BFG:R Tyranids

[afterimagedan]

Somehow I feel uncomfortable rewriting a race in such a large way. This is a lot more then fixing stats/ships.

Currently, I am bringing the old rules into the new BFGR Nids document. The changes will be ships stats, a couple new ships, and work out the evolutions problem. Its not that big of a change, especially compared to MMS. Either way, Tyranids reply need help and some decisions need to be made about the evolution stuff.

[afterimagedan]

Each one may only be taken once by any squadron or ship.

Tyranid Evolutions
the following are exactly like the original tyranid list except for the potential for escort upgrades:
Solar Vanes - The ship or squadron gains +5cm speed. 10pts per capital ship and 5pts per escort just like AndrewChristlieb had it

Adrenaline Sacs - The ship gains +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders it should be 10 and 5. IN grand cruisers get the upgrade for 5 points.

Advanced Discharge Vents - The creature reduces the distance it needs to move before turning by 5cm. Not intended for escorts. 10pts 10pts seems right. This is a decent choice for 15cm moving hive ships

Extra Spore Cysts - The vessel gains 1 extra shield. May not be taken on escorts. 10pts

Accelerated Healing - The bio-ship has enhanced its ability to heal critical wounds, enabling capital ships to roll two extra dice in the End phase when attempting to repair critical damage. Not allowed on escorts. 10pts.

Drone Link - The creature maintains an unbroken link with the Vanguard drone ships and hive ships of the swarm. When within 15cm of a Vanguard drone ship, all pyro-acid batteries benefit from a left
shift on the Gunnery table (before all other modifiers). 20pts and 5pts per escort. 20pts like the old rules but making this available to escorts for 5pts makes sense. That will scale with the size of the escort squadron.

Tenacity - When on All Ahead Full, Burn Retros, or Come to New Heading special orders, the ship's pyro-acid batteries and bio-plasma weapons are unaffected. The cost of this upgrade is 10% of the vessels initial points cost rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5.  AndrewChristlieb, your 10% and round up option for this upgrade is the best thought I have heard all day. You deserve a cookie. 


the following are modified old evolutions
Psychic Scream - Any enemy vessels withing 30cm suffer -1Ld. Enemy ships can be effected by multiple psychic screams at once, to a maximum of -3ld. This may only be taken on hive ships. 20pts ...like the old psychic scream was. good call on the max of -3 rule

Reinforced Carapace - The ship gains +2 hits. Not allowed on escorts. 20pts ... just like the old evolutions but this restricts it to +2 hits ever.

Mucous Membrance - Bombers and assault boats suffer a -1 modifier (in addition to any other modifiers) when rolling their Attack roll, and all torpedoes must roll +1 to hit (maximum of 6+). Ranged weapon hits remain unaffected.  The cost of this upgrade is 10% of the vessels initial points cost rounded up to the nearest 5's digit.I think we should use this pricing system because it is that much better on ships with more hits. Consider this on an adult hive.......

Mega-Spore Mines - Ships equipped with assault boat launch bays can exchange all their launch bays for spore mine launchers. Each launch bay can launch one mega-spore mine In the Ordnance phase Megaspore mines follow all movement and ordnance rules mines do on p.142 of the rulebook, but when rolling against armour to inflict hits, it inflicts that number of fire criticals instead. Not intended for escorts. The launch bay strength is replaced by spore mine launchers at a 1:1 ratio. This also costs +5pts per launch bay strength. 5pts per is a much more appropriate value. Orks get mines for 5pts per in FAQ2010 and their ships are the same speed. Also, these don't get the benefits of double launch capacity so it's even with Orks. True, these are fire criticals, but normal orbital mines that roll a hit cause a guaranteed damage whereas spore mines cause fire crits that can be repaired. In the long run, these have the potential to do more, but I think it evens out, if not the spore mines being a slight bit worse, certainly not worth 10pts each. EDIT: when looking at the BFG:R list now, most tyranid carrier HAVE spore mines in them and there are special rules for them. Maybe we should just drop this and make the rules for mega spore mines into the rules for the normal spore mines tyranid carriers come with (the fire criticals damage instead of normal damage)

