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Post by creatureboi on Feb 5, 2014 13:45:10 GMT
Hi guys
Long-time lurker, first time poster. I'm just getting back into 40k after a long absence (about 10 years), so forgive me if this is a stupid question but why is everyone complaining about having to include synapse in the army?
First off, synapse isn't new. I played with tyranids back in 3rd edition and we still had to include synapse.
Yes i accept that some of the IB stuff is really bad (units eating themselves or running away), but is it really that hard to avoid these? I haven't played in a while but it seems to me that putting together an effective synapse web isn't that difficult or something that puts us at a disadvantage.
To start with, look at the number and type of units that have the synapse rule. There is at least one choice per FOC slot. Furthermore, most of those units are ones which are good generally and would earn themselves a slot in any tyranid army even if synapse/IB did not exist.
We have tyrants, primes and tervigon in this category. Given that we have to include a tyrant or a prime to act as warlord (discounting old one eye as a bad choice) this gives us guaranteed synapse creature as a minimum. Opinion may be divided over HQ choices but from what i have seen, majority opinion seems to be that winged tyrants are one of, if not the best units in our book. Most lists i have seen include at least one, often two, of these. Why would you not want to include these?
The tervigon, even though there are complaints about how badly it has been hit by changes to the new edition, is still a popular,if not automatic, selection. It fits into either HQ or troops with 30 gants. It is a monstrous creature with some strong options. It is a psyker. Best of all it poops out extra troops throughout the game. Again, like the tyrant/prime it is a strong choice and something which crops up in most lists i have seen.
Warriors seem to get a bad rep on the forums. Again, i may be out of touch with the reality of the game these days but i quite like warriors. The key for me is their flexibility. They are easily the most multi-functional of our troop choices. Yes they are vulnerable to ID but they are only troops. Every big gun firing at a warrior is one less firing at a MC. With synapse as well i see them as useful mid-field/support units.
Shrikes have been the subject of some debate recently elsewhere on this forum. The general conclusion seemed to be that they can be really good assault troops. They are in competition with crones though, and from what i can see crones have generally won out so far in the fight for FOC slots.
The final synapse creature is the trygon prime. This is in competition with some of the best units in our list. However, trygon tunnel rules aside, it is not a bad option. A deepstriking MC that doesn't mishap due to terrain or scattering onto units? It can provide an immediate threat to enemy gunlines, distracting from the oncoming horde and it provides synapse for the advance guard elements of the army which have outpaced the back and mid-field synapse support.
With all these choices, surely it isn't that difficult to build an army with plenty of synapse support and can still fight effectively? Yes, it limits your choices of unit but many of those choices ate probably ones you would want to take anyway.
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Post by Inquisitor Stingray on Feb 5, 2014 14:13:34 GMT
Hi man, welcome to the Hive and welcome back to the game.
Yes, Synapse has been around for a long time. It's a cool, fluffy mechanic, but the thing is that it has changed significantly over the years. 4th Edition granted us Eternal Warrior, with IB'ing units falling back towards the nearest Synapse creature. 5th Edition removed Eternal Warrior and made IB a so-so thing. In fact, at some point people deliberately let their Feeders off the leash, as they gained Rage (which went from a bad to a good thing). But this time around, at least in my opinion, the pros/cons don't add up too well. Fearless and auto-regroup isen't all that impressive in the first place. Both abilities are fairly prevalent on their own and it's not like they really boost our units per say: every unit in our codex is written with Synapse in mind. We wouldn't be taking Gaunts if it wasen't because we knew there was an easy way to circumvent their poor Leadership. Word for word, I think Synapse remained exactly the same as in 5th Edition. People were hoping for the return of Eternal Warrior or something similar, as our Toughness 4 range of models are generally very, very scrawny. A Powerfisting sergeant only has one Wound to lose, but Warriors/Raveners have three, which can make for some very painful combat results.
On top of that, the IB chart got worse. I think most people would gladly have accepted this change, had Synapse itself been boosted. High risk, high reward, right? Maybe something along the lines of giving Feeders Rage, Lurkers Stealth and Hunters Preferred Enemy. Well, that obviously didn't happen. What happened was that we became much more dependent on Synapse than before, with little to make it worth the effort.
Looking at the actual Synapse creatures for a moment: A Hive Tyrant is a good choice, sure, but he will almost certainly be taken as a Flyrant, meaning he won't necessarily be sticking around to provide Synapse for the rest of the army. Dominion, Norn Crown and the 1/6 Lynchpin can help mediate this.
