High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Tyranids are a fictional race from the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game and its spin-off media. They are known to the Imperium generally as Tyranids, because Tyran is the first known planet they devoured and where they were first encountered. Luckily for the Imperium, Inquisitor Kryptman found oral data concealed on one of the databases on Tyran and dedicated the rest of his life to exterminating the new foe.