#tyranid spores

[wh40kgallery]

Tyranids vs Orks

by Paul Dainton

[alyxstrasza]

And now, Biovores!

Walking factories spawning and subsequently launching spore mines onto the battlefield - they serve the role of backline artillery, creating a living, floating minefield few should dare to traverse. May the God-Emperor have mercy should you step too close to one of it's creations!

[spore-galore]

A Tyranid Warrior from Warhammer 40k that I made in Spore! I don't know shit about warhammer but my buddy L does and he suggested I make one of these fellas so I did. So uh, sorry if I got some details wrong, this one was really hard to do 😭 This guy crashed my game when I tried to save it right at the end (thankfully after I'd taken the pictures) and I lost some posing and colouring progress 😥 but that's just the way of things when it comes to spore. Took me rougly 2 and half hours to make.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Warhammer 40k: Conquest - The Great Devourer Expansion - Toxic Spore Sac by Alexandr Elichev

[dinosly]

Biovore...

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Cultivate

A single spore from a Tyranid Hive Ship can spell doom for a solar system.

Artist: Slawomir Maniak TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[gaywrathwife]

I feel silly being proud of just the unpainted model—all I did was follow the directions, after all—but I had never put together any monster-level Warhammer models before, so the biovore here is my first of that, and my first 40k model since I had to sell all my old stuff to make rent years ago, and also my first Tyranid ever, and I love her and her ugly spore babies.

[siamesephoenixrandomideatank]

[ToH x Warhammer 40000 Grimdank Fanfic Idea] Da Squig Houze

Some Ideas for Plot

Luz Noceda is one of the Imperial Guards who fight in 'another of many wars in 41st millennium' against the Orks. She is a 'suppressed psyker' whose power got broken in her fight.

With her power explosion, she became considered a rogue psyker by Imperium, but how she 'krumped' the WAAAGH! of 'Weirdbozz Belork', it attracted attention of the rival group 'Da Wildz Orkz'

One of the Weirdboy(?); Aydaz 'da Squigowl', picked her and not killed her. She explained 'by hitting her with her iron staff hard enough and believe it works' that she was infected by Ork spore in her brain since her toddler life, but it was suppressed.

In her tent were a 'Tubesquig' Ootiez and Kang, a 'weird boy she picked from a planet'.(Turned out to be a splintered Tyranid that got tamed and had some sentience).

She found one of the Nobz; Mitaz, who did not let her in the clan because she is 'not orky enough'. But with magic card trick distraction, Imperial shovel, and Aydaz's help, she beat Mitaz and Mitaz is impressed by her 'Morkiness', wanting to be her Big Nobz where she is the Warboss.

Da Empra-Warboss Belork has a group of 'tactic boyz' called as 'Ovenz', with each controlled by 'Ovenz Big Nobz'.

Anything else for this Grimdank AU?

[jermagaunt]

Another battle report, another Black Templar Vs Tyranids. Using Ironstorm Spearhead I take on the Vanguard Onslaught list that my crusaders usually struggle with. We played purge the foe with a dawn of war deployment.

I got first turn which I kinda didn't want so decided to play defensively. I almost managed to kill my opponent's maleceptor with a ballistus dread on the left flank and managed to kill a lictor in the middle to get area denial turn one. My opponent killed all but one of the squad that scored me area denial and pushed forwards aggressively.

Turn two saw me kill the maleceptor and wipe the squad off the middle. My one remaining crusader got overwatched to get my opponent points towards the primary objective and another crusader squad failed a charge against some genestealers while the squad on the right flank failed to finish off the von Ryan's leapers :( My opponent rapid ingressed a mawlok on my turn dealing 3 mortal wounds to everything within 12 inch (lucky bastard) and on their turn killed that squad of crusaders and also blew up my transport, letting my Emperor's Champion and his sword bros out. I was able to kill the mawlok with my dreadnought after it was brought in thankfully. On their turn my opponent was also able to kill one of my scout squads off camera on the left :(

Turn three and I charged the genestealers and broodlord with my sword bros and emperor's champion and brought my second unit of sword bros on to try and steal my opponents home objective. Scores were pretty close at this point and my crusader squad on the left failed another charge against the genestealers! This was after my opponent made 7 5+ saves on the genestealers from my plasma cannon! Thankfully the dreadnought was able to charge in but only killed two more genestealers. These are the luckiest genestealers in the world! The genestealers then fell back on their turn and charge my other scout squad (detachment rule for fallback and charge) and killed them! As well as me failing two 2+ saves on my techmarine to have him killed by gargoyles :( the swarmlord charged into one of my dreadnoughts and took him down to just 3 wounds as well after me failing 3/5 3+ saves (using a reroll so it wouldnt die)

