Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal |
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nealhunt
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal  Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:32 pm |
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I thought the intent was that Nids had a dual coherency - normal + synapse. If they are out of either, they are out of coherency and would be destroyed (with the exception of the assault rule, obviously).
I know we worked on language to state the dual coherency explicitly.
Is that no longer the intent?
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Neal
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thurse
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:50 pm |
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The difference is that the wording is proposed is to prevent "killing off and spawning to another" tactic
If you keep all units in synapse range after a move, but not in normal coherency you can still kill them to reallocate them elsewhere.
That's a tactic that I've never seen used, but that should be forbidden IMHO.
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nealhunt
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:48 pm |
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Ah. I didn't realize the kill/spawn discussion had progressed to the point of a rule change.
I don't understand the concern on it. I can only conceive of a few cases where it could be potentially useful, all of which are extremely unlikely. It comes with an opportunity cost of lost spawning. Plus there is the possibility that the tactic would fail due to die rolls.
Does anyone have an in-game example of the kill/spawn pseudo-teleport being used? If so, did it mess with the feel of the army/game? Was it abusive?
If any army should be able to dump expendable units it should be Tyranids. Dump the biomass and pick it back up later. If you're going to worry about hypothetical situations and their effect on style, turning what should be disposable broods into potentially permanent anchors for their Swarms seems a far worse result to me than the kill/spawn/teleport oddness.
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Neal
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ayoras
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 2:08 pm |
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The only exception to this is when a swarm is carrying out an Engage Action or is being assaulted.
Does it include the withdrawal move or not? I think that, for the game's balance, bugs shouldn't escape from "nid" coherancy during the withdrawal move, but in this case the problem I speak at the beginning of the topic is not solve. I repeat myself :
A swarm lead by a LSN is necesseraly totally destroyed at the end of any assault it loses, even if the LSN survives and whatever the number of survivors. Indeed, in cause of the synapse's move, bugs can't escape the 15 cm range from the ennemy during the withdrawal in almost all the case and even if they reach to escape, they'll go to ground at the end of turn because the LSN is destroyed (he must stay in place so he can't escape from the 15cm range).
OK the rules has changed and now if a synapse is destroyed during an assault, all the bugs is destroyed , but here it is not the case. The bugs is destroyed EVEN IF the lesser node "survives".
Well, on the thurse's point, it is true that there's still a fault in the coherancy rules, but I totally agree with Hena, the new spawning rule is far more limitative than the old one. Now if you kill some bugs in order to "teleport" them, you have no guaranty to respawn all, except if you do this only on 2-3 bugs. So I don't think it is really an abuse.
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nealhunt
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:09 pm |
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If a node survives an assault, its swarm is not necessarily completely destroyed. It depends on your reading of the withdrawal and coherency rules as to which is applied first.
In the core rules I read that coherency is checked first, then the hackdown hits for 15cm range are done after the movement which could result in units taking a legal move (no coherency kills) followed by the hackdown hits breaking coherency. With the weird Nid assault coherency rules it's less clear.
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But more to the point, if a LSN's swarm is completely wiped out by a lost assault I don't see the problem. If you don't want your LSN-artillery swarm to route when assaulted you should put a Tyrant with them instead of the LSN. If you go with the cheaper LSN you get the extra vulnerability.
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Neal
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ayoras
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:15 pm |
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Only way for the node to survive is by being fearless as without it it's dead.
Well, I think I was not clear. The LSN should NOT be fearless. It is totally natural that when the node is overwhelmed, it is destroyed. The problem is that the rest of the bugs die too, not in cause of the death of their synapse during the battle, but because they must stay near their synapse (no I'm not senile).
I don't have a problem with GSN losing it's swarm to lost assault
Well, if you don't see the problem (which in fact is more ridiculous with GSN than LSN because GSN stay alive), I must understand that it is pointless to try to convince you...
I still think it as odd way recycle bugs using game mechanics whether it works or not. Remember that dominatrix has quite nice spawn value.
