FB, I'm talking about the actual placement of the tunnelers such as the Hellbore with the carriage. The model. If they are assumed to be underground from before the game begins, why place the model & carriage at all?

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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This is a quandry that we have been attempting to solve as well. We have ideas yet they are not good enough to post.

Also remember, not only squats use Tunneller. I would recommend that the Carriage have it's own rule as to what it does - seperate to the Tunneller rule.

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Frogbear is responsible for...
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We struggled with this as well (what to do with the carriage), but my original point is about seeing the model itself.

Tunnelling rules are a thorn in my side.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Some ideas that we had floating around for the carriage

*note: these have not been tested, thought through, or are remotely balanced in any way

1. Tunnelers normally scatter. While the carriage remain on table (not destroyed), tunnellers do not scatter
2. While the carriage remain on table (not destroyed), tunnellers may re-adjust deployment by x cm

I cannot remember some of the others but these are a few of the better ideas.

There was another of not plotting at the start of the game, and the turn that they survive to (the carriages) determines where the Tunneller can emerge:
- Carriage survives Turn 1: Tunneller may appear on Players table side
- Carriage survives Turn 2: Tunneller may appear on table outside of 45cm from opponent's table edge
- Carriage survives Turn 3: Tunneller may appear anywhere on the table

Obviously the goal of the opponent is to take out those carriages!

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Frogbear is responsible for...
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Alternatively the tunnelers may appear within x (45?, 60?, 90?) of the carriage. For tyranids x cm's from nearest synapse? Then scatter each unit/tunnelling vehicle.

Mosc

Would appreciate your thoughts on these ideas when you can

Cheers...

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Frogbear is responsible for...
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Yes, yes and yes.

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I agree with frogbear that if you want to incorporate the carriage in order to have an excuse for putting models on the board, then make it something that improves the core tunnel rules, not something integral to them. As an example, if Tunnelers scatter, then Tunnelers which emerge in LoS from the carriages get some sort of "guidance" bonus - no scatter, move their plotted point, choose placement, whatever.

As far as the tunneler transports and keeping them on the board - one idea I shared with Jaldon was to make Moles and Termites real units, but Expendable.

That makes them useful even at 0cm move and limited firepower/assault. They would be on the board at least from emerging until activation. A formation that emerges and wants to hold in place can "circle the wagons" and take advantage of them (obviously, keeping the models on the board). A formation that wants to move away for tactical reasons after emerging can abandon and suffer no BMs them under formation coherency (1.7.4). The player would just lose the abandoned tunneler vehicles.

Rather than callous disregard, Expendable can be rationalized by the fact that both the transported formations and the tunneler crew know it's a one-way trip and it's highly likely they will have to leave the vehicles behind.

A Hellbore, being a WE, can be a separate formation and survive when the mounted troops leave. Or if trying to hold, it's a separate formation that has to be broken or destroyed. Either way, the Hellbore model will definitely stay on the board.

That expendable idea seems very workable as a way of making the tunneller models more than just counters.

Of course the same should then really be applied to drop pods...

This is reasonable, but not necessarily compelling. There are valid reasons for the difference, like the ease of operation created by abstracting out the Drop Pod effects which is not necessary (or possibly desirable) for the Tunnelers. Also, Pods have historically been disposable and not considered part of the formation(s) they contained while Tunnelers moved around the board as part of the formation.

From a practical perspective, tying a rewrite of the Drop Pod rules to Tunneler rules is going to draw out the process without a great promise of gain.

Let it be clear : I don't want to have to get one drop pod for 2 stands. That's 12£ per 2 squads, 3£ per transported stand is more than double the cost of rhino transports, and I'm talking current official metal models bought at retail prices.

I would argue that the WYSIWYG craze of late is starting to male things look like 40K to me.
Why not just play 6mm 40K if that's the stuff you're after ?

Neal, you are a clever man. I really like that Expendable idea. It simplifies things for the termites, moles, and hellbores and detaches the needs of those units from the rule itself. I'm behind that all the way.

Onto the rule itself, I suppose we could implement a planetfall style rule. ePilgrim and I spent 4 hours going over these rules one day on a drive back from a tournament and struggled to come up with a simple solution that both of us liked. I seem to recall the planetfall idea even being brought up by me and later thinking that perhaps we should stick with the unknown factor to keep things fresh.

ePilgrim went further with wanting to keep it separate. His thought was that planetfall time of arrival is known because the spacecraft arrival time is known. Tunnelers are underground and as such there is no real knowledge of when they are coming up, not to mention where. Looking back I agree with him to an extent.

Given the mystery of when, I am sure that the original team of developers attempted to balance that unknown factor with the limiter of turn 2 arriving on your own side, turn 3 arriving anywhere. In essence, our conversation brought us right back to the original rules.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

It's probably worth noting that the Hades Breaching Drill in the Death Korps list uses the Tunneler Special Ability, along with a note to say that is simply a "marker" in a similar manner to Space Marine drop pods.

Any NetEA change to Tunneler would change its manner of operation.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I'm in favor or using the rule as-is from the rulebook, which just some added clarification. The Expendable rule is probably going to be part of Xenos for brood creatures, having the Termites and the rest make use of it makes a lot of sense and keeps things simple.

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Dave

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Squats 2019-10-17

And so began Siege 2.0.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.