Turn 4 and my opponent chose a secret mission which apparently made me blackout because I barely remember what happened after this. I remember killing the swarmlord straight away which was all I needed to do to stop the secret mission but then I decided to kill the gargoyles and stop them getting 3 objectives just in case they took any of the other secret missions. In turn 4 I did kill the gargoyles and then had to plan how to block them from holding 3 objectives. I also made my charge on the biovore to take the home objective, the biovore was being annoying and blocking my reserves with spore mines (which also gave me extra points for the main objective if I killed them so not all is bad). What I definitely remember from this turn is that probably the greatest moment from any of my games of 40k. I killed the swarmlord, he blew up and took the last 3 wounds off my dreadnought... Which blew up and dealt 3 wounds to my gladiator tank! It took 6 mortal wounds from 2d3 deadly demises!

Last turn I killed one of the tyrannofexes, only after this point did my opponent tell me that I stopped their secret mission almost immediately after they selected it by killing the swarmlord and they had no chance of winning after that but liked watching me sweat. Bastard.

Really fun game overall, I feel like it would have been much closer without the secret mission but my opponent agreed the swarmlord dying causing a double deadly demise was definitely worth losing that game.

[mrwinter25]

Tyranid Spore Mine

[clocktowerechos]

Factions of the Tyranid Swarms of the Brightest Night AU

"... One would be forgiven for being lulled into a false sense of hope that such foes are merely mindless, ravenous beasts. As the idea they may be something more organized and coordinated is too terrifying to consider..." ~ Unknown Ordo Xenos Inquisitor after first contact report with the Tyranids.

The all-consuming Hive Fleets have made landfall far earlier and with much greater force than in canon. They are not merely vanguards or scouting tendrils, but a vast migration of the Hive Mind's many limbs to sate its voracious apatite. Nobody foresaw their arrival, not the Eldar Farseers, not the Alliance Augurs, not Chaos Prophets, not the Necron and their esoteric, celestial calculus. The Hive Fleets arrived and since then, every angle of the Milky Way has become a vector for their entrance.

It was the Tau who first discovered the division of Swarms within Hive Fleets. Prior to joining the Alliance, they had worked with a team of Eldar on an entirely separate diplomatic research mission before accidently discovering the psycho-pheromonal signals that identify the types of Swarms. From it, scholars across the Alliance have theorized that the Tyranids have formed a super organism-like empire, scouring worlds and "farming" biomass to aid in their endless hunger. It is believed that at the conclusion of their feasting, when the last mortal has been consumed, they will devour their "empire" before moving on to the next, leaving only an empty galaxy and dead space.

Hive Fleets have been identified to possess specialized swarms, each fulfilling a singular role.

Devouring Swarms

They are the frontline of the Hive Mind, insatiable and voracious, they blot out stars with their mass and shower worlds with spores and combat forms. They are what the Tyranids are in canon.

Harvesting Swarms

What might be considered the "civilian economy" of the Tyranids, instead of simply devouring everything in a system, will instead strip all but one planet of life and biomass before dumping it on a singular planet, seeding it with abundant life. They "harvest" at regular intervals, but always leave enough for life to regrow, however twisted or terrified they are.

Survivors rescued from these Harvest or Swarm Worlds are forever scarred with horrific memories of their worlds being converted into bio-mechanical and organic factory farms. Where they were herded by a primordial energy like microbial cattle, and where the sound of chittering teeth and rending claws was always in the back of their minds.

Sprawling Swarms

Fulfilling a sort of logistical or transport role, Sprawling Swarms serve to carry biomass from Harvesting Swarms to Devouring Swarms, ensuring a plentiful stockpile of biomass for new monsters to be birthed from. Since their discovery, it has become a priority for many factions to target these swarms in the hopes of slowing the advance of Devouring Swarms, leading to Sprawling Swarms having the most formidable voidborn organisms of any swarm.

So critical are these Swarm fleets that any naval captain who provide evidence of its destruction can be guaranteed a promotion. And any penitent renegade who provides Alliance authorities with similar proof may be granted forgiveness and redemption should they be willing to join the Imperium and its allies.

