Subject: Actually, yes they do!
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Posted on: 2017-10-20 15:15:00 UTC

They're called Norn-Queens, but putting a Jedi team up against one is... less than entirely viable. The reason for that is, well, d'you remember that "Who Would Win" battleship competition you did a while back? The one involving The Mighty Thor? Yeah. That again.

Norn-Queens are the single most important aspect of a Tyranid Biofleet. They're the ones who make everything - literally everything - from the tiniest Ripper to the greatest bioship. They're vast organisms on an unbelievable scale... and that's kind of why bioweapons don't tend to work against them. They're so big, and their consciousness and power so decentralized within their bodies, that by the time it's killed off one part, the rest has adapted to the infection and, well, it might start showing up in the Hive Fleet's spore bombs.

However, that idea of "look for a Queen to kill" is perfectly viable when it comes to the Hive Mind - Hive Tyrants and other beings of similar status effectively become relay nodes for the Hive Mind, and bumping them off severs the connection. There was even a special rule about the Tyranids back in the day called "SHOOT THE BIG ONES!". Spelled like that. =]

The Force acting as a counter to the Hive Mind is definitely an interesting idea, and budding Ethereal force users would definitely work well with that... but that involves putting Ethereals in the field. When Ethereals die, Tau... Tau go a bit nuts. There's also the fact that the Tyranids have a very weird effect on the Warp - while the Warp and the Force are two very different things, the effect of a Hive Fleet overrunning a world is like Alderaan on a grand scale.

On the plus side, we can protect everyone involved. One imagines that the power sources for hyperdrive engines are pretty potent, and if they can be scaled down for use in a starfighter then they can be scaled down for use in a battlesuit. This means that we can nab some of the cool stuff from the Fifth Sphere Expansion a little ahead of schedule - I'm especially thinking XV104 Riptides and XV109 Y'vahras, since anti-infantry and anti-horde weapons are prolly gonna be the order of the day when fighting the gribblies. There's also the fact that XV95 Ghostkeels we around by this point, and super-stealthy Class 9 battlesuits are a pretty good trick to have when it comes to infil/exfil and messing up Hive Tyrants.

It should also go without saying that I love the idea of the Hail of Flames getting turned by the Alpha Legion's human operatives infiltrating the Alliance and planting suggestions in the Hail's command echelons. Perhaps this is where the Tau start cloning their own species, at least in smaller batches, the better to guard against corruption and for spreading the joy and light of the Greater Good. =]

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