I'm not fan of a single monstrous swarm and in a 3000-pt game, taking a dominatrix means that you will only have very very few swarm. So I never take dominatrix.... OK it is not an argument.
PS to nealhunt :
If you don't want your LSN-artillery swarm to route when assaulted you should put a Tyrant with them instead of the LSN.
I would almost hear thurse speaks ^^. But it is an example, it is the case for every swarm with LSN. LSN looses another role and now have only one role : teleport to contest objectives... It is very limitative I find, especially compared to before.
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nealhunt
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:34 pm |
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Ayoras: I think the main difference here is how omniscient and efficient you see the hive mind. If you take it that the hive mind is an integrated and coherent whole and able to react with complete information all the time then your idea of "Oh, no, we're losing! Run over to that other Synapse and save yourselves," makes sense.
Personally, I don't read the hive mind that way at all and I think many others do not either.
All the Nids are part of the mind and the mind has access to all of the information and decision making power of every Nid in the fleet... eventually. However, it takes time and connections are sometimes broken or incomplete.
It's a HIVE mind. That means decisions for overarching plans are effectively done on a committee basis - an unusually efficient committee, but still a committee. It's not a single monolithic consciousness directing things as some sort of omniscient dictator. It has gaps in its information and according to the background fiction even seems to have occasional moments of indecision.
Tyranids have Synapse Creatures to decentralize "command" to a certain extent to prevent overload of information-processing and decision-making resources. They're sort of like subcommittees (or sub-subcommittees) with limited autonomy. The hive mind trades off its direct control and access to information in return for limited flexibility at the local level.
Not only can the hive mind not necessarily instantly react to changing circumstances anywhere in its purview but an individual Synapse can't necessarily instantly access what limited battlefield information is available on a split second basis.
All of that (and more) is why Nids have Initiative of 2+ instead of 1+ and only have a Strategy Rating of 1.
It's also why a dying Synapse Node doesn't automatically fling their controlled broods off to be picked up by the next closest Synapse Creature. It may not know exactly where the nearest other SC is or it may not have the capacity to decide which nearby SC is the best recipient or it may be to busy fighting for its life to effectively command all its broods, let alone "plug in" to the hive mind to find out the greater plan. Any one of those factors could stop it.
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That's obviously just my take on it. If you don't share that opinion, it's no big deal. I am just trying to show you why others "don't see the problem" as you stated earlier. It's not pointless to try to persuade others in that situation. You just need to work on the root cause of the problem - difference in interpretation of background - rather than on the specific effect that is bothering you.
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thurse
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:40 pm |
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So to sum up, correct me if I'm wrong :
1) after an engage action ( and the eventual hackdowns, withdrawal and consolidation ), Synapse coherency is cheked. All units that are not in coherency are removed. If a formation has no more synapse, all units are wiped. This rule applies if the nid formation initiated the engage action or was the target
2) We have to decide if the nids need a special coherency rule to avoid the kill-spawn teleport.
I hope point 1) will be explicit in the rules and hopefully by someone with better rhetorical skills than mine!
For me it's time to go to a 3-week holiday.
See you soon and happy wargaming
Cheers!
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Jaldon
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Post subject: Synapse Coherancy & Withdrawal Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:19 am |
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Ayoras, think of it this way.........
Imagine the information coming in from the Creatures out running the fight and all the independent creatures is arriving each on a seperate TV screen and you are the Norn running the entire battle.
How many screens can you concentrate on at the same time? It could quickly become equivilant to trying to play six games of Warcraft all at the same time 
Basically the information cannot be assimilated and acted upon quickly enough because to much detailed information that isn't needed is arriving with the needed information.
So the Nids have a layered command structure that takes advantage of the little creatures natural instictive behavior as much as possible to prevent information overload.
The advantage is one can drive these all but mindless creatures at the enemy, and they will obey. The downside is accepting the fact that the army is going to be sluggish to re-act to a fluid situation as information and orders move up and down the chain of command.
Oui, every time I think I got SYnapse fixed.............
I'll give it a good read and see if I can make it clearer.
Thanks All.....
Jaldon 
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