I think Neal was going to get round to a new thread with this in at some point so we might as well start.

I think the general idea was twofold
Use Standard BTS
Use Standard Tiebreak

With the simplest solution being fixed formations and no inter-swarm spawning.

I can see a couple of options to meet the Fixed Swarm objective
Leviathan Style - 1-3 Synapse Clusters, 2+ Common Clusters and 0-1 Uncommon Cluster per Common Cluster
Ork Style - Small, Medium and Large formations with lots of addons
Fixed 9.2.1 variant - Synapse Cluster with addons as the core of each formation, a pool of Common and Uncommon Clusters (1:1 or 2:1 ratio of common to uncommon) with any pool cluster assigned to any synapse cluster (The change from 9.2.1 is that whole clusters must be assigned so you have well defined fixed formations at the game start to use for the BTS)

Inter-Swarm Spawning
As has been noted any creature being spawned at any formation messes up the BTS and Tiebreak rules. If the standard BTS and Tiebreak are kept I can't see any alternative to preventing inter-swarm spawning. Would merging swarms if kept as a rule also be problematic?

Note that leviathan will be moving to 1+ common clusters for the next version.

I think each style has its own merits and pitfalls. It's in the minutia like this that we're going to see the most disagreements however.

Leviathans method allows for a higher concentration of Synapse units per brood units while limiting the uncommon concentration.

Onachus' Ork styles opposes that by keeping the synapse concentration relatively steady as the formation increases but does not limit uncommon concentration (although it could I guess).

The first iteration of Onachus tried the 9.2.1 fixed variant you mentioned, and it definitely lead to a very restrictive list. 9.2.1 allowed you to spread brood clusters across Synapse Swarms, by limiting the list so that a cluster must go to one and only one Swarm you definitely don't have the flexibility in army construction you had with using 9.2.1 stock. This was why I jumped to the a la carte style in Onachus, to add that flexibility back.

So I guess the best place to start here is to list what the variants have in common. To that end:

• A Synapse Swarm must contain Synapse Creatures
• A Synapse Swarm must contain common Brood Creatures
• A Synapse Swarm must contain uncommon Brood Creatures

The next step would be to reach a consensus on how those three groups of units are limited within the list. Rather than state what each list does I think it would be more helpful to state why we chose to do the things we did.

For Onachus, I wanted the list to enforce the fraction limits rather than putting that on the player. A "self-validating list" so to speak. So I made swarms that had a core number of Warriors and gaunts to them (I chose the numbers I did because it represents two Tyranid sprues) to help enforce the 1/3 synapse restriction.

I thought of representing the the uncommon limit with 0-x limits early on, but decided to drop them as the Ork list uses them rather sparingly. If there's a balance problem they can definitely be added in, but we haven't encountered one up until this point.

_________________
Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

Thanks, Arkturas, for starting the thread.

===

One of the things that has bothered me since the beginning of the Nid development was the restriction on Synapse Creatures.

First, the multi-tier restrictions are a pain to keep track of. I know most people playing EA are pretty sharp characters and can navigate this problem, but if it can be done without it, that's still a better solution.

Second, even when not trying to rig up some sort of abusive combination, I've found it a challenge to build swarms that I actually wanted to field. The relatively high price of the Synapse options meant they could only be a tiny portion of the actual army. Fielding any of the big SCs is very difficult and fielding a Dominatrix is virtually impossible because you can't build enough swarms - not based on the normal cost/activation issues, but just on the number of Synapse Creatures available. Even with lots of small Independent formations, it's hard to make it work.

To that end, I have no problem making Synapse more widely available as long as it doesn't allow oddball formation construction.

OTOH, the free construction is nice.

I like the modular construction of Leviathan - it maintains most of the flexibility of 9.2 while keeping things in a reasonable proportion of Synapse/Common/Uncommon.

I like Onachus' big/uge discounts and the fact that it also keeps things in a reasonable proportion.

As I noted in the other thread, I think we can get the best traits of the list into one mechanism, using the Leviathan "modular" template as a guide. So, to give an example of Onachus converted to use a modular setup, it might look something like...
========

Synapse Broods
1 Tyrant
2 Warriors

Common broods
Gaunts - 6 for 100, 12 for 175, 18 for 250

Uncommon broods (with or without volume discounts, depending on what you want to emphasize or allow - volume discount makes it a "semi-common" brood)
Raveners - 4 for 125, 6 for 175
Gargoyles - 4 for 100, 8 for 175
Carnifex - 1-3 at 35 points each
Zoanthropes - 1-2 at 35 points each

etc.. for whatever Uncommon you want available.

==

Core swarms

0-1 Dominatrix
Dom and any number of common or uncommon broods.

