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 Lance845 wrote:
To be clear, I don't want to be able to go completely without synapse. Having everything with a Ld6 is why you cannot go completely without synapse. An army made entirely of units with Ld 6 will be run off the board by turn 3 no matter what you do.

What I meant by "I want ways to function without it" is I want to be able to take a unit and put it on an objective and not have to pass a ld 6 test or risk that unit eating itself.

Do you think using IB as a "reward" mechanic for behavior, and not a requirement of behavior, would assist in that concept?

The two biggest problems I have with IB is you have to do a Ld test for every unit outside of Synapse. That was the 5th Edition addition. Then the current one added a second roll to it, often with less effective results in most cases. If all a Tyranid's players Synapse has been destroyed by a well-placed opponent leaving a whole bunch of IB units on the field, it slows the game down. Now, that is not a 100% guarantee to happen all the time, but the capacity of having such a slow down should be marked as a deficit. It also tends to tweak my anti-"Keep it Complicated Cusser" senses when I see something like this. If it was a one-off, it would be manageable, but not when it can be the whole army that falls under this mess.

This may be better on the other Tyranid post, but what if in the Tyranid system, the majority of Synapse units tended to be otherwise lack luster in combat performance rather than the gods of the battlefield? But that is mostly directed at the Flyrant and Trygon Prime, and to a lesser degree Warriors/Shrikes. The average Synapse Creature should be closer to Zoanthropes and Tervigons and leave the really heavy lifting to the IB units. This would go back to something else you mentioned elsewhere, Lance, keeping unit concept cohesive and consistent. Sure, there would be one-offs like Swarmlord (or a new Unique Flyrant), but such a unit should not be the default go-to for this concept.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
To be clear, I don't want to be able to go completely without synapse. Having everything with a Ld6 is why you cannot go completely without synapse. An army made entirely of units with Ld 6 will be run off the board by turn 3 no matter what you do.

What I meant by "I want ways to function without it" is I want to be able to take a unit and put it on an objective and not have to pass a ld 6 test or risk that unit eating itself.

Do you think using IB as a "reward" mechanic for behavior, and not a requirement of behavior, would assist in that concept?

The two biggest problems I have with IB is you have to do a Ld test for every unit outside of Synapse. That was the 5th Edition addition. Then the current one added a second roll to it, often with less effective results in most cases. If all a Tyranid's players Synapse has been destroyed by a well-placed opponent leaving a whole bunch of IB units on the field, it slows the game down. Now, that is not a 100% guarantee to happen all the time, but the capacity of having such a slow down should be marked as a deficit. It also tends to tweak my anti-"Keep it Complicated Cusser" senses when I see something like this. If it was a one-off, it would be manageable, but not when it can be the whole army that falls under this mess.

This may be better on the other Tyranid post, but what if in the Tyranid system, the majority of Synapse units tended to be otherwise lack luster in combat performance rather than the gods of the battlefield? But that is mostly directed at the Flyrant and Trygon Prime, and to a lesser degree Warriors/Shrikes. The average Synapse Creature should be closer to Zoanthropes and Tervigons and leave the really heavy lifting to the IB units. This would go back to something else you mentioned elsewhere, Lance, keeping unit concept cohesive and consistent. Sure, there would be one-offs like Swarmlord (or a new Unique Flyrant), but such a unit should not be the default go-to for this concept.

I think that IB should not be a punishment. I don't particularly care if it rewards or is removed. But I do want it to stop being a shackle. Synapse is a reward mechanic. It shouldn't be a necessary one, just one you WANT to maintain. Not one you NEED to maintain to function at all.

I disagree with your second assessment. No other army needs to field half their army as none effective in combat units. It's a game about combat and every unit should fill a combat role.

After going through some of the post here, I feel like this could be a possible solution.

When in synapse range, IB units MUST use the synapse creatures leadership, but also gain stubborn.

IB leadership is capped at 6-7, and most synapse creatures get a slight direct combat nerf. IB roll chart itself is removed.

However when in range of a synapse creature, IB units gain special rules depending on the type of synapse creature.
Synapse creatures don't bestow rules upon other synapse creatures, and an IB unit may only have one special rule active (player's choice).

For example:

Zoanthrope-Psychic Reserves: For every IB unit within synapse of a unit of zoanthropes, an additional warp charge is generated.

Warriors-Instinctive resilience: all IB units within synapse gain a 6+ FNP. If a Warrior Alpha is taken it is automatically upgraded to a 5+

Swarmlord- Synaptic Fury, all IB units within synapse gain +1 attack. The swarmlord also gets +1 attack for each of the IB units within synapse.

Hive Tyrants (and possibly other HQ's as well) would get to choose from a few different options (for free) to be tailored towards the army's strength

 Lance845 wrote:
I think that IB should not be a punishment. I don't particularly care if it rewards or is removed. But I do want it to stop being a shackle. Synapse is a reward mechanic. It shouldn't be a necessary one, just one you WANT to maintain. Not one you NEED to maintain to function at all.

Yeah, I can see that. That's why I am not a fan of the requirement system, personally. The game should not be on automatic for a portion of your army. We got rid of it for Khorne Berzerkers and Black Templars years ago, it should no longer be maintained for Tyranids as well.

Now, for those who may think otherwise, rewarding certain behaviors is NOT putting it on automatic like some of the current IB system has or what has been presented as "must Run or Charge" or "must shoot" is. Reward systems allow for the player to choose and take risks when not following the reward. The risk may pan out, or it may not, but you still can take the risk.

