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Post by maeloke on Aug 3, 2012 14:12:53 GMT
Hi all,
Speculating about upcoming new units and revisions for the tyranids (harrier, pyrovore reboot) has got me thinking about what niddy unit types and rules haven’t been done yet, but that there is room for in the fluff and would be fun to play. Among them:
- A front-line-rushing suicide unit. Something with essentially Ravener speed and resilience, but instead of claws, it just drops a large blast template when it’s killed or acts in combat. Similar creatures could be used to mash flyers. Alternatively, allow units an upgrade so when they die, they do a blast template at their own strength. Imagine it on Lictors!
- A dedicated ripper-spawning unit or rule (the Parasite is too hit-or-miss). I envision a particularly dangerous class of rippers replicating themselves mid combat as they devour enemies, immediately putting that extra biomass to good use. Alternatively, a larger monstrous creature could do the same thing, turning each model killed in melee into a new ripper swarm.
- A large scale poisonous/acid gas unit. The venomthrope hints at this, but I'd like to see the creature the 'nids use to dissolve remnant biomass and literally strip the atmosphere from a devoured world. I picture a large, lumbering flyer, held aloft and propelled by gas pouches and vents (rather than wings). It would have nasty area-effect abilities, and shoot multiple template weapons.
- Surfacing tentacles/appendages from the hive's infestation megastructure. 'Nids are often found in creepy bio-caverns, which are presumably part of enormous, subterranean creature-buildings. Tactically, have you ever wanted to take Mycetic spores sans occupants, just to harass the enemy behind their lines? Here you go. Alternatively, imagine a unit (tentacle lash/stalk) that always arrives directly in combat, but cannot move from where it appears - an enemy could disengage and shoot it from safety, but not before it had done damage. Ripper tentacles on Spores hint at this, being short range, but I'd be interested in the mechanics of a limited, immediate-combat unit.
These are just fun ideas that could be done - I can hardly claim they're necessarily original or balanced. That said, at the right price point, I believe just about anything can be fair.
How about you all? Any other sweet units that people would like to see done?
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Post by zephoid on Aug 3, 2012 14:37:17 GMT
Nids should be far different from conventional armies. Nids dont line up and march towards you (like they currently do in game), they charge from every hole, every pipe, from the sky and from under ground. Rule wise, nids should have the most deployment options and the most options to assault out of deployment.
1: You describe spore mines. They dont have that rule in game, but they are essentially suicide units that are supposed to be dropped on enemy positions. 2: Ripper spawning is more of a back-line process than anything. Just give them endless swarm (if there is one unit that should have it, this is it). 3: not effective since every army with 4+ armor bar nids and orks have respirators. Venomthrope was a poor attempt at creating a new unit. 4: I could see this as tyranid terrain that has to be placed in your deployment zone or something. Being mobile in battle is a specialty of nids. Dropping structures down usually is for spawning or biomass transfer rather than combat. After combat, it would have to be broken down again, which would be a waste of resources.
Rather, i would like trygon tunnels work better, lictor assault out of deepstriking, gants/gaunts/gargs and rippers pay 1 point to outflank, genestealers get some deployment love, and the option to scout (no outflank) on a lot of creatures. Nids should be on top of the enemy and swarming over them before they know what hits them. Marching up the field should be uncommon and only on the apocalyptic or 2000+pt game. It would certainly give you a lot more list building potential without a lot of stat changes.
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Post by scorpio on Aug 3, 2012 14:59:22 GMT
I completely agree with zephoid on this one, Nids should not have to wait a turn where they get shot to bits before assaulting, it goes against the fluff entirely. The changes zephoid proposes would be awesome if they come to pass.
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Post by milkybarnid on Aug 3, 2012 15:08:21 GMT
I would like to see that a spore mine instead of deplying with their special rule, they can be held in reserves and come on with the rest of reserves but when they deep strike if they land on a model, they explode straight away rather than being destroyed, if deployed in this way the brood maximum size should be 4 cause 9 large blast markers is too much.
