Tyranid Proposed Special Rules (Unified)
Initiative:1+
Strategy:1

Expendable
A formation does not receive a blast marker for any units destroyed that have the Expendable special ability. Disrupt weapons also do not generate a blast marker for hitting units with the Expendable special ability. Units with the Expendable special ability do count for and against formations during assault resolution. Units with the Expendable ability cannot capture or contest objectives.

In this case the only units at this time that I am planning on giving the Gaunt special ability to are Termagants, Hormogaunts, Raveners, Tyrant Guard, Meoitic Spores

Spawning
After a formation with at least one synapse unit regroups or attempts to rally it may spawn. Roll number of dice based on the following modifiers:

Formation is not broken +1D3
There are no enemy units within 30cm +1D3

The total rolled is the number of spawn points available to the formation. Destroyed brood units from the formation may be returned to play using the following costs:

Infantry Unit 1 Spawn Point
Light Vehicle Unit 2 Spawn Points
Armoured Vehicle Units 3 Spawn Points

Note that the brood units returned to play must have belonged to the formation at the start of the battle. You cannot return brood units that belonged to one formation to another. All units returned to play in this manner must be placed within 5cm of another unit from the formation. These units may not be placed within 15cms of an enemy unit or in impassable terrain. Not all of spawn points available need to be used, but any leftover are discarded.

Some are going to say that the above is going to cause ‘book-keeping’ problems. In all our battles we have a dead tray to place units destroyed. I assume all players are doing a similar thing with the destroyed minis. All we did to implement this rule was put sheets of paper in the tray with numbers/names corresponding to the swarms on the table. We found it to be dead easy to carry out.

Brood Mother
Any unit with the ‘Brood Mother’ special ability can add +1D3 to the spawning of any formation within 45cms. The ‘Brood Mother’ unit may only do this once per turn, only for a single formation during that turn, and only for formations that could normally spawn units.

This one is open as to what units we want to give it to, for now I am assuming the Dominatrix and Tervigon. I am considering a possible variation to the Brood Mother ability that changes it as follows; “can add +1D3 to the spawning of any formations within 30cms. The Brood Mother can only do this once per turn, for any, some, or all formations within 30cm, and only for formations that could normally spawn units.”

Instinctive
Any formation that has lost all of its synapse creatures falls into instinctive behavior. It is still treated like a normal Tyranid formation with the following changes. Its initiative becomes 3+. It may only use Advance, Engage, and Hold actions. It cannot spawn. It cannot be merged with other Tyranid formations, nor carry out a combined action with other Tyranid formations. Note: A Brood Mother can still spawn back units for a Instinctive formation.

I already know a lot of people are not going to like the fact that I have removed the ability of the Nids to scoop up instinctive formations. Bear with me and give this idea a try. It has the merits of being much easier to write, play balance, and use on the gaming table.

Tunneler
Tunnelers are set up touching their own side's table edge before the battle starts at the same time that spacecraft are setup (seeEA 4.3.1). Any units transported in the tunneler should be
placed to one side at this time too. Secretly write down the location where the tunneler will surface
at the same time and in the same manner that you record the coordinates of a drop zone (see EA 4.3.1). You must also secretly record when the tunneler will surface.

If it is going to surface in your half of the table it may arrive from the second turn onwards. If it is going to surface in the opposing half of the table, it may arrive from turn three onwards. Set up the tunneler at the start of the stated turn, before placing units with teleport, at the location you wrote down. Any units being transported are allowed to disembark immediately upon surfacing.

Surfacing does not count as movement for the purposes of triggering overwatch fire. Disembarking triggers overwatch fire as normal. If the tunneler surfaces on terrain that is impassable for it, under a friendly unit, or in an enemy zone of control then it is assumed that on-board sensor equipment will divert it towards another entry point. The unit should be moved by the opposing player to the nearest area where it can surface. Formations of multiple tunnelers need only record one location where they will surface. Place a unit at this location, or within 5cm of another unit that has already been placed, so long as all units are placed within 15cm of the location and on the appropriate half of the table. Tunnelers, and any units being transported in them, may take an action on the turn they appear.

