i think the best solution would be to do away with resurrection spawning entirely, and introduce a spawning pool in a similar style to the daemon summoning pool

you put in points during list building, which can be exchanged mid-game to spawn the various lesser species at a discount.
you'd be able to pick if you wanted termigants, hormagaunts or gargoyles when you spawn them, and you'll get them at a price break, because you wont necessarily get them where/when you want them like if you'd bought them at the beginning
Tervigons would add a number of points to the spawn roll each turn, but could only be used on termigants, dominatricies would add a higher number that could be spent on any of the lesser beasts. or, better yet, tervigon and dominatrix spawning rolls create units not from the spawn pool at all, just out of thin air.

BTS would be worked purely off what formation cost the most to purchase, so ignores units added from the spawn pool to determine what formation it is

tiebreak conditions should probably be something like:
"gain full points for any non-independant formation with no surviving synapse creatures"
"gain no points for any unbroken formations with surviving synapse creatures"
"gain half points for any broken formations with surviving synapse creatures"
"independant formations count points as normal"
"gain full points for any unspent points from the spawning pool"
and simply not allow spawning from synapseless formations.

you should also allow merging, but automatically award half (or even full) points for the synapseless formation that merged into the one with synapses

this has the advantages of:
A) promoting a "kill the synapse" mentality which has always been prevalent in the fluff
B) providing nid players with a list building conundrum of how many points they can support starting "off table" without exposing their synapse creatures to too much firepower (and thus, shut down spawning entirely)
C) make an easier to balance costing of formations (instead of worrying about the tricky bits of resurrection and cross-formation spawning, you simply say "a termigant is worth X points when starting on the table, and Y points when not)
D) let nids win a sizable portion of games if it comes to a tiebreaker, but allow plenty of opportunity for the opponent to win before or during the tiebreaker aswell. Nids should have an easy time winning their tiebreaker, because they are an attrition army
E) make spawning actually feel like a Nid thing, and not simply a squishy organic version of necrons.

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Why do you not want the half strength limit of a formation to increase when a formation spawns from a different pool? Consider this scenario:

Formation A...
starts with 10 units
spawns 4 units from other formations early in the game
takes 8 casualties at the end of turn 4 and can't respawn

This formation will still be considered above half-strength, even though the opponent killed more than half of its units.

Cross-swarm spawning will give the 'nids a VP advantage unless we say half-strength is altered by spawning more units. That's why I'm suggesting we compare what's left in formation A to its spawn pool to see if its below half-strength, with a note that half-strength can't be less than what it was at the start of the game.

Also, did you see my question on absorbing?

viewtopic.php?p=394695#p394695

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How is it more abusable? A formation still has to spawn its losses before it can touch an other's pool. That's effectively replacing by type.

Having a pool for each formation also makes it clear to your opponent what goes where. A 'nid player might not have need of them with their familiarity with the army, but an opponent shouldn't be required to do all that book keeping in their head of what can come back where.

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It is more abusable in that you get to choose what to spawn a lot sooner.

Imagine a formation that has lost 4 hormagaunts, and they have been spawned into another formation. Under these rules, the formation can spawn anything it likes from any pile, whereas under neal's rules it must spawn hormagaunts if there are any in any dead piles.

Under these rules you might as well just allow free-for-all spawning, as that's what it becomes almost straight away.

It's a subtle distinction, but Neal's version is significantly more restrictive in the "spawning good stuff where I need it" sense.

I don't know. You can effectively do the same thing in Neal's version and just have other formations spawn back hormagaunts before you get to that formation. Both are going to be open to abuse. I'd rather stick to separate pools so people everyone has a clear idea of what goes where.

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Except that since you're allowing cross-swarm spawning once a pool is empty, that clear idea of what goes where goes out of the window.

Neal's version is a good compromise which allows cross-swarm spawning without letting people pick and choose quite so much. It's much harder to abuse and get a free reign.

By turn two, the other version will have free-form spawning for almost all formations, which is fine, but you might as well just allow it from the start as it's a lot simpler and clearer.

Anther problem with "dead piles". Assume Formation A has some units killed, and they go into Formation A's dead pile. Formation B loses no units, so spawns those units from A's pile. Later in the game, those units are killed again from formation B. Which dead pile do they go into?

Neal's version doesn't require these strange, fluid dead piles, and it really isn't hard to glance at a list if you forget what was in the formation to start with.

If a formation's spawn pool is empty then anything in the other pools are fair game, where is the loss of clarity there?

Free-form spawning for all formations by turn 2 is a bit of a stretch. In order for that to happen there would need to be many units in the spawn pool from formations that got hammered and some formations with few, if any, casualties. If that is the case both systems are going to be open to this kind of abuse, one of the later formations just needs to spawn before one of the former. The later will get whatever units it wants in both systems.

