vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Hive Fleet Hydra - Notable Campaigns: The Hydra Stirs (Unknown Date.M41) - Drukhari of the Poisoned Fang Kabal encounter the still-dormant Hive Fleet Hydra. Instead of destroying it, the Kabalites board the largest bio-vessels, intent on bringing specimens back to the Haemonculi. However, they are unprepared for the rate at which the bio-ships awaken. Every Dark Eldar pirate that sets foot inside one of the vessels is killed, butchered by a tide of rapidly spawned Tyranids. Those Drukhari still aboard their vessels attempt to escape, but for every drone ship they destroy two more take its place. Prematurely awakened from its slumber, Hive Fleet Hydra accelerates its advance into the galaxy to slake its hunger.A Grim Analysis (Unknown Date.M41) - Magos Xenobiologis Echros Van-Zendrech leads several survey ships to the Locis System, where Hive Fleet Hydra is in the final stages of devouring the Mining World of Korstock. Van-Zendrech watches the consumption of the civilian population with keen interest, noting Hive Fleet Hydra's unique attack patterns.The Hunters Hunted (Unknown Date.M41) - A strike force of White Scars hunts the Hydra across the sand dunes of Haadekh. Veterans of countless xenos wars, the Space Marines know that the best method of fighting Tyranids is to cut the head from the beast, sending the swarm into confusion. However, each synapse creature the White Scars slay sends out a psychic scream, attracting fresh swarms of Tyranids to their location. Soon they are surrounded. Warriors to the end, the White Scars sell their lives dearly. Their sacrifice draws Hydra's swarms away from Haadekh's equatorial cities, giving the Imperium time to evacuate key personnel.Triumph To Disaster (Unknown Date.M41) - After solar months of campaigning, the armies of Lord General Syvar Daeus turn back a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan from the borders of the Corilanus System. In his honour a great Imperial Triumph is held on the planet of Ollfyre. Just as Daeus' legions reach the Plaza of Fallen Heroes, shadows begin to fall across the millions of onlookers. Looking up, the terrified populace sees its doom approaching -- countless spores darken the skies, and beyond that vast, organic shapes drift into orbit, blocking the light from Corilanus' binary suns. The Hydra has come, drawn by the death throes of its defeated kin.
Hive Fleet Hydra - Traits: Hive Fleet Hydra's prodigious generative capability stretches to the very least of its bio-organisms. Even lowly slimer maggots possess the capability to multiply with terrifying speed, infesting the flesh of their victims.The bioforms of Hive Fleet Hydra have purple and black carapaces.
Hive Fleet Kraken - Hive Fleet Kraken: Hive Fleet Kraken was the second major Tyranid hive fleet to invade the galaxy. It was responsible for the outbreak of the Second Tyrannic War, which began officially in 992.M41 with the loss of thousands of Imperial worlds to the Great Devourer.The Second Tyrannic War ended only after the Ultramarines Chapter of Space Marines successfully broke the back of the Tyranid invasion in Imperial space at the Battle of Ichar IV and the Craftworld Aeldari of Iyanden successfully defended their home, at great cost, against the Tyranid horde.However the Kraken was a massive hive fleet from which multiple splinter fleets broke off to continue to threaten the Imperium to the present day.
Hive Fleet Kraken - History: The invasion began 250 Terran years after the First Tyrannic War and the destruction of Hive Fleet Behemoth by the Ultramarines and the Imperial Navy at the Battle of Macragge in 745.M41. An armed presence had been maintained in the galactic southeast, which officials of the Imperium's Adeptus Administratum began to question the need for, arguing that Behemoth had been the sum total of the Tyranid species' expansion into the Milky Way Galaxy.When worlds along the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy began to erupt in rebellion, terrorism, riots and sabotage, the same Adepts claimed the people were dissatisfied with living amid an armed camp.The Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus became suspicious of the Adepts' dissent and their downplaying of the situation on the Eastern Fringes, and began an investigation, which established that all of the dissenting Adepts had either come from the southeastern region of the galaxy or had travelled there at some time.This was the only link between the members that could be found, and some had never even met each other. Inquisitors were also deployed from Talasa Prime to investigate the planets of the Ultima Segmentum that were most troubled.Purges were made within the Imperium, especially on Terra, focused on suspected traitors to the Emperor within the Administratum who had had contact with the afflicted regions of the Eastern Fringe. Tens of thousands of suspected traitors were sent to prison colonies and the Astra Militarum's Penal Legions by the Inquisition.Yet, by early 990.M41, Hive Fleet Kraken had already sunk its tendrils into the galaxy, isolating many Imperial worlds before any astropathic warnings could be sent. Hive Fleet Behemoth had fought in a single wave that had advanced across the galaxy as a single organism, but the Kraken was actually a series of smaller, separate Tyranid hive fleets that moved to attack many Human-settled planets simultaneously.This not only increased the difficulty for the Imperium's defenders in opposing the hive fleet, but also increased the area of the Hive Mind's psychic Shadow in the Warp tenfold.Almost overnight, an entire Imperial sector was silenced from Terra, isolated from astropaths' messages of warning by the potent power of the Hive Mind. Only several solar months after Hive Fleet Kraken's onslaught had already begun did the first few survivors' accounts of the attacks begin to reach the wider Imperium due to the terrible turbulence in the Warp. Whole planets had been wiped out by the Tyranids in only a few hours and the Imperium of Man once more faced an unimaginable threat.