The Tervigon got beaten up pretty badly with the nerfbat. It's still a worthwhile unit, I think, but most of the armies out there (at least the ones who are giving us trouble) can fell a Monster like that in a single turn without breaking a sweat. Granted, this, alongside everything else, boils down to what you face off against. Doesn't help that the Tervigon now has a bigger brainfry range than before.
Tyranid Prime got a price hike of whopping 56% or so. He's our only Independent Character in the codex and used to be a must-take. Still useful, but expensive. Putting him into a squad of 30 Gants admittedly makes him a very durable Synapse choice. You could give him a Norn Crown as well, but at that point he starts becomming reeeaally expensive.
Tyranid Warriors are very anecdotal it seems. Some people have them survive rounds and rounds of Bolter fire, while others lose theirs first tune to S8+ weaponry. I still find them rather unimpressive (considering the fond memories of 4th edition past), but it obviously depends on what you're fielding them alongside as well as what you're facing. Shrikes are faster, but even more fragile with 5+ save. And if you want to kit them out for actual combat, they get really expensive. We're talking 50+ points a pop for something that dies rather easily. Also the Bonesword nerf to AP3 makes them rather unattractive to pit against, say Terminators, who are much more durable and often cheaper.
Just my initial thoughts.
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Post by omnivore on Feb 5, 2014 14:47:17 GMT
Don't forget zoanthropes! They are one of our best synapse units, being pretty durable and usually in the mid-field. Plus you get warp blast and another psychic power for support. Add that to the fact that their price got lowered and they are, at least to me, a very attractive unit.
Also if your gaunts are not in synapse and get fired at, always go to ground with them, since they will not take an IB test if they do at the start of their turn.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2014 14:59:26 GMT
Yo creatureboi, welcome and whatnot.
Honestly? You're right in my opinion.
You caught the hive at an awkward time where we're just getting settled into our new book and a lot of players weren't happy about the book in general. There's an up-played aggravation with synapse in my opinion because it's much more of a hindrance than it was in the 5th edition book so relatively speaking to that book it's BAD.
That being said it typically won't be a huge handicap to a decent player, though with an increasingly good regular opponent it might become a more significant pain. We have a lot of creatures that give synapse and tyrants are basically the way to go in a list if you're going for outright competitive and not themed army list. They can be decent synapse both fast moving or trudging.
We have warriors and possible tervigons in the troops slot. Warriors can get ID'd but that's heavy weapons not hitting a MC. Terv's are still sturdy though admittedly we now have to be wary of keeping gaunts around him which is bothersome because gaunts are usually what we want to keep synapsed. Some of our units in our troops don't even have IB.
We have synapse in elites that's more survivable than warriors and fairly useful(zoanthropes) just because of invuln, but really with cover saves played correctly you can against most opponents get a 3+ cover.
Trygon prime has synapse in this book still if I recall, which for things using tunnel provides synapse BRIEFLY while your forward synapse catches up before the prime gets lit up.
And additionally, you can take a warrior prime and stick him in a squad of gaunts. That can be a lot of look our sir rolls to protect him.
Those are all solid bubble choices for synapse. Obviously with a smart opponent he might hunt these creatures but at the cost of ignoring other things in the list. Killing all of them can leave some lists on the board in utter chaos though. Also it makes infiltration and splitting off a single unit of gaunts to capture an objective much more chance based(probably the biggest tactical problem).
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Post by chuckles on Feb 5, 2014 15:21:39 GMT
It's quite simple. Synapse did not improve in any way, and frankly it kind of needed to when you look at the boosts other races released in 6th edition received. Fearless is nice, but it does nothing to increase how effective our units are at doing much. Best case scenario, it makes us slightly harder to shift off objectives.
Meanwhile, Instinctive Behaviour became much, much more punitive. In some cases being out of synapse can effectively spell the death of your unit.
And lastly, our synapse creatures are mostly very unimpressive. Zoanthropes are okay but sit in a heavily contested FOC slot and cost a lot for a unit that has the same resilience against bolter fire as 2-6 ordinary space marines. Flyrants are great, but have other duties they need to pull, and cost an awful lot to have babysitting the rest of your army. Everything else... is pretty bad. But now we have to take it, not because we want to but because if we don't our army falls to pieces.
It's essentially game-design blackmail, and it's not good. We have a substantial handicap (in fact we have several) that no other army is subject to, and we got nothing by way of compensation for it.
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Post by DukeMantis on Feb 5, 2014 15:28:35 GMT
Lurkers who fail synapse now have a 50% chance to just run away.
Feeders who fail synapse now have a 50% chance to massacre themselves.
Synapse has become easier to eliminate in many cases.
