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I've wondered for a while why Tyranids are bound by the FOC rules

Tyranids are unique of all the armies, in that they don't care about conquering or dominating other species.

There is no morality whether good or ill in what they do, indeed such concepts are outside the conception of the Hive mind. They don't hate or love, there is no sadism or cruelty in their intent.

They are hunger personified, driven to seek out further sources of biomass.

In this drive they adapt their army continuously to what the situation demands, the only hierarchy that matters to the Hive Mind is enough synapse to control their hordes.

By all the Fluff, Tyranids shouldn't be affected by FOC rules.

It would make more sense to allow them to utilize whatever forces they see fit (within the bounds of the agreed to points)

Because, GW hates us.

If you're going to use fluff to justify one thing for an army, any other army can suitably use their fluff to justify the same thing.

Why couldn't Guard, being as massive as they are and often as specialized as required, be unbound by force org charts?

Or why Space Marines couldn't just take whatever units they want for any given deployment, seeing as how flexible they are?

Same thing for the Eldar.

Either way, GW has no consistency and isn't exactly known for the quality of its rules.

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:
Tyranids are unique of all the armies, in that they don't care about conquering or dominating other species.

There is no morality whether good or ill in what they do, indeed such concepts are outside the conception of the Hive mind. They don't hate or love, there is no sadism or cruelty in their intent.

They are hunger personified, driven to seek out further sources of biomass.

In this drive they adapt their army continuously to what the situation demands, the only hierarchy that matters to the Hive Mind is enough synapse to control their hordes.

I don't see how any of this gives them permission to break the FOC anymore than certain armies. Daemons technically don't need greater daemons or heralds in order to breach realspace. Can we break the FOC too?

Given that they cant use allies or fortifications and what not I reckon it would be cool to allow them to "modify" their FoC here and there. Wouldnt be too big of a deal to me.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Given that they cant use allies or fortifications and what not I reckon it would be cool to allow them to "modify" their FoC here and there. Wouldnt be too big of a deal to me.

What do you mean they cannot use fortifications? I don't see anything forbidding it.

Because GW said so

 Ventus wrote:
Because GW said so

Is that directed at me or OP?

For the same reason Chaos is tied to the very Ordered FOC.

Angron + 12 Bloodthirsters please, it's in the fluff!

 Happyjew wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Given that they cant use allies or fortifications and what not I reckon it would be cool to allow them to "modify" their FoC here and there. Wouldnt be too big of a deal to me.

What do you mean they cannot use fortifications? I don't see anything forbidding it.

I dont know, its what I heard. Never looked at their codex. Probably never will. But I remember people complaining about it.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Given that they cant use allies or fortifications and what not I reckon it would be cool to allow them to "modify" their FoC here and there. Wouldnt be too big of a deal to me.

What do you mean they cannot use fortifications? I don't see anything forbidding it.

I dont know, its what I heard. Never looked at their codex. Probably never will. But I remember people complaining about it.

Shortly after 6th edition dropped, Nids were banned from being able to manually fire emplaced weapons/weapon emplacements. This is (currently) no longer the case.

Wilytank wrote:

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:
Tyranids are unique of all the armies, in that they don't care about conquering or dominating other species.

There is no morality whether good or ill in what they do, indeed such concepts are outside the conception of the Hive mind. They don't hate or love, there is no sadism or cruelty in their intent.

They are hunger personified, driven to seek out further sources of biomass.

In this drive they adapt their army continuously to what the situation demands, the only hierarchy that matters to the Hive Mind is enough synapse to control their hordes.

I don't see how any of this gives them permission to break the FOC anymore than certain armies. Daemons technically don't need greater daemons or heralds in order to breach realspace. Can we break the FOC too?

Blacksails wrote:If you're going to use fluff to justify one thing for an army, any other army can suitably use their fluff to justify the same thing.

Why couldn't Guard, being as massive as they are and often as specialized as required, be unbound by force org charts?

Or why Space Marines couldn't just take whatever units they want for any given deployment, seeing as how flexible they are?

Same thing for the Eldar.

Either way, GW has no consistency and isn't exactly known for the quality of its rules.

Wilytank wrote:

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:
Tyranids are unique of all the armies, in that they don't care about conquering or dominating other species.