Hive Fleet Kraken - Battle of Ichar IV: Fortunately for Humanity, Hive Fleet Kraken did not remain divided into separate tendrils indefinitely and eventually began to coalesce into a single, massive swarm on Ichar IV, the Hive World whose large Genestealer Cult infestation had been the initial harbinger of the Kraken's arrival in the Milky Way Galaxy.As the Tyranids approached the planet, thousands of Genestealers and the hybrid offspring of The Brotherhood suddenly burst from the underhives in support of the invading xenos, giving the lie to claims that the alien infestation had been entirely purged years earlier.Defence perimeters were completely overrun, Astra Militarum troops slain by the thousands. In the terrible confusion, an ever larger number of Tyranid organisms made planetfall -- not only the Termagants and Gargoyles that had composed the vanguard of the prior assaults, but the truly monstrous Carnifexes and Tyrannofexes as well. Worse still, gigantic Hierodule and Hierophant Bio-Titans stalked across the surface of the beleaguered world. The Tyranids had unleashed on Ichar IV every terrible organic weapon in their arsenal.Despite all this, Ichar IV was not yet lost to Humanity. Forewarned of Tyranid interest in the world by the previous Genestealer Cult infestation, the Imperium was able to mount a more solid defence in the Ichar System than in the other areas of the Eastern Fringes under assault by Hive Fleet Kraken.Chapter Master Marneus Calgar, the Lord of Ultramar and hero of the First Tyrannic War, led the Ultramarines into battle against their old foe on Ichar IV just as he had against Hive Fleet Behemoth on Macragge 200 Terran years earlier. The Ultramarines inflicted crushing losses on the Tyranid armada in space above the planet and in the claustrophobic corridors of the towering Icharran hive cities.Space Marine Tyrannic War Veterans of the First Tyrannic War made planetfall and scoured Ichar IV's hives in a series of close-quarter battles that lasted for close to a full Terran year. By employing the same tactics that had proved successful in defeating Hive Fleet Behemoth in Ultramar two centuries earlier, Marneus Calgar rallied the Imperial defenders of Ichar IV and cast the Tyranids from that planet forevermore.But as always, victory against the Tyranids had come at a terrible price -- Ichar IV was reduced to a smoking charnel house of death and destruction, a world and its people sacrificed so that the Imperium of Man might endure yet another storm.
Hive Fleet Kraken - Battle of Radnar: The Justus Regiments are regiments of the Astra Militarum raised on the Civilised World of Justus. Collectively known as the "Emperor's Shield," these regiments are known to be highly-decorated. Following fighting against the Tyranids from Hive Fleet Kraken on Ichar IV, Imperial forces, including a Justus Regiment, were redeployed to the nearby Hive World of Radnar.The area around Jourmall Hive was filled with Tyranid nests. Imperial forces surrounded Jourmall Hive and a six-solar-week bombardment was commenced.The Emperor's Shield Regiment massed its armoured company, which included Hellhounds and flamer-equipped Leman Russ Demolishers. The tanks, in close formation, destroyed the nests and killed any Tyranids that emerged, eventually shattering their link to the Hive Mind. The remaining Tyranids were herded to the far side of the hive site and easily destroyed.
Hive Fleet Kraken - Defeat of the Kraken: Hive Fleet Kraken was little more than splintered fragments of its former might, yet credit could not lie entirely with the Asuryani defenders of Craftworld Iyanden nor the actions of the Ultramarines on Ichar IV. The Craftworld Aeldari and the Imperium had fought as unwitting allies -- had the Kraken not struck Iyanden, the Ultramarines' victory at Ichar IV would have been impossible and vice versa. Had either Ichar IV or Iyanden fallen, the Kraken would have proven unstoppable.The scattered remnants of the Tyranid attack on Ichar IV fled towards the galactic core, driving within the Imperial defence perimeters that had been erected against Hive Fleet Kraken. These splinter fleets became an even greater threat to the Imperium as they fed upon unsuspecting and poorly defended worlds far from the main Tyrannic war zones in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy.Running battles with these Kraken splinter fleets continued for many years after the hive fleet's passage, draining Imperial defences against later Tyranid incursions. It is doubtful if the true extent of the devastation wrought by the Kraken will ever be known to the Adepts of the Administratum.The splinter fleets are comprised by as few as a dozen Hive Ships, but even a dozen of these living vessels are more than capable of overrunning a human world and harvesting its biomass so that it may become an even greater threat. Some Kraken splinter fleets have become so large through this method as to be classified by the Imperium as a new, distinct hive fleet of its own. Indeed, Hive Fleet Magalodon grew from one of the splinters of the Kraken and continues to ravage portions of the Imperium in the present.With no doubt, the Tyranids as a whole have learned much about the Imperium's inner defences from the actions of these splinter fleets. Every battle the Tyranids engage in, regardless of the outcome, adds to the Hive Mind's growing understanding of its new prey's behaviour and tactics.It may perhaps have been the true reason for Hive Fleet Kraken's existence -- to test Imperial defenses for the far larger Tyranid invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy that is to come. If such strategic brilliance is a hallmark of the Hive Mind, then humanity, indeed all the intelligent races of the galaxy, have much to fear in the coming days.The Imperium barely had time to breathe following the end of the Second Tyrannic War before it learned that both Hive Fleets Behemoth and Kraken had been little more than reconnaissance forces for the true threat to the very existence of humanity -- the arrival of Hive Fleet Leviathan in 997.M41.
