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Tyranid Hive Fleets


Daren

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I was thinking about this the other day and I wanted to get some other opinions on it. How do you think the Horus Heresy would have been affected had Hive Fleets ( a major incursion on the nids part ) shown up before or even while the heresy was in full swing. Do you think it ould have been delayed or even averted? Anyway I'd be interested to hear some thoughts of people more versed in the lore of 40k.
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If they had arrived before the HH then it might have been delayed or prevented entirely as all the Legions would be fighting a threat that couldn't be just put to the side.

 

Now if they arrived during the HH... humanity would have been a snack for the 'nids. No solid combined defense ready to stop them. Chaos mad driven Primarchs slaughtering their brothers. I'm sure the traitor legions would take advantage of any weakness to the Loyal legions from fighting the 'nids, and likely vice versa. I have no doubts the 'nids would have won the day.

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If we are to think that the Heresy is played out to the tune of Chaos, and they have had some responsibility in what and how events unfurl, then we have to also think that they would have timed it so that Horus could take control of the Imperium for them. However, a hive fleet would easily conquer an Imperium after the battle at the Emperor's palace (really the Imperium, even 10,000 years later, has never returned to its former power) and a galaxy ruled by the hive-mind would not be in the interests of Chaos.

 

Im guessing that the combined forces of the Great Crusade would have utterly smashed an invading hive-fleet (expeically an earlier generation one), and then the insiduous powers of Chaos would have gone to work..

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Horus was rebeling so he could become the Master of mankind,right?

A Nid fleet would pose a serious threat to mankind and therefore,stick with me here,Horus would be forced to fight the Nids off,otherwise hed be master of a Million Dry Husks of planets.

The Nids would not stand a chance against a Legion.

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I think that could be an interesting start for an alternative 40K storyline, where the Nids get into the way of the approaching forces of Loyalists and Traitors, avoiding the Siege of Terra and taking the Heresy to a state of long war instead of the lightning strike it was intended to be. Of course, the Nids would have been utterly smashed but...Imagine what the Hive Mind could do if one of the Primarchs would fall and its pure genetic material used to create...something?
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The Nids would not stand a chance against a Legion.

You're joking, right?

Not to sound like a heretic, but it's exactly the opposite - a Legion wouldn't stand a chance against the Tyranids.

 

 

The Tyranid invasion of Macragge was taken out by 3 companies (one being the mostly dead 1st company). That's 300 marines (most likely a lot less if you count the first company casualties), which at the time of the Heresy wasn't even considered a large enough amount of marines to fight a battle (Emperor's Children fighting with Luna Wolves due to accident).

 

According to the Horus Heresy Collected Visions, a Space Marine Legion was around a hundred thousand, with the Ultramarines being the largest with 250,000. Now I'm gonna assume this is an exaggeration, although I don't know of any other fluff where a number is stated so you could interpret it as fact.

 

Even a tenth of a Legion would have 30 times as many Marines as the Ultramarines did at Macragge, not including any Imperial Army/Titan auxilliary forces.

 

Granted you could claim that it was only a first encounter tendril, but I still think the point is valid. There's a reason the majority of the Galaxy was under the Emperor's rule before the Heresy.

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Oh, I thought he meant the Tyranids as a whole.

A lot of people have speculations that the Tyranids have eaten almost every galaxy, and the Hive Fleets they've sent are just scouting parties.

Hell, if that inquisitor dude and the deathwatch didn't redirect the Tyranids of Leviathen to Charadon, Terra would've fallen.

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How cool would a show down between all the Legions and all the Hive Fleets?Thats what Apocalypse was made from.

Intresting side note,What if one if not both of the lost legions were sent out into the edge of the Galaxy and came across the very 1st Tyranid Hive Fleet.That would be sweet.

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The Tyranid invasion of Macragge was taken out by 3 companies (one being the mostly dead 1st company). That's 300 marines (most likely a lot less if you count the first company casualties), which at the time of the Heresy wasn't even considered a large enough amount of marines to fight a battle (Emperor's Children fighting with Luna Wolves due to accident).