newly invented one
Natural Killer Antibodies - The Fleet has evolved a more efficient Ordnance defense creature. Vessels add +1 to their Turrets Characteristic. +10pts per capital ship, +5 points per escort. turret upgrades for IN ships are 10pts so 10pts for capital ships and 5 per escort makes sense. I think this could be dropped if the hive ships just had this upgrade built into their stats for the correct points.

drop list
Hardened Myelin - The Fleet has increased the thickness of the myelin sheath around its dendrites, improving cognitive function. The vessel or squadron gains 1 re-roll, free of cost, that may only be used on that ship or squardon. 15pts. this is exactly like the eldar farseers from MMS and they are 15pts. I think this should be dropped and added to the fleet list as Hive Imperatives

Pheromone Rage - The Fleet has evolved a more powerful Hive Mind, and is able to plan attacks more
efficiently. The Fleet’s Attack Rating is increased by 1. May not be taken in an allied Fleet and may only be taken on a Hive ship or any kind. 10pts 10 points. many people do not use attack ratings so who cares, attack rating does not mean all that much, and it will take up valuable upgrade points. this isn't a necessary inclusion. Maybe something that can be in the fleet list?

Spore Cysts -  The Fleet has evolved organs which release numerous spores, concealing the Vessels in a living cloud, and making targeting them rather difficult. The Vessels have the Holofields quality The cost of this upgrade is 10% of the vessels initial points cost rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5. this is super fluffy to me and I think it will be quite characterful in game. Let's drop it in favor of the original +1 shield option.

I'm quoting this to try to reduce the size? Maybe it works that way?  I think we should keep it to 12 evolutions; the 11 original ones with some small modifications, and the extra one for the turret (which could be worked into the hive profiles).
-"Hardened Myelin" should be what "Hive Imperatives" become, those stupid old useless upgrades that were so not worth the points.
-"Pheromone Rage;" cool idea but if it's included, let's include it in the fleet list.
-"Spore Cysts," the Holofield version, can just be dropped. Let's go back to the original one.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Ok so spores are shields without the extra fluff and turrets have their own seperate value now?

Why do nids get +1 shield for 10 pts, Chaos (Repulsive) and Space Marines (Strike) for +15 pts and Orks for +25pts (fleet list, but should be a standard option)? Shouldnt there be a set value across all the fleets for upgrades like this? 25pts is a lot better than 10 or even 15, extra shields are a gimmie on the strike cruisers and will be with nids too if they stay at 10.

Spore mines should just be mines IMO, nids have enough ways to cause crits but they have no ordionance that causes damage.

I think im ok with this so far.

[afterimagedan]

Ok so spores are shields without the extra fluff and turrets have their own seperate value now?

Why do nids get +1 shield for 10 pts, Chaos (Repulsive) and Space Marines (Strike) for +15 pts and Orks for +25pts (fleet list, but should be a standard option)? Shouldnt there be a set value across all the fleets for upgrades like this? 25pts is a lot better than 10 or even 15, extra shields are a gimmie on the strike cruisers and will be with nids too if they stay at 10.

Spore mines should just be mines IMO, nids have enough ways to cause crits but they have no ordionance that causes damage.

I think im ok with this so far.

Hmm, I see your point about the shield upgrade; I was just keeping it the same point value they had it on the evolution chart from the original Nids. Personally, I think it should just be fitted into the profile. The Adolescent hive ship with a 4th shield written in, looking at the double pyrobattery version, is 260.8pts based on smotherman. At 220, like it is on the BFG:R tyranid alpha list, is way too low on the point scale. starting it at 260 and it gets LD8 built in like the old rules seems the best for the adolescent hive.

