Narvhal

What these space cuttlefish look like.

Not to be confused with the real-life cetacean narwhal.

A Narvhal is a Tyranid Bio-ship that fulfils the essential role of allowing all the vessels of a Tyranid Hive Fleet to travel faster than light. This ability makes up for a Narvhal ship being small, innocuous, and having almost no weaponry or armour. So if you wanna know how the Nids get around the universe without starving to death, now you know.

• Length: 0.9-1km; approx
• Mass: 1.6 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: Thousands of organisms
• Acceleration: 2.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

Overview

Tyranids do not travel via Warp jumps, such as the Imperium does, and so instead rely on their Narvhal ships. Through the use of monofilament spines clustered along a Narvhal's bow which can interpret a wide range of sensory input and even a broad spectrum of gravimetric signals, a Narvhal can somehow detect the presence of a planetary system at an incredible distance away. It can then somehow harness the system's gravity to create a corridor of compressed-space through which Tyranid vessels can travel towards the system at a swift rate. How they can essentially create Worm Holes, we have no fucking clue. Maybe mundane, maybe psychic space magic.

Whilst slower than proper warp travel, this method is infinitely more reliable.

However, strong gravitational forces cause interference with a Narvhal's delicate senses. And so on final approach to a system, a Tyranid fleet can no longer use a Narvhal's ability but must resort to slower conventional propulsion. This will often slow their arrival by years or even decades. While within system borders, they must resort to conventional propulsion methods.

In a blatant example of GeeDubs not knowing even basic cosmology. The Narvhal's hijinks are known to cause gravitational side effects on the planetary system. Unless the Narvhal's Worm Hole is a gravitational singularity big enough to activate the Roche limit, then we would call horse shit on this. No Hive Fleet, no matter how big, was shown amassing enough biomass to cause gravitational stress on even a small moon, let alone a planet. This is made more egregious when taken to the fact that, for a celestial object to feel the Roche limit, the opposing force must have a gravity well equal to or greater than that object. Which means that for all intents and purposes, it should be the Hive Fleet that would be getting their hides popped as they should be the ones feeling the Roche limit, as their combined mass still falls short of even a small moon.

Vessels of the Tyranids
Spaceships
	Battleships	Hive Ship (Ancient One)
	Cruisers	Void Prowler - Cruiser (Razorfiend Dark Prowler - Void Fiend) - Devourer
	Escorts	Escort (Escort Drone - Vanguard Drone Ship Kraken)
	Logistics	Narvhal
Landships
	Bio-titans	Viciator - Dominatrix Hierophant - Hydraphant
Airships
	Flying Fortress	Harridan