not what they initially looked like.
See; Starcraft was originally intended to be a Warhammer Product, but GW said "Nah, we don't think that'll be profitable enough for us" so Blizz went off and made their own thing, incorporating some of Geiger's alien design to make the Zerg.
When GW saw how wildly popular it was they decided that to adopt some designs to try and soak up some more money they went and remodeled their Tyranids to look more like the Zerg.
@@RevokFarthisis there any material to look at how they were designed initially?
@@ynpavo Google images.
Just search first edition tyranids.
Tyranids are something between Borgs from Startrek and Xenomorphs. On steroids. And without the weekness of centralized intelligence
Tyranids are only incidentally horrifying.
Dark Eldar would render an entire sector down into fear juice just to hear a particular rival's exquisite scream.
There's no contest!
Otherwise, good stuff.
Well yeah. Even if the Hive Mind is truly sentient, it's still just doing what you would expect an animal to do (feed and spread).
Dark Eldar (as well as most of the other factions to a much lesser degree) are actually malicious.
@@malcire The thing is... from the few things we have seen in material from the hive mind ITS FAR FROM ANIMAL, it feels. Read the blood angels books in teh attack of their planet.
The hive mind its getting pissed.
But dark eldar its the race i totaly would hunt and exterminate, they dont deserve to live.
@@malcire
An interesting thing to think about:
The Nids absorb all the knowledge of the creatures they ingest. Which means they fully well know about compassion, art, charity, romanticism, etc. But the hive mind still deems these traits unnecessary to their prime directive. They understand these concepts better than any single human ever could and yet they have no need for any of it.
Thank you for this Deep Dive it made me love the space bugs even more, I have always been a fan of the Tyranids ever since I discovered them leading me to the rabbit hole known as Warhammer 40k
56:37 if the hive mind is this intelligent, it would make more sense to give the ecosystems she attacks a way to recuperate. This validates the hypothesis that the Tyranids are an old ones' weapon that they unleashed (or escaped) to raze the Galaxy and terraform later.
I’m pretty sure they can’t recuperate if they actually have the time to consume the whole planet
They eat everything and anything you’d need for the ecosystem to bounce back
1 she?
2 the old ones are extinct
3 there is no way the old ones created the tyranids since traveling between galaxy's takes a LONG time even with FTL travel, there's no way they sat around after the war in heaven for millions for years and then randomly decided to create them and the pharos device attracted the tyranids which implies they weren't on a path to the milky way before,halo lore and why would they even create the hive mind
It might be a cool bit of lore if a mad Old One was exiled before the War in Heaven and the Tyranids are their revenge for that exile. They have to be some form of bio-weapon since a consume all species would starve before it could evolve space travel.
@@channelsofash
I assume their space travel came about like something akin to Phaaze from the Metroid Prime series. Essentially a living planet that took chunks of itself and flung them into space to propagate.
It wouldn't actually, the oceans and atmosphere of habitable planets contain vast amounts of essential molecules. The amount of carbon in the ocean far surpasses that in living beings whilst also containing a whole host of other essential atoms.
Considering how they travel having to make an approach through normal space and how long it would take for life to reform (far longer than it would take to clear a sector) it's just more efficient to consume and move on. Eventually through processes like super nova ect the planets will be reformed and life can occur again with atmosphere and oceans. If we talking galactic scale a wait and regrow approach simply isn't energy efficient
Tyranids really be out there like Hungry Hungry Hippos.
The apperence of the biomoon makes me think we may have underestimated the size of the tyranid race.
Rather then each tyranid being a cell in the greater body, it may be that every FLEET is a cell and the biomoon is the nucleus emerging at last..
A biomoon?
@@firesidemike3846I haven't heard of them before either, but it's probably what it sounds like. A moon sized bio-ship like the death star (without the death laser, but it could have something similar, but biological) but just made out of biological matter.
Also if we just keep this thing up it could be that there's like 100s or 1000s of hive fleets 10s and hundreds of bio-moons, so maybe there's one or a few central bio-PLANETS😳 (Or something of similar size) that is like a main hub for many many norn-queens and where the hive mind is the strongest. Like established Tyranid planets.
Brother moons?
@@-AxisA- that be pretty cool
@@firesidemike3846 in the last story of the new rule book, the captin of the raven guard gets a transsmission of a fleet headed towards sanctuary, the world at the center of thebnrw tyramid imvasion.
In the middle of the fleet is a tyranid organism larger then a moon, headed straight for the planet.
Looking at it is the closest the space marine has ever come to feeling Fear..
This is the actual best thing to have opened TH-cam to see
So Wes would you say a terrifying crossover would be if a Tyranid ate a Xenomorph?
Edit: y'all realize I'm not asking for a comparison between the two different types of all consuming creatures but how terrifying a mix of the two would be right?
I think tyranids are leagues beyond a xenomorph
A xenomorph would be manageable with enough artillery but a tyranid Is a whole fucking league of it's own
@@sacredgearTitan: Flood(halo), Space monsters(Gunbuster), Necromorphs(deadspace), Hive(Destiny)
God: Tyranids(40k), Vajra(Macross), Demons(Doom)
Above dragon: Killiks(SW), Q'Orl(40k), Orks(40k)
Dragon: Arachnids(Starship troopers), Rachni(Mass effect), Zerg(Starcraf), Formics(Enders game)
Demon: Mantides(Skyforge), Kir'Ko, Mimics(All you need is kill), Infested(Warframe)
Tiger: Xenomorphs(Aliens), Mutant collicoids(SW), white spikes(Tomorrow war), Locusts(GOW), The blue(Blue gender)
Wolf: Hell bugs(Defiance), Mantisaurs(outerworlds),
I love races like this, Zergs, Slivers, Tyranids, all evolution on steroids and hive minds and my favorite in their game but I can't help but acknowledge they shouldn't look like another of their race.