Spore mines, as written, are just taken directly from the old Nids document. I don't see the need to change it (personally, your idea is fine but i'm indifferent. I would rather let my indifferent votes go to staying with the original rules).

How many evolutions can each ship take? 3 for adult and adolescent, 2 per light cruiser, 1 per escort squad at 1 upgrade allowed per 750pts?

How should the Tyranid boarding rules be? I am assuming we are keeping the original 2d6, discard the highest, and double boarding value? They used to have a rule where you put a blast marker into contact with your vessel and the enemy vessel when you came into base contact. I thought that was a clunky and pointless rule. But, it did benefit the tyranids in boarding by +1.

Juvenile Hive smothermans to 157.5 but will have a few knocked off because of "massive" quality (meaning cannot use CTNH special orders). This is when I have it at 5+ armor.

Leviathan Prowler smothermans (yes, it's a verb) to 64 pts, and adding the highlighter quality that the vanguard drones get, seems like it would bring it to 70, there it's at now.

Emergent drone ship smothermans correctly at 60 pts. I think this is an awesome ship for tyranids to have for transports.

Kraken predators should just be made how they used to be, exactly. The new kraken predator with 6wbs is way too much firepower for a 40pt ship. 3 massive claws as well.

[Talos]

Seems like a lot of good ideas, guys. About the kraken, though...I have always liked it a lot, but it always seemed odd to me that it was the only ship in the game other then necrons to use this rule. Outside of adding multiple hit escorts I can't see a way of getting rid of it's odd BFI thing. It could come with the holofield standard, but then that does not keep it resilient to ordnance. Any suggestion or am I just a big fluffy whinner?

[afterimagedan]

Seems like a lot of good ideas, guys. About the kraken, though...I have always liked it a lot, but it always seemed odd to me that it was the only ship in the game other then necrons to use this rule. Outside of adding multiple hit escorts I can't see a way of getting rid of it's odd BFI thing. It could come with the holofield standard, but then that does not keep it resilient to ordnance. Any suggestion or am I just a big fluffy whinner?

Nah, you are right. I just don't want to go the holofield route with anyone but Eldar; that's their thing. However, the 4+ save for shields is definitely a necron thing. Personally, I am totally fine with them having two hits or keeping the original 4+ save rules (though, they don't get the 2+ save when actually on BFI  ).

I propose we give them the old profile and either keep it how it has always been, or give them a shield and hit point instead of the 4+ save. Personally, if we are going to go with the 2 hits for larger escort route, which I am totally fine with, I think we should include them in that but I don't think they can have the 2nd hit while also having the 4+ save thing. It should go back to a plain old shield.

I have the Tyranid list sitting there ready to be worked on. I would like to make some decisions so we can build on them. At this point, the Tyranid fleet is a huge mess. I know Horizon doesn't feel great about reworking something so much but honestly, Tyranids really need the help. We can't just leave them without any clarification on the evolution table stuff (can they take them in every game? only in campaigns? if they can, what restricts people from taking 2 uberhives?). Also, all is lost has to go. It's such a bad rule to have and makes people not want to play Tyranids when doing well in the game (killing enemies and boarding them) gets your ships killed by people self-destructing (and they are only allowed to self-destruct against Tyranids, and not Khorne berzerkers or Necrons??  ).

Here are some of the votes we need to take:
-keep the tendrils on Tyranid ships or drop them
-should we keep the ships from BFG:R? we may have to vote on them individually
-vote on the revised evolution table (which is probably the first vote needed)
-vote on a fleet list (probably at the end)

Let's work on getting this evolution list approved. two posts earlier, I posted our progress. Does anyone see any changes that need to be made to the list before we vote and proceed? Around half of them are the same as the old evolutions.

(side note, how many days do you guys think voting needs to go for? Most of the votes are entered in the first 2 days)

[Talos]

Good good, at least i'm not alone in thinking 4+ is weird for the bugs....all is lost is the worst rule ever, it definately has to go.

