Umm, IMHO the question is not the +1 initiative to Engage and Rally, rather it is what the initiative should be to perform other activations (Sustaining, OW, Marching and Doubling).

If you ask 10 different people you're going to get 10 different answers. I'm more interested in making sure the 'nids can't perform two actions in a row without rolling a die.

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Dave

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I am almost positive that no +1 bonus will be needed if the Nids remain at Initiative 1+. I have played the SM enough to pretty much predict how it is going to work for the Nids. I only keep that idea in my back pocket as one of a couple of options I have IF I am wrong.

My feelings about the 1+ Initiative is that the Hive Mind does have that good of control over its minions, in all facets of the battle. SO them being able to activate carrying out a sustained fire, march, marshal, etc fits. This is unlike the Orks whose Mobs have a tendancey to go off at the enemy no matter what the Big Boss wants. Giving them a bonus for a double and an engage action fits with the way they fight despite the Green Skin running the show.

Cheers,
Jaldon

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While I can understand the thought that Nids should "instinctively" want to feed (Engage) and be almost unstoppable (Rally), I am less happy about making other actioins equally easy, not least because that seems to be contrary to the intended directions. (I also have a gripe with constantly setting initiative at 1+; but that is another story)

While we agree that the Hive mind should absolutely be able to direct massed numbers against a particular point, I don't agree that the Hive mind is greatly concerned about the *speed* or *timing* of such an attack, and certainly not over the 'minutiae' of marching a formation from A to B, or ensuring that another formation sustains fire. IMHO these concepts need to be included within the way the Nids work; so I believe we still need to have a lower basic initiative (2+ or even lower) and bonuses for more Nid-like actions.

I would also agree with Dave, at least in part, that arranging things so that the Nids end up with the effect of an automatic activation may need carefull thought. I suspect it could be reasonable for Engagement (after all, that is what the Hive mind intends, and it jibes with the Nids "instinctive" behaviour) but perhaps not for other actions.

I must disagree Ginger. By implication that would mean that the Hive Mind doesn't understand the instincts of the creatures it both controls and creates. I my opinion it not only understands the instinctive behaviour of the creatures it creates and controls, but it exploits these behaviours to make it easier for it to exert control.

For example a Dactylis, Exocrine or a Biovore's insticntive behaviour would be more like 'nesting' behaviour in the old Titanicus lingo. Under your definition the Hive Mind assumes all of its creations want to physically contact the enemy to destroy them. Therefore why would the Hive Mind create creatures that do not have this type of instictive behaviour? I my opinion it wouldn't.

The Orks are an entirely different ball of wax, but make a good comparison race to show those differences. Some Orks love to get in close and have a good punch up with the enemy. Some Orks love to go fast so they can get in close with the enemy even faster then the rest of the Boyz and have a good punch up. Some Orks love to go fast and love the sound of their gunz going dakka dakka, but they want to get close enough to appreciate the mayhem they are causing. Some Orks just love the sound of their gunz going dakka, dakka, but they to want to get close enough to appreciate the mayhem their gunz are causing. Some Orks like really really big gunz and love to see the big holes and the explosion created by that really really big gun, and the closer they are to the impact craters the more they like it. It could be said, with some accuracy, that the Orks as a race are a bit unhinged in the head because of their love of both war and mayhem. In fact they take it too the extreme of constantly living on a war footing, if not with someone else then with each other.

Therefore, for the Orks to have special rules that reward them for getting at closer to the enemy follows with their natural instincts. Their leaders even think this way making the entire issue of special rules to crerate this feel even more accurate.

While it is true the majority of the Nid army is made up of troop types whose natural instinct is to get real close and devour the enemy, they do it for a far different reason. Orks, despite being insane by human standards, are thinking creatures. Nid non-synapse creatures aren't really thinking creatures, in fact it is doubtful they are even self-aware. While all Orks gravitate toward close action with the enemy they do it because they enjoy it. The Nids don't have the concept of enjoyment, even up to the Hive Mind itself, they do what they do without giving it any thought as to why they are doing it. And not all Nids are designed to carry out what they do in war in close combat. While an Ork may have a weapon with ten times the range of a bolter, and he will open fire with it as soon as he possibly can, that same Ork still wants to get closer so he can better experience the mayhem his weapon is creating. The same is not true for the Nids. A Nid creature with a weapon ten times the range of a bolter has only one desire; to destroy the enemy using its primary weapon. The range at which it uses that weapon has no meaning to the creature itself, so long as the enemy is in range to be attacked it attacks them, it has no desire to close the range to experience the destruction it is causing. In fact it has no real desires at all. There is little doubt that the Hive Mind takes full advantage of the instictive, and mindless, behaviour of the troops it controls. In fact it makes their entire command and control system possible. The Hive Mind simply has to place a creature in a position on the battlefield where its instictive behaviour can take over and do the rest.

