Typically, a Tyranid invasion of a planet has three phases.
First, they destroy orbital anti-air and space fleets, clearing the way for hive ships.
Second, hive ships arrive in orbit and drop spore organisms to the surface, unleashing the Tyranid ground forces to wipe out all resistance.
Third, the mop-up: Rippers devour every moving thing and all plant life, slowly Tyranidizing the planet.
Afterward, all organic matter—even the planet's core heat—is consud by the hive ships.
But this ti, after defeating the main Ork force, the Tyranids let the species breed again, squeezing every last bit of biomass.
Rhodes scanned several hive ships with his imnse psychic power, discovering they were packed with nutrients—grown fat from feasting.
Other than essential bioweapons and defensive forces, everything was organic matter. The Tyranids seed to be collecting organic mass in bulk. But for what? Sothing was off—these hive ships were clearly up to sothing special!
Normally, after consuming a planet, a hive ship would spawn new ships, increase the number of Norn Queens, build a bigger fleet, and move on to the next target.
But the ships Rhodes observed just kept getting fatter, not spawning new hives or bioweapons, just storing organic matter.
"Master, give the order!" Gromm Hellroar ca to Rhodes.
What did it matter? All he wanted now was a good fight.
"Very well, Gromm Hellroar, lead your Ork army and attack! Your mission is to wipe out all bugs on the planet's surface." Rhodes nodded.
With a bellow, Gromm Hellroar swung his giant axe, leading the Ork fleet to assault the nearest planet.
The Tyranids, spotting the Ork fleet, imdiately dispatched their own bio-ships to intercept.
After two years fighting greenskins, the Tyranids had learned: Ork weapons had no accuracy—hitting or missing depended on whether the Ork believed he could hit.
But compared to human fleets, the Tyranids found Orks harder to deal with. Human ships used void shields; after slugging it out with the Tyranids, they'd usually be finished.
But Ork junk ships had a weird psychic shield, different from Tyranid hive shields. As long as the Orks' fighting spirit was unbroken, their shield would hold until the junk ships blew the bio-ships apart.
Thus, to deal with Ork ships, the Tyranids would typically send three bio-ships to focus fire on one junk ship, hoping to destroy it quickly.
But this ti, Rhodes wouldn't let them succeed. filas, Rhodes himself, and Tartarus all had powerful superpowers.
While kills by Tartarus didn't count towards Rhodes' system points, kills by filas did—so Tartarus acted as a battery, supplying power to Rhodes and filas, converting his psychic energy into superpower energy.
With this, Rhodes and filas used their might to manifest hands of void telekinesis, crushing bio-ships from afar—an attack the Tyranids had never seen.
In the Warhamr universe, superpowers don't exist—only psychic powers. But pure superpowers were sothing the Tyranids could not comprehend.
Boom! Boom!
Huge green fireworks exploded in space as Tyranid bio-ships were crushed by invisible hands.
The Norn Queen detected terrifying energy waves, but these waves were unknown, never seen before.
Rhodes didn't deploy his cha Ultraman, nor send out the giant King Joe robots or the Iron; otherwise, the Tyranids would know it was him and move their main force to deal with him.
So Rhodes chose surprise: the main force was the Ork army, with himself and filas launching stealthy superpowered strikes. The Tyranids would think they were just fighting greenskins.
With Rhodes' interference, the Ork junk ships ramd straight down to the planet, unloading a horde of Orks to the surface.
The greenskins howled in excitent, waving weapons as they charged the nearest Tyranids.
"WAAAGH!"
"WAAAGH!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Shoota Boyz fired their noisy, giant junk rifles into the sky, knocking down flying, mutated Tyranid Lictors.
As soon as they landed, countless Ork boys charged up, chopping the bugs to bits. Grot cans and other big Stompas joined the fray.
With no need to build large starships, they had more material to build war machines to throw into battle.
"Co on, boys! Let's play a great ga of war! WAAAGH!"
Gromm Hellroar roared, swinging his axe at a Tyranid Hive Tyrant.
Even in humanoid form, over five ters tall, Gromm Hellroar was terrifyingly strong. The Hive Tyrant couldn't withstand a single blow—split in two, dead as dead could be.
But for a Hive Tyrant, death was not the end.
Their consciousness would be pulled back into the Hive Mind at the mont of death, then resurrected aboard a hive ship.
But for Rhodes, all that mattered was that Hive Tyrant deaths gave him system points—and he was satisfied to see his points ticking upward.