I really hope nobody has a problem with this one.

Mobility
Tyranid War Engines and Armoured Vehicles never take dangerous
terrain tests for moving through or into terrain. In addition Tyranid
Light Vehicles move through terrain as if they were Infantry.
Fortification features such as razor wire or minefields, and special
terrain features such as lava flows affect Tyranid units normally.

The Hive Mind and Synapse
These will be covered in the lists and determine how a NId Army is put together. For now use the lists posted for playtesting and ignore any rules pertaining to Synapse Ranges. Nid formations now use all the normal rules all other formations in Epic-A use.

Onachus Planetary Assault
While I do find this rule really interesting, because I think it fits the vision most of us have on how the Nids would deploy from space,I think it should be included in the list for non-tournament play. For tournament play I think the standard Planetary Assault rules should be used.

Onachus Resolute
While I am not opposed to this rule I would like the players to try battles with it and without it and give me their feedback on it. It is what I am planning on doing as I am not really to sure if it is needed, but then again I am not it isn’t.

Well let us have at it folks,

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

You're right: IMO it's completely unworkable and it's going to cripple the list.


Were you around when when this was tried 3-4 years back?
Heck, weren't you Champion then??

It made games slow. Really slooooooooooooooooow.


Didn't 90% of people just want an initiative penalty?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I disagree. It's not done so for Necrons, 'Nids won't have a problem either. Know what's in your formations or have a written army list, and the problem disappears.

I can see this happening, especially given the prevalance of Raveners ATTM.

It looks like a good start. Hopefully I can get the local 'Nid guy to come out and test these rules.

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SG

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

I'm sure we'll playtest, and I'm sure we'll find it impossible to play games without checking army lists repeatedly.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Fine.



Fine, though I also recommend giving it to Tyrant Guard and Meiotic Spores in the lists in which they appear, so perhaps a different name would be better.



Quite a few people have posted issues with this idea, and you've yet to address them. My issue, and it's a big one, is that this doesn't represent what spawning is supposed to represent. This is literally just resurrection; Nids coming back to life. That's just not what it's supposed to represent at all.

This mechanic is fine for the necrons, or some other race who come back to life, but it doesn't represent the concepts that are supposed to be covered by spawning. I strongly urge you to reconsider.

The inf/lv/av points cost could be an issue too, particularly if raveners return to infantry status. Since all spawnable creatures have the Brood special rule, why not change it to Brood(x) where x is the spawning cost number? This allows fairer customisation, and actually shorter special rules.



This seems overly convoluted, and an extremely large range for something that is (unlike most spawning) literally supposed to be giving birth to new units. How does a tervigon breeding somehow make a formation half a mile away bigger? Why not just a spawning bonus for its own formation?

Note that even in 40k tervigons can spawn huge numbers of new termagants (that is, you can end up with a lot more than you bought in the first place).



Fine I guess, though I still don't understand why a simple 4+ initiative wouldn't do.



I do have problems with the tunneller rule, but they're not nid specific so shouldn't really be discussed here.

A note that a formation can only tunnel if all units in the formation are Tunnellers is probably worth adding.



See, I'm hugely opposed to excessive special rules, but Mobility is a special rule for the right reason; it seriously speeds up game play. Having to do literally dozens of rerollable dangerous terrain tests every turn isn't fun. By the way it's not just my rule, it's in 9.2.1 too.

Mobility was only introduced to the 9 series list at a late stage precisely because people were complaining about the number of tests they were doing. It really is worth keeping and can be kept to a very short wording.

E&C: So have a 'dead pile' for each formation. That's what the 'cron players around here do, and it has no real impact on game length, timewise. But as you say, playtesting will bring out the truth.

Zombo: As you know, sometimes you have to abstract things to make them balanceable. Cross-swarm spawning just adds too many complications. I understand the wish to make them 'feel' right, but that would require spawning anything and would be even more unwieldy. I think this is the only way that spawning will work in the long run.

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SG

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

Unweildly, at the least.