Just throwing it in there
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Post by maeloke on Aug 3, 2012 15:43:45 GMT
1: You describe spore mines. They dont have that rule in game, but they are essentially suicide units that are supposed to be dropped on enemy positions. 2: Ripper spawning is more of a back-line process than anything. Just give them endless swarm (if there is one unit that should have it, this is it). 3: not effective since every army with 4+ armor bar nids and orks have respirators. Venomthrope was a poor attempt at creating a new unit. 4: I could see this as tyranid terrain that has to be placed in your deployment zone or something. Being mobile in battle is a specialty of nids. Dropping structures down usually is for spawning or biomass transfer rather than combat. After combat, it would have to be broken down again, which would be a waste of resources. I absolutely agree about having options for aggressive deployment. Bugs should come at the opponent from every which way. Otherwise, zephoid, you’ve kind of missed my point. I *know* that some of these themes have been touched on, or could be replicated with simple rules tweaks. What I’m interested in is having fun with concepts and diversifying the swarm’s image. As for some particular responses: 1. Yes, spore mines blow up. What they don’t do is throw themselves headlong at the enemy. Without agency, there isn’t a lot of strategic depth to them, and that means there’s room to improve. Even without a new unit type, ‘Explosive death throes’ would be a really easy and flavorful upgrade to implement across multiple unit types. 2. There’s already strong precedent for mid-battle unit spawning (Parasite, Tervigon). Endless swarm is great, but it would be fun to have units dedicated to spawning other stuff, or more focused on ripper spawning than the Parasite is. 3. If you want to quibble about fluff, respirators don’t work on acid gas. 4. Compared to mechanized, skimmer, flyer, and bike forces, ‘nids are hardly the most mobile of armies. And who’s to say dropping structures is primarily a non-combat activity? Why shouldn’t there be a droppable weapons-only pod? Picture this with me: Take a Mycetic spore. Give it the mawloc’s TFTD arrival rules, renaming it “death from above”, then give it three sets of twin-linked flesh hooks (or whatever weapon kit you like). Take 1-3 as a single fast attack choice, but they deploy independently via normal reserve deep strike rules (except they can aim to hit units, of course). 80, maybe 100 points apiece (whatever ends up being balanced). Wouldn't that be fun? Like a tyranid orbital barrage, only it actually makes sensible use of the physics implied by tyranid arrival (i.e. why waste all that kinetic energy on the ground when you could drop it on a land raider instead?).
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Post by Mindshred on Aug 3, 2012 16:10:38 GMT
I'd really like to just be able to control spore mines.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2012 16:24:18 GMT
Thats not "untapped potential", thats a dream list of ideas. Very misleading title. It can be "untapped" if it doesnt exist.
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Post by maeloke on Aug 3, 2012 16:47:28 GMT
Thats not "untapped potential", thats a dream list of ideas. Very misleading title. It can be "untapped" if it doesnt exist. Changed the title just for you; hopefully I can trust people to understand 'untapped' also implies 'under-developed'. Care to contribute any interesting unit or rule ideas, or would you rather just quibble over word choice?
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Post by maeloke on Aug 3, 2012 17:01:41 GMT
I'd really like to just be able to control spore mines. Right? Being unable to control spore mines seems counter to the rest of the nid ethos: dangerous alone, better when supervised (even if that's sort of come apart with the 6e changes to Rage).