Swarm
1-2 Synapse
1+ Common broods
0-1 Uncommon broods
(If you are really worried about too many Synapse, you could say no more Synapse broods than Common broods. However, I think cost alone will prevent loading up on Synapse)

Support Swarms (up to 1 per Core Swarm) - These are less numerous but still widely available. It can include a generic "build-your-own specialty" swarm as well as pre-selected formations (with or without discounts, as desired). I'm picking these examples to illustrate and based on the "early phase" concept, e.g. Lictor scouts and Genestealer cults breaking out.

[Cool Nid Name - Generic] Swarm
1-2 Synapse
Any number of common broods
1-3 Uncommon broods

Genestealer Swarm - a pre-fabricated swarm, possibly with discounts for big/uge if desired
6 Genestealers

0-2 Lictor Swarms
3 Lictors + 1-3 Lictors

Independent and Biotitan Swarms - up to 1/3 points. These are restricted, of course, and you can lump all sorts of "only in small numbers" formations into this, rather than just titans. Forcing titans to compete with other specialty abilities will make the players choose without enforcing hard limits. In this case, all the big bugs and a large portion of shooty bugs (no Biovore/Exocrine/Dactylis in the Uncommon broods - only in the restricted section).

Bio-Artillery Swarm
Harridan Swarm
Heirodule
Meiotic Swarm
Trygon Swarm

=============

Technically, you could to 1/3 of points in titans, plus the Dom, but you'd be very restricted on shooting stuff, almost biotitan-only. If that's still too much, you could move the Lictors to the restricted points, to force an additional choice between Teleport and WEs.

The core Hamman's World list would have fewer restrictions - more of each kind of brood, fewer things competing for the restricted points, but probably smaller volume discounts to make up for the added flexibility.

Obviously, Leviathan could stay as it is, but it might also build in volume discounts into the Symbiote Swarms to encourage larger formations. For example...
1 Trygon/Symbiote and 4 Raveners
+ Raveners - 4 for 125, 6 for 175
+ Trygon - 1 for 100 (maybe with 2/175 option, if that wouldn't go too "big bug")

For a Nidzilla/Draconis list, you move some of the big bugs, like Carnifexi, to the Common broods and give others volume discounts in the Uncommon broods to make them "semi-common." Build some pre-fab big bug support swarms. Keep the Independent choices to a minimum so the points are mostly available for biotitans.

Technically none of the lists have to have uncommon brood creatures but I know what you mean. However 9.2.1 and Jormungandr don't have to have common Brood creatures in a Synapse Swarm, they can just have uncommon as long as commons are somewhere else.

I do like some of Neals combined suggestions that would allow the Bio-Tank/Artillery formations to be taken as a Synapse Support Swarm. Core synapse swarms would require common broods but specialised Synapse support swarms that are tied to the number of core synapse swarms would not and could just use a limited number of uncommons.

I am not sure whether the Nids would be competitive with full restrictions of flying, bio-titans and teleporters all vying for a place in the 1000 points (3000 point game) available to them.

I find Harridans are very important (I usually take 2) as are lictors and the occasional Bio Titan. I have not looked at any of the Nid lists for quite a while now, yet if the above cannot be bought in a 3000 point force, then Nids really are at the mercy of Overwatch, 'sit back and shoot' forces as well as air force heavy armies. It will then seem to act more like Feral Orks with claws as someone alluded to in a previous thread.

No other army that I know restricts Teleporters to the 'War Engines' allotment, so I think these should be a free choice with possibly some other hard limit if required.

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

This is why I had the "symbiotic swarms" in the Leviathan list, to allow limiting of rarer formation types that aren't independant. That way, harridans, trygon tunnellers and biotitans can be limited without cutting into the independants budget, and without 9.2.1's horribly awkward war engine limit, which the same unit counts towards multiple limitations.

I'm thinking of changing the symbiotic to "rarer swarms" or something, and including formations without common clusters. I'm also considering moving to a 1:1 ratio with the synaptic swarms for these rather than a 1/3 point limit.

I've attached a prototype version of the Jormungandr list that follows Neal's suggestions somewhat.

You've got the Dom and a Synapse swarm as the Synapse formations. Common and Uncommon clusters have two sizes with slight discounts. Then Harridans, Lictors, Genestealers and Mines run off as support formations (in a 1:1 ratio with the Synapse formations). Also in support is the Subterranean Swarm that has a Trygon Prime as a leader with 0+ commons and 1-3 uncommon broods (A specialised synapse formation). Finally the Bio-Titans and spacecraft have their own 1/3 limit section (although the Dom also counts here as well at the moment).

I think it will work quite well overall. Support swarms are the only issue in that it may be possible to game the system through small Synapse Formations to get a lot of Support Formations. eg. 8 min size Synapse formations (200pts each) and 8 Harridans (175pts each).