Re: Aliens in SII/DSII (was Re: Mixed Small Arms Squad)

Like Andrew, I'm a programmer, so I like the idea of writing a simple
flowchart as well to program alien behavior.

I wrote out a bunch of rules for our favorite six-limbed aliens from The
Other Company (tm).  Basically, I defined two instinctive behaviors, and
the three lower forms followed one or the other.  The fourth form was
the
leader type, and could control the others to allow them to do something
other than instinct.

The one behavior was Hunt - the skirmisher form used that.  The other
was
Charge.  The hopper form and the attacker form used this one.	These
are
Termagants, Hormaguants, and Genestealers.  The Tyranid warrior was the
leader form.

As such, the swarms of the three lesser types have a leadership rating
of
2, do not suffer from losing a leader (since there really isn't a single
model that is the leader), and have a rating of Regular (the Attackers
are
Veteran).

They can be suppressed, and use the rating to recover from that.  They
cannot take communication actions.  They cannot take rally actions.  
They
do not have medics, do not have to hold up to tend wounded, and
therefore,
you roll immediately to see what wound effect is (rolling quality die):
1-4, the bug dies, or is wounded badly enough to be ineffective - remove
it
from the battle, and the unit is unaffected; 5+ only lightly wounded,
place
suppression chit on the unit instead.  So, if you kill a bug outright,
the
unit isn't suppressed (but does take a confidence test).

They don't have the human unwillingness to close into hand to hand, so
they
don't have to take the confidence test to enter close combat.

The hopper and the attacker get a 1 die shift in close combat for their
claws, and the attackers cause terror.

Unless acting under a leader's guidance, they do not go in position.

They aren't affected by Panic, nor do they have to take a reaction test
to
advance while Shaken (basically, Shaken has no effect on them).

They do have to take the first three listed Confidence tests, but the
others don't apply (they don't comprehend Air/Arty attacks very well, so
they don't feel threatened by them).

The leader forms are in swarms of 2 to 4, sometimes occurring as
individual
models.  They are telepathic, and use an Elite chit of random rating. 
They
can communicate without possibility of jamming to any range, and a
communication roll is used against their rating (using their rating only
-
don't use the poorer value).  The "leader" model can't be distinguished,
so
they don't suffer the penalties of killing a leader.  This of course
means
their chit doesn't change, so if they draw a poor one they are stuck
with
it.  They can activate other units like human leaders can.

The instinctive behaviors were pretty simple, I hadn't done much with
them
yet. Basically the hunt behavior was to fire on targets within 15", move
closer to detected targets that were further away.  The Charge behavior
was
to charge targets within 20", move closer to targets further away.

I also worked up stats for the various Tyranid weapons, if anyone is
interested.  But that is pretty much it.

Mike, is that the kind of thing you were talking about?

I've started on describing the Greenskins too.

John
***********************************************************************
John Phelps  ****   mailto: pbguru@cris.com or jphelps@austin.apple.com
OIC, Gundi's Gang -- Anything expressed above is strictly my opinion --
Murphy's Law of Combat, #66:
	    The enemy is never watching until you make a mistake.