There is no morality whether good or ill in what they do, indeed such concepts are outside the conception of the Hive mind. They don't hate or love, there is no sadism or cruelty in their intent.

They are hunger personified, driven to seek out further sources of biomass.

In this drive they adapt their army continuously to what the situation demands, the only hierarchy that matters to the Hive Mind is enough synapse to control their hordes.

I don't see how any of this gives them permission to break the FOC anymore than certain armies. Daemons technically don't need greater daemons or heralds in order to breach realspace. Can we break the FOC too?

Like I said in my OP, Tyranids are unique in the way they "think"

The other armies are concerned with Hierarchy.

IG, Eldar, Daemons, etc, have hierarchical structures already in place.

For the Hive mind, the only concern is Synapse, because only the hive mind matters

So, the heirarchy between synapse and non-synapse then?

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:

Like I said in my OP, Tyranids are unique in the way they "think"

The other armies are concerned with Hierarchy.

IG, Eldar, Daemons, etc, have hierarchical structures already in place.

For the Hive mind, the only concern is Synapse

But that doesn't adequately explain why one army can do something no other army can.

I could also explain how Space Marines, or Eldar, or IG are more concerned with bringing the right tools for the job, and thus should be able to ignore the force org chart. What if I wanted to bring a pure air cav list, or an all tank list (granted, those lists are available from FW)? The force org chart restricts me from doing that, despite being fluffy.

MarsNZ wrote:So, the heirarchy between synapse and non-synapse then?

Less a Heirarchy, the Synapse creatures are really just nodes for the Hive Mind

Blacksails wrote:

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:

Like I said in my OP, Tyranids are unique in the way they "think"

The other armies are concerned with Hierarchy.

IG, Eldar, Daemons, etc, have hierarchical structures already in place.

For the Hive mind, the only concern is Synapse

But that doesn't adequately explain why one army can do something no other army can.

I could also explain how Space Marines, or Eldar, or IG are more concerned with bringing the right tools for the job, and thus should be able to ignore the force org chart. What if I wanted to bring a pure air cav list, or an all tank list (granted, those lists are available from FW)? The force org chart restricts me from doing that, despite being fluffy.

Those could exist to a degree in the aspects of Formations for the other armies, as they do now, but even then a space marine force would still have a chain of command.

With tyranids the synapse creatures are merely nodes for the hive mind's will.

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:So, the heirarchy between synapse and non-synapse then?

Less a Heirarchy, the Synapse creatures are really just nodes for the Hive Mind

Daemons are merely extensions of their God. We have fluff supporting armies of Greater Daemons being lead by Daemon Primarchs. Why, then, are Daemons restricted by FOC?

The correct question here is why does anyone still have to pretend to follow the FOC when allies/allying with your own codex/formations/escalation/special allies/etc have made the FOC pretty much irrelevant for everything besides determining which units are scoring.

MarsNZ wrote:

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:So, the heirarchy between synapse and non-synapse then?

Less a Heirarchy, the Synapse creatures are really just nodes for the Hive Mind

Daemons are merely extensions of their God. We have fluff supporting armies of Greater Daemons being lead by Daemon Primarchs. Why, then, are Daemons restricted by FOC?

Difference is, the Daemons can act independently of their God, it is only the potential loss of that independence, the cessation of their independent self that assures their continued loyalty (as the Chaos God can reabsorb them if they become disloyal)

Such issues are not issues with Tyranids

 Peregrine wrote:
The correct question here is why does anyone still have to pretend to follow the FOC when allies/allying with your own codex/formations/escalation/special allies/etc have made the FOC pretty much irrelevant for everything besides determining which units are scoring.

Because not everyone uses all of that gak?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:

 Avinash_Tyagi wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:So, the heirarchy between synapse and non-synapse then?

Less a Heirarchy, the Synapse creatures are really just nodes for the Hive Mind

Daemons are merely extensions of their God. We have fluff supporting armies of Greater Daemons being lead by Daemon Primarchs. Why, then, are Daemons restricted by FOC?