Hive Fleet Kronos - Hive Fleet Kronos: Hive Fleet Kronos is a minor Tyranid hive fleet splintered off from Hive Fleet Leviathan in the Era Indomitus and adapted by the Hive Mind specifically to battle the forces of Chaos in an attempt to maintain the viability of the Milky Way Galaxy's biomass for consumption and prevent it from being corrupted by the Warp.Where the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kronos travels, the Shadow in the Warp is at its most suffocatingly powerful. So strong is the psychic connection between Kronos and the Hive Mind, that a stifling aura of null power drifts ahead of its invasion swarms, agonising psychically active foes and draining their spiritual energy to bolster its own hosts.Even as this phenomena throws the enemy into fearful confusion, thousands upon thousands of warrior-forms advance, unleashing a storm of organic missiles; Kronos avoids engaging its prey at close range when possible, for the prey it hunts revels in brutal close-quarters fighting, and thus a ranged kill is a more efficient method of extermination.The raw matter of Chaos is anathema to the Tyranids, for it is inconstant and ethereal, possessing none of the nourishment that the hive fleets require to sate their endless hunger.Thus, the Tyranids -- when possible -- avoid areas plagued by Warp storms and Daemonic activity. As the impure essence of the Immaterium pours into realspace across the galaxy in the wake of the Great Rift's birth in the Era Indomitus, this is becoming increasingly difficult.Vital resources are being denied to the hive fleets as entire sectors are consumed by Chaos, and the Hive Mind has been forced to react to a looming catastrophe. Hive Fleet Kronos appears to be the Hive Mind's first solution. This new terror is tracing a coreward path along the line of the Great Rift. Tendrils of Hive Fleet Leviathan have diverted from their original course, leaving behind defenceless worlds for Kronos to consume. It uses such offerings well.The nascent hive fleet appears to be zeroing in on areas of intense psychic activity that threaten to tear the breach between realities wider.Scores of planets conquered by Chaos-worshipping cultists and Warp-spawned abominations have fallen in its path, and Kronos has obliterated them all, like a maggot eating the corruption from an infected wound.
Hive Fleet Kronos - History: Psykers, Chaos worshippers and creatures of the Warp are the favoured quarry of Hive Fleet Kronos. The organisms spawned by its bio-ships are perfectly designed to eradicate the taint of the Immaterium.
Hive Fleet Kronos - Notable Campaigns: Battle of The Wolf's Head (Unknown Date.M42) - An Imperial Navy fleet under the command of Admiral Groesson is engaging a massive Chaos Warfleet at the Wolf's Head Nebula when scores of Tyranid bio-ships enter the battle. Ignoring the Imperial ships, the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Kronos smash their way into the Chaos formation, swarming over the colossal Despoiler-class Battleship at its centre. Not questioning his good fortune, Groesson unleashes a final salvo and orders the retreat.Second Battle of Shadowbrink (Unknown Date.M42) - The world of Shadowbrink, where Hive Fleet Leviathan once defeated a vast Daemonic force, erupts with Chaos energy as the Great Rift spreads its influence, and Daemons once again walk upon its surface. Drawn by Shadowbrink's malevolent psychic aura, Hive Fleet Kronos arrives in orbit above the world. The Hive Mind deposits spores and swarms of organisms at eight points across the planet's surface, areas of heightened Warp activity that are growing stronger with every passing moment. A neural node of Maleceptors and Zoanthropes leads each Tyranid host, and around these psychic organisms the Shadow in the Warp reaches such intensity that the wounds in reality begin to close. Khorne's Daemonic legions storm towards the Tyranids, but Hive Fleet Kronos refuses to answer the charge. Instead, the Daemons are met with a storm of Fleshborer fire, and Tyranid artillery beasts blast apart thousands of Warp-spawned horrors. Slowly but inevitably, the Daemons upon Shadowbrink are banished to the Warp.Spoiled Feast (Unknown Date.M42) - Hive Fleet Kronos pauses its inexorable momentum to devour a chain of pre-digested worlds left behind by Hive Fleet Leviathan. The rancid gruel that remains has rotted and spoiled, but the Capillary Towers and ridged proboscises of Kronos' bio-ships devour it all the same.Cutting The Signal (Unknown Date.M42) - A tendril of Hive Fleet Kronos converges upon an intense astropathic beacon that a hunting pack of Night Lords Heretic Astartes have been using to bait lost voidships. The Heretic Astartes scatter and launch harrying attacks against the Tyranids, hoping to redirect the larger hive fleet. In turn, Kronos disperses its bio-vessels, laying traps of its own. Unable to lure the Tyranids away from the tortured astropaths that are broadcasting their siren signal, the Night Lords are forced to retreat.
Hive Fleet Kronos - Traits: Hive Fleet Kronos is a Tyranid hive fleet that frequently clashes with Daemons and Chaos-corrupted prey. As such, Kronos is well-adapted to slaying its targets from afar.Its invasion swarms often include vast Termagant broods directed by Tyranid Warriors armed with long-range Bio-Cannons.Hive Fleet Kronos bioforms possess red and black carapaces.
