"Hey! Did you feel the ground shake just now?"
- —Guardsman Prall at the Battle of Table Mountain
A Tyranid Trygon attacking a Craftworld Aeldari Falcon
A Trygon (Tyranicus subterra-extremis) is a species of Tyranid that is similar to the smaller Ravener and often leads their hordes into battle. Trygons are primarily employed by the Hive Mind as stealth operatives who can emerge behind enemy lines and slaughter foes where they stand.
Trygons are capable of digging massive tunnels that lead behind enemy lines and then use their acute senses to detect the presence of enemies above it. The emergence of a Trygon will often herald a larger Tyranid attack as hordes of smaller bioforms like Raveners pour out after it using the freshly created tunnel. Trygons are deadly close combat specialists who make use of their six clawed arms, razor-sharp teeth and a bio-electric field that flows through its armour that can be unleashed in an ionised spray to incapacitate attacking enemies.
Role
The Trygon is a vast, serpentine Tyranid bioform, so colossal that it towers over even the mighty Carnifex. It is a heavily armoured monster, covered from head to tail with a thick carapace of shifting plates. As the Trygon moves, these plates generate a potent bio-static charge that courses along the length of the beast's body and wreathes its bladed forelimbs with crackling power. The Trygon can direct this energy as a lethal high-voltage discharge -- unleashing pulsing arcs of lightning that leave its prey as little more than a charred pile of scorched bones. Called a "bio-electric pulse" by Imperial scholars of the Great Devourer, this electrical energy can be channeled into a sudden, powerful arc that is potent enough to kill by exhaling an ionised spray carrying the charge from the Trygon's gills.
A Tyranid Trygon, used by the Hive Mind to launch subterranean stealth attacks behind enemy lines.
A Trygon's claws are not only fearsome in close combat, they also allow it to burrow through practically any material. When a Trygon detects an enemy above, it digs upwards, bursting through the ground with explosive force, its huge claws scything through enemy warriors and tanks alike. Such attacks are hard to detect and harder to defend against, especially on worlds with background seismic activity. Once the beast emerges, only focused heavy-weapons fire can be relied upon to bring it down, for the Trygon's iron-hard carapace is proof against all else.
Trygons excavate a massive network of underground tunnels as they burrow beneath the surface of a prey world. Other Tyranid bioforms use the passageways left in the Trygon's wake, scuttling unseen as battle rages overhead. The emergence of a tunnelling Trygon therefore often heralds a larger Tyranid attack, with hordes of creatures pouring out of the tunnel shortly after its emergence.
It is possible that Trygons use their natural bio-static charge to also assist with their tunnelling, as their tunnels have been found to be coated with a fused, glass-like silicate layer on the inside created from material that has been fused by a potent electrical charge. This effect acts to stabilise the tunnel walls and prevents them from collapsing behind a burrowing Trygon.
Trygons have also been known to dig deadfall traps by leaving a thin crust of soil over a deep, conical hole. Sufficient weight in troops and armour walking across the hole will collapse the roof of the sinkhole and deposit the victims into the Trygon's waiting claws. A Trygon's greatest weakness is probably that it can be baited or misdirected from its primary target while burrowing by the first prey to cross its path.
Trygon Prime
As with many Tyranid organisms, different Trygons display substantial variety; one of the most distinct is the Trygon Prime. These Tyranid bioforms have elongated jaws and containment spines running the length of their sinuous bodies, to better harness and direct their bio-electric discharges.
More dangerous still, these Trygons share a strong synaptic link with the Hive Mind and are able to telepathically dominate the will of lesser Tyranid species, essentially allowing them to serve as subsidiary synapse creatures in a Tyranid swarm.
Bioshock Brood
A Bioshock Brood is a group of Trygons who work together to combine and so amplify their own static charges into a single bio-electric field covering the whole brood, rather than generating individual bio-static fields. Bio-electrical lightning arcs from Trygon to Trygon with a build-up of power so great that the generated field can disrupt, absorb, and even deflect incoming enemy fire.
When this potent electrical build-up is discharged, it has the power of a raging tempest which reduces targets to charred corpses. Tell-tale signs of an imminent surfacing from a Bioshock Brood include hairs standing on end, the tang of ozone, or unusual electronic static disrupting vox communication channels -- though these warnings usually go unnoticed by te imminent victims.
Ordo Xenos Departmento Analyticus Data
| Ordo Xenos Departmento Analyticus Record | |||
| Designation | Trygon | Main Weaponry | 4 Scything Claws |
| Common Title | "Mother Ravener" "Slash-tail" |
||
| Species Name | Tyranicus subterra-extremis | Secondary Weaponry | Bio-electric field |
| Average Height | 7.1 metres | ||
| Average Weight | 9.7 tonnes | Tertiary Weaponry | Other claws and fangs |
| First encountered | Beta Anphelion IV | ||
| Role | Subterranean stealth assault | ||
| Threat evaluation | Very high | ||
Sources
- Codex: Tyranids (5th Edition), pg. 50
- Codex: Tyranids (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 204-207
- Codex: Tyranids (8th Edition), pg. 59
- Deathwatch: Mark of the Xenos (RPG). pg. 45
- Imperial Armour Volume IV - The Anphelion Project
- White Dwarf 361 (UK), pg. 22
- White Dwarf 362 (UK), pg. 49