Difference is, the Daemons can act independently of their God, it is only the potential loss of that independence, the cessation of their independent self that assures their continued loyalty (as the Chaos God can reabsorb them if they become disloyal)

Such issues are not issues with Tyranids

That has nothing to do with certain entities breaching realspace and not others. As I've stated before, lesser Daemons can come through and cause any mayhem they would please and therefore I should be allowed to play a Daemon list with nothing but lessers.

All you have been saying is "Tyranids should be allowed to break FOC because Synapse." which is not an adequate explanation.

To the OP: You seem to be confused about how things work. Other armies get good stuff that Tyranids don't because they're Tyranids. Tyranids get bad stuff that other armies don't because they're Tyranids. It doesn't work the other way around. Here's some examples:

Why don't Tyranid get allies, despite how Genestealer Cults make it perfectly reasonable to expect being at least allies of convenience with Imperial Guard, Tau, Eldar and Orks, and lack of organic structure justifying Necrons being allies of desperation? Because they're Tyranids.

Why don't Tyranid have any Eternal Warrior models, despite it making perfect sense for Hive Tyrants/the Swarmlord? Because they're Tyranids.

Why don't Tyranids have access to psychic disciplines? Because they're Tyranids (and they draw their powers from the Hive Mind instead of directly from the Warp).
Well then, why do they still suffer Perils of the Warp? Because they're Tyranids.

Why other armies have really useful army-wide special rules? Because they're not Tyranids.
Why do Tyranids have such a debilitating army-wide special rule? Because they're Tyranids.

Why do other armies get Monstrous Creatures with invulnerable saves, Toughness 8, 2+ armour and jet/jump packs? Because they're not Tyranids.
Why don't Tyranid get MCs with those things? Because they're Tyranids.

Why do we have to buy 3 $18 dataslates to get options that should have been in the Codex? Because we play Tyranids.

I play chaos space marines, I have zero sympathy.

Perhaps the FoC is the allotment of Bio-Matter the Hive has to spare for specific creatures. The Hive Mind knows that no assault will work without a level of synergy.

It won't make 30 Exocrines with no Gants. It won't make 1000 Gants without MCs backing it up. It's all about Synergy, and the Hive Mind knows that spamming a single kind of unit is not only kind of a jerk move, but also is unlikely to succeed in killing a determined foe who figures out its weakness.

Just a theory, don't eat me Tyranid players.

But surely you must have some empathy being in a similar situation?
Besides, at least you have allies and a super-FMC with an AP 3 Torrent flamer, 36" movement and immunity to grounding tests.

 Happyjew wrote:
Shortly after 6th edition dropped, Nids were banned from being able to manually fire emplaced weapons/weapon emplacements. This is (currently) no longer the case.

Wait, when did they get the ability to fire emplaced weapons?

To the OP: because the game is an abstraction of the lore and universe and they need some kind of standardized system to make choosing an army follow some kind of logic, even if it's biased against the Nids in general.

When the new codex came out and invalidated the old FAQ.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
When the new codex came out and invalidated the old FAQ.

Fair enough.

While it would be a cool idea for tyranids to follow a more heirarchical system, maybe using different HQs to unlock different troop and elites choices instead of using the FOC, the main reason is just to keep it simple.

If you want an infiltration force of troops lead by a small beast, there's always Kill Team, and if you want the fluffy Swarmlord leading a horde of Carnifexes there's always Apocalypse. Same goes for the example of daemon primarchs leading greater daemons - it works in Apocalypse.

Must also admit as a primarily tyranid player I can definitely understand the logic of the allies table (at least for us). A Genestealer Cult is a very specific army, and would best suit an ally chart married to a restricted tyranid army. This is not something that would be easy to achieve using a single codex and would be best left to a supplemental codex. This is particularly true as the army has been largely left out of the background for four editions and would need a lot of background fluff added to justify it.

Because it is a game, and games require some kind of balanced playing field to be fun. The FOC exists not to force some kind of fluffy or logical list (though that is probably a desirable side-effect) but to ensure that everyone is brought to a relatively even keel in terms of options. So Tyranids are bound by the FOC in order to make them have a range of stuff on the table that fits into what the ruleset is designed for.

Happily, Imperial players no longer have to bother with the FOC. Good for them.

 Charles Rampant wrote:
Because it is a game, and games require some kind of balanced playing field to be fun.

Someone might want to tell the 40k design team that.