Hive Fleet Leviathan - Hive Fleet Leviathan: Hive Fleet Leviathan was the third and largest Tyranid hive fleet to invade the Milky Way Galaxy from beyond the intergalactic void. It first arrived in 997.M41 and its assault marked the start of the Third Tyrannic War for the Imperium of Man. This conflict was brought to a brief pause through the efforts of Inquisitor Lord Fidus Kryptman of the Ordo Xenos, who successfully diverted a large portion of the hive fleet into an assault upon the Ork Empire of Octarius in the Octarius System.The crowded Greenskin cities, so teeming with life, were the source of a huge Orkoid infestation, and soon drew almost the entirety of the Leviathan into the tight cluster of star systems that comprised that Ork Empire. The plan worked, and both xenos species were soon more preoccupied with destroying each other in what became known as the Octarius War than continuing their attack on Imperial space.Additionally, another tendril of the Leviathan was defeated by the Blood Angels Chapter and their successors among the Sanguinary Brotherhood of the Adeptus Astartes at the Battle of Baal during the early Era Indomitus, aided by an unexpected assist from the Daemonic Blood Legions of Khorne under the command of the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha.In the wake of these defeats and delaying actions, the Leviathan's Hive Mind altered its strategic approach and moved against the weakened Imperial defences in the more remote regions of the Segmentum Pacificus in the galactic west while Imperial forces under the command of Primarch Roboute Guilliman were preoccupied with the prosecution of the Indomitus Crusade in the Segmentum Solar and the Segmentum Ultima of the Imperium Sanctus.This new assault, divided up between massive tendrils of the Leviathan codenamed Hive Fleet Grendyllus, Hive Fleet Nautilon and Hive Fleet Promethor, marked the onset of what Imperial historitors named the Fourth Tyrannic War.
Hive Fleet Leviathan - Fourth Tyrannic War: The Fourth Tyrannic War began in the Era Indomitus, when the largest mass of Hive Fleet Leviathan yet encountered attacked the Western Reaches of the Segmentum Pacificus, seeking to strike at a relatively undefended region of the galaxy while the defenders of the Imperium were otherwise engaged with the forces of Chaos emanating out of the Great Rift.The great Tyranid assault began with the coordinated attack from above and below the galactic plane by three new tendrils of the Leviathan dubbed Hive Fleet Nautilon, Hive Fleet Promethor, and Hive Fleet Grendyllus, respectively, by the Imperium. The two tendrils were moving in parallel towards their ultimate goal of Terra in the Segmentum Solar, and with the Imperium distracted by the ongoing demands of the Indomitus Crusade few Human forces initially were available to stand against it.
Hive Fleet Leviathan - Hive Fleet Appearance: The bioforms of Hive Fleet Leviathan all bear a distinct colour scheme of white skin with purple carapaces, and usually red weapon biomorphs.
Hive Fleet Ouroboris - Hive Fleet Ouroboris: Hive Fleet Ouroboris is a Tyranid hive fleet that may have been the first true Tyranids ever encountered by the Imperium of Man, with reports of xenos creatures matching their description encountered at some point prior to the report first made in the 36th Millennium.Hive Fleet Ouroboris is a nightmare from legend, a shadow from the stars that swoops from above on bat-like wings to devour its terrified prey. Death comes swiftly for those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the hive fleet's path, for Ouroboris strikes with blinding speed, cutting the heart from its victims before they even realise their doom.There are some who believe that Hive Fleet Ouroboris was the very first Tyranid fleet to encounter Mankind. These theorists cite the ancient histories of Cardinal Miriamulus the Elder, who in the early 36th Millenium wrote of a nightmarish legion of "winged entities, aflame with infernal ague," which savaged the Helican Sector in an earlier age, thousands of standard years before.Relics hailing from that distant time bear distinctive bio-plasma scarring now recognised as consistent with Tyranid weaponry, and tales of flocks of winged horrors are certainly also consistent with Hive Fleet Ouroboris' typical predatory behaviour. Among these relics was a later analysis of the Warlord-class Titan Mechanica Cranus, a veteran of the so-called "Ouroboris Wars," which revealed distinctive bio-plasma scarring and pyro-acid burns that match current Tyranid Biomorphs. It is also believed that the Space Wolves possess trophies of that conflict, very similar to Tyranid lifeforms, such as the artefact the Fenrisians name the "Kraken's Egg."Cardinal Miriamulus attributed the Emperor Himself with leading a crusade that caused the Beasts of Ouroboris to fall upon themselves, culminating in a mighty twelve-solar-day-long battle over a Warp rift dangerously close to the Eye of Terror. However, augur-dating techniques place the battle damage sustained by the Titan Mechanica Cranus as occurring after the Horus Heresy, making the Emperor's physical presence at the battle extremely unlikely.It is now impossible to prove any direct connection, but recent Imperial encounters with the hive fleet designated Ouroboris have uncovered disturbing echoes of those old legends. Ouroboris favours massed aerial assaults, filling the air with so many Gargoyles and Harpies that those below must fight in near-dark. It strikes swiftly, honing in upon areas of strategic value with unerring accuracy. By slaughtering officers and destroying communications outposts, Ouroboris tears the eyes from its prey, leaving them confused and vulnerable.Yet perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the hive fleet is its strange, primordial biology. Encounters with Ouroboris have revealed that the organisms spawned by this hive fleet contain cruder, more primitive versions of common Tyranid bio-weapons and organs. Unfortunately, these strange mutations have rendered many Imperial weapons and tactics designed to counter the Tyranid menace largely ineffective against the sky-swarms of Ouroboris.
