So Spawning is designed in such a way it encourages the Nid player to fall back and regroup, instead of pressing forward into CC range where they can be most effective?
It seemed that it is vitrually impossible to kill the Synapses before the rest of the formation is destroyed. Massed AT fire would seem to be the only way, and it would need to be massed indeed, as a Tank company firing every AT shot possible was unable to bring them down entirely, though the Heavy bolter shots wiped the non-synapse out. In the two games we played, there was one symapse (Hive Tyrant) wiped completely, and at least 6 formations reduced to only synapse at the end of the game. One formation was reduced to synapse and AV (Haruspex). THe fact that all Synapses are Fearless simply makes them that much more durable: they can't even be taken down when broken or in hackdown if poorly placed.
Under the rules we played, the list seemed extremely well balanced overall. We were unsure about the 2x3+ CC on the raveners, but they proved not to be overpowered. I don't think spawning is a rule that would add much to the gameplay experience, nor do I think synapse range is neccessary. Angron left 15cm coherency in only one formation, his thousand point Dominatrix led formation. And even them it was by perhaps 1cm. The biggest problem the Nids had in both games was that their relative speed meant that both Mechanized Guard and Eldar were able to choose when and where to engage in detail, and at what range (FF), causing the Nids to engage in suboptimal conditions except when I made mistakes. Honestly, they are not as scary an army to face as I expected, but nor were they pushovers.
Two things that came up when we added VPs for the second game:
Tyranids 9.2.1 wrote:
Tiebreaker
When determining victory points, the Tyranid army does not use
formation size to determine the number of points the opponent
receives for a tiebreaker. Instead the opponent uses the following
values for units/groups destroyed, broken or reduced below half at
the end of the battle:
-Synapse Groups are worth double their point value.
-Independent Swarms are worth their normal point value.
-Brood Groups are worth half their point value.
(Add the number of all killed Brood creatures of the same type
together to determine how many Brood Groups worth of units have
been destroyed, broken Brood Groups are not considered.)
An army composed of 1/3 brood, 1/3 synapse, and 1/3 independent therefore can loose 3500 vp in a 3k game. Also, the rules do not indicate the normal 1/2 broken, 1/2 >50% casualties, full if destroyed or broken/>50% casualties. so a broken Synapse group with no wounds is tilll worth 200% to the opponent, making VPs farr easier to score for the opponent.
_________________
SG
Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.