That's for *spawning" a dead Brood war engine... like a Trygon (6 points) or Hierodule (9 points)... not for healing.

I'll make that clearer in the next version... though... would people want/like to see "regeneration" return in such a form?

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

It's a good thing that the synapse swarms felt balanced.  But this is a necessary but not sufficient condition: Were they more balanced than they would be with warriors as INF?  

The Orkanid swarm -- i.e. 'nids proxied for orks -- is also (presumably) balanced... but that doesn't necessarily mean that a proxynid list is worth publishing.

Of course that is the extreme... but my complaint about the 9.2.1 changes is that they dilute the particular horde character of the Tyranid list, blurring the distinction, for example, between 'nids and Feral Orks.  In the grand scheme of things, maybe this is the way to go -- what do I know.

But it seems a shame to lose the chance to stabilize the particular list before moving on.

Chroma has some very neat ideas about the Tyranid list's direction, and the Heavy Infantry concept is pretty cool as well, but you have to learn to walk before you begin to run.

So, when you say "Horde", you actually mean "Horde of Gaunts"?

Why isn't a "Horde of Gargoyles and Raveners" a valid type of "horde"?  They've still got teeth and claws!  

Like I said above, I don't think *ANYONE* is playing Tyranids to run a "Horde of Gaunts"... they take Gaunts to allow them access to "better" things.  Making Guants cheaper just means that more "good" stuff will be taken as well.  If those Guants are all wiped out in the first turn, why even bother with them in the first place?

If Gaunts were the only "expendable" unit, would that give a reason to take them?

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Seems to me that Feral Orks present the opportunity to play a (slow moving) "Horde of Alien Monsters" (who can't hide in woods).  

I'd tend to think it's best to keep the two gene-strains separate.  This is one reason to be particularly concerned with changes that appear to dilute the character of the nid list.

Again, the problem with 9.2.1 is that change to warriors seems to have been a sharp change in the direction of the list.  Perhaps's 9.2.1's new direction is a good one (though I think there is reason to be concerned that it is moving toward Ferals/Orks).  But it's not clear that 9.1's direction was bad.

The reason your responses -- and the changes -- remain controversial, Chroma, is that you've tended to engage an argument over the list's strategic direction by pointing to the tactical desirability of specific changes.

On the other hand, I think the place where you are beginning to work toward consensus (and to engage the basic arguments made so far) is in your discussion of the difference between a Phase III and a Phase IV Tyranid list -- you may be right.. most of the 'warriors as inf' crowd may be talking about a Phase III list. To which the response might be "well, 9.1 actually seemed to be a pretty good late-stage Phase III list... why not finish off what we have before moving forward."

Personally I'd like to see this along with the F-ERC's "no BM for coming under fire" rule.

_________________
http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

I think the standard list should be aimed to be balanced and optimally tactically for a varying ‘horde of alien monsters’ with a range of different types, whilst also being flexible enough to allow people to veer more to the ‘horde of billions of the littlest critters’ or ‘fewer big massive bug types’ if it should take a their fancy – even if in doing so they sacrifice a little competitiveness or tactical capability to do so and it should not be seen as a 'problem' that necessarily needs 'fixing' if this is the case.

If desired sub-lists could always be worked on later to make a themed ‘horde of the littlest critters’ style army by reducing their points cost or tweaking special rules in other ways, but limiting their options elsewhere.

Fair points, and on point, GlynG:

To the contrary, though, the standard list you describe seems to compete for territory with the Feral Orks -- in fact I'm realizing that my 'nids give me a pretty good range of proxies for Ferals.

I may be wrong, but it seems that a basic premise of army design is that the base lists are best built to stake out territories of their own.

You may dislike the hordagaunt army as a player -- and the territory it occupies may be a low-rent district -- but that territory is well demarcated and clearly its own.