Hive Fleet Ouroboris - History: Hive Fleet Ouroboris' primitive morphology compared to the other encountered hive fleets bears an uncanny resemblance to the creatures recounted in a legend from the Imperium's dark past. Recent atrocities have only exacerbated its fell reputation.
Hive Fleet Ouroboris - Notable Campaigns: Legion of Ouroboris (Unknown Date) - In the 36th Millennium, Cardinal Miriamulus the Elder of Thracian Primaris recorded the history of the "Legion of Ouroboris," a vast host of winged xenos that descended upon the sector and stripped the life from dozens of planets in an earlier age millennia before. According to the cardinal's account, a grand Imperial Crusade finally defeated these creatures in a twelve-solar-day battle on the edge of the Eye of Terror.Shadow from the Stars (Unknown Date.M41) - Thousands of standard years after the death of Cardinal Miriamulus, a chain of populated worlds bordering the Thracian Sector suddenly ceased communications with the wider Imperium. The Imperial fleets sent to investigate report back that every scrap of biomass on these planets has disappeared. Myths begin to spread on the remaining worlds of the sector, tales of a shadow from the stars that descends to devour the souls of the innocent.Ouroboris Rises (Unknown Date.M41) - A previously unrecorded Tyranid hive fleet invaded the Thracian Sector. The Imperium designates this new threat Hive Fleet Ouroboris, a name taken from the ancient records.Fate of the Swarm Crushers (Unknown Date.M41) - A detachment of the Astra Militarum's Cadian 14th, known as the "Swarm Crushers" due to their storied exploits during the Second Tyrannic War, is sent to wipe out a tendril of Ouroboris that threatens the Desert World of Shukra. Drilled in the most efficient methods of slaying Tyranids, morale is high amongst the Cadians as they engage the first swarms. Confidence swiftly turns to panic as the Cadians' tactics have little or no impact upon these xenos. Pinpoint shots that should have ruptured vital organs have almost no effect, while salvoes of airburst shells filled with anti-Tyranid chemicals merely provide cover for the swarm. Stunned by the ineffectiveness of their defence, which is based on the experience gained during prior Imperial campaigns against the Great Devourer, the Cadians nevertheless sell their lives dearly before they are devoured.The Sky Hunters (Unknown Date.M42) - The Silver Drakes, a Primaris Space Marine Chapter raised during the Ultima Founding, are tasked with turning back Hive Fleet Ouroboris. Their Inceptor Squads cut a swathe through the hive fleet's sky-swarms, hunting the immense winged monsters at their heart. Though the Silver Drakes' tactics are effective, their numbers are few. Isolated and outnumbered, the Chapter digs in for a bloody running war.
Hive Fleet Ouroboris - Traits: Bio-weapons spawned by Hive Fleet Ouroboris give off a soft, lambent glow. This unique phenomenon results in an unsettling haze of witch-light that surrounds its hosts in battle.Hive Fleet Ouroboris bioforms possess blue and black carapaces.
Hive Fleet Ouroboris - Canon Conflicts: The 4th Edition Codex: Tyranids states that Hive Fleet Ouroboris may have arrived in the galaxy within the Eye of Terror ahead of the other Tyranid hive fleets traversing the intergalactic void as the result of unstable currents in the Warp.However, the 5th Edition Codex: Tyranids altered the canon to explain that the Tyranids are not capable of using the Warp for FTL travel, as they were in earlier sources.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - Hive Fleet Tiamet: Hive Fleet Tiamet is a minor Tyranid hive fleet that first entered the Milky Way Galaxy no later than the 35th Millennium in what may have been a probe to survey the Hive Mind's next major target ahead of the main Tyranid fleets' arrival in the 41st Millennium.Named after the Tiamet System in which it was first encountered, Hive Fleet Tiamet is a unique phenomenon: a Tyranid incursion fleet which has claimed a cluster of planets without entirely stripping them of biomass.Its primary base of operations in the system is the Jungle World of Ziaphoria, the surface of which it has begun to tyrannoform into some type of biomechanical psychic resonator whose purpose remains unknown and worrisome to the Ordo Xenos of the Inquisition.The hive fleet continues to guard its conquered territory with single-minded ferocity.Only the Deathwatch Space Marines of the nearby Watch Fortress Haltmoat -- and Inquisitor Fidus Kryptman, who came out of his long exile to join them -- had any inkling of the threat posed by the immense psychic resonator of Tiamet.The theories they discussed long into the night were so wild, and the other threats facing the Imperium in the Era Indomitus so dire, that they were given little credence by the wider Inquisition.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - First Contact: Tiamet was the name given to a large, double binary star system on the Eastern Fringe discovered in the 35th Millennium by an Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet hailing from the Forge World of Triplex Phall.The Tiamet System was remarkable in that it contained no less than seven large life-sustaining worlds and a host of lesser planetoids. The Explorators discovered to their cost that every biosphere in the system was a Death World of the most voracious kind.Whether the prevailing climate was jungle, ice or desert, or even airless rocks, a host of dangerous life forms swarmed, multiplied and warred on each other with an uncanny intelligence which united them against Man's intrusion with deadly results.Xenologists eventually determined that the life all over the system shared a common genetic ancestry and had developed various ways to get from world to world to seed new territory.Realising their own craft would be contaminated from entering the system by now, the Explorators quarantined themselves in the Tiamet System. They were to survive and report for another hundred and sixty-two solar hours before succumbing to the lethal denizens of that fecund realm.Tiamet was systematically fusion bombed on several occasions by Imperial vessels but life was never extinguished there; it now lies within the area swept over by Hive Fleet Kraken and as such its fate is unknown.Most theories about Hive Fleet Tiamet place it as an implant-probe, believing that some kind of Tyranid genetic seed, possibly molecular-coded DNA, is responsible.By some means (perhaps cosmic debris or solar winds) the Tyranid seed was introduced to the system and spread of its own accord to form its own rudimentary Hive Mind and predatory ecosystem.