No poll, just a discussion.

Don't look at the current rules, let's discuss what we *want* to happen, and then write the rule to do that.

When should control range be "enforced"?  These are just some of the possible options, and aren't necessarily how we want things to work.

When a Swarm loses its Synapse creatures:

1) The swarm dies immediately it loses its last Synapse.
2) The swarm may activate, but dies at the end of the activation.
3) The swarm may activate, and dies at the end of the turn if it is still out of control of any Synapse.
4) The swarm may activate and dies if it moves or at the end of the turn if it is out of control of any Synapse.

Discuss!

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I'll throw this in then.

Synapse Coherency is only checked at the end of a turn. Brood units without synapse control are removed after an engagement or during the end phase.

This would allow a player to set up a blocking screen of brood creates, to block march moves, but lose them in the end phase if they are not within synapse range. Also allows the formation to activate without a whole load of text explaining what can and cannot happen.

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Looking at the main rule book's coherency rules I'm in favor of this:

The swarm may activate. Brood creatures are removed if they are out of synapse range of another synapse group after one move.

I believe that models the out of coherency rules that the game currently enforces. You are allowed one move to get back into coherency, if you can't or don't those models out of coherency are removed. Essentially we're piggy backing swarm coherency on top of that. The only exception will be that synapse coherency is not enforced during an assault. But after an assault it is.

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Dave

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The rule could be simplified a lot if it was changed to 3. The assault exception would become unneccesary for example.

Much of the synapse/control range rules could be replaced with:

In the end phase, any brood creatures which are not in control range of any synapse creatures are removed from play.

In fact, I think the entire thing could be shortened to:



Tyranid units are divided into three basic
types: Brood creatures, Independent creatures, and Synapse
creatures (with Brood creatures themselves being further
subdivided into Common and Uncommon types). Independent
creatures are organised into fixed formations, just like non-
Tyranid units.

Instead of fixed formations, Brood and Synapse creatures are
combined to form a fluid "synapse swarm" that is controlled by a
Synapse Group. Both the Synapse Group and the Brood creatures
associated with it are treated as a single formation.
At the start of the game, the Tyranid player assigns Brood
creatures to Synapse Groups, creating swarms. These swarms
must be set up in legal formation using the instructions for the
scenario. Additionally, all Brood units must be placed within
control range (15cm) of a Synapse creature from the swarm's
Synapse Group. If the Tyranid player wishes, they may hold
some Brood creatures in reserve and not assign them to any
Synapse Group.

During the Action Phase, a synapse swarm is treated like a
normal formation.

In the End Phase, after rallying and spawning (see below),
any Brood creatures out of control range are removed from play and any
that are within control range of one Synapse Group become part
of its synapse swarm. If any Brood creatures are within control
range of two or more Synapse Groups then they may join any one
of the Synapse Groups, as decided by the Tyranid player. Note that
Blast markers and broken status stay with their original swarms,
not with any Brood creatures that change swarms; a swarm that has
Blast markers equal to, or more than, units after these
reorganizations immediately breaks.


Or the entire brood system could be replaced with fixed formations created very flexibly at the start of the game. How often does brood "reorganisation" actually happen? This would simplify the rules enormously, like so:



Tyranid units are divided into three basic
types: Brood creatures, Independent creatures, and Synapse
creatures (with Brood creatures themselves being further
subdivided into Common and Uncommon types). Independent
creatures are organised into fixed formations, just like non-
Tyranid units.

Brood and Synapse creatures are combined to form a "synapse swarm"
that is controlled by a Synapse Group. Both the Synapse Group and
the Brood creatures associated with it are treated as a single formation.
At the start of the game, the Tyranid player assigns Brood
creatures to Synapse Groups, creating swarms. These swarms
must be set up in legal formation using the instructions for the
scenario. Additionally, all Brood units must be placed within
control range (15cm) of a Synapse creature from the swarm's
Synapse Group. If the Tyranid player wishes, they may hold
some Brood creatures in reserve and not assign them to any
Synapse Group.

During the Action Phase, a synapse swarm is treated like a
normal formation.

In the End Phase, after rallying and spawning (see below),
any Brood creatures out of control range of a Synapse Creature
in its formation are removed from play. A swarm that has Blast
markers equal to, or more than, units after these removals
immediately breaks. Swarms with no synapse creatures are removed
from play.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

From the other thread:-

The 4th option is technically part of option 2), as is the situation where part of a swarm finds itself out of coherency due to enemy fire and is thus forced to move under 1.7.4. However, the real question is whether we want to strictly align Synapse "control" with the usual "coherency" rules which are determined after each move; or in some other fashion for example during the end-of-turn phase.

Determining 'control' during movement is much more restrictive than leaving it to the end-of-turn phase, hence the exception for assaults etc. However, leaving it to the end-of-turn phase would allow the Tyranid player to intentionally spread a swarm out of control to deny territory to the opponent. Personally I don't see this as a huge problem as objectives are only controlled by  the Synapses, and the swarm could easily be broken by a clipping assault. Are there any other issues with this?

