Tyranid Proposed Special Rules (Unified)
Initiative:1+
Strategy:1

Hive Mind
All Tyranid formations that contain synapse creatures get a +1 to their initiative when they rally.

Expendable
Expendable units do generate a blast marker when they are removed as casulties. This includes special effect weapons that generate blast markers when an expendable unit is targeted. Expendable units do count as causlties for the purpose of assault resolution.

Brood Mother
For now Brood Mother is going to be dropped and added again later when the final unit stats are finished. Then a special rule will be considered for both the Dominatrix and the Tervigon.

Spawning
Formations with at least one unit with the Synapse rule can replace losses and increase the size of their formation in a process called Spawning. Formations Spawn after regrouping and in the end phase after rallies.

When units with the Brood special rule are killed, they must be kept in piles separated by the formations they were lost from. These are known as “Spawning Pools” and it is from these Pools that formations Spawn units into play.

When a formation Spawns, roll a number of D3:

Formation is not broken 1D3
No enemy units within 30cm 2D3
Broken formations may not spawn.

The total rolled is the number of “Spawning Points” available to the formation. The formation can add dead units with the Brood special rule to the formation by spending these Points on the chart below:

Infantry Unit 1 Spawning Point
Light Vehicle Unit 2 Spawning Points
Armoured Vehicle Units 3 Spawning Points

If the Spawning formation has units in its own Spawning Pool, then those units must be returned to play first. If its own pool is empty, the formation may Spawn units from other Pools. The spawned units are placed in coherency with the rest of the formation, and are then treated as part of the formation for the rest of the game.

In the end phase, after rallying takes place, all formations with Synapse units, and that are understrength, must Spawn back as many units as they can. Formations that have units in their Spawning Pools must all spawn before formations that have no units in their Pools.

For the purposes of the Grand Tournament Scenario, Tie Breaker calculations should be based on the starting size of each Tyranid formation, and the Break Their Spirit goal should be based on the starting cost of each formation.

Instinctive
Any formation that has lost all of its synapse creatures falls into instinctive behavior. It is still treated like a normal Tyranid formation with the following changes. Its initiative becomes 3+. It may only use Advance, Engage, and Hold actions. It cannot spawn. It cannot be merged with other Tyranid formations, nor carry out a combined action with other Tyranid formations. The swarm may not contest or control objectives.

Tunneler
Tunnelers are set up touching their own side's table edge before the battle starts at the same time that spacecraft are setup (seeEA 4.3.1). Any units transported in the tunneler should be
placed to one side at this time too. Secretly write down the location where the tunneler will surface
at the same time and in the same manner that you record the coordinates of a drop zone (see EA 4.3.1). You must also secretly record when the tunneler will surface.

If it is going to surface in your half of the table it may arrive from the second turn onwards. If it is going to surface in the opposing half of the table, it may arrive from turn three onwards. Set up the tunneler at the start of the stated turn, before placing units with teleport, at the location you wrote down. Any units being transported are allowed to disembark immediately upon surfacing.

Surfacing does not count as movement for the purposes of triggering overwatch fire. Disembarking triggers overwatch fire as normal. If the tunneler surfaces on terrain that is impassable for it, under a friendly unit, or in an enemy zone of control then it is assumed that on-board sensor equipment will divert it towards another entry point. The unit should be moved by the opposing player to the nearest area where it can surface. Formations of multiple tunnelers need only record one location where they will surface. Place a unit at this location, or within 5cm of another unit that has already been placed, so long as all units are placed within 15cm of the location and on the appropriate half of the table. Tunnelers, and any units being transported in them, may take an action on the turn they appear.

I really hope nobody has a problem with this one.

Mobility
Tyranid War Engines and Armoured Vehicles never take dangerous
terrain tests for moving through or into terrain. In addition Tyranid
Light Vehicles move through terrain as if they were Infantry.
Fortification features such as razor wire or minefields, and special
terrain features such as lava flows affect Tyranid units normally.

The Hive Mind and Synapse
These will be covered in the lists and determine how a NId Army is put together. For now use the lists posted for playtesting and ignore any rules pertaining to Synapse Ranges. Nid formations now use all the normal rules all other formations in Epic-A use.

Onachus Planetary Assault
While I do find this rule really interesting, because I think it fits the vision most of us have on how the Nids would deploy from space,I think it should be included in the list for non-tournament play. For tournament play I think the standard Planetary Assault rules should be used.

