Bio-ships
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Bio-ships are the living spacecraft making up the Tyranid Hive Fleets. Although bio-ships take on a seemingly endless variety of forms, they are broadly divided by the Imperium into three major classes, depending on its general role in the Hive Fleet. The ships are also factories producing the different Tyranid species used in ground invasions. The ships themselves are essentially the largest species of Tyranid and are controlled by the Hive Mind.
Tyranid fleet ship classes
Hiveship
Main article: Hive Ship
Kraken, Cruisers and Droneships
- Main article: Kraken
Kraken
Fulfills the role of escort ships. Several species of Kraken have been recorded:
Ramsmiter Kraken
The Ramsmiter Kraken is the most common kind of Tyranid Bio Ship, each is armed with a hook-like proboscis which it uses to penetrate the hull of an enemy ship, sucking out digestible material while also disgorging a deadly swarm of genestealers and hermagaunts.2
Hellblaster Kraken
Hellblasters are analogous to escort ships. They are largely made up of a huge shielded carapace, and is virtually unstoppable when attacking an enemy vessel. The purpose of a Hellblaster is to contact with the hull or shields of an enemy ship and discharge a massive buildup of acid at short range. The parts of the Hellblaster which are not made up of the carapace are almost entirely comprised of immense acid sacs and titanic firing chambers.
Doomripper Kraken
Doomrippers are parasite ships, closing with their prey before attaching itself and viciously attacking with grinding jaws and rending teeth. It gains its name from the fact that once it has successfully attached itself to its prey, it will die rather than let go. The Doomripper wraps itself around its prey, preventing the target's guns from firing at it.
Deathburner Kraken
Dark Prowler
The Dark Prowler is a manta-shaped creature with leathery thick wings attached to a central cavity. The ship's central cavity contains two powerful acid-firing chambers, and hullgrinders line its wings.
Void Fiend
The Void Fiend fulfills the role of a naval cruiser. Its body resembles a sort of long organic spike, with digestive tubes and firing chambers running along its sleek body.
Razorfiend
Razorfiends are large cruisers that are aggressive in their attacks, storming out from the hive fleet in response to any threat to the massive hive ships, often using claws and tentacles to make direct attacks on ships in an effort to physically smash them to pieces. Cruiser sized Tyranid bioships are seldom found far from the hive ship, however, and it has been theorised that they receive their nourishment from them in some manner.
Wardrones
Wardrones are designed solely to fight and protect the Norn-Queen and the Hiveship. They are dependent entirely on the influence of the Hive Mind in order to operate. Wardrones vary heavily in size and shape, and usually fight in swarms, using weight of numbers to perform their tasks.
Drones
Drones are defence ships which dart around the Hiveship, reacting immediately and frenziedly to anything that threatens it.
Other Bio-ships
- Main article: Vanguard Drone Ship
- Main article: Narvhal
- Main article: Spore Mine
See also
Sources
- Space Fleet game (1991)
- 1: White Dwarf 146, Jan. 1992
- 2: Codex: Tyranids (5th Edition) p. 14
- Battlefleet Gothic Armada, pp.80-94
- 3: p. 88
