Tyranids are herd/pack creatures (at leastthe lesser creatures like Gaunts, Gargoyles and Raveners). If one starts doing something the others nearby would follow and do the same. In some cases it might actually that what the Hive Mind would prefer.

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No. They don't act under onders of hive mind. They follow their instinctive behaviour. All fluff supports that when that happens it's VERY bad and indeed is disaster for tyranid battle plan.

Initiave 3+ isn't such disaster. If it was 6+  with additional restrictions on failed order to remove control from the player to represent instinctive behaviour it it would atleast have some effort of representing the disaster fluff states that happens but 3+ isn't anywhere near it. 66% efficiency of following hive minds orders isn't supported by background.

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So how is it different to a stampede against machine guns and a stampede initiated by others against machine guns?

The instinctual behaviour is actually programmed into every Tyranid creature by the Hive Mind. In some instances this behaviour would urge the Swarm to actually do things which the Hive Mind would have ordered them in a certain situation anyway. In other instances the Swarm would act inneffective (taking a Hold action, perhabs accompanied with losing D3 units because these actually go wandering off to look for easier prey).
A worse Initiative rating would represent this apropiately.

Edit: The actual value of the Initiative penalty is not set. Yes it could be -3 or even -4. Or even an automatic Hold action (yes with getting the extra Blastmarker which would represent that the Swarm, the longer it stays without direct Hive Mind contact, gets into disorder more and more).

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I've never seen any background text which indicates this is true. Everything I've read suggests they lose tactical coherence, but will often still charge and slaughter vast numbers. The idea that they instantly become irrelevant is not something I've ever seen in any nid text.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

As far as I'm aware there is no listing of the statistics of following orders anywhere in the background. If you can show a quote to prove your statement please do.

The only thing we have to go on with regards numbers are the 40k rules, which usually give a better than 66% chance of following orders.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Well, some Brood creatures have Ld 5 and some have Ld 10, and some are also fearless and that complicated things... so it varies.

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Actually Gaunts and Biovores have Leadership(Ld) 5 which is very sub-par (try to roll 2D6 and come up with 5 or less!).
But all other Tyranids are either Synapses, are Fearless (never roll Ld), have Broodtelepathy (pass Ld-rolls automatically to avoid Insticitive Behaviour, Genestealers and Biovores have this) or have Ld10.

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Howabout all the references to tide turning just like that when synapse goes out? Tyranids becoming orks don't represent that. Orks aren't slaughtered like cattle like tyranids without synapse are.

And we have something way better than 40k's crappy rules to go with. BACKGROUND. Forget the crappy rules. We should concentrate on staying true to 40k background rather than copying crappy rules into Epic. If we did that we would have stand back, shoot and trust your 3+ armour save space marines instead of the surgical strike teams we have now. Because epic doesn't copy 40k rules we have space marines that actually fight like their background says they fight. Not like 40k which shares only names with background.

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If following this rule direction, you'd want to average it out somewhat, between the Carnifexes, Raveners and the Gargoyles that almost-always obey the Hive Mind's orders even when at a distance from a Synapse nexus, and the lesser gaunts that only obey the Hive Mind ~30% of the time when out of Synapse nexus range.

Initiative 3+ or 4+ would probably feel about right, if this design philosophy was followed.

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Biovores also have 'Brood Telepathy' and also auto-pass 'synapse tests'.

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Sure. Ld5 is 10/36 = 27%, Ld10 is 33/36 = 91%, an average of which is 59%...

I'm joking of course to suggest we use maths like this to determine epic rules, but it doesn't change the fact that the only thing we have to go on to determine how often synapseless swarms behave correctly are the 40k rules.

Unless someone can provide a quote showing otherwise of course.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

and, nb, spawning is best seen as synapses picking up these 'feral' 'nids back up.

Please quote some of this "background" that supports your argument.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Why you are so insistant on ignoring 40k background when you claim only some crappy rules which ignore background are only thing we have to follow on?

Ah well. Atleast this idea is only limited to french list. French fellows can play whatever 40k-wannabe lists they want. They are unlikely coming around to Finland and if they do they wouldn't likely find tournament using their lists. Thank god!

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