All of the problems arising from the rules on synapse coherency have come to life because I never stated to anybody on the forum what it was I was trying to reflect from the background into the game. I can know see that it is because of this lack of direction on my part, and poor clarity in the rule itself, and it?s cause is most definitely my fault. ?I had assumed, always a bad thing to do, that players would understand that the Synapse Group and the Brood Creatures were two separate entities that made up a single formation called a swarm. Therefore I didn?t define this in the latter part of the rule discussing synapse coherency itself.
The end result was that every attempt to fix it, or further clarify it, was only making things worse not better.
This has caused an awful lot of confusion, and I am the one responsible for it occurring, so to players on both sides of this issue I apologize for my lack of clarity, and poor judgment in this matter.
I know intend to make up for this error, by making sure I am clear with this.................
The Fluff Part
Tyranid Brood Creatures are mindless slugs that are no more then fighting machines of the lowest order. They cannot reason, think, or plan, they simply react to what ever is in their immediate area. In the case of Brood Creatures this is to move in and destroy anything in that area that isn?t a Tyranid creature.
Tyranid Synapse Creatures (outside a Dominatrix) are not brilliant, nor even adequate, field commanders that can carry out detailed planning, nor do they have the ability to think on their feet and react properly in a fluid situation. In many ways they are simply a synapse conduit used by the hive mind to control the army?s swarms. Any instructions the hive mind would be passing down to them would be very simple basic instructions like to move from point ?A? to point ?B? and destroy what ever is there. The Synapse Creatures would then move the swarm there and make sure the brood creatures stayed in the area until they had cleared it of every living thing.
These two things taken together mean the Brood Creature Swarms should be inflexible, and only capable of very limited maneuvers.
It is also true that the hive mind has no more remorse for expending brood creatures then a human commander would have for expending ammunition.
So the hive mind wouldn?t have any problem hurling Brood Creatures out of synapse range, and into the midst of an enemy, and letting their instinctive behavior to take over. However, as any orders given by the hive mind must be simple, and very basic, they would only tell the Synapse creatures where to send the brood creatures, not how many. This would result in all of the brood creatures being sent, or none at all, hence no middle ground.
It also means that the hive mind would never hurl brood creatures out into the middle of nowhere, and out of synapse range, and then send in another synapse group to scoop them up. This kind of maneuver would require both planning and coordination of a kind the hive minds minions are incapable of carrying out. Basically this kind of command and control is flexible, not inflexible, and the Brood Creature Swarms are supposed to be inflexible.
So here is my attempt to fix the mess I made................
Remove the paragraph that starts with ?The only exception to synapse coherency......................? and replace it with this.
The only exception to this is when a swarm is carrying out an Engage Action.
During the Engage Action all of a swarm's brood creature units can move out of both synapse coherency and normal coherency of the swarm's synapse creature group, however these same brood creature units must maintain coherency with each other, and all of the brood creature units from the swarm must be committed to the Engage Action.
At the end of the Engage Action, both the synapse creature group controlling the swarm and any remaining brood creature units from the swarm must attempt to get back into normal coherency if the combat was a Tyranid victory.
Alternatively, both the synapse creature group controlling the swarm and any remaining brood creature units from the swarm may withdraw as normal if the combat was a Tyranid loss, again returning to normal coherency with each other during that withdrawl.
After any consolidation or withdrawal moves have been made, any brood creature units from the swarm that still remain outside of synapse coherency, of any synapse creature(s) from the swarm, they are removed from the table. It's assumed they have pursued fleeing enemy survivors so far away as to be well beyond the hive minds control for the time being.
Thanks All....................
Jaldon