If not, option 3) determining 'control' in the end-of-turn phase is much simpler. It means that synapse groups start all their turns 'in control' and allows the Tyranid player to attempt to regain control of leaderless swarms which does not seem unreasonable. Should this occur, we would need a note to stipulate that BMs and OW markers are not transferred to the new swarm (because they are notionally associated with the dead synapse).

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

Dave raised an interesting thought in the other thread

There are two adjacent swarms that are both unactivated. Swarm #1 is shot by the enemy and although still unbroken, a lucky shot kills off it's synapse. Can swarm #2 pick up some of the spare critters from swarm #1?

Answer: No. Critters only get transferred during the end-of-turn phase. However, both swarms may still attempt to activate as usual. At the end-of-turn any critters from swarm #1 that are still out of control of any synapse 'go to ground' and are removed from the table.

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Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

This is at the heart of the Tyranid army and one of the main ways the player has of moving reinforcements forward. I try to do this all the time as it allows rearward Dominatrix or Nodes to feed stuff into assault groups and thus works a bit like 'Commander'.

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Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Fair enough, just wondering as I haven't seen it used much.

My point still remains regarding option 3 however - it allows definate shortening and simplification of the rules, which should be one of our aims.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Just keep it as simple as possible.  Either make it work like normal coherency (by move), or make it strictly end-phase.  It doesn't need special exceptions if there is to be any hope of having them concise and legible.

If the decision is made to allow exceptions anyway, there absolutely should not be an exception to allow mid-turn "pick ups" of swarms by other synapses.  The number of if/then statements about which formations have activated and what that means for the picked up or picking up swarm will be comparable to the WE Transport rules and we know how many FAQs and discussions that mechanism has spawned.

As everyone knows, I prefer normal, movement-based coherency.  It's explained clearly in the book.  The FAQs have been worked.  It would be a direct port of an existing and well-understood mechanism.  The only objection seems to be that it's harsh on the Nids.

End phase coherency has some funky issues, like a Swarm marching broods 45cm in opposite directions to create a 90cm wide living fence that won't go to ground until the end phase.  Even an assault to break it (which would be prety easy) won't stop it from re-organizing back 15cm and still exerting a ZoC while broken.

If it is absolutely, undeniably necessary that a leaderless swarm must remain able to activate, then make up some highly restrictive conditions, e.g.  a leaderless swarm can 1) engage, in which case it is destroyed at the end of the assault regardless of whether it won or lost; or 2) march towards the nearest synapse creature.

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Neal

Hena: Most of paragraph 2 can be removed. If all removal is done in the end phase, all the wording about remain in control range and the assault exemption etc can all be entirely removed. The standard coherency rules will apply no matter what.

All that matters for control range is that they are in synapse range in the end phase, else they are removed.

Neil: They'd still need to obey normal coherency, so they couldn't spread out more than any other army.



At the start of the game, the Tyranid player assigns Brood creatures to Synapse Groups, creating swarms. These swarms must be set up in legal formation using the instructions for the scenario. Additionally, all Brood units must be placed within control range (15cm) of a Synapse creature from the swarm's Synapse Group. Brood units may also be held in reserve.

During the Action Phase, a synapse swarm is treated like a normal formation.

In the End Phase, after rallying and spawning (see below), synapse swarms are reorganized. Any Brood creatures out of control range are removed and any that are within control range of one Synapse Group become part of its synapse swarm. If any Brood creatures are within control range of two or more Synapse Groups then they may join any one of the Synapse Groups, as decided by the Tyranid player. Note that Blast markers and broken status stay with synapse groups, not with any Brood creatures that change swarms; a swarm that has Blast markers equal to, or more than, units after these reorganizations immediately breaks.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Neal, is the "living fence" the only issue here or are there others? As you say, we could check for 'control' at the end of the swarm's activation which has the same effect as you outlined in your restrictions.

Note - In this discussion we have generally been assuming that critters can start under the control of Synapses from one swarm and end under the control of others in a different swarm. Is that reasonable? (Obviously they cannot activate as part of the second swarm).

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Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

I think if you want it simple you just use the current coherency rules. That is if after any move anything is out of coherency (for tyranids anything that isn't int he zoc of a friendly unit in the formation and that formation is not within the zoc of a synapse) is removed.

You can have an extra bit that only synapse groups can activate and if at the end of the turn any none synapse are out of coherency they are removed (so you can save stuff but not have them activate).

Otherwise you can just get more complex from there, you split of the synapse from the coherency rules and say only check at the start of the action, end of the action, end of the turn etc etc.

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It's not the same.  Few army lists even have have the capability to have 30+ unit formations.  Only a tiny portion of armies actually take formations that size.  Virtually none have them near the end of the game.  Not to mention the benefits of expendable units in maintaining a barrier.

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Neal, is the "living fence" the only issue here or are there others? As you say, we could check for 'control' at the end of the swarm's activation which has the same effect as you outlined in your restrictions.

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Neal