Tyranid Warrior of Hive Fleet Kronos; a hive fleet that frequently clashes with Daemons and Chaos-corrupted prey, Kronos is well adapted to slaying its targets from afar. Its invasion swarms often include vast Termagant broods directed by Tyranid Warriors armed with long-range Bio-cannons.
Hive Fleet Kronos is a minor Tyranid hive fleet that splintered off from Hive Fleet Leviathan in the Era Indomitus and is adapted by the Hive Mind specifically to battle the forces of Chaos. This is an attempt by the Hive Mind to maintain the viability of the galaxy's biomass for consumption and prevent it from being corrupted by the Warp as the power of the Great Rift floods into the local Materium.
Where Hive Fleet Kronos travels, the Shadow in the Warp is at its most suffocatingly powerful. So strong is the psychic connection between Kronos and the Hive Mind, that a stifling aura of null power drifts ahead of its invasion swarms, agonising psychically-active foes and draining their spiritual energy to bolster its own hosts.
Even as this phenomena throws the enemy into fearful confusion, thousands upon thousands of warrior-forms advance, unleashing a storm of organic missiles; Kronos avoids engaging its prey at close range when possible, for the prey it hunts revels in brutal close-quarters fighting, and thus a ranged kill is a more efficient method of extermination.
The raw matter of Chaos is anathema to the Tyranids, for it is inconstant and ethereal, possessing none of the nourishment that the hive fleets require to sate their endless hunger. Thus, the Tyranids -- when possible -- avoid areas plagued by Warp storms and Daemonic activity. As the impure essence of the Immaterium pours into realspace across the galaxy in the wake of the Cicatrix Maledictum's birth in the Era Indomitus, this is becoming increasingly difficult.
Vital resources are being denied to the hive fleets as entire sectors are consumed by Chaos, and the Hive Mind has been forced to react to a looming catastrophe. Hive Fleet Kronos appears to be the Hive Mind's first solution. This new terror is tracing a coreward path along the line of the Great Rift. Tendrils of Hive Fleet Leviathan have diverted from their original course, leaving behind defenceless worlds for Kronos to consume. It uses such offerings well to gain more power and numbers which its normal Daemonic enemies cannot provide.
The nascent hive fleet appears to be zeroing in on areas of intense psychic activity that threaten to tear the breach between realities wider. Scores of planets conquered by Chaos-worshipping cultists and Warp-spawned abominations have fallen in its path, and Kronos has obliterated them all, like a maggot eating the corruption from an infected wound.
History[]
Psykers, Chaos worshippers, and other creatures of the Warp like Daemons are the favoured quarry of Hive Fleet Kronos. The organisms spawned by its bio-ships are perfectly designed by the Hive Mind to eradicate the taint of the Immaterium.
Notable Campaigns[]
- Battle of The Wolf's Head (Unknown Date.M42) - A Navis Imperialis fleet under the command of Admiral Groesson is engaging a massive Chaos warfleet at the Wolf's Head Nebula when scores of Tyranid bio-ships enter the battle. Ignoring the Imperial ships, the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Kronos smash their way into the Chaos formation, swarming over the colossal Despoiler-class Battleship at its centre. Not questioning his good fortune, Groesson unleashes a final salvo and orders the retreat.
- Second Battle of Shadowbrink (Unknown Date.M42) - The world of Shadowbrink, where Hive Fleet Leviathan once defeated a vast Daemonic force, erupts with Chaos energy as the Great Rift spreads its influence, and Daemons once again walk upon its surface. Drawn by Shadowbrink's malevolent psychic aura, Hive Fleet Kronos arrives in orbit above the world. The Hive Mind deposits spores and swarms of organisms at eight points across the planet's surface, areas of heightened Warp activity that are growing stronger with every passing moment. A neural node of Maleceptors and Zoanthropes leads each Tyranid host, and around these psychic organisms the Shadow in the Warp reaches such intensity that the wounds in reality begin to close. Khorne's Daemonic legions storm towards the Tyranids, but Hive Fleet Kronos refuses to answer the charge. Instead, the Daemons are met with a storm of Fleshborer fire, and Tyranid artillery beasts blast apart thousands of Warp-spawned horrors. Slowly but inevitably, the Daemons upon Shadowbrink are banished back to the Warp.
- Spoiled Feast (Unknown Date.M42) - Hive Fleet Kronos pauses its inexorable momentum to devour a chain of pre-digested worlds left behind by Hive Fleet Leviathan. The rancid gruel that remains has rotted and spoiled, but the Capillary Towers and ridged proboscises of Kronos' bio-ships devour it all the same.
- Cutting The Signal (Unknown Date.M42) - A tendril of Hive Fleet Kronos converges upon an intense astropathic beacon that a hunting pack of Night Lords Heretic Astartes have been using to bait lost voidships. The Heretic Astartes scatter and launch harrying attacks against the Tyranids, hoping to redirect the larger hive fleet. In turn, Kronos disperses its bio-vessels, laying traps of its own. Unable to lure the Tyranids away from the tortured astropaths that are broadcasting their siren signal, the Night Lords are forced to retreat.
- Burnt Offerings (Unknown Date.M42) - Thousand Sons warbands of the Traitor Legion's Cult of Manipulation began immolating scores of worlds in sacrificial rituals before the coming of Hive Fleet Kronos. It is not known, however, if these sacrifices were unleashed done to repel or lure the hive fleet.
Traits[]
Hive Fleet Kronos is a Tyranid hive fleet that frequently clashes with Daemons and other Chaos-corrupted prey such as the Heretic Astartes and their mortal allies. As such, Kronos is well-adapted to slaying its targets from afar as the Warp entities it hunts often prefer melee combat.
Its invasion swarms often include vast Termagant broods directed by Tyranid Warriors armed with long-range Bio-cannons such as the Balethorn Cannon, an adaptation of the normal Barbed Strangler biomorph so powerful that it can penetrate any kind of armour or energy shields used by the Great Devourer's enemies. Its Shadow in the Warp is also so powerful that it can prevent Chaos Daemons from taking form in realspace and can even completely close Warp rifts if highly focused.
Unable to replenish itself through the consumption of Daemons or Chaos-corrupted biomatter, Hive Fleet Kronos relies upon a symbiotic relationship with its parent Hive Fleet Leviathan, which recently has changed strategies and chosen to not wholly devour the entire biospheres of certain worlds since the creation of the Great Rift.
Elements of Hive Fleet Kronos follow in its larger parent's wake, replenishing its numbers from whatever remains of the Leviathan's own assaults. In this way it has moved across the fringes of the Great Rift, providing it an ever greater taste for psychic prey as a whole. This has led it to recently target Asuryani craftworlds, cults of Chaos Sorcerers, or Human star systems whose people caught in the midst of the psyker-enhancing effects of the Psychic Awakening.
Hive Fleet Kronos bioforms possess red and black carapaces.
Sources[]
- Codex: Tyranids (8th Edition), pg. 37, "Bio-Artefacts of the Tyranids"
- Codex: Thousand Sons (8th Edition), pg. 25
- Codex: Tyranids (9th Edition), pg. 32