Editing Hierophant


[[File:Hierophant Nid.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Those little specks are about to have a bad day.]]
The '''Hierophant''' is a [[Forge World]]-only fuckhuge [[Tyranid]] biotitan which is a fucking engine of destruction. It has a large arsenal of bio-weapons and is the Tyranid response to [[Gargant]]s and [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]]s. The largest Tyranid unit in the game, it stands at 10 inches without a stand. However, in the fluff it is 15 meters tall. To put this to scale, the average height of a Imperial Guardsmen stands at around 1.5 to 1.8 meters tall while a average Space Marine is 2.5 to 2.7 meters, so on the table you can expect the size difference between a Hierophant and most things to be approximately fluff accurate - in other words it's pretty fucking huge.

They also weigh at around 51 tonnes, which in real world terms is not actually that massive. Compared to many sauropod dinosaurs (not to mention things like tanks), this is rather light. Furthermore it would be a rat compared to the Blue Whale. Figures that GW would end up failing at scale again. 

With that in mind, the Heirophant is probably not all that dense. While the dinosaurs prove that land creatures can safely get that large, dinosaurs have legs under their bodies like pillars, while the Heirophant's front legs legs go up to the "knee" then down again. From a structural perspective the body is hanging off the limbs. Additionally, for the Hive mind to create a creature that can only invade Earth-sized or smaller worlds is likely be a waste of time (unless it turns out that larger worlds in 40k don't allow the kinds of fortification that need a Hierophant to attack). Instead of being a huge brick like a Carnifex, the Heirophant is probably light for its size, armored and structured in a self-supporting way to enable so it can either  take cannon shells without breaking bones or splitting armor, or it can suffer broken bones and split armor but can those wounds can't kill it before it can perform its mission. Purely speculation, but one could assume it has legs made entirely the hard chitin  Tryanids use for armor, with muscle and bone only extending far enough to give mobility and reinforcing structure; Terran life forms do this as well - it's why chickens have big drum sticks but much less meat on the rest of their legs. The inside of the beast would most likely be entirely metabolic structures and weapon organs (standard Tyranid fare), but with a dense and powerful digestive system in the lower front area to take in energy - remember that petroleum, what we use for fuel, is just plants that have been changed by the earth, and it has a very high energy density. As such, it's not to hard to imagine the Hierophant being powered by some kind of organic gasoline, though it would need a lot of fuel to create enough energy-dense petrol; thus, either it needs to conestly "nurse" off a hive ship or the hive mind just has hormagaunts jump in its mouth to give it enough energy to fight. The supportive structure is likely a porous, hard (and regenerative) supporting material with a dense bone-core and plated chitin armor, segmented like an insect.  The odd shape of the body probably protects vitals from infantry, smaller beasts, and flame weapons; it can walk over barricades and could even use it's circulatory system to move heat generated from movement or energy weapons to it's top, ensuring weapons organs function at peak efficiency. Alternatively, it might be at least partly supported by the hive mind, like a Zoanthrope.

[[File:Hierophant, Knarloc, Squiggoth_Size_Comparison Earth Creatures2.PNG|542px|thumb|left|But then again, if the Hierophant thinks that he is all big and mighty...]]

Of course, unless its weight is mitigated by psychic hijinks or it being filled with helium (or better yet, a considerable vacuum), there's no explanation for how a 51-ton creature on FOUR POINTED LEGS doesn't sink balls-deep into the ground the moment it makes planetfall.  

It's also worth noting that all those giant dinosaurs were very slow beyond being able to take a large stride, and most large Earth animals on land have to actually be extremely cautious with their movements because it's surprisingly easy for them to break bones from relatively small falls due to their sheer mass.  Even at elephant size, a slip down a few meters can cause some pretty serious injuries.  While for the giant sauropods high speed movement would be next to impossible and so much as tipping over would likely be fatal.   Meanwhile, the Heirophant is noted to be extremely fast (easily capable of outrunning people with jetpacks) and shrugs off tank shells like annoying gnats and can easily get into high speed rough and tumble melee fights with Titans and Stompas so even with Forgeworld's rather low weigh estimations, the Hierophant is already a very much impossible beast thanks to its sheer agility (being far faster to react and move and substantially more agile than most smaller animals) and its incredible resilience.  A bruthakayosaurus may be bigger but it's more fragile, slower, and would have had to spend a great deal of its day doing nothing but eating to sustain itself while the Hierophant can run around at high speeds over the course of a Hive fleet's assault on a targeted planet.

[[Crunch]]-wise, this is the most powerful Tyranid model in the game. It's extremely durable, throws out more attacks per turn than any single model - besides a CSM model that gets lucky a demon weapon, a Dreadnaught with blood talons since it can more attacks, and An'ggrath if rolls lots of 6s - and packs two S10 biocannons, which are sadly only AP3. It's only BS3, but with that many shots it's not going to matter. As the number of attacks it has, plus the fact that it's a gargantuan creature, would indicate, the main area it excels in is close combat: Apocalypse exclusive [[Daemon]]-lords are likely to die against it. It's damn hard to kill, too, having 10 wounds, toughness 9, and can regenerate and get a wound back by rolling a 6, and it gets to roll a six for every remaining wound it has.

[[Phil Kelly]] has one, and he called it Nancy. 'nuff said.

{{Tyranids-Creatures}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Tyranid]]