The units most crucially affected by failing synapse checks are those we rely upon the most to score objectives. Gants. Our mainstay scorers can be fielded with more upgrade options and slightly more numbers but they are more fragile than before.
Yes, it is easy to build an army with plenty of synapse that can still fight effectively... at least for a couple of turns. I feel that even though this Codex has made more units playable, it has done so by force rather than by attractive game design.
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Post by gloomfang on Feb 5, 2014 15:36:06 GMT
I have said it once and I will say it again: It depends on your list. You either have to pay a hefty synapse tax or you have to play with more expensive units that can operate outside of synapse.
The big difference is that in 4th and 5th your army did not disintegrate without synapse. I used to leave termigaunts camping on objectives out of synapse in 5th, but in 6th it is too risky. Hormigaunts will kill off just under ½ the unit 25% of the time they are out of synapse. Gargoyles and other Hunters are not too bad as they just GtG in the worst case and have to make snapshots. So given the fact that Synapse is now much more key the synapse creatures now have giant red bulls-eyes painted on them. So you either need a lot of synapse and/or really durable synapse.
However this has led to a newish tactic I call “Daisy Cutting”. That is the strategic removal of the few models that are in synapse from a unit. Let’s say you have a large brood of hormagants with a trail of hormagants to a zoantrope for synapse. They drop a blast template to kill those few models in synapse and “poof” no more synapse. You then have to deal with the units that are now off the chain be chasing them to get them back into synapse or just hope they come back to you on their own.
Really good opponents can take advantage of Daisy Cutting in CC. They can position a unit so that your unit can charge, but your pile in move takes you out of synapse. Lose your Fearless and a lot of our units are Ld6 and losing combat by a few wounds (even if there are 20+ models left) can cause them to get cut down in a sweeping advance.
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Post by chuckles on Feb 5, 2014 15:44:27 GMT
Again, it's not just the hit IB inflicts that's the problem, it's the complete lack of counter-balancing. We just got worse. No improvements bar point drops that shouldn't have been necessary in the first place (Carnifex was ludicrously overcosted before, making it cost the right amount is not a boost it's correcting a mistake). A new unit that does something we have very little need of anyway (Exocrine). And I really can't think of anything else we had that got better. We got nerfed. Big time. Was it necessary? I can't for the life of me see how it was.
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Post by DukeMantis on Feb 5, 2014 15:51:12 GMT
If you know of any defence against this Daisy Cutting gloomfang id love to hear it xD
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Post by hornywingythingy on Feb 5, 2014 16:07:26 GMT
Was it necessary? I can't for the life of me see how it was. Yes it was, because nids were running roughshod over 40k winning tournies left and right...... Oh wait... No.
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Post by DukeMantis on Feb 5, 2014 16:13:02 GMT
Was it necessary? I can't for the life of me see how it was. Yes it was, because nids were running roughshod over 40k winning tournies left and right...... Oh wait... No. *slowly raises hand* My bad guys
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Post by coredump on Feb 5, 2014 17:31:44 GMT
Primes are not good. The main reason people take them, is because of synapse. Zoans are not very good anymore. The main reason people take them is because of synapse. Trygon Prime is okay... but not as good as the rest in that slot. Except you need synapse.
Warriors were bad last time... we are considering them now, because you need synapse. Tervs are... okay... but if you didn't need synapse...??
And what sits on objectives? It means spending 70 pts for 5 stealers with a 5+ save? Can spend 40 for gaunts *and* another 50 for a zoan babysitter.
Yeah, HTs are pretty good, but you want wings. Which means A) they will often be flying off away from the models that need synapse, B) they are somewhat fragile, and will often be dead by turn 4ish
Yes, we have always had IB, but before it was more models had higher Ld, the negative aspects were not as severe, and the synapse creatures were more useful and resilient. Now, the first thing every player should do when facing Nids, is see if they can kill off the synapse in the first couple of turns. Yes, every S8 shot into my warriors is 'saving' my brood of fexes... except when you kill the warriors you *also* cause the fexes to stand around attacking themselves.