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - Horror on Ziaphoria: The Tiamet System then went largely undisturbed for the next few thousand standard years. It was only when a small force of Aeldari Rangers from Craftworld Iyanden happened upon the isolated system that a troubling secret was discovered.Upon nearing the largest planet in the system -- the Jungle World of Ziaphoria -- the Rangers discovered a continent-spanning organic construct, a conical super-structure formed of chitin and soft, encephalic flesh that thrummed with immense psychic energy.The Shadow in the Warp was horrifically strong here, and several of the Asuryani went into convulsions upon nearing the super-structure, their minds sent into shock by the sheer force of Hive Fleet Tiamet's nullifying aura.What purpose this bizarre device serves is yet unknown, but for the Hive Mind to devote an entire fleet to its protection is a worrying portent. Ordo Xenos Inquisitors have theorised it may be a powerful psychic beacon, guiding yet more Tyranid hive fleets into the galaxy.In recent years, sightings of questing Tiamet tendrils have become worryingly common, as the hive fleet seeks fresh yields of biomass with which to finish its creation. For instance, in 998.M41, remnants of Hive Fleet Tiamet were confirmed to be in the Segmentum Obscurus, although there is no information of how they got from the Eastern Fringe to there.These hosts have proven extremely difficult to kill, shrugging off volumes of fire that should have seen them utterly obliterated.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - Choir of the Void: Upon the world of Heinrich's March, worshippers of the Dark Gods work their tortured slaves to death as they attempt to erect a monolithic ziggurat in honour of their foul patrons.In time, a new and hidden cult propagated amidst the persecuted masses: the Choir of the Void. Its leader, the blind prophet known only as "the Conduit," preached that a saviour race from beyond the stars awaited them in a far-off place, a paradise planet where they would find salvation.In a great uprising, millions of Human slaves overwhelmed their dark masters and commandeered several dozen cargo hulks. This armada of the faithful made for the nearby Tiamet System, guided by the visions of the Conduit.In truth, Ziaphoria, the repugnant and anomalous Jungle World claimed by Hive Fleet Tiamet in the system, had become the site of a disturbing new development in the curse of tyrannoforming, the hyper-accelerated biological process that is used to overcome and devour the prey worlds of the Hive Mind.There the conquering hive fleet constructed vast psychic resonators of fleshy, encephalitic material -- some the size of mountains, some large enough to cover entire continents.The vast pilgrimage of Genestealer Cultists that had set out from the nearby planet of Heinrich's March eventually landed upon Ziaphoria's pulsating crust.Those who touched the corrupted earth with their bare flesh were instantly brought in thrall to the Hive Mind of Tiamet -- and convinced their brethren to go back into space as missionaries, carrying the Creed of Tiamet to as many Imperial worlds as possible.They were the first of dozens of interstellar pilgrimages that sought out Ziaphoria, and in doing so, added to its power.The Tyranids of Hive Fleet Tiamet defended the planet so ferociously it was declared Quarantine Extremis and abandoned entirely by the Imperium.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - A Nightmare Unearthed: As time passed, more and more reports of missing Imperial starships and lost fleets in the region drifted in to the Deathwatch's watch fortress Haltmoat. The common denominator in each of these cases was that the vessels were last reported in the vicinity of the Tiamet System, far from safehaven.Watch Commander Vilnus ordered an immediate survey of the area.Kill Team Gjunheim departed from Haltmoat to investigate the reports of missing trade fleets near the Tiamet System. The Deathwatch driftedin-system unnoticed, and landed upon Ziaphoria.There, they discovered the biomechanical xenos super-structure that covered the planet's largest continent. When this vast device pulsed, sending a tsunami of psychic energy rolling across the planet, the kill-team's Librarian suffered a catastrophic cranial rupture.His screams alerted nearby Tyranids, and soon the remaining battle-brothers were surrounded by swarming xenos. Before he and his remaining battle-brothers were torn apart, Watch Sergeant Gjunheim managed to send one final vox transmission to the team's orbiting Corvus Blackstar, warning of the nightmare his warriors had uncovered.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - Kryptman Returns: In the wake of these events, watch fortress Haltmoat received an unexpected guest -- the infamous exiled Inquisitor Fidus Kryptman. Watch Commander Vilnus agreed to an audience with the outcast, who has his own grim theories regarding the mysterious Hive Fleet Tiamet.Together, the two began to formulate a plan that will see whatever the Tyranids are creating on Ziaphoria utterly obliterated.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - Ymgarl Genestealers: It is believed that the variant Ymgarl Genestealers were introduced to the moons of Ymgarl, where they were first encountered by the Imperium, from the Tyranid organisms originally present in the Tiamet System and discovered by the Explorators in the 35th Millennium.They were carried to the moons of Ymgarl within the very vessels that had been sent to destroy the voracious lifeforms present in the Tiamet System.
