Hive Guard play a crucial role in the final stages of a Tyranid invasion, when all of the planetary bio-mass the xenos have harvested and partially digested must be transported to the Hive Ships. In these last stages, enormous capillary towers and spore chimneys emerge from the ground, the former growing with astounding speed past the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere, to channel the processed organic soup to orbiting Hive Ships. As these towers and chimneys enable the Tyranids to achieve the ultimate goal of their planetary invasions, the Tyranids take particular care to defend these structures well. Indeed, the Hive Mind seems to have developed the Hive Guard specifically to fulfil the important function of standing watch over these towers. Typical of the ever-efficient Tyranids,