To give the Nids a 'bonus' for engage actions would be to lump the entire Nid Army into the same mold as Orks, which they are not. Yes a majority of Nid creatures are designed for close combat action, but not all of them. Further, there is no 'army wide' Nid desire to get into close combat action with the enemy, in fact the entire Nid army has no real 'desires' at all except to continue to devour and expand. Giving the Nid Army a 1+ initiative reflects well the Hive Minds strong ability to control the troops under its command, and its ability to exploit each of the troops instinctive behaviour. In other words to direct those creatures into an area where their instinctive behaviour will do the most good, for Nid expansion that is.

A good example of how the Nid army functions would be to describe the Hive Mind as being intuitive rather then instinctive or rational. As long as the Hive Mind is in control of things everything runs like clock work and without a hitch. On the battlefield the Hive Mind will have little trouble controlling its minions as long as it is doing the attacking, is in control of the initiative (In military terms not game terms), and the enemy is constantly re-acting to Nid moves instead of acting against Nid moves. Being intuitive means that when the Nid army is forced to react (defend against an enemy move) its reaction should be sluggish or awkword (Not ineffective so much as diminishing in returns the more often the Nids have to do it). Being intuitive also means that the when things start to fall apart on the battlefield the Nids will have a hard time getting their feet back under themselves.

The intent is that with a 1+ initiative the Hive Mind will have excellent control over the instinctive behaviour of all its minions. I have found this to be true of SM armies with 1+ initiative, IE excellant control. BUT without the SM special rules for BMs the Nid army should start to have problems with control, both directly and indirectly. Add in the lower spawning rates in the present lists, no cross spawning into differnt swarms, and with the elimination of the merging rule and the Nid command structure could quickly fall apart. In effect, in game terms and in broad terms, as long as the Nids are dictating the action on the battlefield they should thrive (Attacking instead of reacting). But if the situation starts to turn against them then it should progressively fall apart around their ears. This would be a vastly different Horde Type Army then the Orks despite having the same basic concept driving them. Basically I have seen Ork armies recover from battles where their offensive power was pretty much in the tank on turn two, and they turned it around quickly in turn three. I want the Nids to either keep the pressure on from turn one on, or fall apart if they fail to do so.

Back to 'historical' references. In every account I have read the Nids always do well as long as they are dictating what happens on the battlefield, but their ability to maintain the fight degrades quickly when the enemy is dictating the fight. I am trying to re-create in Epic-A this same type of situation.

Whew that was long..................

Cheers All,
Jaldon

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I know a dead parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now.
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Well, I'm convinced. Good essay!

I agree w/ Jaldon. I don't know where people are getting this idea about 'nids being a Khorne army or something. Most of their creatures are designed primarily for melee, but not all of them. Their traits should rather be:
- the ability to withstand punishment and ignore it unless the squishy bits are hurt (the synapse, everybody else is mindless)
- their vast number (nids should outnumber most other armies or at least the spawning should do that over the course of a game)
- lack of regard for traditional military objectives which I understand is very hard to do in a scenario that involves controlling 'objectives'
In the fluff they're mostly portrayed as a sort of vast tidal wave of bugs of all sizes and shapes. More akin to being rolled over by a tsunami rather than out-maneuvered and beaten in key engagements across the line. I'm fine w/ the 1+ initiative, provided that degrades dramatically once synapse dies which is something which doesn't happen w/ other 1+ armies.

In terms of narrative experience, as in how it should feel for the players, an ideal game involving nids will have the feeling that there's a mass of creatures coming at the more organized opponent. The result of this should be in the balance, and the nids should for the most part ignore any casualties they take and just keep going. Then, all of a sudden, they collapse as they become confused and disoriented and are easily mopped up OR the opponent keeps killing things... and more things... but ... it's... just... not... enough and is eaten!

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Thanks for the insight Jaldon. These basic concepts of what consitiutes the Nids as a race are key as they drive the way we try to represent them through the rule mechanics - and I don't think we are that far apart. There are two points here that need consideration :- Nids speed of movement and their ability to activate:-

Speed
Thinking about it, perhaps the effects we are both trying to achieve comes down to a question of speed, both in setting up attacks etc and in response. When considering the Nids I keep coming back to real-world examples of ants, bees, termites, locusts etc. The 'Hive mind' directs the various swarms in a given direction (I know some are carried along by natural forces, but bear with me) and achieves its aim through shere numbers. However, all swarms move at a consistent rate; they do not speed up or slow down (though often individuals do move at different rates within the swarm). To simulate this perhaps Nids should be restricted to moving at a constant rate, so may not double or march (though obviously we would need to compensate by adjusting their speeds which has already happened to some extent).

Ability to activate
While I understand the concepts presented that they should "do well as long as they are dictating events, but degrade quickly when the enemy is dictating things", to me that suggests massive numbers of bugs moving steadily forwards, forcing the enemy to react. However they can be out-manoeuvered and do not find it easy to rally when broken. As such, IMHO the enemy's ability to dictate events should come down to BM management, rather than the presence or absence of the 'Hive mind' per se.