 Lance845 wrote:
I disagree with your second assessment. No other army needs to field half their army as none effective in combat units. It's a game about combat and every unit should fill a combat role.

It doesn't have to be a literal 50% of an army. But when I see people talk about their army build being all about what the Flyrant can do, and everything else in the army is either to support that Flyrant by giving the enemy something to shoot or only because it looks cool.

But also, from a design stand point, I am more addressing the fact that non-Synapse Creatures need to be doing more for the army over all. This goes back to what you said about having more cohesive and consistent unit design. No one single unit should be a "do everything" in any army, and much less so in Tyranids. In Tyranids, the Broods should be ultra-focused on things. Synapse creatures should be the only hybrids we see in the game. In terms of combat representation, they should not be your first pick to kill things, but that doesn't mean they have to be Grots, either.

In other words, if you want a heavy shooter, a Tyrant should not be first choice, but a Tyrannofex, Biovore, or Termagant Brood should be chosen first (depending on the desired type of shooting). If you want a beat-stick, Carnifex, Haruspex, or Hormagaunt Broods would be the first go to instead of a Trygon Prime or a Flyrant, again, depending on the type of beating you are looking to have happen.

But a lot of that is more focused on the book as a whole, and not specific to the IB/Synapse paradigm we are discussing here, save that each of these hyper-focused units should be able to properly function in their IB modes.

I actually like the concept of certain units having to move in a certain direction. Carcharodons have to after wiping out a unit in melee and I don't care.

That's mostly just me though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I actually like the concept of certain units having to move in a certain direction. Carcharodons have to after wiping out a unit in melee and I don't care.

That's mostly just me though.

Having to do that for consolidation is one thing and perfectly fine, but having that in all 3 phases is terrible.

I wanted to give my own thoughts on Synapse and IB as a long time, twelve year, player of Tyranids and having seen them fall so far.

I like the idea of moving away from Fearless and into something a little more fluffy, I like the idea of a ATSKNF type ability that allows smaller bugs to throw themselves away while at the same time allowing them to be used in more strategic ways. I want to see something where synapse is a very real and very powerful buff that makes killing synapse creatures is a MAJOR priority rather than just an easy way to cripple the army. That is how I feel like this entire conversation to be framed, is synapse currently something that is so scary that it demands your opponents attention or is it just fundamentally what your army needs to even function?

My idea is that synapse becomes a table wide ability that is modified by the number of synapse units you have on the board, a lot like psychic powers. So keep your bugs at lower leadership but for every synapse creature you give them +1 leadership to a max of 10. This means that a typical army would need 4 synapse creatures to bring gaunts up to LD 10 and I don't think this is unreasonable. On top of that, while a synapse creature is alive give them a new rule called something like, "Will of the Hivemind" that gives them stubborn, lets them fallback from combat, or lets them ignore LD in melee (AKA throwing themselves into the grinder.)

I also think it is a great idea that each synapse creature gives its own special buff depending on distance, functioning much the same as current synapse does. Let a Prime give a bonus to WS/BS of all units in range of it, let Tyrants give you hatred or preferred enemy, let Tervigons give FNP, etc. Tie it to a range so that you have to still move as a swarm to get these bonuses. Let me preemptively suggest to people who think this is OP, consider how currently psykers and many other ICs are able to do these same things. I just think that Tyranids should work by layering multiple buffs to make them truly dangerous considering how fragile they are I think the goal should be to make them powerful at full strength but rapidly lose that power as they lose their synapse web.

Also, lest we forget the other Tyranid special rule...Shadow in the Warp. My idea is obviously overpowered as hell but it is the direction I think the army should move towards. Subtract a power dice for each Synapse creature alive. I know that it would be insanely powerful and that I freely admit, it is a flawed concept but it is a direction to take this. I feel like Synapse and Shadow in the Warp should be tied as global effects based on how many synapse units you have on the table.

Lastly, IB. I think that IB would be fine if it was just a flat sort of programing for your bugs rather than a random table. I think most of us are on the same page with having feeders running forward, lurkers taking cover, and hunters shooting at things. All very simple restrictions that remove the tactical element of Tyranids as a representation of their, well, tactics being removed.

I don't mind the idea that different models provide different benefits as a concept. But when i think about how it would play out on the table things get very complicated very quickly.

Primarily, different synapse creatures will inevitably have better or worse effects for different units. Some Synapse effects will be better for melee. Some would be better for shooting. etc etc.

Which means it helps pigeon whole your list building. To get your best bang for your buck you need these synapse creatures with these troops. Generalized lists will move farther and farther away. Something that is already happening with formations and decurions but now doubled up by the way this synapse functions.

If the preferable synapse benefit is also restricted to certain FoC slots you now also have a problem of certain slots becoming even more "overcrowded" then they are now. For instance, Elites have zoanthropes and venomthropes, and Malanthropes, and many other units all jammed into 3 slots. If the Zoanthropes benefit is "best" then you will want to spread that synapse web far and wide. Which means all 3 elite slots would be consumed by zoanthropes and the other units will have to take a back seat, including the already very usfull venomthrope.

My worry is both the complication that it adds and the inherent damaging effect it could have on unit selection. I think it's easier and more beneficial in the big picture to have 1 pretty good effect for synapse.

There are ways around such concerns as well, of course, such as borrowing the "Dedicated Transport" mechanic for certain support Broods, as suggested in my "Crazy Bug Idea" thread a while back.