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Instinctive Vs Disposable
woodelf_dave
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 9:32 am 
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Tyranids should be very random. They have machine-like mind set, but they are not machines. Biological world is not very predictable and I certainly don't want to see Tyranids as predictable enemy. Making things fixed will mean that you can prepare for it (as enemy) and thus counter the effect. That would turn the spawning into a bland thing.


Thats not my impression. My reading of the background is that the hive mind acts with a distinct purpose and leaves as little as possible to chance.  New bio-constructs are created to fill gaps in the Tyranid armoury and on the battlefield the Hive Mind directs the organisms under its control to fulfill particular objectives with a determined efficiency.  If the Hive Mind decides to say over-run a particular outpost for example it directs as many troops as required to fulfill this task - thats why thousands of small gribblies are expended.  I just don`t see a random effect like them deciding not to bother to press on because they are taking so many casualties or some other reason.  

Basically I think they are predictable - once the Hive Mind decides to do something (the actual goal might be unpredictable to human minds) but once that the decision is reached it invests all of its resources to complete that task. Where a human army might give it up for some reason (random) the Tyranids don`t (predictable).

We`ll just have to agree to disagree here.

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woodelf_dave
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 9:44 am 
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Well I certainly think that it is needed. It allows the Tyranids to react a lot differently to enemy than fixed swarms. Tyranids are already lacking in strategies available and removing their own tricks is only going to make the army more and more blander. And a lot more boring to play with.


Again we`ll need to agree to disagree here. They might well be lacking in strategies (I`ve only played against them so far) but surely you could change that by adjusting the rules of individual units.  

By having small/ medium/large swarms already allows you to find tune your army unlike others (apart from the orks) and the ability to then spawn back casualties etc at the end of the turn would allow you something no other army can do.  

I can only report that our Nid player reports he enjoyed the 8.3 incarnation of the list as his least favourite.  Partly due to the complexity / counter intuitiveness (not sure thats a word) of the whole instinctive/relentless rules.
To be fair he also bemoaned the lack of variety in the army (I think comparable to your strategies). With so much emphasis on assault he felt the army is becoming boring to play with.  He feels the Hive Mind would have come up with more other ways to wage war.

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woodelf_dave
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 11:24 am 
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Hi Hena,
Ok, so the problem is in understanding those two. Good. Let's notice that they were created to the 8.X series of the list, so no wonder if they need more check up. Out of curiosity, what lists has he played?


I don`t know how many incarnations, but quite a few. He has had the army since the Space Marine days I think.  

Exactly what would you suggest? Tyranids were created to be an assault list. What I dislike at the moment is that shooting seems to be more and more prominent in the list at the moment. I feel that assaulting is not really that needed as the shooting will be sufficient (and that's something that is annoying me on the current series).

I`m not sure because again I don`t play them.  I got the feeling my opponent felt the army consisted of simply marching forward to get into assault. Of course playing Saim Hann in our last game made it easier for me to avoid this than might be the case with most opponents. I think he craved more options - perhaps tunnelling ( eg Trygons & Raveners - like FW rules in 40K), perhaps the mycetic spores being more like drop pods than spawning enhancers, perhaps more teleporting to represent bugs appearing "as if from nowhere".   This is me just trying to read his mind - I`m not sure what he would come up with. I`ll not see him for a couple of weeks so I`ll ask him then.

I think though if we can get the special rules nailed down first this will certainly help. Just to repeat my view I think while the synapse and spawning might be a little more complicated than they need to be they are at least easy to understand and intuitive. My main complaint playing against them (and my opponents view playing with them) was the instinctive/relentless rules.
I would favour disposable on selected common broods and auto rally in the end phase.  However I appreciate that this is unlikely to happen.

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Evil and Chaos
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 11:49 am 
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I would favour disposable on selected common broods and auto rally in the end phase.  However I appreciate that this is unlikely to happen.


I don't think auto-rally is even nessesary.

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Soren
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 10:40 pm 
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(Chroma @ Sep. 16 2007,02:36)
QUOTE

(Soren @ Sep. 15 2007,21:24)
QUOTE
To be honest, it?s not the Spawning thingie that makes me headache, its the instinctive rule. Maybe we should solve this first?

What about the instinctive rule is causing you headaches, Soren?

It?s like broken but not broken. If a normal unit is broken, there are exact 2 events when you have to think about. Rally is additional -2 and you lose a unit for blast marker.

Instictive is not that plain. You get the modifier, you get it not, you rally automatically but spawning seems to be influenced, because its a rally? test.

To summarize it, it?s complicated and not straightforward. My game comrades looked at the list, looked at the instictive rule and said "Play the earlier version" (which I did not, ?cause some of their armies simply stand no change against the earlier version of the list)
But that words made me thought, and I am sure, my guys and me are not the only one thinking the same.

Honestly, the "cannot get blast marker and cannot be broken by them" was the best feature to the list. If I would be the list designer, I would say the following:

Tyranid formations cannot be broken except when lossing assaults. They get hackdown hits as usual and stay "instinctive" (don?t like this word, sorry) until rally. If they are assaulted while instinctive, they always count having more BM as the enemy, so loosing their advantage of never getting BM in assaults until next rally phase. No other modifications apply (so no loosing of stands when being shot at while instinctive) <- straightforward

For me Tyranid formations simply ignore fire, but when assaulted properly, they can loose their order if done right. I think this underlines the abilities of the tyranids more than the current rule.