Hive Fleet Tiamet - Traits: The carapace of every single organism spawned by Hive Fleet Tiamet is made of a unique chitin composite that provides excellent protection against extreme bursts of directed energy and kinetic force. The hive fleet's organisms and bio-ships were heavily protected by this living battle-plate.Built to protect as much as devour, Tiamet's swarms fight in dense clutches, grinding their way forward through hails of enemy fire, their diamond-hard exoskeletons forming a formidable living shield.All Hive Fleet Tiamet bioforms possess grey and white carapaces.
Hive Guard - Hive Guard: The Hive Guard are a strange Tyranid life form. They are usually not seen until the Capillary Towers and Spore Chimneys have formed on the surface of a world in the later stages of a Tyranid invasion. Such structures are vital to the Tyranids' attempt to consume a world, and the Hive Mind has created a specific beast for their protection -- the Hive Guard.The Hive Guard stands out as a unique creature even amongst the Tyranids in its extreme specialization for its role. The Hive Guard's six-legged form provides it with a stable-firing platform for its deadly Impaler Cannon.
Hive Guard - Role: Hive Guard play a crucial role in the final stages of a Tyranid invasion, when all of the planetary bio-mass the xenos have harvested and partially digested must be transported to the Hive Ships. In these last stages, enormous capillary towers and spore chimneys emerge from the ground, the former growing with astounding speed past the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere, to channel the processed organic soup to orbiting Hive Ships.As these towers and chimneys enable the Tyranids to achieve the ultimate goal of their planetary invasions, the Tyranids take particular care to defend these structures well. Indeed, the Hive Mind seems to have developed the Hive Guard specifically to fulfil the important function of standing watch over these towers. Typical of the ever-efficient Tyranids, Hive Guard have a very short incubation period and are spawned only when needed in the final stages of the harvest and only when the capillary towers and spore chimneys face an enemy threat.
Hive Guard - Abilities: Xenobiologists have determined that Hive Guard have some capacity for telepathy, though not to the extent of the more sophisticated synapse creatures like Hive Tyrants. This low-level psychic capacity enables the creatures both to see through the eyes of their fellow xenos in order to target enemies with their Impaler Cannons and to communicate with the shard-beasts that are fused to the Cannon’s projectiles, long bony spikes up to 2 metres in length.Through the psychic link that Hive Guard and shard-beast share, the Hive Guard can direct the symbiotic organisms to alter the course of the projectiles in mid trajectory, by moving membranous fins to act as wing flaps or rudders that steer the missiles. As such, Hive Guard need not make direct visual contact with enemy targets to fire upon them. Field reports from Imperial troops indicate that the Hive Guard can target unseen foes with uncanny accuracy even over moderate distances.Unlike most Tyranid creatures, which advance upon any non-Tyranid life forms with seemingly reckless abandon, Hive Guard instinctively function as sentries who seldom charge or pursue their foes. The Hive Guard’s task is to stand sentinel over the capillary towers, and only in moments of desperation will the Hive Mind prompt these stalwart guardians to advance upon the enemy.
Hive Guard - Weapons: Impaler Cannon - The living shard beasts of the Hive Guard's Impaler Cannon are little creatures that guide the large harpoon like spikes. These bony missiles are twice the height of a man and can be fired indirectly at targets in cover. It can even be used against transports and other lightly armoured vehicles in a pinch.
Hive Guard - Source: Codex: Tyranids (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 109-110Deathwatch: The Jericho Reach (RPG), pg. 179
Hive Mind - Hive Mind: The Hive Mind is the gestalt collective consciousness of the Tyranid species. It is a nearly omniscient entity composed of pure psychic energy that originated outside of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Hive Tyrant is said to be a living vessel for it. It controls every Tyranid creature in a mental vice-like grip and directs their every action.This control can be disrupted, however, with the death of the Hive Mind's synapse creatures through which it transmits and augments its psychic commands, such as when a Hive Tyrant's death leaves the lesser Tyranid bioforms to act completely on basic animal instinct.On the battlefield, certain large and relatively autonomous Tyranid creatures, such as the Hive Tyrant or the Tyranid Warrior, are able to telepathically exert the Hive Mind's influence in order to control smaller Tyranid bioforms, which without the Hive Mind's psychic direction would revert to the instinctive, non-sentient behaviour of feeding and self-preservation. These synapse creatures focus the Hive Mind's psychic gestalt into nodal points that quell the natural instincts of nearby small Tyranid bioforms and are an essential component for a Tyranid swarm's effective command and control.The Hive Mind is so staggeringly complex in its power and construction that it either drives most psykers insane or kills them. The only known agent of the Imperium of Man believed to have looked upon the Hive Mind and retained his sanity is Chief Librarian Tigurius of the Ultramarines. This could be due to his uncanny talent for making accurate predictions in general, but the accuracy and frequency of his knowledge concerning the intentions of the Great Devourer seem to show he has indeed tapped into the Hive Mind, a feat thought possible only by a psyker possessed of power equivalent to that of the Emperor of Mankind.The Hive Mind also has the ability to block interstellar communications and travel through the Warp due to the potent psychic presence it creates in the Immaterium, essentially disrupting the normal flow of psychic energy within the Immaterium in much the same way as a Warp Storm. This ability has become known as the "Shadow in the Warp"; the Hive Mind uses this power when it unleashes a Hive Fleet, cutting off astropathic communications to the besieged part of the galaxy and forcing vessels already in the Warp in the vicinity of the Hive Fleet to drop back into realspace, thus making a call for reinforcements impossible.This invasive psychic shroud sows terror and confusion on prey worlds as it traps and prevents the doomed inhabitants from calling for assistance. It even penetrates into the minds of nearby creatures and manifests as a primal malaise that can never be expelled. If a creature possesses psychic potential, then the horror they feel is magnified tenfold. Any use of their psychic abilities could unleash a form of incurable psychosis. As a Hive Fleet approaches a target planet, whole populations plunge into madness and despair even before the first Tyranids have made planetfall.