Genestealer Cults & Genebloods

The infiltrating vanguard of the Hive Fleets are either formed from Genestealer Patriarchs who gestate in pools of Devouring Swarms, or from the broken individuals on Swarm Worlds. Their minds shattered and twisted by the Hive Mind's suffocating power, they believe the Tyranids to be messengers of a divine truth or star-born saviors. Given over to the profane worship of the Hive Mind, they sometimes form a "clergy" on Swarm Worlds that preach ascension into the light as the Harvesting Swarms come to reap their bounties.

No matter their origin, both Patriarchs and "Ascensionists" are delivered to unvigilant worlds to form cults and secret societies. Sowing the seeds of chaos and unrest with plans generations in the making before plunging the world into anarchy at the eve of the Hive Fleet's arrival. Yet, some manage to break free from the suffocating psychic will of the Hive Mind. Many go mad from the realization of what they are or what they have done, seeing their monstrous kin and children for what they truly are, and remove themselves entirely. However, some may seek to exact vengeance upon the Hive Mind, becoming Unbound Genebloods. Prized for their innate understanding of the Tyranid Hive Mind and ability to detect lurking organisms that stalk the shadows, they are often recruited by the Inquisition to root out their kin.

Just as pyskers must constantly ward off the daemonic whispers in their minds, Genebloods must constantly stave off the predations of the Hive Mind that seeks to enslave them again.

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

The tyranid hotness list absolutely depends on your type.

Gaunt: average in every way

Genestealer: Finger game and aftercare are absolutely top notch, but a bit too interested in sharing you with their friends

Gargoyle: the twink, you will probably break them

Warrior: you’d like six legs to go with a six pack

Venomthrope: For the after session kush

Toxicrene: For the *good* after session kush

Carnifex: Your friends say that your thing for dad bods has gone a bit too far but they don’t know what they’re missing

Ravener: You like constriction

Tervigon: You *really* like constriction

Lictor: Best sex you’ve ever had, immediately ghosts you

Deathleaper: somehow even better than lictor, but ghosts you even quicker, and then you spend the rest of your life worried you’ll bump into them again

Hive guard: Either knows the shocker or how to impale you, thinks that’s all there is to sex, terrible at everything else

Tyrant guard: Pummels you, but has incredibly tender aftercare

Hive tyrant: You want to beg mommy to step on you.

Spore mine: It’s over a bit too quickly

Pyrovore: don’t look now but the shy kid turned out smoking hot

Biovore: Size isn’t everything. But sometimes, it helps…

Exocrine: Sometimes it DEFINITELY helps.

Haruspex: What that tongue do? Everything, it turns out.

Zoanthrope: Complete incel, do not engage

Harpy: Double the gun, double the fun, the flying is an added bonus

Crone: It gets very messy.

Maleceptor: Complete brainfuck

Harridan: MILF

Hierodule: DILF

Hierophant: You are so desperate to get stepped on that it makes you look stupid

We have an initial list of sorts! Thank you, anonymous monster fucker #17!

[askrobouteguilliman40k]

So watching Luten play a level of SM2 and liking the vast variety of Tyranid bio forms on display.

So far I have seen.

Hormagaunts.

Warriors.

Raveners.

Lictors.

Spore mines.

And this is in just one level.

I am worried by the lack of ranged bugs though, even the Orks and Chaos Space Marines of one had ranged options.

[spore-galore]

What is a Spore megabuild? How are they made? Why make a megabuild in the first place instead of just making a regular creature/creation? Are you insane? What's wrong with you?

I got all the answers and more below! As well as progress pictures of my most recent megabuild, Ysera from World of Warcraft!

A megabuild in Spore is a creation that is made up of multiple different creations (mostly creatures). All of these individual creatures are assembled in the Adventure editor (where you can make custom missions and stuff) like a jigsaw puzzle! So, the head of Ysera is one singular creature, as are her limbs, her left wing, her right wing, ALL FOUR of her legs are also individual creatures, her tail, etc.

So...why make a megabuild instead of just doing all of the detail on one creature?

