It is an issue we have also come across and it is allowing opponents to take advantage of the rule as it is written right now. Total resurrection spawning is going to be changed to a limited across swarm spawning. The limitations would be the following;
(A) The spawning swarm must have NO units of its own to spawn back.
(B) The 'new units' MUST come from a swarm that has been wiped out, or has gone instinctive.

I just haven't written it up yet as I am working on some changes to this rule and the others, will have them up real soon. Also they are presented in the batrep I am working on and hope to have up tonight or tommorrow. Gotta figure out how to get the PDF format maps on the forum.

Cheers,
Jaldon

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I know a dead parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now.
Tyranid AC

If you're going to have any kind of cross-swarm spawning then all the problems with BTS and Tie Breaker come back, so if you allow any of it you might as well allow all of it.

The rules you mentioned above seem in danger of becoming excessively complicated, which was what we were trying to avoid.

Let me once again push for a Daemon-pool-style Spawning Pool, where units can be bought at a discount and spawned into play.

@Jaldon
Thanks for your thoughts on my feedback. I really appreciate the playing advice as I don't want to give new players bad tips. I am going to need to stress screening units again. After talking with the other experienced player in my local group we are going to playtest the +1 to rally rule for synapse only if that is alright. That seems to be a good fluffy rule and fits in with the background. We will probably playtest the "Old Adversary" rule, and let you all know how it goes. I don't like being forced to use a WE to have a supreme commander (Necron's are the exception). It will be an option when no Dominatrix is present and either cost +50 for SC only, or +100 for +1 MW CC and Inv Save.

Don't think the extra spawn mechanics for untouched formations is worth the complication of the list.

I think we have a handle on the rest of the rules so we will try to get a few battle reports in. I am going to play him with either my Krieg assault force or a Steel Legion list. Brian was talking about either Biel Tan or Iyanden (might be more interesting since there is more for the 'Nids to sink their claws into). We'll see about getting pictures and notes together for it.

Monty's got a good selection of bugs including assault swarms, gaunts, gargoyles, etc. He's getting about 8 activations which should be good for 3k. I wasn't sure if anyone was running much higher which was why I was asking. It does seem the swarms won't be big enough with current points values if you go with higher activations. I will have Monty read your article because it does help give a good tactical foundation for the game.

I'll try to have something new in the next week or two. Thesis permitting of course ...

I see I am going to have to explain the full rule for you to get where it is going. Right now Nid players have to keep the losses for each swarm seperate for spawning purposes.

Part 1
During our playtests using the rule we have not found it a burden, time consuming, and it was easy to impliment. Keeping track of the swarms wiped out, and therefore available to spawn from, would be no extra burden, as they will be on the dead tray already in use. Also keeping track of the swarms at full strength would also be easy, one need only look at the proper space on the dead tray to find out. The only one that would require a bit of brain matter would be keeping track otf the swarms that have gone instictive.

Part 2
BTS and Tie Breakers would be unaffected as the rule will state that "For BTS and Tie Breakers the original strength of the swarm, in units, is used to determine the formations status for both. So, for example, if a Swarm started the battle with fifteen units, spawned in from another swarm eight units, and ended the battle with eight units it would be considered a destroyed formation for the purposes of BTS and Tie Breakers. In this case the actual unit types do not matter only the number of units." This would be done by a straight count of units as it is done normally for a tie breaker. In effect the new units spawned in would not increase the size of the swarm for the purposes of BTS and Tie Breakers, they would be null units. Implimenting it wouild also be easy as the formations strength (In units) is known before the battle and all that need be done is a straight count of losses compared to that number.



Please feel free to test it, with my blessing and thanks, and let us know how it goes.

Cheers,
Jaldon

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I know a dead parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now.
Tyranid AC

It's still a bit abusable; say if you have 4 large swarms capable of spawning, the opponent focuses on one of them and reduces it to one synapse and a couple of brood creatures. If he then stops attacking it it will slowly grow back, but it would take some time before it was useful wouldn't it? And the other swarms wouldn't get to spawn.

Would players be rewarded for getting synapse creatures killed so they can start spawning to other swarms?

As Ulrik says, it just doesn't solve the problem. All unbroken formations with synapse should always be able to spawn something, especially those with bonuses such as Brood Mother.

I found the keeping track of which dead was from which formation easy enough, but the inability to spawn wouldn't have been helped by the rules you are suggesting above, as the swarm he was focusing on hadn't been wiped out or gone instinctive, just knocked down to just the synapse and broken within 30cm (so no spawning for that formation either).

