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Hi, a bunch of guys at my club are organising a campaign. They want us all to use three different HQ choices and they have decided that certain units count as the same thingbecause lore wise there would only ever be one of those things leading a force of that army on a small world.

For example

A hive tyrant is the same as a Swarmlord because its also a hive tyrant despite being a special character. So I could only take one or the other.

The same with Lelith and the generic Succubus.

The same with Shadowsun and the generic Tau Commander.


So basically they are saying that my army on this planet would, in the fluff, only ever have one hive tyrant in it and that I should buy new HQ choices for my army instead (Tervigon and Old One Eye)

Is that right? Does each hive fleet only have one hive tyrant?



edit - Their other justification for this was that they want to prevent deathstar lists .

No, Nids don't really work like that. They basically create all the forces for each battle from a soup of bio matter, so they'd be able to make as many as they needed. I think anyway.

 ImAGeek wrote:
No, Nids don't really work like that. They basically create all the forces for each battle from a soup of bio matter, so they'd be able to make as many as they needed. I think anyway.

Yeah that's what I thought as well.

The guy was really insistent on there being a fluff justification or one hive tyrant per fleet.

yeah the guy is wrong. I imagine it's not common to see multiple HTs all in the same area. (more common would be a Hive Tyrant and maybe some warrior Primes) but there's no lore that says it can't and doesn't happen.

wanting to avoid death star lists is a legit concern mind ya (although it sounds aweful specific, as only 'nids are reliant on multiple HQs for something like that)

They ar sort of right, that Tyrants would be spread out over long long distances, but you should tell them if anyone wants to use grey knights that they should have to roll a 7+ on a d6.

Just an FYI a the lelith succubus, thing, wych cults are ruled by 3 succubus'

And Tau can be led on the field by a Shas'El. The codex doesn't use the Shas'El for anything that I know of. Shas'vre are common enough but then a jump to a Shas'O? Should be atleast two Shas'El if a Shas'O is in an Operating Area.

Saying to buy Old One Eye instead of another Tyrant is silly. Old One Eye was on Calth. Yeah he got a lift out but he's still Hive Fleet Behemoth and tromps around in those sections of the Ultima Segmentum (according to fluff). So, if your opponent wants to hold so fully to fluff, make sure any unique characters they have are in the Segmentum or even Sector of where your campaign takes place.

From Imperial Armor 4-2 on the Hive Tyrant selection: "On Beta Anphelion IV several Hive Tyrants were encountered, including those that had evolved wings." And in the Scythed Hierodule section: "(...) all the attacks were still accompanied by the usual Tyranid Warriors and Hive Tyrants who continued to control..." Both quotes point to many Tyrants wandering the planet. And in the Battle of Valedor, Leviathan is listed as fielding two Flyrants while Kraken had the Swarmlord.

Can we consider that proof of there being multiple Tyrants? Though I will also say, there's something like 30 Warriors in the Apocalypse list too.

One per hive fleet? You should ask them to explain why the Epic 40,000 Tyranid Hive Tyrants were sold in packs of three..

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/NTYAAOSwkNZUpBnw/$_57.JPG

A Hive Tyrant (note 'a', not 'the') isn't the thing in charge of a Hive Fleet, it's a particularly large and long-ranged relay bug. The splinter of Leviathan that hit the Aurelian sub-sector in DoW2 had at least five Hive Tyrants (the final boss, three optional objectives, and the character from Retribution), and that wasn't even the bulk of the Hive Fleet.

It is believed that Hive Fleets have a particular Hive Ship that leads the fleet, but there is no proof of such thing.

 Tyran wrote:
It is believed that Hive Fleets have a particular Hive Ship that leads the fleet, but there is no proof of such thing.

honestly given what we know about the hive mind identifying a single thing that runs the hive fleet would be like identifying a single part of the brain that well.. is the brain.

The deathstar thing was primarily aimed at elder seer councils.

They didn't want every game to have a seer council.

So you could only take one farseer including eldrad ulthuan for example.

IMO this was really specific because, functionally, a flying hive tyrant works very differently to the swarmlord or a foot tyrant. Plus, some armies like dark elder it simply isn't possible to make a deathstar list using wyches or wych characters. Personally I think they shoul;d have either been up front with the elder players or banned certain unit combinations rather than trying to go for a generic rule.

Ask him to explain why Lelith is only #1 of three Succubus, why Vect, an Archon(I know not playable, but a fluff example) has many other Archons beneath him, Hive Tyrants showing up in the fluff all over the place in multiples. The Tau definitely make use of multiple commanders, but I can't imagine they would be operating in the same sector.


And let me point out to fluff players, multiple riptide lists are fluffy, in every book I've read they always show up in pairs, or larger packs. All but once, where one showed up leading a pack of crisis suits, these are both supported by the formation for Tau empire in the apoc rule book.

I believe Tyranid fleets each have one Norn Queen.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
I believe Tyranid fleets each have one Norn Queen.

Depends on the size I would imagine. The latest Leviathan fleets are of such staggering size that a single Norn Queen seems... unlikely.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
I believe Tyranid fleets each have one Norn Queen.

There is a Norn Queen in each Hive Ship and Hive Fleets have several Hive Ships.

In some armies that restriction makes a bit of sense. A Space Marine chapter is highly unlikely to have more than one Chapter Master, for example. For others it makes no sense at all, and Tyranids is one of them. There's also nothing stopping an Eldar Craftworld committing more than one of its Farseers to battle, for that matter. From a fluff and balance standpoint it's a poorly designed restriction. I wouldn't be surprised if there were an army that couldn't find three distinct HQs at all.

Well, the next question is: Is there a swarmlord per hive fleet or one total?

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Well, the next question is: Is there a swarmlord per hive fleet or one total?

There is only one Swarmlord.

There is one Swarmlord design. There is nothing preventing the Hive Mind from spawning more, but there's usually no need.

The Swarmlord is capable of practically teleporting across the galaxy incredibly rapidly, by letting his body be reabsorbed and his memory analysed by the Hive Mind, who then spawns another Swarmlord with the exact same experience and memories where he is needed.

 Tyran wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Well, the next question is: Is there a swarmlord per hive fleet or one total?

There is only one Swarmlord.

Ok. Thanks.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Well, the next question is: Is there a swarmlord per hive fleet or one total?

There is only one Swarmlord.

Ok. Thanks.

HTs are effectively colonels in the army. Any given invasion probably has thousands.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
be kind of silly to have 1 relay bug

 Tyran wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Well, the next question is: Is there a swarmlord per hive fleet or one total?

There is only one Swarmlord.

Ok. Thanks.

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