Well, back in the good old days of vanilla, unmodded spore, people wanted to show off their full potential for creature creation. People wanted to add LOTS of detail to their creatures, but there was a problem: the creature editor in vanilla spore has a complexity meter, meaning it has a cap on how many parts you can actually use before you’re literally not allowed to add anymore parts. There is a cheat that you can type into the console called “freedom” which unlocks a little bit more room on the complexity meter, but it’s not TRUE freedom of the complexity meter, as you can very much still reach the complexity meter cap even with the cheat turned on (I did so many times as a child).

Sooo, spore players were looking for ways to share their big huge epic creations that they wanted to make on the sporepedia, for everyone else to see (and download). This is where adventures come in.

As I said earlier, adventures are custom missions that you can make. You can set the scene, the characters, the story, the things you’re supposed to do to complete the mission etc. And within the adventure editor are these like…plasma gates.

These can be locked or unlocked via keys and such (if you chose to place them in the adventure, of course), and a very interesting thing about these plasma gates is that you can make them do 1 of do things: make them invisible, or disguise them as a creation that you or another player made. However, there is a caveat, and that caveat is that you can only disguise the gates as either buildings or vehicles.

At some point though, someone out there found a work around, in which you can choose to edit the building you’re going to disguise the gate as before you officially choose it, and then you can view the sporepedia as you’re currently editing the building...allowing you to view creatures in the sporepedia! And then...you can click the edit button on those creatures, switching you to the creature editor. Then you can click the “save and exit” button within the creature editor, tricking the game into disguising the gate as the creature instead of the original building you were editing! Once it was found out that you could do this, AND that adventures with the gates-disguised-as-creatures in them could actually be shared on the sporepedia for others to download and play, it then became obvious that you could probably use this trick to make what we now call megabuilds. In which each of these individual parts of the body (head, body, limbs, tail, other details etc.) could be disguised as gates, and then moved around to create a bigger, more highly detailed creature than what you could actually make in the creature editor!

Obviously, with mods, you can remove the complexity meter and just put as many parts as you like on a creature, but with this comes the risk of your game crashing with the more parts you put on your creature. This has happened to me within the past week alone (specifically with the Tyranid warrior), and it will continue to happen to me for as long as I have Spore installed on my computer because Spore is just Like That. Megabuilds, on the other hand, allow me to kinda circumnavigate the chance of my game crashing with such a detailed creature (for example, if I'm only detailing one limb as opposed to the whole body), giving me more breathing room, and allowing me to add significantly more detail instead of having to say “okay well I guess I can leave those details out, they’re not important, I don’t want my game to crash again and lose all this progress.”

TLDR; Megabuilds are highly detailed big ass statues in spore made up of different creatures that look like limbs, all stitched together. Yayy!!!! We’re an evil scientist! Now here is how I made Ysera, in case you wanted a play by play of how I make my megabuilds (if you perhaps wanted to make your own).

How I made Ysera

Now, personally, IDK how other megabuilders make their own stuff, but my process for starting a megabuild is this: I basically start with a “base” body that has all of the limbs, and then I pose them how I want them to be posed. I do not add any details. This base doesn’t even have eyes! We’re doing this purely to get the pose correct, so that we can use the base as a reference for when we’re putting all the individual pieces together in the adventure editor. We have to keep this base creature, and make sure not to save over the top of it, even after we’ve finished making all the individual body parts! Here’s what the Ysera base looks like:

Now..we have to start detailing. I had references of Ysera’s most recent model (from Dragonflight) with a variety of different angles, so I used those pictures to make her as accurately as I could. I usually like starting with the head.

(Before I get into the progress pictures, I should note that with every different “body part” i’m making, I’m essentially making a copy of the “base” creation, removing everything except the limb/body part i’m working on, and then detailing it. This means I keep the exact posing of the wings, tail, limbs etc. so that when I use the base body as a reference for putting stuff back together in the adventure editor...all the body parts should be in the right shape/pose!)

Anyways, because it's possible to resize the gates-disguised-as-creatures within the adventure editor, I actually got the “croc kisser” mouth and made it twice as large as it was on my base creature, so I could more accurately see what I was doing (and add more detail). Then....well this is the hard part isn’t it? Idk how to explain how to make stuff in Spore. That's like trying to explain how I draw things lmao. But what I usually start with is “sculpting” the face, by placing knurldowns upside down on the head, and then positioning them and resizing them until I get a face shape that looks nice! You can also skip the mouth altogether and do the sculpting on an elongated limb (which is what I did for The Windsinger and the Tyranid warrior) which honestly I prefer because sometimes sculpting on top of an already existing mouth/head can be really annoying!

