I'm just going from what I experienced. The "Enemy within 30cm" thing is a conundrum. You have to make the decision, do I intentionally put my troops into engagement range, to stop d3 Gaunts returning, or do I keep my distance? The game in question had 5(?) Synapses, and I was only killing off 10-12 a turn for the first two turns (In Cover + Cover Saves + having to move). Which all got respawned back, with Spawn points to spare.

The games just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I can usually figure out where I went wrong, what I could have done better, was luck a critical factor. And I couldn't. Except for "Don't play Marines/IG/Ork, play Eldar/Necron/Tau". Which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Morgan Vening

The Dominatrix spawning value (3D3) is included just for completeness (note the assumed spawning values are 1D3 and 2D3 over 2 turns). I also didn't count double spawning per turn which is more of a tactical decision that prevents the swarm from doing a great deal in a turn.

Essentially it's a quick break down of just how many points/stands you can get per turn per Synapse formation from spawning.

Reducing the Spawning Rule to simply how much can you reduce the points values of broods though is a somewhat crude alternative and despite my last paragraph I am in favour of retaining the Spawning rule as it is. If you want to spawn AV's you really need to retreat or use the Dom so I don't see them as a particular problem.

I also agree that spawning doesn't actually represent spawning in most cases, it's a Synapse swarm gathering in all the feral tyranids running around (It's harder to find a feral Fex than a few gaunts).

This may be a bit of an odd question but would it help if the Tyranid lists contained a how to beat Tyranids tactics section? It does seem to come up quite often and the Tyranids don't play like any other list. It would be frustrating for an opening salvo on turn 1 to all but destroy a Synapse swarm, which then retreats, spawns and returns near full strength on turn 3. More than any other list you have to kill swams outright, you can't break them and move onto something else like with other lists.

I think more than anything else, Spawning should stay because it's the closest to Psychological warfare that the Tyranid list has.

Well, just so you know, according to submitted reports, Marines are the army most likely to *BEAT* Tyranids! Shocking, I know!

As arkturas mentions above, you have to play differently when fighting against Tyranids; focusing on completely destroying swarms instead of just breaking them and moving on or spreading Blast markers as is a usual tactic.

But I can definitely understand how it can be frustrating.

I'm surprised at the Marine thing. It may just be a mental block I can't seem to get around. I don't mind adjusting tactics. It just seems 'too alien' to me. The only problem with wiping out formations is if you can't bring enough to bear before it gets to act, it can be difficult. I attempted to wipe out formations in the second game, and due to Regrouping and moving out of harms way, I just screamed (internally).

I've been beaten, smashed, and crushed in Epic games and still enjoyed it. I've also done my own fair share of damage. But no opposing force has ever been as "unfun" to play against. I'll admit I don't know what the fix is, but 'as is', sure isn't it, as far as I'm concerned.

Edit- I also played WITH Tyranids. Won convincingly (3-1, I think). Still didn't have much fun. So it's not just "Loser's Lament".

Morgan Vening

Has anyone tried spawning with d6's instead of d3's? Would that be just too much?

Yup, means a much higher likelihood of big things always coming back... unless you mean doubling the spawning costs as well!

What if the war engines couldn't be spawned?

Most can't be, unless you've got a very lucky Dominatrix that people are leaving alone; only the Trygon can be "spawned" by any other "lucky" formation, representing a "new" Trygon burrowing up from bellow, which is in the realm of plausible ability for Tyranids.

By "Big Stuff", I meant more Armoured Vehicle units.

I've long been an advocate of the only War Engine having the ability to Spawn being the Trygon.

I dislike "teleporting" Heirodules.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Then only common broods would be fine.

That can be applied to every army too.


Reinforcements arriving from orbit or elsewhere.


Lost platoons and troops from earlier battles


Scattered soldiers that fled, and are now looking for the commander


Ambushes not revealed, or those that went wrong

_________________
Epic Armageddon in Spanish (from Spain): http://www.box.net/shared/3u5vr8a370

Konig Armoured Regiment FanList: https://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd ... 41#p581941

The Leviathan list can only spawn the Trygon from the WE section, my Jormungandr list can't spawn any WE. Even the 9.2.1 list can only get Hierodules on a 9 which requires the Dom on it's own and you've actually taken Hierodules.

I personally don't see any problem with spawning but I do feel that the only solution to Morgan Vening's specific issues is to completely drop spawning to allow standard combat tactics to work.

It's counter intuitive but engaging Tyranids is the optimum strategy while long range shooting is mostly ineffectual (Unless it's massive AT fire). Hit them hard, win the engagement and then strip all the non-fearless brood creatures away from the broken swarm before a final AT strike on the Synapse. Breaking reduces spawning and allows rapid removal of brood creatures which leads to Synapse vulnerability. It is easier said than done though.

I don't understand your point here lord-bruno; that such a concept "can be applied to every army too" is irrelevant, those armies weren't *designed* with such a concept in mind, so it isn't represented at EPIC scale, Tyranids have been designed to represent this concept, to make them more "alien" and frightening.



"Standard combat tactics" *shouldn't* work against Tyranids; they're an alien and "new" threat, those they fight need to develop new strategies and tactics to defeat them. The "assault to strip away non-fearless units to expose Synapse to other fire[/i] is a perfect example of a new anti-Tyranid tactic, something you wouldn't normally do against other armies.

To me, that's a *good* thing.

Honestly, if you want "simple" Tyranid army, you can do a pretty convincing "counts-as" using the bog standard Orks list, creating a horde of nasty hand-to-handers with a smattering of shooting/FF ability. Personally, I want them to play as a tough and weird and scary army that's different from anything else. I've never had an opponent express despair at fighting Bugs, I've heard "That was tough.", or "I didn't think I'd beat them.", or "Wow, I got eaten!", or "I need to figure out how to beat that...", but never a "I will never fight them again!"

If you'd be up for it Morgan, or anyone else, get some opponents together and tell them ahead of time that you're fielding Tyranids and ask them to bring what they think an specifically chosen anti-Tyranid army and see how they fare. One note, if they bring fairly "shooty" armies, it'll be pretty obvious that they're still thinking conventionally. Heck, you don't even have to play out any games, just do it as a thought exercise to see what people think would be "good" against Tyranids.

If Tyranids reinforcements come from orbit then why not simply introduce Spacecrafts as every other army and let them drop Broods via spores? Those puddles of dropped broods then have to find a Synapse nearby off course

Else it would be completely logical to allow a random number of attacks every turn to hit random enemy formations representing synapseless broods straddel around and starting attacks of oppunity (Carnifexes certainly would).
Even counting every non-Tyranid formation as already having at least 1BM representing constantly be harrassed by straddlers would be sensible with your reasoning what "Spawning" in Epic means.

_________________
We are returned!
http://www.epic-wargaming.de/

Chroma: just because you've never heard people getting annoyed at the list doesn't mean others haven't. I've certainly seen people say they never want to play nids again, as clearly has morgan.