Not as bad as two hits, but a lot of people are against 2 shield escorts...and it still doesn't protect as much against against ordnance vs. the save.

[afterimagedan]

Good good, at least i'm not alone in thinking 4+ is weird for the bugs....all is lost is the worst rule ever, it definately has to go.

Not as bad as two hits, but a lot of people are against 2 shield escorts...and it still doesn't protect as much against against ordnance vs. the save.

True, but the 2 hit kraken would not have 0 turrets anymore.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Tyranid Evolutions

Each one may only be taken once by any squadron or ship. All ships in an escort squadron must take the same evolutions.

Solar Vanes - The ship or squadron gains +5cm speed.
10 pts for capital ships and 5 pts each for escorts.

Adrenaline Sacs - The ship gains +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders.
5 pts.

Advanced Discharge Vents - The creature reduces the distance it needs to move before turning by 5cm.
May not be taken on escorts. 10 pts.

Extra Spore Cysts - The vessel gains 1 extra shield.
May not be taken on escorts. 10 pts.

Accelerated Healing - The bio-ship has enhanced its ability to heal critical wounds, enabling capital ships to roll two extra dice in the End phase when attempting to repair critical damage.
May not be taken on escorts. 10 pts.

Drone Link - The creature maintains an unbroken link with the Vanguard drone ships and hive ships of the swarm. When within 15cm of a Vanguard drone ship, all pyro-acid batteries benefit from a left
shift on the Gunnery table (before all other modifiers).
20 pts for capital ships and 5 pts each for escorts.

Tenacity - When on All Ahead Full, Burn Retros, or Come to New Heading special orders, the ship's pyro-acid batteries and bio-plasma weapons are unaffected.
Capitol ships and escorts may take this evolution at +10% of their base point value (rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5) after weapons have been selected, but before any other modifiers.

Psychic Scream - Any enemy vessels withing 30cm suffer -1Ld. Enemy ships can be effected by multiple psychic screams at once, to a maximum of -3ld.
Hive ships may take this evolution for 20 pts.

Reinforced Carapace - The ship gains +2 hits.
May not be taken on escorts. 20pts

Mucous Membrance - Bombers and assault boats suffer a -1 modifier (in addition to any other modifiers) when rolling their Attack roll, and all torpedoes must roll +1 to hit (maximum of 6+). Ranged weapon hits remain unaffected. 
Capitol ships and escorts may take this evolution at +10% of their base point value (rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5) after weapons have been selected, but before any other modifiers.

Natural Killer Antibodies - The Fleet has evolved a more efficient Ordnance defense creature. Vessels add +1 to their Turrets Characteristic.
+10pts for capital ships and +5 points each for escorts.

Mega-Spore Mines - Ships equipped with assault boat launch bays can exchange all their launch bays for spore mine launchers. Each launch bay can launch one mega-spore mine In the Ordnance phase. Megaspore mines follow all movement and ordnance rules mines do on p.142 of the rulebook, but when rolling against armour to inflict hits, it inflicts that number of fire criticals instead.
May not be taken on escorts. +5pts per point of launch bay strength.

EDIT: when looking at the BFG:R list now, most tyranid carrier HAVE spore mines in them and there are special rules for them. Maybe we should just drop this and make the rules for mega spore mines into the rules for the normal spore mines tyranid carriers come with (the fire criticals damage instead of normal damage)

[AndrewChristlieb]

Ok so the current list - any comments for viewing.

Issues I have:

Extra shields are underpriced. 25pts would be ideal imo.

Psychic Scream seems more like it should be an upgrade option listed on the Hive Ships profile instead of the Evolution chart, limited to the larger hives (Im thinking 10 hits+)

Mega-Spore Mines should be the only mine option for ships. I would remove references to mines that are already on ships profiles.