 

Plus the Macragge Defence Auxilia, the Titans of Legio Praetor, the Prandium Expeditionary Force (almost entirely wiped out), the Ultramarines fleet (heavy damage) and Battlefleet Bakka (almost wiped out, Tyranid fleet only destroyed due to flagship Dominus Astra charging into their lines and blowing the warp drives, dragging the Tyranids into the warp).

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The Tyranid invasion of Macragge was taken out by 3 companies (one being the mostly dead 1st company). That's 300 marines (most likely a lot less if you count the first company casualties), which at the time of the Heresy wasn't even considered a large enough amount of marines to fight a battle (Emperor's Children fighting with Luna Wolves due to accident).

 

Plus the Macragge Defence Auxilia, the Titans of Legio Praetor, the Prandium Expeditionary Force (almost entirely wiped out), the Ultramarines fleet (heavy damage) and Battlefleet Bakka (almost wiped out, Tyranid fleet only destroyed due to flagship Dominus Astra charging into their lines and blowing the warp drives, dragging the Tyranids into the warp).

 

All of this would be pretty inconsequential when compared to even the smallest of legions pre-heresy though (depending on what you decide is canon, anything from 10,000 marines to 250,000 'combatants').

 

I guess whats not made clear is the speed at which the tyranids move through space - even though the hive mind has prescence within the warp, I don't believe its mentioned anywhere that they use the warp for travel, or have some other form of faster than light travel. Sub-light speeds travelling the distance between galaxies, the Nids must have begun their voyage before life had progressed much beyond single-celled organisms on earth, let alone human beings existed (taking the distance between galaxies to be around 50 times the size of the milky way). What it does paint a pretty good example of though is how painfully slow the Imperium is to react to threats - once the first planet (or system) has fallen to the nids, you would think they would have more than enough time to have an entire army waiting upon fortified worlds within the next star system in their path.

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All of this would be pretty inconsequential when compared to even the smallest of legions pre-heresy though (depending on what you decide is canon, anything from 10,000 marines to 250,000 'combatants').

 

But it still certainly wasn't 300 Marines taking down Hive Fleet Behemoth. ^_^

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All of this would be pretty inconsequential when compared to even the smallest of legions pre-heresy though (depending on what you decide is canon, anything from 10,000 marines to 250,000 'combatants').

 

But it still certainly wasn't 300 Marines taking down Hive Fleet Behemoth. :(

 

I admit, I forgot to add that in, but it's not like the Legions fought alone either and they probably had more support in every way except possibly Imperial Army/Guard.

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Just to clarify I was referring to a large number of Hive Fleets.

Oh, then you are coockoo for coco pops :devil:

Seriously, though - a legion wouldn't be able to go against a large number of hive fleets and win - space marines are good, but not that good :rolleyes:

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If the Nids attacked during the Great Crusade, I think it would have been marked up as "Just another Dangerous Xenos", and treated as such. Even if the Nids hit harder, with more fleets, the Imperium would probably just re-orient the Crusade to expand further east as well, and maybe establish Cadian Gate-style defenses.

 

The final reason why nids would do less damage: Assault Cannon wielding Long Fangs :cuss

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The fact is that during the great crusade, the armies of the Emperor and the marine legions would have minced anything and everything that got in their way, and did so with great gusto.

 

Thats the whole mindset behind 40k - those days are gone, the armies are a shadow of their former selves, the far reaching enlightenment of its plans for society and its science has been replaced by a psuedo-religious dogma, and all in all the Imperium has been on a 10,000 year decline and is heading for its final resting place. (or 'grimdark' for short ;) )

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If it happened before the heresy, I would think the traitorlegions would be too busy fighting the nids to even think of chaos. The bearers would be too busy fighting them off to think of gods to worship. Though Magnus would still have tried to use the warp tp fight the nids and would still piss off the Emperor.
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Not to mention the expeditionary fleets sound like they were alot bigger than what the imperium has to fight off the tyranids now, with thier fleets being spread thing across the galaxy and what not. The bigger fleets would probably have made fighting the nids alot easier.
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