After 3 hours of non-stop work, here is what the finished head looked like!

Sorry that I basically did a "draw the rest of the fucking owl" to you all, buuuut I didn't want to make this post any longer than it already was sooo..yeah lmfao.

Initially I had made her floating headpiece on the same creation, but when it was rendering in the adventure it looked. well. strange. so I elected to make her headpiece separately, and to make it in the spaceship editor instead of as a creature, and honestly...I'm glad I did so, because it looks super cool and I get to actually have it properly floating above her head, and I can also position it how I want.

After that, it was time for me to move on to the limbs! Honestly, if you’re like me and all 4 limbs have slightly different different poses (which is done by pressing “a” on the keyboard and clicking on a part and/or limb to allow it to be moved without the limb on the other side moving), it’s best that you actually detail the limbs BEFORE you make them asymmetrical and pose them, so that you have the luxury of symmetry/mirrored building so you only have to detail one leg. Then you make the legs asymmetrical, pose both legs and either save them as a duo, or save them individually (I chose to save them individually so that I could have more control on the limb posing in the adventure editor, but that’s just me being extra lmao).

For the wings, I chose to individually detail 1 limb after the other, since I knew I would need differently shaped and sized webbings for both wings, and it wouldn’t make sense to detail both of the wings and THEN pose them, since I knew that would mess up all the parts I’d already put on the wings. Thankfully there was only two of them so it wasn't a big deal! The “organic helper” mod which gives you a lot of individual webbings for wings is...well, quite helpful! And it also means significantly less parts used for the wings, meaning I got an opportunity to add more detail, if I wished.

Okayy and then it was time to do the body. Not much to say tbh! This was probably the easiest part of the megabuild to do since I (for the most part) wasn't dealing with any asymmetry and I didn't need to put a huge amount of detail onto the body.

Finally, the last thing I made was the tail!!! This was not as hard as I thought it would be, it was just tedious and time consuming. At this point I was getting kinda of this megabuild xD I just wanted it to be over already. It took about an hour to make the tail (mostly fiddled around trying to make ysera’s tail pinecone look like....well, a pinecone. I do not think I succeeded in making it look like a pinecone. I tried my best).

Then....it was onto putting the pieces together! This is where I opened up the adventure editor, and used the gates-disguised-as-creatures trick to get all of the different body parts assembled! This is also where the base I made came in clutch!

Sooo, the first thing I put down was the base body, and then I started layering the completed Ysera body pieces over the top of it.

Then I just had to do that a bunch of times with all of the pieces, delete the base body, tweak some of the limbs’ positionings and bam!! The megabuild was complete!!!

I hope this was an informative post about Spore megabuilds! If not, then I guess I can just eat dirt from the ground or something. I hope this helps others understand how megabuilds are made and inspires people to make their own.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Warhammer 40k: Conquest - The Great Devourer Expansion - Spore Burst by Alexandr Elichev

[quasitsqueeries]

Ork gender

I saw another meme.

I have a little bit more time for this one but it's still wrong. Disregarding the fact that the concept of non-binary gender identity requires a notion of a binary gender model to reject so Tyranids at least are no more non-binary than my cat (or the insects that the hive structure is clearly based on). Um, Orks are more complicated.

It doesn't follow that because orks in particular reproduce asexually they therefore have no concept of gender, any more than the human model of gender is an inevitable result of us reproducing sexually. Gender is a system by which humans attribute social significance to physical differences. Orks do this, but they don't do it the same way humans do. Ork gender is quaternary and includes orks, gretchin, snotlings and squigs. All these things are the same species, they're produced through the same spore-based reproductive process, but they exhibit physical differences and ork society attributes social differences based on those physical differences. That is gender.

So uh, orks are non-binary because their gender is quaternary, but that's not how we understand non-binary gender. Anyway.

Humans imposed the human model of sex onto bees and ants and decided that any of these organisms that don't contribute to sexual reproduction are female. The Tyranid hive structure is based on those insects so it's likely that there are organisms within the hive fleet that are responsible for the reproduction bit and chances are the majority of Tyranid organisms don't contribute. Undoubtedly some Magos Biologis has come to exactly the same conclusion about Tyranids and called everything from termagants up to bio-titans Female. Except genestealers. They probably wrote a whole thesis about the ovipositor called Sexing the Genestealer and concluded that Genestealers are male.