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Post by elitemaster on Feb 5, 2014 17:35:42 GMT
a lot of you guys are cry babies (im looking out you chuckles mostly) if you are a good commander then you never have to roll for IB. The way I make sure I don't is very simple move the army as one and have like 4 units of synapse in on both flanks and in the center and those units are with 12' of each other their you go a web of synapse that even if one unit dies the other side has control of it still every opponent I faced (and that includes the Tua net list) never killed all the synapse and got their front lines cleared out from a sea a CC units. Never need that power for the +6' to synapse. Never looked at the crown thing just hey here is a tyrant with 10 wounds a unit of 3 Zoanthropes, a units of 4 Warriors and a Flyrant to cuz trouble that is all. I never lost control of the swarm never need to look at the IB chart and you know what I don't think I ever will need to cuz I form a synapse web that even if you kill one or two of the units I still have control of the army. I think a lot of you guys need to stop thinking in such a small area and look around more stop bring things cuz you thing you have to dual Flyrant don't need two, just one is need, Tervigon not worth the backlash hit for the 315 pts when for mush less you can bring 4 warriors and more gaunts and not have to be afride of the backlash killing most of them, Trygon prime can be worth it but to me no cost to mush to be a bullet sponge (even the trygon). That's what I have to say if you are a good commander and good with building the right army and moving it around (key thing now for use moving as one) then the IB does not matter.
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Post by malebranche on Feb 5, 2014 17:55:29 GMT
I played 3rd edition too, and I think synapse SHOULD be an essential part of a nid army. But the problem isn't really our codex (blatant obvious screw ups like raveners not included), it's the fact that our competition has become so much more powerful over the years. I remember in 3rd edition when my Tyrant ruled the tabletop.
I remember a 4 way game where everyone turned on me and Old One Eye wiped out almost 1000 points worth of eldar by himself. But now those T6 W4 models are taken out in a single turn AND cost so much more. And thats the problem with synapse. Entire warrior broods are slaughtered by high strength blasts, and massed fire tears down MCs so easily.
Any opponent who knows what he's doing will simply focus everything on the synapse creatures, which arent cheap or tough enough to make up for this. But then he's leaving the rest of your army, right? Well no, he's not. The rest of your army will start eating itself and charging the least strategically important targets, and you'll be missing important choices because you had to make room for synapse.
Overall, the doom and gloom is quite exaggerated, we can overcome these shortcomings. But they are a big handicap, and it's an uphill battle. Personally I like being the underdogs anyway so don't mind. An easy victory isn't really fun to me, but neither is losing 750 points of synapse in the first two turns then watching the 1500 points of untouched bugs fall apart and eat each other.
Plus as an added note, why the heck would they eat each other? Sure IB makes them revert to animal insticts but they were created by the hive mind for a purpose, there is no reason for them to have any urge to fight each other when there are enemies nearby. That's just plain stupid. As a fluff player that pisses me off more than anything else.
*edit* As for synapse webs, that's all well and good until the opponent knows what he's doing. Your synapse bubble doesnt help if you can only attack one unit at a time while getting pounded from all sides as you march towards your target. It might sound simple but a competent opponent wont just stand still and watch the blob approach.
Yes it can be done, but it's not as simple as you make it sound if your opponent understands basic tactics.
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Post by chuckles on Feb 5, 2014 18:52:58 GMT
a lot of you guys are cry babies (im looking out you chuckles mostly) if you are a good commander then you never have to roll for IB. The way I make sure I don't is very simple move the army as one and have like 4 units of synapse in on both flanks and in the center and those units are with 12' of each other their you go a web of synapse that even if one unit dies the other side has control of it still every opponent I faced (and that includes the Tua net list) never killed all the synapse and got their front lines cleared out from a sea a CC units. Never need that power for the +6' to synapse. Never looked at the crown thing just hey here is a tyrant with 10 wounds a unit of 3 Zoanthropes, a units of 4 Warriors and a Flyrant to cuz trouble that is all. I never lost control of the swarm never need to look at the IB chart and you know what I don't think I ever will need to cuz I form a synapse web that even if you kill one or two of the units I still have control of the army. I think a lot of you guys need to stop thinking in such a small area and look around more stop bring things cuz you thing you have to dual Flyrant don't need two, just one is need, Tervigon not worth the backlash hit for the 315 pts when for mush less you can bring 4 warriors and more gaunts and not have to be afride of the backlash killing most of them, Trygon prime can be worth it but to me no cost to mush to be a bullet sponge (even the trygon). That's what I have to say if you are a good commander and good with building the right army and moving it around (key thing now for use moving as one) then the IB does not matter. Bunching your entire army up into a single, slow-moving mass in order to get full synapse coverage is extremely stupid, and begging to get ripped to shreds by any competent opponent, and even if they don't your large blob of relatively slow-moving units will simply be evaded and have the objectives grabbed out from under you. Congratulations on not needing to roll IB and everything, but it's of little consolation since, if playing against a competent opponent, you will still lose, so it scarcely matters. You have demonstrated that IB does matter because you have to design your entire army list and playstyle around it in order to avoid its effects. Even if you never experience IB it has still affected the way you play. There is no outside the box thinking that magically dispenses with the nut-punch that synapse imposes on us. Pretending otherwise does nothing other than make you look a fool.
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