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Illustration of Termagants1 / 4 · Click to enlarge
Art: “The Battle of Mykoton” by Vitaly Perevoshikov, used with the artist's permission. source

Tyranids · Unit

Termagants

Endless, scuttling broods of six-limbed Tyranid bio-forms bred in the millions to drown planetary defences in living ammunition and chitin.

Tyranids

Category
Troops
Faction
Tyranids
Related characters
3

Illustrated by Vitaly Perevoshikov (“The Battle of Mykoton”, used with permission) · Additional gallery art by Andrei Drozhzhin (“Kelermorph with pet termagant (Kelermorph with Termagant)”) (used with permission)

Lore & origins

When a Tyranid Hive Fleet darkens the skies of a prey world, the first bio-forms to pour from the Mycetic Spores by the tens of millions are the Termagants. Engineered from the genetic template of a swift, six-limbed quadruped predator, every Termagant is a disposable biological weapon platform whose own digestive tract has been omitted so it will fight until it starves or is dissolved back into the reclamation pools. Guided by the psychic Synapse web of nearby Hive Tyrants and Warriors, Termagant broods flow over fortress walls like a tide of chitin and fangs.

Appearance & wargear

Hunched, dog-sized hexapodal creatures with pale ribbed exoskeletons, overlapping violet-or-crimson dorsal carapace plates, and a symbiotic Fleshborer, Spinefist, or Devourer bio-gun fused directly into their forelimbs.

Weapons & Vehicles

Standard Armament & Combat LoadoutTermagants carry symbiotic Fleshborers, Spinefists, or Devourers fused directly to their forelimbs.
Deathspitter, Devourer & FleshborerBio-Weapon

The gruesome living firearm-symbiotes of the Tyranid swarms, hurling flesh-burrowing beetles, brain-eating worms and exploding acid-mag…

Hive TyrantsMonsters & Daemons · Support

Towering, self-aware Tyranid synapse commanders that embody the Hive Mind on the battlefield and are reborn with all their accumulated …

CarnifexesHeavy Support · Support

Eight-tonne living battering rams of the Tyranid swarms — first encountered as shrieking Screamer-Killers — that smash through starship…

Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.

Battlefield role & tactics

Blanketing objectives and screening massive bio-titans, Termagant broods force enemy gunlines to exhaust their ammunition before the Carnifexes and Hive Tyrants strike.

Munitorum & Ordo Xenos Technical Dossier

Classified under Ordo and Departmento Munitorum threat-index protocols as a primary Blanketing objectives and screening massive bio-titans, Termagant broods force enemy gunlines to exhaust their ammunition before the Carnifexes and Hive Tyrants strike. asset of Tyranids, Termagants relies on a tightly coupled symbiosis between operator conditioning and primary armament. Field maintenance and biological recovery logs indicate that extended deployment without liturgical recalibration or bio-stasis rest degrades targeting and metabolic stability by less than 4% per solar week—far outperforming standard sector baselines—while post-engagement recovery teams prioritize the immediate extraction of their core wargear, neural/gene-seed components, or machine-spirit memory cores before enemy scavengers can exploit them.

Notable battles & users

  • 745.M41 — Billions of Termagants of Hive Fleet Behemoth carpeted the polar fortresses of Macragge until the Ultramarines First Company ran completely out of bolter shells.

Further reading

Lexicanum · Warhammer 40k Wiki