Tyranids and individuality

[trashcan01]

So, I'm slowly finishing Space Marine (Salamanders) half of my Leviathan Boxes and I'm already planning for each squad to have a sergeant with a name.
I want to be, like, "Brother Regaldus*, stand firm!" and all that. Make them my guys. I mean, my 6 year old son's guys. Right.

Back to the Tyranids. Is there even a point in making something similar for our beloved bugs?
They communicate through pheromones and psychic directives. No name calling. 
They are spawned minutes before the battle and will jump to the digestion pool as soon as we suck the marrow from the planet, only to be transformed in some other organism.
Very few characters already have their nicknames (Old One Eye, Swarmlord) and I struggle to make them "my guys" in that regard.

I can even see Genestealer Cult having cool unit and character names, but not Tyranids.
How are you aproaching this? Any way to make sense that some parts of the swarm got their reputation?


*not an actual name, still working on those (with planned naming ceremony as I finish each squad)

[piersonsmuppet]

I think following our named character’s theme is a good starting point, a genetic template used for specific purposes. So Tyranid Primes could have a tactical specialty it leads particularly well for their name and Neurothropes could have a unique employment of the warp for their name.

[infornography]

Most nids don't need names. A few get names because of something unique about the model. My Tyranid Prime (non-winged) is a warrior with the head of an original tyrant back when they were MUCH smaller. I call him Mr. Smiles.
Then I have a single original Termagant. I call him Grandpappy.
Beyond that, if a model does something noteworthy one or two times, I might give it a unique name. Like if a lone Horm managed to take down a Space Marine Captain and live, I might give him a unique name. Things like that.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

If you want to name your tyranids, I'd suggest sculpting in something that makes them unique.

For tyranids, they'll be named by their opponents. Think of this like Captain ahab naming the whale Moby dick (name might not come through due to swear filter lol). I can see three options:
1. An opponent fights that tyranid and lives, but the tyranid does too
2. An opponent fights and kills that tyranid
3. An opponent is killed by that tyranid but the survivors report on it or a message of warning is broadcasted about it

For naming them, what makes them unique to an opponent? Personally, I think each batch of gaunts will have mutations involved making them unique as the hive mind would always be trying new evolutions to see what's most effective. For example for hormogaunts, would heavier talons be good at the price of speed? What about less armor? Smaller but faster, etc. was there something unique about how or where they fought?

My nids have unique names if they earn it:
1. Flappy for my flyrant. Blew up tons of tanks in a crusher stampede 9e campaign
2. Flucknutz, a carnifex that weathered way to much firepower causing an opponent/friend to call it a flucknutzing carnifex
3. Jerry, the lone hormogaunt that I used insane bravery on, then ran to claim an objective forcing an opponent to diver forces to kill... Only to have Jerry dodge multiple plague marines worth of shooting and live another turn.

[purestrain]

Other species name them, give them esoteric names and everyone will call you a Chad.

[trashcan01]

May 14, 2024 20:07:47 GMT purestrain said:

Other species name them, give them esoteric names and everyone will call you a Chad.

Would you be so kind to give a few examples?

[klus]

I played in a crusade campaign where the story was tyranids attacking an ork infested planet (then necrons woke up and CSM came looking for necron artifacts etc).
I decided that the orks had named my units and characters which turned out quite fun, some examples:

Big Momma -tervigon
Sneaka -lictor
Brainbustas -zoanthropes
Many hands -warriors
Hot potatoes -Spore mines
Moshpitter -tyranid prime
Moshpitters Claws -melee warriors
Moshpitters Talons -melee warriors
Annoying Grubbers - devilgants
The Hungry One -mawloc

[purestrain]

May 15, 2024 2:42:13 GMT trashcan01 said:

May 14, 2024 20:07:47 GMT purestrain said:

Other species name them, give them esoteric names and everyone will call you a Chad.

Would you be so kind to give a few examples?

Their names.

Terror of varghast

Beast of phodia

Deathleaper.

Just think about it for a minute and the motif you want.

Like a carnifex could be called a crusher killer, etc.

[coff]

You don't name all your tyranids?