"Fight! Fight! Reinforcents have arrived, boys!" The battered local Ork force, seeing their green brothers charging over, got excited too.
A green tide swept over the surface, overwhelming the Tyranids.
The dozen or so Tyranid hive ships and dozens of bio-escorts in orbit were quickly dispatched by Rhodes and filas using superpowers, and with the loss of Hive Mind connection, the Tyranids on the ground fell into chaos, even turning on each other.
Tyranids were essentially biological weapons, soulless even among node creatures.
The greenskins gleefully chopped and trampled bugs to pieces. "WAAAGH! WAAAGH!"
The local Orks roared excitedly—only to be greeted by axes.
The local Orks, heads chopped off, stared in disbelief—what's going on? Why did comrades turn on us?
But in Ork culture, you hit , I hit you—no questions asked. The locals fought back.
"Kill all these losers, kill all these inferior beings."
Gromm Hellroar sneered, raising his axe against the local Orks.
The master's order was to eliminate all life on the planet except their own—and the locals weren't kin.
With the boss leading, Rhodes' Orks followed suit, hacking at the local Orks. Though all were Orks—
Rhodes' Orks were clearly taller and stronger, being Gromm Hellroar's descendants, with super-beast genes and monster mods.
They had all the traits of regular Orks, but surpassed them in every way. A one-sided slaughter began.
Within a day, the last local greenskin fell.
"My children, spill your blood and let new warriors grow on this planet!" Gromm Hellroar roared.
"At your command, mighty warlord! Boys, get moving!"
Ork bosses and Nobz acted as overseers, clearing away the locals' corpses, burning them, then spreading their own super-beast Ork genes.
"Gather up everything usable and make new ships. We need to launch the next offensive—greater wars await us!" Gromm Hellroar kept giving orders.
His boys worked furiously, gathering everything useful on the planet.
The planet, once Ork-held, was littered with scrap—Stompa wrecks, Big k wrecks, Deff Dread bits, Grot cans, and more.
"Master, looks like the Tyranids are up to sothing big here. Should we summon more troops?" filas asked.
Fifty million Orks were just enough to take one planet—not enough to sweep the Tyranids.
"You're right. Summon another 50 million and continue the assault. Seed every planet with super-beast Orks," said Rhodes.
If the Tyranids were scheming, he wouldn't let them have it easy—whatever their plan, he'd ruin it first.
"At once, Master!" Zett nodded.
He used a portal from Tartarus to return to the Ork world and gather more troops.
"filas, what do you think the Tyranids are planning?" Rhodes asked.
"The answer is obvious, Master. They're preparing for a war with you. The Tyranids collecting so much biomass has only one purpose—to fight you in the future," filas smiled.
Who else in the galaxy poses a threat to the Tyranids besides Rhodes and the Necrons?
But the Necrons and Tyranids have no real conflict—the Necrons are all machines, of no strategic value. In fact, the Necrons would prefer the Tyranids to cleanse all life, so they could retake the galaxy effortlessly.
Thus, the Tyranids' biggest obstacle is Rhodes' human forces—the galaxy's strongest power and the Tyranids' main food—and greatest enemy. Even Orks are just nutrients to the Tyranids.
Despite the fierce war, the Tyranids held the absolute advantage.
"I know they want to use this biomass against , but the Tyranids should know my counters are very effective. No matter how many hive ships, bioweapons, or even new Tyranid Titans they build, it's all for nothing against ," Rhodes said.
The cha Ultra Brothers' ranged attacks, Phoenix Baton's special power, and if needed, Rhodes could summon more Baton and upgrade them with anti-Tyranid abilities.
Even with a massive hive fleet, it wouldn't be enough. Clearly, the Tyranids wouldn't just do that.
"There are two possibilities. First, the hive fleet still wants to use swarm tactics. Last ti at Baal, you weren't absolutely dominant," filas said.
"And the second possibility?" Rhodes asked.
That seed unlikely—the Tyranids weren't stupid. Swarm tactics had failed them several tis.
Besides, if you have a swarm, so do I.
Don't think humans breed slowly—human reproduction is second only to Orks and Tyranids.
Plus, I have robots—the best anti-Tyranid army.
"The second possibility is the Tyranids are making a new weapon, designed specifically to counter your monsters—especially the cha Ultran.
This requires a lot of biological experints, which ans a lot of biomass. The hive ships are collecting it for this," filas said.
"The second possibility is more likely—the Tyranids are preparing to fight ," Rhodes mused.
"What will you do, Master?"
"What else? If they co at , I'll face them head-on," Rhodes sneered.
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