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Post by zephoid on Aug 3, 2012 17:15:53 GMT
1: You describe spore mines. They dont have that rule in game, but they are essentially suicide units that are supposed to be dropped on enemy positions. 2: Ripper spawning is more of a back-line process than anything. Just give them endless swarm (if there is one unit that should have it, this is it). 3: not effective since every army with 4+ armor bar nids and orks have respirators. Venomthrope was a poor attempt at creating a new unit. 4: I could see this as tyranid terrain that has to be placed in your deployment zone or something. Being mobile in battle is a specialty of nids. Dropping structures down usually is for spawning or biomass transfer rather than combat. After combat, it would have to be broken down again, which would be a waste of resources. I absolutely agree about having options for aggressive deployment. Bugs should come at the opponent from every which way. Otherwise, zephoid, you’ve kind of missed my point. I *know* that some of these themes have been touched on, or could be replicated with simple rules tweaks. What I’m interested in is having fun with concepts and diversifying the swarm’s image. As for some particular responses: 1. Yes, spore mines blow up. What they don’t do is throw themselves headlong at the enemy. Without agency, there isn’t a lot of strategic depth to them, and that means there’s room to improve. Even without a new unit type, ‘Explosive death throes’ would be a really easy and flavorful upgrade to implement across multiple unit types. 2. There’s already strong precedent for mid-battle unit spawning (Parasite, Tervigon). Endless swarm is great, but it would be fun to have units dedicated to spawning other stuff, or more focused on ripper spawning than the Parasite is. 3. If you want to quibble about fluff, respirators don’t work on acid gas. 4. Compared to mechanized, skimmer, flyer, and bike forces, ‘nids are hardly the most mobile of armies. And who’s to say dropping structures is primarily a non-combat activity? Why shouldn’t there be a droppable weapons-only pod? Picture this with me: Take a Mycetic spore. Give it the mawloc’s TFTD arrival rules, renaming it “death from above”, then give it three sets of twin-linked flesh hooks (or whatever weapon kit you like). Take 1-3 as a single fast attack choice, but they deploy independently via normal reserve deep strike rules (except they can aim to hit units, of course). 80, maybe 100 points apiece (whatever ends up being balanced). Wouldn't that be fun? Like a tyranid orbital barrage, only it actually makes sensible use of the physics implied by tyranid arrival (i.e. why waste all that kinetic energy on the ground when you could drop it on a land raider instead?). Spore mines in game wander randomly. In fluff they have very limited sentience but they will hunt enemies. By creating them reflecting fluff you have the unit you wanted. Battlefield spawning this edition is a corruption of fluff that is rivaled by Ward's creations. It sounds cool, but it does not make sense tactically or from the past 4 editions of fluff. Rippers are not for combat. They are supposed to reclaim biomass and act as collectors. If needed they can fight, but they are not primary troops. I think you miss the point of a respirator. Its to do exactly that. They have oxygen reserves and can cycle outside air if the conditions are reasonable. "Acidic vapor" can only be so caustic or it harms everything, even tyranids. Also, the more caustic, the more vapor you need and the shorter the effective range. Gas-based weapons are not effective in a setting where most forces are geared to fight in space. You are thinking tactical mobility. I am thinking strategic mobility. Aircraft are fast, but are limited by fuel, facilities, and transport capacity. Nids dont rely on bases to resupply or fortresses to defend. There are few emplaced structures and almost all defenses are mobile (see hive guard). The nid strategy is to attack hard and fast. Keep the defenders defending and having few targets available to cripple the hive. By maintaining a mobile HQ (Tyrants) and having few structures to hit, you make it very hard for an enemy to hit. By keeping your whole force mobile, you can isolate and hit emplaced positions with overwhelming forces as you have no backfield to defend. By expending effort on creating defensive positions you are wasting resources that could be putting into attacking and creating a backfield to defend. All drop pods used to have a rule that they would do exactly what you want . Things under them took S8 hits when they deepstruck. They removed that rule because it got incredibly stupid using pods as weapons. People just used pods as weapons, screw the tactical use of them. They removed that from the game for good reasons.
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Post by gauntlet on Aug 3, 2012 18:11:28 GMT
In order to make Nids tactics and playstyle more distinct, I would keep each different species the same but give more army wide rules, which emphasize them as aliens from another galaxy. e.g. I like the Synapse and Instinctive Behaviour combination.
