No idea how this works ... army units commits (from HQ) to a planet along with their warlord ... so how could I commit this to a planet with non-warlord unit from planet to which my warlord is commited to? My warlord is in HQ at that time ...
 

It's a Synapse creature - Synapse creatures have their own 'dials' and can commit to a different planet than your Warlord.

Once your Warlord and Synapse unit have been sent to their respective planets (lets say 1 and 3), pull one army unit from the planet with your Warlord (1) to the planet with your Venomthrope (3)

It lets you pull units around in preparation for an attack later in the game.

As far as Synapse units go, I really don't rate this one highly. The ability to spawn tokens or initiate more attacks seems much better to me...

Its not a massively useful effect, but it could let you pick an army unit that is following the Warlord exhausted from HQ to a planet, and position it somewhere upstream where it could be more useful. Alternatively, it could let you bring a big hitter from the warlord's planet to fight at planet 1 (albeit still exhausted) while the warlord is free to snipe uphill.

I'm not sold on this, myself, as it takes more finesse to pull off than I'm personally capable of, but I think there could be some nice tricks here in the hands of a clever player.

Good ideas, those. Still not sure why this guy doesn't have some sort of mechanic to infest a planet.

I would use this for an elite deck.  If I have some heavy hitters at planet 4 or 5 deployed there earlier turns, and my warlord is caught by your warlord at 1 for example, i can send my big bad elite there.  Seems good to me.

I would use this for an elite deck.  If I have some heavy hitters at planet 4 or 5 deployed there earlier turns, and my warlord is caught by your warlord at 1 for example, i can send my big bad elite there.  Seems good to me.

Erm, it works the opposite way. 

For example, If you commit some heavy unit with your WL on planet 1 and your opponent doesn't commit his WL and you understand that you easily win the 1st planet, you can relocate this heavy hitter to a planet with your synapse.

Right, had it backwards.  Still really good, now you have heavy hitter with your warlord, and you want him to go to a different planet then your warlord.  You can do it.

I guess what it does is separate out the command-sniping ability of a warlord from the combat presence of its warlord train.

I think the strongest use will be with Swarmlord, who needs to be at planets with 2 adjacent ones to maximise his character ability so generally doesn't want to come to planet 1.

Send Polluter to planet 1. Send Swarmlord to planet 2 or later. Drop your free termagants at maximal efficiency, and move a unit from Swarmlord's planet to Polluter's planet.

Note that the timing is such that it doesn't have to be one in the Warlord train, it could be one that is ready and present at the planet the Swarmlord is moving to. 

This could make for some interesting finesse plays, and open up the opportunity space for unpredictable commitments.

As I said, I'm not the sort of player who can benefit from this, but I think a clever player who builds around this and knows all the possibilities could work things well.

It's tough to give up the Gavid Tervigon in Swarmlord, but I have played a movement based deck with him that ran the Polluter and Mycetic Spores to move the Hive Mind units around and set up battles at places where my opponent wasn't ready for it.  The deck ran Hunter Gargoyles too for more movement tricks. 

Another thing about the Polluter is that when you combo it with Dark Cunning, you can pop up some nasty threats where your opponent wasn't expecting them.  Let's say you have a Haruspex in your HQ (not an uncommon thing), he goes to a planet exhausted in the Warlord train, then gets shifted to the Polluters planet and readied with Dark Cunning for a nasty unexpected attack. 

Overall, the Polluter is the hardest Syn unit to use effectively, but has some really cool tricks you can pull if that's your thing. 

He's probably my least favorite though because I found that there were turns his ability did nothing for me since there was nothing I wanted or needed to move, whereas the rest of the Syn unit's abilities were more consistent and most of them came into play every turn.  Still, the Polluter has his place and may become more useful as more Tyranid cards come out that can benefit from being moved around

Yes, its kind of the dead opposite of Stalking Lictor. That Synapse Unit is wholly obvious in what advantage it provides, but it makes for a fairly heavily telegraphed Synapse commitment. This card is clever and unpredictable, but so much less consistent.

My own thinking is that once people get more used to playing against Tyranids, this'll be a great way of messing up their math. Just as Coteaz and Aun'shi got a lot weaker once people realised how to fight them, so too will be the case with Old One Eye and Swarmlord.

For now, I'm a Lictor player, but I'm keeping this one in mind for future play, especially if we start seeing Tyranid cards that trigger benefits when they move to a planet.

Very nice - you'll note VonWibble observed the same thing a couple of posts up, but without describing the Lictor comparison, which I think is a useful observation. I think people have largely been drawn to the simplicity of SWP and Lictor, but that every synapse unit has strength that can be played to.

The only problem I can foresee with your approach above is that Tyranids don't have huge amount of access to a lot of efficient 2 command army units. Also, its only going to win that command struggle if the unit is ready.

So what we're looking at is a situation where your own 2 command unit is at a planet where it is ready, but losing command, the warlord turns up, snipes command, then the Venomthrope Polluter borrows that 2 command unit to win elsewhere. Only Toxic Venomthrope is really suitable for that purpose, as you probably want Tyranid Warrior to stay where the warlord turns up and help win that battle.

The small opportunity window for plays like that doesn't make Polluter weak, of course, it just means that instead of fulfiling one game role efficiently it instead offers a whole bunch of clever plays that don't turn up very often, but there's so many different ones that you'll be able to pull something off.

Consider your trick added to my Venomthrope Polluter playbook, along with the others mentioned so far!

The only problem I can foresee with your approach above is that Tyranids don't have huge amount of access to a lot of efficient 2 command army units. Also, its only going to win that command struggle if the unit is ready.

I feel this could be the sleeper of TGD. The ability to threaten two different planets with a scary unit and wait until the opponent has deployed and then be able to respond is pretty huge, as is the general flexibility and manoeuvrability he allows. I've chucked together an OOE build using this (yes, instead of SWP, I know it's practically heresy!). Will see how it goes.

I also agree with the above post that it has good synergy with OOE sometimes wanting to be out of combat (or at an easier combat), especially if you have his signature involved in a key battle.

Having played around with it some more, this is now my favourite synapse. Even more so than SWP. It's entirely possible that at high level play it will get "found out" but equally it may still be effective. The ability to totally wreck command maths and combat maths, as well as rejig the board for future turns is unprecedented. I'm looking forward to what the future holds for this.

Polluter is really good for command sniping and bullying first planet with units like Volatile Pyrovore and any of the Elites. Absolutely love it, though if you get stuck with too many high cost units it can be very obvious where you're committing.

Is anyone using this synapse with Omega to combo nesting chamber? Pull a genestealer to first planet where you have one then infest and ambush in whatever you have in hand, seems interesting.