As I previously said, if you're going to allow any kind of cross-swarm spawning then there's no reason not to allow full cross-swarm spawning. As far as I'm aware the only reason for resurrection-only spawning was that it didn't need the notes about BTS and tie breaker, and with your modifications above it again does need those notes.

With these modifications, your spawning rule will be even more complicated than the old version, AND still less representative. That entirely defeats the point as far as I can see.

There's one other issue: Spawn-to-order. The issue that the player can spawn the exact creatures he needs, like hormagaunts if facing strong FF units, Haruspex if they can be put in range to make a CC assault or a strong FF unit if facing skimmers.

Yeah, I'd stick with the current system. It has flaws, but almost anything else has more. Mix-n-matching formations is looking for trouble, whether it's Merging, Spawning, or Reorg.

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

possibly have 2 parts to the respawning.

I fail to see why a brood mother/equivalent birthing critter wouldn't spawn the most usefull units for the situation that's presented (IE good FF against skimmers etc)

leave the normal resurrection spawn for everything else - that makes sense for the bugs scattered by the explosions to come back to the swarm (as a killed stand isn't necessarily a stand full of dead troops...) The nids are probably the best army for the troops to come back to fight - marines, eldar, guard etc would evac the injured afterall...

I assume you want B so that the swarm being plundered can't spawn, correct? Otherwise, you'd have a plundered swarm that could theoretically spawn units that another swarm had taken.

I'm a bit dubious on that. It's starting to get complicated to explain. I know in practice it's probably a bit easier (any non-Synapse swarm casualties just go to a general spawn pile) but the text... ugh.

As Ulrik pointed out, the "gamey" tactic of leaving just Synapse creatures would be functional. It's not going to be hard and might even happen accidentally since the synapse are Fearless - break the swarm, hackdown the broods, leave the synapse and the broods stay unavailable for spawning. Maybe that will leave the Nids with an extra token activation, but I can definitely see tactical situations where that is more than worth it.

BTS and Tiebreaker - The proposed idea flips the way it's calculated, from counting remaining units to counting casualties. That would require tracking exactly how many units were added to the swarm so you could count casualties. I think that's a problem.

Just count remaining units as normal. It's fine even with cross-swarm spawning as long as you use the original formation strength for determinations. Cross-swarm spawning gives Nids an advantage to both, sure, but those advantages are in keeping with an attrition style of play. An innate advantage is not a problem as long as it is characterful and the the army is balanced overall. It's no different than Siege IG advantages on Blitz, DTF and TSNP.

Spawn-to-order - I really find this to be the only compelling argument against cross-swarm spawning. I think it could be handled in a more play-friendly manner than simply banning it outright. For example, something like "you have to spawn back units originally in the swarm if possible" is a simple restriction. Replace casualties with identical units until there are no more in the spawning pool. It'll be a little fuzzy in implementation, but not more than hit allocation with LVs and such. There's still going to be some spawn-to-order, but it's not going to be open to heavy-handed manipulation.

Do you guys think a "must replace casualties first" restriction is feasible and gets the job done?

How about "spawned units must be of a type that was in the swarm when bought, if possible." It's easier to check during the game (you just check if the swarm had hormagaunts, not if it had that specific hormagaunt unit) but it would encourage "kitchen sink" swarms with one of each unit type. (Kitchen sink swarms are probably not very effective.)

Well, what I had in mind wasn't "that specific hormagaunt." It was "that formation has lost 4 hormies, so the first 4 units it spawns must replace those hormies."

Ah, right. Sounds good, never mind me.

Neal, that would certainly help with the abuse you outlined.

Is there any mileage in adoptiong both this and Zombo's spawning pool idea? The pool would work in exactly the same way as the Chaos deamon pool, while the spawning restriction is that you must first replace casualties where possible, only using other bugs if the pool has none of the required type.

You could add a further restriction that, you may only add bugs of the same types already in the swarm, though I am not sure that is strictly necessary.

That is what I like about this group, good ideas flow, even when mine aren't always that great

Gotta start somewhere sometimes........................

How about this for the rule.

A swarm must first spawn back all the units in its dead pile before it can spawn units from another swarms dead pile. Once spawned into the new swarm they become part of that swarm for all purposes (Unless they are killed and spawned back into another different swarm. In which case they become part of that swarm.)

End of Rule.

Nothing changes for BTS or Tie Breakers everything is still calculated the same old way.

This would prevent 'spawn what you need,' to a large degree, would eliminate the destroy the swarm, just not all of it, would allow full strength swarms to get bigger, and would give the Nids a bump in both BTS and Tie Breakers (Though I don't think it would be decisively so because spawning isn't as large, in numbers, as it used to be).

Cheers,
Jaldon

_________________
I know a dead parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now.
Tyranid AC