This horde style army is going to end up slower to play than any other horde army if these rules go through as written above. Is that a good thing?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I would much rather abstract spawning out entirely and drop the prices a little rather than have a rule that doesn't represent it at all.

It's probably over-stating the issue a bit but it isn't exactly a flowing design during play. I could perhaps see you'd be able to put specific unit types back into a formation rather than the exact troops from the original formation e.g. Swarm A has Termagants in it. Swarm B has both Termagants and Hormagaunts. 6 termagants die from Swarm B but may be spawned into Swarm A as they have Termagants. Being only able to put back dead troops from the original Swarm is a little bit too much book keeping - it's easier just to be able to pile em up and stick em back with similar troops instead IMO.

I'm not sure it will. I know I can constuct any of my 3k and most of my 5k armies from memory. Let's agree to disagree until we have some hard data to back our assertions.

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SG

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

Hey, I was in the process of posting stuff up on the 'merging' thread in answer to those points Anyhow

Gaunt
Ok, but isn't this "expendable" by another name?

Spawning
The points values are currently in use and seem to work in principle, though may need tweeking depending on other related concepts.
As you know, I strongly dislike separate formations and no merging, but lets give it a go. (I will post other thoughts elsewhere)

Brood Mother
Could we develop the bug 'classes' concept further if possible. Some thoughts from other threads;

• "Breeder" (Synapse, Brood mother - adds to spawning),
• "Controller" ('Hive Mind' - controls a swarm),
• 'Tunneller (Obviously),
• "Lurker" (artillery - instinctively prefers to sustain or FF),
• "Feeder" (Close assault - instinctively prefers to get stuck in - literally ),
• etc.

I am sure this concept could be developed further to add structure and colour to the ‘modules’ in the army lists.

Instinctive
While I agree this is potentially simple, I suspect it means that other definitions are needed for Independant swarms and possibly further distinctions for 'artillery' bugs or other classes. As an alternative I think the same effect can be achieved with the following:-

• Set the basic Nid initiative at 7+
• +3 bonus to declare an Advance, Engage or Hold action
• +4 bonus if at least one ‘Hive mind’ bug is present in the swarm
  (Note, the numbers can be changed for balance, and we could have different base initiative for “Lurkers” and “Feeders” if that was deemed more appropriate)

The point about this approach is that it complies with the current rules on activating formations; it avoids defining “synapse-less” (which would be needed in the above statement) and other issues (do you get the penalty for BMs?); it avoids the need to distinguish between the different types of swarms and also allows us the freedom to manipulate the current ‘independent’ swarms as well by defining some or all of the units as having 'Hive mind'.

Tunneler
Can be worked on separately - so no real problem with this. Lets see how it goes

Expendable troops don't count towards assault resolution if destroyed.

I like the idea of restricting and encouraging activations, as well as defining the role of synapse, entirely within the current initiative rules. The ability to collapse 3 different special rules into 3 bullet points is masterful.

Edit: The restrictions on Spawning and Combined assault are not there, but why would one want to spawn to a formation that can't do anything? Also, wouldn't the combined assault represent the Hive Mind (through Synapse Creatures) spreading it's control over uncontrolled bugs in close vicinity of the enemy? I.e. Merging, but temporary, and doesn't mess with the Victory conditions.

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SG

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

Yes they do, it's Grots that don't.

Oh. I thought the rule for Grots had simply been named 'expendable'. Is there a sticky with the USRs that aren't in EA? I know that the NetEA book will have them, but some are bandied about and there doesn't seem to be anywhere to find the definition if you don't already know it by heart.

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SG

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

On Spawning, I have reservations about the limitations being imposed here, not least because an undamaged swarm may not spawn bugs, while another heavily damaged swarm is not able to spawn back bugs due to its situation! But as I said before, lets give it a go.

One question that has not been mentioned is the timing of spawning relative to rallying. For example, a broken swarm fails to rally, withdraws a long way from enemy formations and is thus able to use 1xD3 to spawn some bugs - does that mean that the swarm automatically rallies ?