I would keep Force Organisation Chart for dictating the proportions of different species but weaken the concept of distinct units during the battle and promote the swarm.
Emergent Behaviour Rule As part of movement the Tyranid player can split any unit to form new units or allow units to merge. The flip side would be that the army has no characters. Fluff: The Hive Mind has no concept of social hierachy, leadership or an individual's aspirations. What appears to outsiders as anarchic mob rule is, is in fact a highly evolved organ of war.
Hive Mind Allies Rule. Any tyranids can shoot friendly units or troops locked in assault, with an equal chance of hitting friendly or enemy models. Fluff: The Hive Mind has no concept of diplomacy, allies or loyalty.
Fluffwise I'd like to see vanguard Lictor-Genestealer units. I'd like to see Tyrants and Warriors in amongst the swarm. I'd like to see rearguard Ripper-Pyrovore units.
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Post by maeloke on Aug 3, 2012 18:32:22 GMT
Zephoid: Fair enough, on the drop pods. That was before my time. Still, if it was part of the points and strategic choice of choosing the unit (as it most certainly is for the Mawloc) isn't it worth considering as a rule?
As for the rest: Come on! Fluff is flexible, it evolves! In the design of 40k rules, between absolute dedication to fluff and the rule of cool, cool wins 90% of the time. Armies have force fields and lasers and remote-controlled weaponry. Would a real earth army with all that engage in foot-slogging combat? No. 40k units don't carry chainsaws made into swords and axes because they make sense, they carry them because they're awesome.
So rather than quibble about the specific faithfulness of any particular idea to a particular iteration of the fluff, can we talk about interesting new unit designs or army rules?
Gauntlet: I love the idea of mixed-composition broods, but it would be a nightmare for a lot of the more conventional rules. With the new push for model-to-model relevance, it may not be as bad as it would have been previously, but I still have a hard time picturing it working easily into the rules.
Friendly fire, on the other hand, seems quite workable. How would you get around the 'target the closest model' issue?
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Post by gauntlet on Aug 3, 2012 21:43:45 GMT
maeloke: I didn't give any thought to the practicality of mixed Tyranid units. I was more focused on making Nids as weird and unique as possible. Having thought about it now for about 30 seconds, I don't foresee Tyranids having any more difficulty with mixed unit compared to other armies, such as Dark Eldar Courts or Grey Knight Inquistor Henchmen.
Can you give some examples of difficulty? There is a precidence with Tyrant and Guard Broodlords and Genestealers Primes with Warriors with mixed weapons. Motrex and Gargoyles. Primes and Carnifex
An example of the rule working: A unit with a Venomthrope has defensive grenades.
Regarding shooting into combat; I suppose the, hitting the nearest model rule, makes the process simpler, not more difficult. You could even treat all units locked in combat as a single large mixed unit. Shots are resolved against the nearest model. You can use focussed fire to pick out enemy models not in base contact with a combatant. Or you can fire indescriminatly into the assault. Any successful cover saves or Look Out Sir, mean you have hit friendly models.
I do forsee problem though. Guants fighting a single terminator, would deflect 1 in 3 successful cover saves onto the terminator. But the terminator would not deflect hits onto the gaunts.
Are we at risk of going off topic, with an aside about rules for friendly fire?
Fluffwise: I'd like to see the Tervigon islands spewing toxic rivers of gaunts, which flow together into a poison tide shrouded in Miasma. As the wave breaks on the enemy we catch rare glimpses of the elusive Venomthrope dragging down Heros. Whilst darting around the edges of the swarm are packs predatory Ravenors, that form pseudopods ( tentacle arms ) which reach out from the amoeboid body to snare the enemy. The back end of the amoeba are rippers, cleaning up the small detritus, and the pyrovore cracking the otherwise undisgestable Terminators.
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