The Swarm

All great heroes are faced with adversity, and in The Iron Grid our stalwart champions will be tested by fearsome hordes of chaos and xenos filth. Whether they are swamped with an unrelenting horde of mindless zombies, stalked by endless swarms of genestealers or chased by mobs of fanatical zelaots is entirely up your own imagination, in the end, all will be tested.

Neutral (not belonging to any player) models are always treated as enemies. For the sake of The Iron Grid, we can pretend that these models, referred to as The Swarm, belong to an extra player but are not controlled by anyone.

## Nodes

At the start of the game you will have placed your objectives and before the first turn you will haveallocated a set number of these to become Nodes in addition to being objectives. At the beginning of each Game Turn every Node will generate a number of models, roll for each Node seperately, place these models in base contact with the objective as though they were deep striking without scatter. These spawns create individual Swarm models which collectively form a Horde. Hordes are pseudo-unit that makes moving and fighting the Swarm models easier, but keep in mind that each model is its own unit.

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 Turn 6

## The Mindless Hordes

* Swarms are incredibly easy targets, having no sense of self-preservation.    When attacking Swarm models, any wounds caused will continue to spill into nearby models up to 6" away. So if there are 4 Swarm models within 5" of each other and your Chapter Master deals 3 wounds to one of them, after the first model is removed as a casualty the wounds will be transferred to the next closest Swarm model within 6". This applies to shooting, psychic and melee attacks.

* Hordes have 2 states, "Resting" and "Active", that determine how and where they move. Whenever a Horde is created its default state is resting.

* At the start of each player turn, a resting Horde will move 2D6" in a random direction using a scatter dice. If a hit is rolled, it will move half the distance rolled. If the direction on the arrow would cause the horde to go through difficult terrain, subtract 2" from the result.
* When moving models, do your best to imitate the way in which an opponent would move them. When a spawn is created they will be in base contact with each other, during their first move position the models so that they are within 1" - 2" of each other, as a player normaly would, however make sure that each model never moves further then the specified distance and always as close as possible to the direction shown on the scatter dice.

#### **Activating**

If an inactive Swarm model is within 18" of a player owned model at the end of any turn, it will move 6" toward the closest player model and become active targetting the closest player model.

If a Swarm model begins an assault phase within 12" of a player model it will become active and attempt to charge the closest enemy, if the charge fails, it will move 6" towards its target.

If a player model targets (shooting, psychic, assualt) a Swarm model, that model immediately becomes active with that model as its target.

## The Hordes Unleashed

When a Player model interacts with or gets too close to a resting Horde, all or part of the Horde will react agressively. As soon as a Swarm model becomes active, it will activate all other Swarm models within 6". These models will immediately move 6" towards the activating player model, effectively creating a new Horde that with that model as its target. This effect occurs immediately before any other rolls are made.

An active model will remain active until either it is killed or its target is killed. At the start of each Player Turn an active Horde will move 2D6" towards its target and it will always charge any player models within 12" in the assault phase. If the charge fails it will move 6" towards the closest player model and that model becomes the new target.

If an active Horde moves within 12" of player model, that model becomes the new target. Stupid Horde.

## Additional

Active Hordes always move 6" towards the target of their charge if the charge is unsuccessful.

In the event a Horde would charge models belonging to the active player, and that player wishes to declare a charge, the players charge takes priority. If this charge brings the players models out of range of the Hordes charge, the Horde will instead move 6" towards its target.

Swarm models never take dangerous terrain tests, but are slowed by difficult terrain and dangerous terrian.

Once activated, a Horde will take the most direct route to its target. Any movement through dangerous terrain is halved (rounded up).

Whenever a Hormagaunt rolls a 6 to wound armor saving throws are reduced by -1 for that wound.

Whenever a Genestealer rolls a 6 to wound armor saving throws are reduced by -2 for that wound. This effect applies instead of rending.