They are all about efficient killing and being as strong as possible but they for some reason all make sure every single one of their race resembles the base, you look at them and you automatically know they belong to the race when a stealth based one shouldn't look like them at all because it's stealth.
Slivers have the excuse of they don't work exactly like the other two and are basic slivers who gained the ability which is why they look like a sliver, zerg just all look like bugs same with tyranids, they feel more like they are made to invoke fear instead of efficiency which works for games and I do understand that it's mainly because they are games and having a race that can look like a human or a tiger with biological spears and extra legs can cause confusion but idk I wish they looked wild as full combinations of animals mixed with something else because they are something humans have never seen because they killed every last one.
Basically I just wish one of these races looked more diverse seeing as they consume DNA and should look completely different based on what they were made to do.
I think the tyranids are about to do something so catastrophic in the lore, its going to break the galaxy like the great rift
They are reaching the sol system. Not that i can thing they can breach it in the near millenia.
Holy Throne, this was an excellent video. Life me me spread it out over a few days, but I loved this one. Stupendous work, Wes! Thanks so much.
4:38 missed the opportunity for a great line like, "For the Tyranid, in grim darkness of the far future, there is only FOOD"
Keep watching 🙂
39:48 The way you say "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" was, like...the perfect delivery. had me laughing my ass off.
Finally, my favorite faction 🫡
Same!! They are finally being added to Tacticus too. :)
Edit: Ha, and he mentions it in the video. Guess I commented too soon lol.
This goes a long way to explain why they only care about eating. The great devourer's mind is so complex and infinite. They're far beyond the petty squabbles of humanity and any of the other xenos. The only one that might come remotely close is a complete Tzeench.
All I'm going to say Is...I hope they Win
When they win
That means getting stronger
When they getting stronger
That means everyone fcked
The really cool thing about the tyrannids that always keep my interest, is their creation.
They're kinda like chimera's, able to change form and forever evolving. But how did something like this even start to exist? Makes you wonder what the creation/birth of it was even like. Maybe it was an experiment in a distant galaxy that got so out of control it consumed everything, or maybe it was a small organism that slowly made its way of the food chain, eventually consuming things that contain things like physhic powers, weapons, conciense etc. They have so many horrific angles they could take with them, its so sick.
54:35
I have an inkling that this is actually super insideous detailing hinting at how utterly screwed the galaxy is...
Think about it. If Tyranids eat ALL other life in the universe... no more food becomes an actual issue. They'd be stuck each subsisting on each other or dying out. The fact that Tyranids leave enough that Cawl thinks he could "regrow" life on the planet with some help makes me think that said life might eventually germinate over time again on it's own. "Life finds a way", and over the course of billions of years, life begins anew.
Single celled organisms restart the process of evolution, ecosystems slowly start growing again, flora and fauna spring up in the endless cycle of nature.
Perhaps some of them eventually even grow another sentient species. Perhaps they even spread across the galaxy and bring life to other planets...
So, potentially...
The Tyranids are intentionally leaving "seeds" to grow, so they can harvest them again later...
The Milky Way, and potentially the entire universe, is nothing more to them than a field of crops that they reap, sow, and reap again.
And who knows how many times this has happened already... all the races of the Milky Way squabbling with each other about who the galaxy belongs to, not realising they are little more than livestock for a species far beyond their understanding...
It's so... Grimdark... that it kinda just makes sense.
I recently became obsessed with tyranids and the breakdown is epic
55:00 This is a change in Tyranid behaviour. When they first arrived in the galaxy they stripped planets entirely, to the point that planets were noticeably smaller.
They have since adapted and are taking what is quickly available, leaving things behind and generally being less thorough.
The reason for this is that the natives of the galaxy have started destroying planets during the feeding process, and so the Tyranids have reduced their feeding window dramatically, reducing the risk of the feast being spoiled.
If I may make a suggestion for a future video, you should make a reverse Horus heresy video. You have the in depth knowledge, the passion, and appreciation for literary know what’s to give us an amazing story.
Love the deep dives. Want one like this for each faction. Very well done. You got me into more of the lore with this video and I have started my journey into warhammer. Picked up the leviathan box and bunch of supplies to start.
The tyrinids are essentially just Mother Nature’s reaction when she gets pissed off
Ive been building my swarm since the late 90s. The best advice i can give is dont rush your hormagaunts. They move like that to reinforce waves of termis and genestealers.
Every time I see you upload, ever since following you with 15k on tik tok you instantly make my day better and you’re always the first channel i check to see if new uploads. Thanks Wes
@weshamer has there ever been planets or galaxies that withstood the Tyranid invasion?
Yeah a bunch. Baal, homeworld of the blood Angels is probably the most recent famous example
@@weshammer great! Thanks, pal
The Hivemind is just CaseOh in a few tens of thousands of years if he keeps eating
Calgar- "Clever girl."
Nids- "Why does my food speak!"
"It's been about 20 years since I became obsessed" haha, you're old. For me it's only...wait..19 years..my back hurts..
Sadly Wes... my guess is that the High Lords are too busy arguing over something involving bowel movements, the legality of bodily actions, or their caught up in whatever the Fabricator General is vibing about.
Thats why nothing gets done in the imperium.
I love your deep dives into factions. Something I'd like to see you cover is the relationship between necrons and tyranids. Also, you sparked my curiosity about outdated units that don't have a modern equivalent and I'd be interested to see you dive into those units we don't really see or hear about any more from all the factions.
I guess the end game for the galaxy would be a war between Necrons and Tyranids