I?m pretty sure you don?t like this proposal, but I would be happy if you take a look at it.

but as always, only my 0,0002 cent

Soren

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Chroma
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 10:56 pm 
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(Soren @ Sep. 16 2007,22:40)
QUOTE
Honestly, the "cannot get blast marker and cannot be broken by them" was the best feature to the list. If I would be the list designer, I would say the following:
...
I?m pretty sure you don?t like this proposal, but I would be happy if you take a look at it.

It's not that I don't like your proposal, Soren, but just that the "take no BMs"/"never broken" rule is, essentially, what it's been in the previous incarnations and it has been creating a *LOT* of complaints from Tyranid opponents, so we needed to try a change.

This is still a playtest list in need of work and any playing of the list and input generated by that play, or even by thinking about the list, is appreciated and considered!

The word "instinctive" is taken right out of the 40k (and older EPIC) rules, what don't you like about it?

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Charad
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:09 am 
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In current rules (and little bit on previous too) tyranids are too shooty. No supression for casualties and when losing assault (if not activated yet) it allows them double without -1 modifier for shooting. Also their FF support fire abilities have been boosted. (or was it in previous, lists respawn too fast.. :) )

That really hurts feeling of how tyranid armies should behave!

Now tyranids are good playable and balanced in their own way, just feeling is out there somewhere.

Every time I or somebody on our group uses them, it is always dactylises and biovores doing the main job.

This is extremely hard issue to make work, and it is so good that by your hard work nid list has come as good as now. So they need some boosts to make assaults more important to them and maybe something that limits shooting a bit.

Some ideas floating in my head:
-allow engage instead of hold when instictive
-tyranids suppress normally
-when marching +5cms to speed
-cannot lend support fire when instictive
-limit fall back move to 15cms each (to prevent engages across table after a lost assault)

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Soren
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:23 am 
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FF boost was good. If you limit shooting and FF support, how do you want to battle skimmer-eldar armies? They are double as fast as you, better in all stats and you cannot nail them on any place? Sorry but I cannot support further decrease in FF (which was already decreased) Else It will get the same syndrom as SM against Eldar (without using 6 Thunderhawk and 4 Warhound) . SM makes deployment....and Eldar wins shortly afterwards :;):

@Chroma: If you allow them to loose their bonus not getting BM after loosing an assault, the swarm WILL be vulnerable to further attacks. If you want you can even allow them loosing 1 stand per BM they would get or something like this(if you are manage to break them in an engagement the enemy should get a really good bonus for the rest of the turn to be able to kill the swarm). It?s only the thing that Tyranids would not break from fire. Why should they? They break(or something like this) when no synapse creatures are in range ir in close engagements (looking at the written fluff).

The thing with the assault: The army can only be beaten if you eighter have massive firepower or in engagements. If you remember the 40k books, ever tyranid army was beaten in CC or close engagement, because in engagements you have the ability to eliminate key creatures (even if they are not shown in Epic level, they are there)or if the Hive mind thinks, you have encountered enough casualities. So the battle will be build eighter around heavy, concentrated shooting or engagements, which will be stylish for both sides I think.

The rule set now is neighter satisfiying for the tyranid player, nor satisfying for the opponents. (at least for mine :D) They feel not like tyranids...this is the signal to alter the rules, balanced or not, we have failed the army list if this is true.

Chroma, you`re doing a really good job. I?m in the discussion for the tyranid list since 5.X. But you are really unlucky at picking your race for the list development.  :;): I hope you keep up the good work and do not feel offended by me, this is really not my intention behind this post.  :blush:

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Evil and Chaos
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:18 am 
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- Allow Tyranids to accumulate blast markers, and become surpressed.
- Implement Disposable.
- Give all Tyranids 'And they shall know no fear' (Yes, seriously).


I believe that might better fit the Tyranid army than the current instinctive rule.

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Charad
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:29 am 
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1. This has "free march"  problem on paper.
2. This means that no non-dedicated fire formation will ever fire a single shot.
4. That was in my original idea of allowing engage on hold.
5. And this is problematic as non-fearless units needs to get out of 15cm kill-zone.


1. free march? it just adds 15cms to total move... what do you mean?
2.as it is with other armies too. It is good to limit nid shooting a bit from current amount of fire they can unleash
4. that double without -1 penalty is too un-tyranid
5.they have 30cm total move, that is enough to leave killzone

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Charad
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:32 am 
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- Allow Tyranids to accumulate blast markers, and become surpressed.
- Implement Disposable.
- Give all Tyranids 'And they shall know no fear' (Yes, seriously).


Good points, but they really don't encourage nids to engage instead of shooting. It would be fantastic to cover nids with basic rules, but I don't think that is really possible.

@soren: you really want nid play like IG?

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Evil and Chaos
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:05 pm 
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Good points, but they really don't encourage nids to engage instead of shooting. It would be fantastic to cover nids with basic rules, but I don't think that is really possible.


Their shooting is pretty limited. If you try to win a game with nids with the above mods, you're doomed to death-by-gunline.

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BlackLegion
 Post subject: Instinctive Vs Disposable
PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:14 pm 
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If your really think Tyranids should be kickass in closecombat then try this specialrule:

Ripper Swarms
Tyranids are allways accompanied by large swarms of Ripper creatures. Because of this in assaults tyranids allways receive the +1 modificator on the assault resolution roll for outnumbering the enemy formation.




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