| Brood Brother |
 |
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 6:38 am
Posts: 720
Location: Utah, pick a Pacific Island the other half of the year.
|
Norn Queens Report #2
I?ve gone back and forth reading and re-reading the most recent materials available on the Tyranids, and all of the old stuff I could get my hands on, to settle some lingering questions I have been unable to really get a handle on. The results of that study follow.
First The Big One........................................
The more I read the more it seemed to me that the Hive Mind keeps a very tight reign on its brood creatures, and doesn?t allow them to wander off to far from its direct control. It also seemed clear that the Hive Mind pretty much leaves all the forward duties in no-mans land to the army?s Lictors and Genestealers. At first this conclusion didn?t seem right to me but, upon further (and long) reflection it actually started to make sense.
The Tyranid Army has a serious lack of good ranged weaponry, in general, and I have yet to read anywhere about the Tyranids ?digging in? to secure their position (Or even trying to ?use? cover in the conventional sense). These two factors combined would make it nothing short of insane to remain within the effective range of the enemy?s direct fire weapons (say 30 to 45cms in Epic-A). In fact it would make far more sense for the Tyranids to be doing the exact opposite, and then use the Army?s Lictors and Genestealers to roam in no-mans land between the armies to keep the enemy at arms length.
In Epic-A terms try to imagine placing a Brood Swarm 30cms away from a Steel Legion Mech Company, and not allowing either side to carry out an assault, nor allow the Tyranids to dig in or take cover while their opponents can. Anyone doubt the Tyranids would suffer horrendous losses while barely scratching the Imperials with their return fire? If a Tyranid player actually did something like this in a battle that player would be bombarded with cat-calls for doing something this stupid!
Now I admit that, between major engagements, all that would be occurring between these two forces would be harassment fire, but this would be at such a disadvantageous level compared to what the Tyranids could produce that there is just no way the Hive Mind is going to do it. The Zulus had rifles at Roarke?s Rift, but they didn?t hide those riflemen among the Impis and then stand in effective range and trade shots with the British!
This bring us to the next part of this section, which is about vents, spawning pools, spawning ponds, nodes, and whatever name you would want to stick on the Epic-A creatures that fall under Synapse Nodes (Lesser and Greater). It would seem that the majority of this creatures bodily functions occur below the surface, and that it remains well out of sight until/unless they are in close proximity of the Tyranid main force. This make sense as the creature itself has pretty poor fighting capabilities, and no ability to run if things start to turn sour, so its survival depends on it remaining hidden till friends are near by.
It also seems that they function more like breeding vats for the creation of more Nid creatures, and as rally points for adult Nid creatures, and not as frontline combat leaders.
Last, the background seems to imply that these things get bigger and bigger the more time that passes, and that they are therefore not ?created? from the start to be a specific size.
So.................................................................................
(a) Greater Synapse Nodes would probably only be found behind, or very close to, the Tyranid front lines.
(b) Only Lesser Synapse Nodes are going to be found beyond this range.
? Only those Synapse Nodes near the Tyranid Army?s immediate front line are going to reveal themselves, for purely survival reasons.
(d) Their major contribution to a battle would be to act as rally points for scattered brood creatures, and to feed reinforcements into the mobile swarms.
(e) They would only reveal themselves when the Tyranid main force is near their position, or under very special circumstances.
Putting all of this together and it?s not hard to see that this isn?t the way the Epic-A Tyranids are being used right now. In fact the way they are being used is creating more problems with the background fluff then anything else. Now I could write a whole litany of rules to make this happen and allow for those ?special circumstances? , but this would run counter to the KISS philosophy and itself probably create even more problems to have to solve. So instead I am going to make some players angry and go for a very simple solution and do the following..........
(1) Neither Synapse Node will be allowed to garrison.
(2) Termagants will have their speed increased to 20cm
The Next Big One............................................
For some time I have been battling over how to separate out the Hierodule from the Trygon and I haven?t, so far, been able to put my finger on the problem. It seems that all the complaints and comments about them revolve around one, or the other, or even both, not being mean enough in assault CC. This is often then followed by something like making the Trygon a better FF support platform!