Hive Mind - Brood Mind: A smaller and more localised version of the Tyranid Hive Mind is created by the interlinking telepathy of a Genestealer brood. This so-called "Brood Mind" is used to control the host victims impregnated with Genestealer genetic material and create a Genestealer Cult.The Brood Mind also acts as a psychic beacon to draw a Hive Fleet towards the planet where its cult is located. Once the summoned Hive Fleet comes within range of a few hundred light years of the infected world, a subliminal reaction is triggered in the Brood Mind to goad the Genestealers into a frenzy of killing. This unleashes a violent uprising, which weakens the defences of the targeted world and makes it easy prey for the arriving Hive Fleet of the Great Devourer.
Hive Ship - Hive Ship: A Hive Ship is the impossibly massive, biomechanical organic bioship that forms the heart of all Tyranid hive fleets.They are critical to the success of any hive fleet's advance, acting as telepathic synapse nodes for the bioships around them and serving as massive bio-factories that churn out the endless swarms of bio-forms that characterise the forces of the Tyranids.Despite their seemingly impossible size, Hive Ships are actually living creatures incorporating millions of bioengineered organisms.Each is a biological factory capable of creating millions of Tyranid organisms, of replicating genomes and splicing together new creatures perfectly adapted for each new world and environment encountered.Tens of thousands of Tyranid Warriors are carried aboard Hive Ships, the cocooned officers of nightmare hordes yet to be born.In addition to their roles away from the battlefield, Hive Ships are fearsome enemies in combat. Though there is a vast amount of morphological diversity among Hive Ships, stone-like armour plating and plentiful weapon growths are common to nearly all of them.Protected by thick clouds of defensive spores and armed with Pyro-acid batteries, Bio-plasma spines, launch bays, and even gigantic claws, Hive Ships are a force that are a match for even the mightiest Imperial and xenos battleships.While little is definitively known of Tyranid vessels, most Ordo Xenos analysts agree that within a given Tyranid hive fleet there is a single mature Hive Ship which serves to coordinate the Hive Mind across the fleet. It is also theorised that many of this Hive Ship's escort vessels may be immature specimens of the same bioform. The substantial morphological differences among Hive Ship and the challenges involved in obtaining a comprehensive genetic sampling leave this fact debated amongst Tech-priests of the Divisionis Biologis of the Adeptus Mechanicus.However, there is limited evidence to support this theory. In three battles where a particular Hive Ship was destroyed, elements of the Tyranid fleets split off from the battle and fled, rather than reverting to an animalistic and uncoordinated assault. Some members of the Adeptus Mechanicus have theorised that the death of a Hive Ship Hive Mind node may catalyse the rapid maturation of other Hive Mind nodes in the system. This may turn a bravely fought victory into a longer-term problem as additional smaller splinter fleets created from this process proceed to attack more vulnerable targets.
Hive Ship - Sources: Battlefleet Gothic Armada, pp. 80-94Battlefleet Gothic Resources - "The Harvest Fleets: Necron Vessels", pp. 80, 87White Dwarf 146 (UK)Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 (PC Game)Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault (RPG), pp. 47, 50
Hive Tertium - Hive Tertium: Hive Tertium is the prime hive city of the Hive World of Atoma Prime in the Moebian Domain of the Segmentum Solar. It is the setting for the PC game Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.  It was created through the fusion of what were once three large but entirely separate Atoman hive cities, hence the High Gothic name "Tertium." Tertium was then extended upwards by millennia of new additions until it became the massive, continent-straddling arcology that now dominates its world and contains almost the entirety of its Human population, upwards of 90 billion people before the advent of the recent conflict.Within the hive's depths in the Era Indomitus, a Chaos Cult called the Admonition dedicated to the worship of Nurgle, the Chaos God of disease and despair, began to rapidly spread among the hive's population. The dangers of Chaos corruption of the hive city's population only worsened once the Moebian 6th Regiment, one of the Moebian Regiments of the Astra Militarum used to fight the Moebian Domain's Fringe War with the xenos and Chaos forces of the Darktide, was returned from frontline duty to put down the growing rebellion.The Moebian 6th, its men and women already traumatised by their experiences on the frontlines of the never-ending conflict and primed for betrayal, fell to the Admonition's corruption themselves. The highly-trained Traitoris Militarum regiment then dedicated all of their skills and resources to bringing down Imperial rule over Hive Tertium and Atoma Prime itself to spread the truth of Grandfather Nurgle to all who would accept his putrescent blessings.To stop this growing corruption, the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition under the command of Inquisitor Grendyl, recently deployed its Acolytes and other operatives into Hive Tertium in a race against time to save the hive city before it can grow into a cancer that could consume the entire world, or even eventually threaten the rest of the Moebian Domain.