Bioapocalypse

Tyranids interest me more than most of GW's miniatures, as they are one of the few sci-fi armies in production to make broad use of biotechnology. Biotech is biology freed from the constraints of evolutionary design and ecological balance. It is living nanotech, functional down to the level of molecules. Few other concepts have made such an impression on modern science fiction; consider all-too-plausible tales of disaster such as Gregory Benford's Timescape, Greg Bear's Vitals, or Steven Baxter's Moonseed to name just a few. Oh for the days when flying saucers and giant tripod walkers were all we had to fear!

The most frightening aspect of a biotech threat is not Godzilla-like gigantism, but the potentiality of the extremely tiny. Consider the tailored nanovirus of Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead. How could humanity fight such a foe with conventional arms? Even such simplistic approaches like a re-release of smallpox are enough to keep our society's defenders awake in their beds at night.

It is only fitting, then, that GW's only biotech army should begin with tiny units. Tiny enough to slip between your cell walls and rearrange ... well, no, not quite. But at least these Hormagaunts stand no taller than a human soldier's navel. It makes them smaller targets for gunfire. Which, when you do battle with nothing more than fang and claw, is important.

Termagaunts go one step better, with a modified genotype that allows them to fling pieces of claw at long range by emulating, well, rifles. Which makes them as scary to an advanced mechanized force as WWI doughboys. Maybe more so if they can ever learn to quit bunching up in tight groups.

Want to make a bioterror consultant tremble? Just murmur the words "Airborne Vector." GW is way ahead on this score, with Gaunt-class phenotypes modified into the airborne Gargoyles.

PULL ... !

Shades of the old days ... not only the old days of Space Hulk, but also of that pleasant moment when we realized Aliens was going to be even cooler than Alien, and of cold-war Soviet denim shortages that sent TV Russians to America to purloin Levis. Yes, the Genestealers want your intelligent-design-evolved-stonewashed genes, and are willing to cut throught a formation of Space Marines to get them. Just so long as Sigourney Weaver isn't around to put them in their place.

Moving up the heirarchy, Tyranid Warriors emulate humans by carrying enough brain mass to actually fight intelligently. Except for that part about carrying swords into battle. But they're really good swords, proven very nearly as effective as Imperial chainsaws.

Living creatures have advantages over armored vehicles through their natural adaptation to the environment. It is hard to shoot lions with artillery, for example, because they spread themselves too thinly across the savannah. Tyranids correct this difficulty with the Malefactor, Haruspex, and Trygon, their squishy marsupialoid emulations of the armored personnel carrier that ensure entire squads will be shoulder to shoulder when the napalm comes down.

Not to be left out, gargoyles seek close quarters under the wings of a Harridan whenever the flak gets too heavy.

Early contests between Tyranids and the Hordes of Chaos taught the Great Biothreat the secrets of the catapult. Compared to its opponents, the two-armed Dactylis is 100% more effective.

Encounters with uncorrupted Space Marines showed Tyranids the advantages of compressed-gas propulsion in larger arms. Brave tankers are known to quaver at the distinctively flatulent reports of an Exocrine battery.

Biovore spore mines drift across the battlefield, waiting to release airborne microorganisms that can lay dormant for years, then activate to chemically defeat the various metal and ceramic layers of a Space Marine's armor, ultimately germinating undetectably inside his body until a later time at which they will replicate themselves into the closed air system of a ground base or starship .... So goes the (completely false) tale told to cadets as a hazing ritual before their first 'nid encounter.

Extensive Imperial research shows the mines to have little functional difference from an artillery shell, save that they travel slowly enough to be avoided.

The Special Forces of the Tyranid horde, Lichtors' chameleon-like blending ability compensates somewhat for their decidedly unmicroscopic size.

Realizing the need for infantry anti-tank capacity, the Tyranid hive-mind obtained and read an ancient English-language copy of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain. Then, losing all memory of Crichton's machine-component-digesting little bugs during an unfortunate synapse die-off, it proceeded to design and gestate the lumbering Carnifex, with the strength to lift a tank up long enough for a companion to rip away its tread assemblies.

The Space Wolves Space Marine chapter once conducted a little-known experiment into human-adapted Carnifex tactics. Anti-armor squads issued a pneumatic jack and a set of wrenches were able to remove the wheels from several ork vehicles during a series of skirmishes. Experience demonstrated, however, that the weight of jack, wrenches, and bolters left the team unable to carry chainsaws of any sort, and the plan was scrapped.

The Zoanthrope is greatly feared for its ability to penetrate a Marine's armor with its psychic attacks. Not that a simple bolter round can't penetrate the same armor ...

The greatest disadvantage of this phenotype is its distressing propensity to be shot in the head.

Speaking of head-shots, the topheavy distribution of cerebral matter is a feature of any Tyranid swarm. Assassinate the Hive Tyrants, and the only thing left to do is mop up. If Space Marines ever develop the idea of sniper rifles the 'nids may be in serious trouble.

Dominatrix: Some Tyranids enjoy combat so much they like to be slapped around even on their off hours, to be told they're bad little boys and that Mommy will ... whoops, wrong website.

The Dominatrix brings the Tyranid biohazard into Godzilla scale, stripping enemy aircraft of their munitions through the simple expedient of giving them a target too tempting to pass up.

Nearsighted pilots, or those with nonfunctional targeting systems, can be deployed against the even larger Heirodule bio-titan.

The Heirophant, an upgunned Heirodule, is often cited as the ultimate in Godzillaoid bioweaponry. Often, but incorrectly; those face-mounted tentacles have their roots in another Japanese monster movie altogether.