No the Hive Mind can be present in the absence of a Norn Queen, for example on Anphellion, which had no Hive Fleet present at all, merely planet-based Tyranids.

No Synapse creature larger than a Hive Tyrant was observed, yet there were still enough Tyranids present to cause a mild 'shadow in the warp' by the end of the book, with psychic communication fading out and becoming impossible.

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Yes iirc Anphelion started with a couple of Gaunts and then other Tyranid creatures started to evolve. Even Bio Titans. Makes one wonder if there also evolved a Norn Queen.
Contradicts somewhat the planet of Hormagaunts but eventually these will evolve too?

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Apart from flame weapons funnily enough.

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I dont know a great deal about Tyranids, but perhaps they should be viewed somewhat like Ants/Termites - if there is no 'Queen' then another can evolve to become one?
Interestingly, this is also how the Xenomorph work (Aliens) and the Tyranids and the Xenomorph have always had a similarity...

I have no real preference but is anyone strongly in favour of the two main swarm control methods
1) Synapse-less swarms dying
2) Synapse-less swarms having reduced initiative

I think a hybrid method combining some of the French list and 9.2.1 could work.

9.2.1 - Fluid swarms - Pick a synapse group and add brood creatures like 9.2.1 now

French

Initiative (Vary Initiative values as required)
Synapse Swarms 1+ - Swarms with a Synapse creature and Bio-Titans
Independent Swarms 2+ - Swarms that contain only creatures with the Independent trait (requires adding Independent as a rule to gargoyles, harridans, raveners, stealers etc)
Leaderless Swarms 3+ or 4+ - Any other swarm

Scoring
Only Synapse swarms can claim objectives, Independent swarms can contest objectives

Additional rules
Leaderless swarms can join/merge with Synapse Swarms
A Leaderless swarm can remove all non-independent creatures to become an Independent Swarm (as part of end of turn actions and retains the Swarms BM's)

The Synapse control range is removed and the freely swappable brood creatures for a more controlled approach of Synapse Swarms taking over only Leaderless Swarms. Cuts out some of the micro-management of brood creatures jumping between swarms and Synapse unit positioning in the end phase.

Not observed doesn't mean there wasn't one.

Howabout this fluff:

However, the link with the hive mind is destroyed by the death of it's synapses, powerful creatures like hive tyrants, dominatrix and tyranid warriors. With the synapses gone the other organism will revert to their instinctive behaviour to expand, reproduce and slay without motive or direction

Doesn't sound like they are very efficient fighting machines you fellows try to claim they would be. No direction, no motive. They wouldn't therefore be obeying the orders of the hive mind. And how could they? Link with the hive mind was destroyed.

Ah well. Even if worst happens and list is changed to be against background there's always current list which atleast follows the background. You can't force me to play with list that violates background so blatantly and good thing too.

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Yes the background indicates that without Synapse the creatures go feral but they don't disappear like in 9.2.1 (although that is an abstraction to represent the directionless swarm dispersing).

What you fail to take account of is we're not talking about the death of all synapse, just smaller portions (A hive ship and Norn queen can be assumed to be in orbit). Why can't other synapse presences provide an influence that sometimes gets a synapseless swarm to do something useful (represented by a swarms reduced Initiative).

@tneva82 your quote (from where?) seems to assume that ALL Synapses are killed and thus the link to the Hive Mind is totally destroyed.

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I'm under the impression that Norn Queens have only ever been observed aboard Hive Ships, and there were no Tyranid ships at all in the Solar System.

Ah well. Even if worst happens and list is changed to be against background there's always current list which atleast follows the background. You can't force me to play with list that violates background so blatantly and good thing too.

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Not that the imperials noticed, but it's always possible some where near the solar system out in space.

I'd also prefer to think that unbeknownst to the imperials some long range spores landing on the planet, attracted by the presence of the 3 tyranids there anyway. For 3 tyranids to reproduce into such a vast army of tyranids in a very short space of time does not seem feasible to me and would effectively mean every single planet that had ever had even a small tyranid incursion would likely regularly be popping up with tyranid armies. The galaxy is clearly doomed in the not very distant future anyway, this is just OTT on top of OTT.

Epic Tyranids have rules for new creatures being spawned and old creatures going to ground / being lost as controllable battlefield units on an epic level of abstraction. These are not killed or completely gone, but are not worthy of representation on an epic scale. It also gives more of a perceivable benefit to destroying the synapse units to scatter the other units for a time, rather than having the others still be as deadly just with less initiative. This all seems fine to me, even if this is not a mechanism the Warhammer 40k game uses for it's smaller scale batles.

Destroying Tyranid synapse links clearly can have a major effect - Tau special character Commander Shadowsun “led several devastating raids that disrupted the alien command and control structure so thoroughly that the Tau armada was able to scatter and destroy an entire splinter fleet without the loss of a single vessel.â€Â

Just for interest: How was this handled in the old days of Epic with the Hive War supplement? Where Synapses only of importance in army selection (i remember some hexagonal army cards) or during the game too?

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The Imperium had ships in orbit the entire time, none of which would have presented enough of a threat to a Hive Ship to deter its approach.

There was no Hive Fleet in the Anphellion system.

If I can find the recording I took at a Games Day seminar a few years back, I think I even have Tony Cottrell on video saying there was no Hive Fleet in the Anphellion system (I asked whether we'd be seeing any BFG or Epic releases for the upcoming Anphellion book).

Those Tyranids present clearly formed a Hive Mind of their own, from just three initial specimens.

The galaxy is clearly doomed in the not very distant future anyway, this is just OTT on top of OTT.

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Ok had a look in Hive War. This is what i found:

The more Tyranid forces are present in a battle the more attention and instruction they will receive from the gestalt consciousness of the hive mind. Certain creatures like the Dominatrix act as vitalsynapses and help impose thehive mind's mandates on the mass of animal-like beats that make up thebulk of the swarms. As forces are destroyed thehive mind will become increasingly out of touch with the battle and many of the creatures that make up the Tyranid bio-war machines will become disorganised and confused.

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Umm Ok where does this get us??

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It gets us to a place where the army champion listens to all the voices and then tells us whether there is anything of merit to the French style system worthy of testing in the ERC system.

The community has had its say, it's time for Chroma to summarise what's been learned, and lay in course corrections for us (if any).


The discussion is clearly done.

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