Explanation: In the popular tabletop game Warhammer 40,000, many creatures of the bug-aliens of the 'Tyranids' are given Latin names or titles to reflect their positions. Mostly they eat things, though.
Here, they finally do their actual jobs!
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Also a lot of Tyranid bioforms are named to evoke insults hurled at assertive women. Dominatrix, harridan, harpy, termagants and a few others I think. I've seen this posited as a theory for why the 'girl who plays nids' is a stereotype.
We'll see how funny calling me a termagant was when I Deep Strike 30 Devourer Gaunts in range of your most valuable unit
I had no clue that was a stereotype but I find that fascinating
Maybe stereotype isn't the right word exactly. People are not wrong when they talk about gender expressions and vibes at game stores. Its largely full of dudes, and they are not the most social and occasionally are creepy. I have played in a number of these places and I've heard more than once people joke about women picking Tyranids. The anecdotes I have heard generally say that women don't tend towards the imperium factions outside of the sisters of battle, and are fonder of monstrous or xeno factions. As a xeno fan myself I always thought it was neat that the cross section of women who are interested in warhammer are more interested in the cooler factions, but I don't know if there is any real data behind it
Do all of the galaxy inhabitants speak latin, or is it that only the nazi cosplayers have had contacts with the Tyranids?
In universe, the pseudo latin represents the old tongue of humans spoken when the emperor still lived, called high gothic. The currently spoken language (10k years later) is low gothic, represented by british english, with high gothic being reduced to a sort of ceremonial and honorific language used mostly in titles and such.
Think latin in medieval times, the commoners could not speak it but it was used by the church in their sermons and such.
As a translation/stylistic convention, the Imperium's nomenclature is generally used. Latin feels more mysterious and grim, like giant space cathedrals exterminating a planet for sneezing wrong.