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   Quick question to confirm for the stupid (me).

What happens in an escalation game when I have no synapse on the board and I roll for a unit of hormaguants to come on? Do you make the instinctive behavior roll to see if they can move on the board, if they fail are they toast?

Thanks in advance!

Since it is unspecified as to which comes first: Reserves or IB test, it cannot really be argued in any direction. I believe it is best to assume that both happen at the same time and you would be unable to test for IB since the unit is not on the table. So, the unit moves on as normal and would be subject to IB in following turns.

Same deal with synapse entering the board by reserves: if you have a bunch of gaunts with no synapse near your edge and a hive tyrant is coming on the board from reserve, the guants will need to test for IB since the Tyrant isn't technically on the table at the beginning of the turn.

This method is pretty consistent within itself for an area that is a blank spot in the rules.

The real lesson here is that GW really screwed the pooch by taking out the hive node.

No, that was a good move. The problem is that Hormagaunts got classified as Beasts.

I thought it was because they didn't define when certain things happen well enough.

Reserves get rolled before or after last man standing, IB, Fire frenzy, blood rage? And even if they do, do those tests happen before movement, and when do reserves come in, before "normal" movement?

How about deamonic summoning? I always play it as they come in before the icon can move, so it is more fair to the opponent.

Units moving on the board count what as their movement, from the point they move on, or do you place the model and then move the whole move? (Think of a land raider that can't only move 6" when it comes on since it is more than 6" long)

Just a few questions I can think of.

There is no way you can dispute that reserves come in during the movement phase. It states that clearly in the main rules. So if you want to move onto the table you are going to have to test with your gaunts under the clear letter of the rules because if they are outside of synapse range and wish to move, so they must test.

Incorrect. You only test for IB if your units are out of Synapse range. Since we cannot determine whether a unit off the table is within Synapse range or not, it does not have to test.

And that's why I think they should make it quite clear.

For all we know the Hive Tyrant is sitting next to the Hormagaunts, chillin with a beer, and yells at them to get in the fight so he can go in next turn. mmmmm...beer.

So when do reserves arrive? Are they the first thing in movement? Are they during movement so you can move some models and then bring them on?

As clearly stated on page 85 of the Warhammer 40,000 4th edition rulebook:

Note: You must roll for reserves as soon as possible and must bring them onto the table as soon as they are available.

Incorrect. You only test for IB if your units are out of Synapse range. Since we cannot determine whether a unit off the table is within Synapse range or not, it does not have to test.

That sounds like a simmaler problem; passengers in transports.
Convention is that models are transported and stored in some sort of case. If you have synapse creatures in the case you can store your gaunts close to them to avoid the test. If you had all of your synapse on the table and your case is out of range then you might be out of luck.

The bottom line of all that rambling is that you can in fact determine where something is when it is off the table and as long as that's true you can determine if it's in synapse range. Rulers do not cease to exist once they cross the table edge. Don't get me wrong, I agree in principal but I don't think that claiming that you can't determine where they are cuts the mustard.
I'd insted argue that rules do not cross the table edge (with the exception of reserves, deep strike and the like) so they cannot affect models in reserve.