On your other point, they would go into B's dead pile. While Jaldon's language doesn't state it directly it can. Take a look at mine, you can do it concisely.

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I don't see the point of having dead pools if they aren't fixed for formations anyway. That way confusion lies.

A sensible opponent will always focus attention on one or two tyranid formations and ignore the others, so it's very likely that'll be the situation by turn 2.

As for selecting the spawn order to manipulate the system, that's why I suggested formations with no losses should spawn last.

Neal, perhaps you can explain further why your system is better, I'm obviously not getting my message across clearly.

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Wasn't the whole idea of the spawning changes to simplify them? We've ended up on a much more complicated system than 9.2.1 had...

What's currently in use is equivalent to 9.2.1 with some clarification notes. I think they're both pretty simple.

The changes have cropped up because people didn't like the resurrection spawning, not because they thought they were overly complicated. I'd rather just stick with resurrection spawning, it's an abstraction but its simple and allows us to keep the tourney VCs intact. I think these changes have suggested to see if we can find a half-way point that works for everyone.

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I'll have a go at explaining Neal's system, the way I understood it at least...

There is only one dead pile. When a formation spawns, it checks the following:

1) Does the formation lack any of its starting units? If yes, goto 2), if no, goto 4)
2) Are there units in the communal dead pile that matches the missing units? If yes, goto 3), if no, goto 4)
3) Spawn as many units as possible that matches the units missing from its starting strength. If all spawning points are used, end spawning. If there are remaining spawn points, goto 4)
4) Spend remaining spawning points on whatever units you want from the dead pile.


Now, that's a pretty long-winded explanation, but I think it should be obvious when used at the table AND the player is clear that there is only one dead pile (and not formation-specific dead piles). I think the last bit is a big part of the confusion for people who've read all the iterations of the spawning rules. If you come to it fresh it should be a simple rule consisting of one bonus (return dead units to the table by paying spawning points) and one restriction (a formation must replace original casualties if possible).

I contend that this is not a complicated system, but if you come to it with all the baggage of the previous systems it's easy to be confused.

For clarity, here's what (I think) the rules for Neal's spawning are:

1) After regrouping or attempting to rally a Synapse formation cand spend a variable amount of spawning points to add dead tyranid units to the table
2) If possible the formation must first attempt to add units so that the formation matches the starting strength.
3) You cannot add units that were not in the army at the start of the battle


It's pretty easy to add a spawning pool to these concepts, but the rules work perfectly fine without it. Simply allow the Nid player to buy units that start in the dead pile. What kinds of units (termagants only? all brood infantry? everything?) and what price (half normal? same? double as you can decide where they go after the game has started?) is a matter for list balance.

That's it as I understand it. And to reiterate I think the problems with the system are:

1) There's no clear representation on the tabletop of what goes where. We have a spawn pool but after that the player and the opponent have to remember a formation's disposition or refer to the army list.

2) Calculating VPs in the event of a tiebreak isn't as tight as it could be if each formation had its own separate spawn pool. Under this system we're just going by a formation's starting strength and not by the size it grew to throughout the game.

If we had separate spawning pools you can compare that to what's left on the board to see if a formation is under half-strength. A swarm that started at 10 units, grew to 14 and took 8 casualties should count as under half-strength, with this system it does not.

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Basing Tie Breaker on starting strength is much less of a modification to the GT scenario rules.

It is. But by allowing formations to change size we're modifying an assumption those rules for tie break make. If we allow formations to change size we have to modify how half-strength is calculated, otherwise we're giving the 'nids an unfair advantage.

This change is along the same lines as Necron formations being counted as destroyed if they're off board.

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That's the big argument against it. I believe that it's impossible to get a "perfect" spawning system and that this is the best compromise that's been suggested so far.



It's a lot simpler to check half-strength against starting formations, and if you allow fluid break points it will go the other way too, as I pointed out earlier with the formation that is nearly destroyed but has no units left in its spawning pool. Fixing that by saying that half strength break point can only go up, not down, is getting silly and is making tiebreakers harder for nids, when everybody seems to agree that Nids having a slight boost on tiebreakers is OK and fits the background.

Everybody else checks half strength against starting strength, so not adding special rules for this would obey the KISS principle.

wow, I hope one of you is present at any games played using these rules as I sure as hell can't follow what's supposed to be going on. We've gone from "resurrection" spawning (which people hate as it's not "fluffy") or "free-for-all" spawning (which people hate as it messes with the tournament victory conditions) to needing a lengthy flow chart to understand what's going on.

If you can't figure out something simple that everybody agrees on, dump the whole thing and give Nids more, but cheaper, units. Otherwise this will bounce from intractable viewpoint to intractable viewpoint and at best lead to a confusing abuseable kludge.