I understand the concepts behind using a 1+ initiative for activation (presumably the other factors would remain in place, making it harder to activate with BMs and harder to rally near the enemy). However, that also means swarms are almost certainly going to rally when broken which IMHO is undesirable. If this is the only negative, rather than messing with other concepts that mimic this position, perhaps we should just state:

Nids get -3 to rally when broken.
(or whatever is deemed appropriate)

If we are content that the above description works, perhaps we can avoid trying to represent the 'Hive mind' altogether (which also avoids the 'independents' definition). This means that Synapse creatures are only concerned with "Spawning" (and I still hate that word!), which in turn affects BM management etc. It also means that we could then concentrate on just what "Nid reinforcement" (spawning) actually is, and how it should work.

Ginger: Under these proposals, nids are actually LESS likely to rally when broken than under the old rules; now it's a 3+ compared to the previous 2+ (Previously nids were init 2+ with +2 to rally).

Nids rallying consistently is very fitting for their background.

But the question IMHO should be how easy should it be to break the Nid formation in the first place, rather than having them constantly coming back at you. As such I was trying to distinguish between normal rallying (BM management etc), and rallying when broken.
Also, the '-3' was purely notional; other factors may be more appropriate.

Ginger: The thing is, if we were totally following the background then nids under the control of synapse should probably never break at all, or if they do should almost immediately rally. The disorganisation represented by breaking just doesn't happen to nids under direct control of the hive mind, or if it does it quickly reasserts control and gets them back into the fight. They should be MORE likely to rally when broken than other armies, as long as they have a synapse link. This was represented in the old rules, and simplified into the 1+ initiaitive in these.

I understand that, but struggle on several points:-

We seem to be placing several abilities into one bug, when I thought we are trying to model each bug only having a single specialisation. At the very least we ought to divorce the bug representing the Hive Mind 'link' from the one that represents 'Spawning'. Furthermore, there ought to be similar representations in 'independent' swarms; they also ought to have a Hive Mind 'link' capability. The only real difference is the numbers represented on the table - the lack of spawning means they are much better understood by the opponent (for whatever reason)

The main issue is that while 'auto-rally' from broken represents the unstoppable horde, I do not think it necessarily does what Jaldon was suggesting. To some extent this is at the heart of the 'Spawning' debate; You can also represent the 'unstoppable horde' by feeding in more units from the rear.

So the question then becomes one of how to represent the situation where things should "degrade quickly when the enemy is dictating events". To me, that is really whether the enemy has mustered enough firepower or bodies to 'Break' a swarm - not having to do it repeatedly

Those are interesting ideas, but have little to do with the Tyranid background. Synapse and Spawning ARE two sides of the same thing for nids; spawning mostly represents errant nids coming under the synapse umbrella. In some cases it's even more literal than that; both the Dominatrix and Tervigon literally give birth to new nids and have a Hive Mind link.

Equally, GW background says that most "independant" formations don't have a link to the Hive Mind, they either have a brood telepathy (genestealers) or sophisticated instincts and intelligence (lictors), which allow them to act effectively outside synapse control. They are NOT directly controlled by the Hive Mind, instead working more like a real-life termite-style hive-mind, where the indepentant instinctive acts of creatures cause emergent directed intelligent effects without need for a psychic controlling intelligence.



That situation is represented by killing the synapses, and watching the nids fail to activate from then on, and fail to rally.

A point of order.


Fixed.

Emergence is by definition not intelligent or directed. Intelligence is in fact a an emergent behavior itself, and emergent behaviors can have apparent direction, but neither is compatible with true emergence. That is what makes emergence so fascinating. It needs no intelligence or direction to have complex and unpredictable results.

In "reality", the 'nids probably need no directing intelligence, but then what would be the point of the player?

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SG

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

Ok, a quick reassessment of issues that I'd like a response from Jaldon on:

Expendable

Should probably apply to gargoyles too. Also, can we use the standardised NetEA Expendable wording as used in other lists?


Spawning

I can't say I'm happy about resurrection-only spawning, but I'm willing to try it out.

However, your Inf/LV/AV points cost system isn't going to work, especially if some of the current LVs return to Inf status. Each spawnable creature needs to have the Brood special rule anyway, so why not change that to Brood(x), where x is the spawning cost? It allows a lot more flexibility with no additional special rules needed.

I don't see a need for the limitation on returning within 15cm of the enemy.

Brood Mother

Brood Mother represents Tervigons and Dominatrices literallly giving birth to new creatures. How on earth is this supposed to add new units to formations 45cm away? Please, please make this only affect the Brood Mother's own formation. The alternative makes no sense at all.

Instinctive

Ok. I'd still prefer 1+/4+ rather than 1+/3+ with restricted activations, mostly because I know that people will forget about the restricted activations, and that'll lead to null and void games due to illegal activations, or at best they'll forget which activations they're supposed to be allowed to do and have to keep checking the list all the time.

1+/4+ is just so much neater.

Mobility

Just a thought, but if you wanted to simplify it you could just change it to "Tyranids never take dangerous terrain tests for any terrain, unless the terrain causes tests for all unit types, such as minefields or lava".