Actually I really have nothing against it as a play-style on its own merits, I just think the standard list should be aimed at a more balanced mix of sizes – it’s the average we’re presented and primed to expect from W40k armies and the background. There are enough other special rules and profile differences within the Tyranids list to make the game-play different enough from Ferals, even if in some ways it is close to them. I’m not trying to stop anyone playing a Tyranid army themed towards.

Your argument could easily be applied to other armies too, bur people have no problem with there existing the in some ways similar Space Marines and Chaos, Eldar and Dark Eldar, etc

If we hypothetically were to balance epic Tyranids around working as hordes of Gaunts then what if someone who prefers the ‘fewer big massive bug types’ army style should want to play epic Tyranids? The current W40k codex is written to be very flexible and it is perfectly legal to have a 1,500 point standard game army made up of 2 Hive Tyrants, 6 Carnifexes and a few bases of Rippers, with zero Gaunts or Warriors of any kind - there was a particularly cool and very extensively converted army that did this in WD around the time the new Tyranid book came out. Now I am not suggesting that we overly pander to this style of the army in the standard list either, just mentioning it to illustrate there are other justifiable styles the hivefleet can employ and that the standard list should be aimed at reflecting the standard average form rather than going one way or the other.

I quite liked the warriors being lv's as it gave me a slightly bigger chance of killing some.  However maybe giving the gaunts a "living shield" special rule where as long as there were gaunts in the formation all synapse creatures gained reinforced armour with each successful RA save killing a gaunt.  This would mean more gaunts so bigger hordes as people would feel they offered better protection to their synapse but would mean removing reinforced armour from the synapse creatures that already have it.

Note that Gaunts are the only unit type in 40k which have the option to take the "Without number" ability. Basically it is: If a Gaunt swarm has to many casualties just remive it from the table and setit up with full strength gain.

This clearly implies that Gaunts are by far the most common (and most expendable) genotype in a Tyranid army.

How about this:
Give Gaunts Expendable as long as there are Synapse creatures in the Swarm (and perhabs drop the current Synapse rules to make non-Synapse swarms viable but not so effective).

_________________
We are returned!
http://www.epic-wargaming.de/

My concern on this is that it is solving a problem caused by another change.  
Strategically,
It is generally simpler to roll back a change than to try to balance it out by making another change.

Also, I'm not sure its the best thing to close off an option in building the tyranid lists by making warriors LVs (so that gaunts cant meat-shield them).  Maybe this option (or warriors) were unbalanced... but it didn't seem so (indeed, notably, gaunts also got buffed at the same time). If Chroma wanted to see more 'nid LVs and AVs on the map, why not buff the LVs and AVs instead?

Tactically,

The issue of killing inf-classified synapse creatures amidst a sea of gaunts is a tactical one -- not impossible, but not necessarily easy.  LVing the warriors simplifies that tactical problem significantly -- maybe this is to the good, because it weakens an overly strong list... but otherwise, it doesn't seem bad to present players with tactical puzzles.

Put it this way: in the fluff, they wouldn't be saying/ordering "shoot the big ones" if shooting the big ones were the automatic response.  Engineering the death of synapse creatures takes some explicit tactical coordination... I'm not sure why it shouldn't take tactical coordination in epic as well.  And if you want to shoot Inf/class synapse creatures buy snipers.  If you can't buy snipers (say because you're orks)... well, that doesn't seem so bad (what's Orkish for "shoot the big ones?).

"A Horde of Tooth and Claw" seems pretty straight forward, large stand count and predominant CC ability.

9.2.1 is pretty much exactly what a Phase IV list should be, everything is available but this is the heavy assault part where all those Bio-Titans and assault spawn crush any final stubborn pockets of resistance.

The 40k style army with lots of synapse swarms of gaunts led by warriors is the Phase III list.

I think the "Shoot the big ones!" cry is to counter the impulse to "Shoot the close ones!", so that, while the "regular" troopers are blazing away at Gaunts, the "weapon teams" are firing at... well, the big ones!  *laugh*

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?