This was another one of those things that was uppermost in my mind as I was pouring over all of the Tyranid materials out there, past and present. Now the more I read the more I kept coming across the same statements, in general, referring to each and every WE/AV, what close combat monster this creature is. It was often said differently, and sometimes after a statement referring to another combat ability, but it was always there somewhere. This forced me to take a step back and do a complete re-think on all the Tyranid WEs and AVs presently in the list, and what I was looking at didn?t look right. Hey, we got big bugs in there that are better at carrying out an assault FF then they would be carrying out an assault CC (because of speed and range), and that pictures all wrong!
One solution would be to start ?gluing? on ?more claws, or more claw attacks, to try and ?inspire? the players to move these monsters into assault CC. First off this was tried already, and it failed because you cannot ?inspire? players to do something when a more then adequate option is still available to them. Second, it would result in an increase in the per unit cost of these creatures. So this option was discarded right from the start. This left me staring at a list of the WE/AV stat lines that I had made just for this purpose. I spent a couple of days staring at that list while the entire time the answer to the problem was staring me right in the face!
Basically, the only real difference between the two assault types available to these AVs and WEs was the number of extra claw attacks they got, and compared to what they could do in assault FF this wasn?t much of an advantage at all. Viola! Want to increase CC viability, and decrease FF ability, doh, don?t add more claws change the damn base stats!
This solution is simple, easy, can be done without raising per unit costs, and achieves the desired effect on the army.
So...........................................................................
(a) Change all Nid AVs and WEs to CC3+ FF5+ except both Carnifexes, Exocrine, Datylis, Harridan, Vituperator, and both Nodes.
(b) Change Haruspex Claws to Large Claws CCMWTK(D3) +1 attack
? Change Hierodule Claws to Huge Claws CCMW +2 attacks
(d) Change Trygon Bio-Cannons to Large Claws CCMWTK(D3) +1 attack
I am pretty sure these are the correct changes, in any case the list I have posted IS correct (v7.0 updated)
And There Is Still More..............................
From day one I haven?t been happy with the Raveners stats, and that is from the v1.0 list on, and everything that has been done always felt like it was missing something (including the versions I have posted). Another problem it seems to have is that there never seems to be enough separation between it and its brood brothers (Hormagaunt/Termagant). Now the solution I have come up with does increase the separation between the three of them without increasing the Raveners cost beyond the 30pts it is right now. I also admit it takes a bit of fudging the background a bit to make it work (called assumptions), but it isn?t really that bad. Chocolate Fudge I mean.
(a) Increase the Ravener?s armor to 4+:
This represents the Ravener?s underground movements, which would limit its exposure to enemy fire, and should grant it a better save then 5+.
(b) Decrease the Ravener?s FF to 6+:
Hey if it is spending time moving underground to limit its exposure and get that better ?save, then that means it doesn?t have as much time for shooting as a Termagant is going to have, so it deserves a poorer FF then that brood brother.
War Engine Regeneration..............................
This is more of an adjustment that I should have made awhile ago but just didn?t get around to yet. The WE now rolls a number of dice equal to half its starting DC rounded up and gets a DC back for each roll of 5+. Thus a Trygon rolls 2D6.
Spawning...............................................................................
These adjustments had also been in my head for a bit, except the Mycetic Spore idea (Thanks Neal), and should get us closer to the mark. Basically it is really to high right now and has to be brought down, the below does just that.
(a) The Swarm must pass an initiative test to spawn in the Rally Phase. Note this is NOT a Rally Test it IS an initiative test.
(b) If there are no enemy within 30cms add 1D3 points to the spawning action.
? Reduce all of the base spawning from 1D6 to 1D3
(d) Change the Tyranid Warrior to Synapse (+1). As the group now functions BY UNIT, as far as the bonus is concerned, this means 3xTyranid Warriors are 1D3+3, and if you lose a Warrior it becomes 1D3+2.
(e) Change Mycetic Spores to adding 1D3 to the spawning action, and decrease the cost of Spores to 15pts each.
Thanks All..........................................
Jaldon 
_________________
Brave sir Robin, when danger reared its ugly head he bravely turned his tail and fled, Brave sir Robin.
|
|
I feel shamed for missing this 