If there is an option for random Evolutions, bar adding more like the standard refit tables, then I think 11 should be the maximum # (2-12 on 2D6). I would also like to see there being a benifit to taking random evolutions such as being able to take the first randomly generated result for free.

[afterimagedan]

Ok so the current list - any comments for viewing.

Issues I have:

Extra shields are underpriced. 25pts would be ideal imo.
Smotherman has an additional shield for 10pts, the old evolution has the additional shield for 10pts, the extra shield for the Repulsive is 15pts, Strike cruiser for 15pts. 25pts seems like a bit much. it could just be made an option for the adolescent hive so there aren't any 6 shield adult hives running around.

Psychic Scream seems more like it should be an upgrade option listed on the Hive Ships profile instead of the Evolution chart, limited to the larger hives (Im thinking 10 hits+)
what makes you feel like it should just be a ship upgrade? I think it fits in the evolution chart quite well. Also, having it in the hive ship's profile means it will be able to be taken on top of maximum evolution upgrades.

Mega-Spore Mines should be the only mine option for ships. I would remove references to mines that are already on ships profiles.
I totally see what you are going there. Basically, let's make spore mines into fire crit mines and drop the mega-spore mines altogether. Totally agree now that I understood what you meant.

If there is an option for random Evolutions, bar adding more like the standard refit tables, then I think 11 should be the maximum # (2-12 on 2D6). I would also like to see there being a benifit to taking random evolutions such as being able to take the first randomly generated result for free.
Agreed completely. Would the random evolutions just be for campaigns?

[AndrewChristlieb]

Im not so much worried about 6 shield hives floating around as getting a fair price. 15 points on a strike cruiser is silly, no one takes the ship without them now. With the repulsive there is at least a down fall. Orks pay 25 pts just to bring their ships up to what they should have anyway and then only if they take an overpriced character. Hulks pay 50 pts (a good option for any ship over a certain hit points). So why do nids get these for 10? It makes no sense.

2 reasons for making the scream a hive upgrade instead of an evolution: 1 its only for a specific type of ship, if it was capitol ships only ok but its hives only so just putting it on their options works. 2 there are currently 12 evolutions and for a random selection 11 would be ideal at this point. Assuming we dont add more of course.

I see no reason for random evolutions to be campaign only, the chart layout should be worked a bit differently for the randomness of it all tho .

[afterimagedan]

Im not so much worried about 6 shield hives floating around as getting a fair price. 15 points on a strike cruiser is silly, no one takes the ship without them now. With the repulsive there is at least a down fall. Orks pay 25 pts just to bring their ships up to what they should have anyway and then only if they take an overpriced character. Hulks pay 50 pts (a good option for any ship over a certain hit points). So why do nids get these for 10? It makes no sense.
I agree but making it 25pts just because orks have it for 25pts isn't a good reason. If anything, we should reduce it for orks. we could make it 20pts for battleships and 15pts for cruisers (depending on if they have 2 or 1 in their profile)

2 reasons for making the scream a hive upgrade instead of an evolution: 1 its only for a specific type of ship, if it was capitol ships only ok but its hives only so just putting it on their options works. 2 there are currently 12 evolutions and for a random selection 11 would be ideal at this point. Assuming we dont add more of course.
Hmm, good points. Alright, I'll buy it.

I see no reason for random evolutions to be campaign only, the chart layout should be worked a bit differently for the randomness of it all tho .
Agreed. I like the idea. You can take the risk and get one for free but it may not be what you wanted originally.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Ok so for shields can we see a universal ruling of say upto 10 hits 15 points, upto 20 hits 20/25 points over 20 hits 50 points?

[afterimagedan]

I just think jumping to 25pts from the old 10pts and the option to take more than one, it a bit too much. 20pts, fine. I just think it should be off limits to anything over an adolescent, mainly off limits to an adult hive. For Tyranids, it seems like escorts should not be able to get it, light cruisers and cruiser 15pts, and adolescent 20pts.