"By turn" pools are no more random than "by formation" pools, less so even as you can still direct the units you want in the formation you want.

In what way are there any "book-keeping problems" with the "Spawning Queue" idea? The units are placed in a line as they die, and spawning is done in order from the front of the line. Simple and random...

To me a single spawn queue is less bookkeeping than multiple queues, and very much KISS. All the multiple pool ideas do is increase the complexity without actually making spawning much more random. A canny player will easily be able to get 80% of the nids spawned where he wants them.

and if space is an issue, you can always write down on a bit of paper and cross off the spawned ones

Termagant
T
Hormagant
Ravenor
T
R
Carnifex
H
H
T
C


you get the idea or use post-its with a different colour for each...

Can we take this opportunity to change the name of Spawning to Swarming?

Since we have fixed formations now, the word Swarm is no longer needed elsewhere, and Swarming doesn't have the "birth" connotations that Spawning has, which is always confusing to new players.

I second that

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Thirded.

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I like the term swarming a lot better than spawning.

Fifthed.

Personally I like "Without Number", but spawning should go.

I think the only way to get away from the Nid player picking and choosing which units to spawn/swarm (without 2 pages of limitations) is to use a random table for spawned units..

No, I think my wording is a bit clumsy. I'll explain the method.
1) The stand you want from another formation is left out of coherency so is removed and placed in a swarm pool.
*) The swarming dance. (ie playing the rule to get what you want)
2) Swarm requested stand at required formation

Now for 9.2.1 the * step requires nothing more than selecting the formation and rolling enough to swarm the requested stand.

For formation specific pools you have to roll enough to get the stand you want plus all stands in it's own pool. Generally this could be done through selection of swarming order but for unharmed formations you can just sacrifice one stand and swarm first to get your pick of stands in other swarming pools after getting back the stand you sacrificed.

I think the per turn spawning pool idea has merit, it is essentially a slightly restricted version of 9.2.1. I do think the FOFI method is a better idea as it retains the continuous horde effect but removes the spawn what I want effect. I would note that an exception may be useful to allow dead stands to be skipped only if the stand cannot be swarmed due to a low roll. And furthermore the Dominatrix could get a unit rule to swarm any unit in the pool (or even grant that ability to a single formation within 15cm). Any idea requires space to set up one or more pools so the difficulty in using either method is negligible. FOFI can be compact just by arranging stands in a square adding dead units to the back right and swarming from the front left. It does risk getting knocked though but I can't see that really being an issue.

FOFI - First Out, First In

Swarming a unit doesn't quite have the right ring to it.

Ah, okay.

I'll pitch in again that every spawning/swarming idea proposed seems to be able to be gamed somehow. How important is it, really? IMO it can be done without. It would require rebalancing the points in the list, but that's better than unbalancing the list as a whole.

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A Queue can't be gamed (when combined with a fixed spawn order), or at least its an awful lot harder to game.

How do you fix the spawn order, then? Who goes first? Last? What if you take a different list? I can't see any type pf fixed order going over well in a community that dislikes mandatory moves so much. The required spawn is dangerously close to mandatory move as it is.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

The fixed order is smallest formation to largest, with a free choice for equally sized formations.

There's no mandatory move about it, that's really not a good argument. It's no more mandatory than the fact that you can't choose the number of blast markers to remove when you rally.

It's not a mandatory move, but it is a mandatory action that may have tactical implications. Even Necrons aren't require to add troops if they don't want to. However, I'm aware I'm in a minority and at this point am mostly playing devil's advcate. Smallest to largest sounds reasonable for a fixed order, but is the rule really neccessary to Tyranids?

Is there no other way to give them the feel they need than to have a mechanism to add units? I think that this rule has become too accepted, and that we should take a step back and see if this is the only way to do what we want. Tyranids in 40k simply have a "Horde of tooth and claw" feel, but they do not add units mid game. There are certain Apocalype formations that do, but that's more a case of units coming onto the battlefield from farther away than frontline units growing in strength under the guns of the enemy.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

There have been plenty of discussions about whether Spawning is neccessary; A large majority have been in favour of it every time it has come up.

Actually nids can add units mid-game in 40k. In the current edition, the Tervigon can spawn termagants in large numbers. In the previous edition, gaunt squads could be given the Without Number rule, which meant that if the squad was killed it would respawn on the board edge.

Epic scale "spawning" also represents something else that happens in 40k; individual units lurking out of synapse range coming back under the control of another nearby synapse creature.

I used to be against spawning but then changed my mind when I thought about the idea of randomly wandering nids coming under a synapse umbrella. It makes sense.