Taragaunt, Termagrant, Thelmagaunt, Trevorgaunt, Jeff, Ermagaunt, Timagaunt, Tomagaunt, Termabrent, Termabryant, Ermaghant,Termajohnt, Geormagaunt, Termagatha, Termargaret, Termary, Termagary, Termothy, Termopher, Termione (pronounced Ter‐my-o-nee)

[trashcan01]

^ Old forum guard detected. No way some newbie would put in the effort to write that just for the lulz.



Also, 2890 posts.

[coff]

On a serious note, named bugs were originally eschewed. It went against their collective nature. Third edition introduced Old One Eye and The Red Terror. Fourth edition did away with special characters again. Fifth had the most adding Doom of Malan'tai (since absorbed into Neurothrope), The Swarmlord, Parasite of Mortrex (no longer an individual), the Deathleaper (modern staple, my original model is too small to field as the Epic Hero without feeling like I'm cheating the system) and Ymgarl 'stealers as a one of squad of elites. None have been added since. A few have disappeared. Some finally got models (Parasite, Swarmlord). That's the in game history of individual Tyranids. From someone who started in 2nd and became a mod in the early days of 3rd.

I have a metal Screamer Killer from 2nd edition named Diskette because it was $35 in 1996 and before I could afford it I used a 3.5 inch floppy as a proxy for the model. That sentence alone should tell you I'm closer to my death than my birth.

[trashcan01]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Oh well, time to go all out on naming every single sarge in my Salamanders and scratch that itch.

I've used floppy disks myself. Multiple even, for those big big 20Mb files. (not) Good times.

[Overread]

The concept of individuality within the Swarm is tricky. Some things appear to be individuals like the SwarmLord; others might be individuals but we've no real idea, such as Norn Queens or even Hive Tyrants. We don't even really have a firm grasp on the Hive Mind itself. We know its an all encompassing thought system, but we don't really know how it operates. Is it one powerful intelligence; is it like the Overmind and its Cerebrates from Starcraft; is it something else?


But long and the short most Tyranids are not individuals; and even named variations like Old One Eye are more akin to unique/rare evolutionary creations that the swarm does not/cannot replicate in large numbers.


However you could name squads and units based on micro-evolution. We know that Tyranids do not have perfect genetic creation. Termagaunts are not all perfect clones/copies of each other. The Swarm relies heavily on allowing genetic drifting and micro evolutions to maximise its optimising. So you could name squads and groups based off elements of them evolved on the micro level. Not enough that they change their stats, but enough that they are different. Perhaps they have elements of them that are important outside of combat stats; or colourations of armour and so forth.
Perhaps one group of gaunts has little antenna on them etc..


That would be one way to allow individuality and unique squad level variations in the army. Even solo larger bugs could be done the same way.




Another one is on kills. IF anyone kills anything awesome in game then that could be part of their name and identity. A Screamer Killer that tore open a baneblade is now the Bande-of-Blades etc

[trashcan01]

Yeah, it was already mentioned before that names should come from the side of the opposition, as they perceive individual Tyranid life-forms.
I love the kills idea. If some unit/monster stands out in a game, would be a good idea to discuss with the opponent on how to name the gribbly.

I have so many Termagants that I have trouble separating the units on the table (old cast). I could do something to differentiate them and give them some identity. Thanks for the input!

[Overread]

May 31, 2024 19:20:18 GMT trashcan01 said:

Yeah, it was already mentioned before that names should come from the side of the opposition, as they perceive individual Tyranid life-forms.
I love the kills idea. If some unit/monster stands out in a game, would be a good idea to discuss with the opponent on how to name the gribbly.

I have so many Termagants that I have trouble separating the units on the table (old cast). I could do something to differentiate them and give them some identity. Thanks for the input!

For things like Gaunts a simple way can just be to paint the rim of the base different colours for different squads.

Another is to vary part of the paint on the model, eg you might use a different coloured edge highlight on the armour plating. Similar to how a Marine player might use a different coloured shoulderpad or insignia transfer

Converting is another approach, but don't limit yourself to just the model, you could have a specific plant/tree/rock or such on some bases and not on others.



Whatever you do the key is just to make it simple enough to repeat for a whole squad; variable enough to change up as many times as you want and that its easily recognisable during a game.