Onachus Resolute
While I am not opposed to this rule I would like the players to try battles with it and without it and give me their feedback on it. It is what I am planning on doing as I am not really to sure if it is needed, but then again I am not it isn’t.

Well let us have at it folks,

Cheers,
Jaldon

_________________
I know a dead parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now.
Tyranid AC

The spawning wording is overly convoluted. I know what's it's trying to say and yet I still had to reread parts of it to make sense of it.

Pretty much this, too many swarm and spawn words which gets confusing

Everything else looks fine, any idea on when we might see the first new list?

I don't have a copy of the 2008 handbook so expendable will pass me by then.

Bit confusing about when spawning happens here, the two passages above contradict each other. Should probably state that spawning happens after all formations have attempted to rally. And is spawning via Regroup (Marshall/Hold) gone?

It also lacks rules for placing the spawned units on the table (is it just in coherency?).

Fine.


Fine.


Who on earth uses the 2008 Handbook, other than a few small isolated groups?



Much too wordy.
Not at all balanced between the different spawnable unit types.
Still screws with the BTS and Tie-breaker conditions.
Not particularly representative of what a Tyranid army should be IMO.

In toto, I dislike this. I'd rather see Spawning dropped entirely than see this rule adopted.


I dislike seeing this dropped.


Fine.

I thought merging was gone, anyway?

Dislike.

I thought Brood Mother was gone?


I intensively dislike anything that involves the opposing player moving your units.



Fine.


Fine.


Fine.


Fine.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

To be fair, this is essentially the same wording as the official wording for Planetfall.


Which brings up the point of why not just adapt Planetfall directly, with conditions on where it can deploy (my half, second turn, your half, third turn). But that still suffers from one of Zombo's pet peeves, that it's scenario dependent (what happens if you're not playing with standard deployment zones?).

Morgan Vening

It seems superfluous that the opposing player moves the models, as written it states that the models are moved to the nearest valid area... there's no benefit to be gained from either player moving the models as the nearest place will be the same for both players.

Actually, in a game I witnessed recently, there was a situation that allowed the player to move the Drop Pod to one of two distinct locations. Granted, if you measured down to the nanometer, there'd be a singular placement, but with a building, and multiple ZOC from scout and non-scout, there were two 'legitimate' choices.

Morgan Vening

One point; if Raveners, Zoanthropes or Biovores move to infantry I think you'd need to replace spawning cost by type with a Brood X system (units get the special rule Brood X, where X is the spawning cost).

Here's my attempt at making the Spawning wording clearer:



Spawning

Formations with at least one unit with the Synapse rule can replace losses and increase the size of their formation in a process called Spawning. Formations Spawn after regrouping and in the end phase.

When units with the Brood special rule are killed, they must be kept in piles separated by the formations they were lost from. These are known as “Spawning Pools” and it is from these Pools that formations Spawn units into play.

When a formation Spawns, roll a number of D3:

Formation is not broken +1D3
No enemy units within 30cm +1D3

The total rolled is the number of “Spawning Points” available to the formation. The formation can add dead units with the Brood special rule to the formation by spending these Points on the chart below:

Infantry Unit 1 Spawning Point
Light Vehicle Unit 2 Spawning Points
Armoured Vehicle Units 3 Spawning Points

If the Spawning formation has units in its own Spawning Pool, then those units must be returned to play first. If its own pool is empty, the formation may Spawn units from other Pools. The spawned units are placed in coherency with the rest of the formation, and are then treated as part of the formation for the rest of the game.

In the end phase, after rallying takes place, all formations with Synapse units must Spawn. Formations that have units in their Spawning Pools must all spawn before formations that have no units in their Pools.

For the purposes of the Grand Tournament Scenario, Tie Breaker calculations should be based on the starting size of each Tyranid formation, and the Break Their Spirit goal should be based on the starting cost of each formation.





As pointed out above, Raveners (and possibly other units) are likely to move back to infantry status, meaning that the inf/lv/av table for spawning points might not be particularly even. A Brood(x) system may be better.

I like Zombo's wording, but I'll bring the rules to the game I'm playing tomorrow. I'm not playing Nids, but my opponent (although an experienced 40k gamer) is playing his second EA game. If he can understand it without me explaining it it should be a good indication.

Have you thought about doing spawning so that you may return x points to the game, rather than x number of units?

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Given that even Gaunts cost about 18 points per unit, that's a lot of dice you'll need to roll, unless you had it a fixed points amount per formation rather than random.

Not to mention that since different lists have different pricing structures you can't always buy individual units...