New Tyranid Tactics

Recently my friend Ko'vash and I have been furiously dueling between his Tau and my Tyranids to improve our tactics and deeper thinking (plus nobody else wants to play me). This has definitely given me a greater insight into developing my tactics even though we have barely changed our army lists.

So firstly, here are the army lists:

Tyranids:
- Swarmlord with Tyrant Guard with Lash Whips - 410
- 2 x 2 Hive Guard - 200
- 2 x Tervigons with Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands and Catalyst - 390
- 2 x 15 Termagaunts - 150
- 12 Genestealers and 13 Genestealers - 350
= 1500

Tau:
- 2 x [Shas'el with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod and Multi-tracker; 2 Shas'vre with Plasma Rifles, Missile Pods, Targeting Arrays and H-W Multi-trackers plus 1 with a Drone Controller and 2 Gun Drones]

- 2 x 3 Crisis Suits with Twin-Linked Missile Pods, Flamers and Multi-Trackers with a Team Leader with a Gun Drone

- 2 x Hammerhead with Railguns, Burst Cannons, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Dischargers and 1 with a Target Lock I believe

- 2 x 6 Fire Warriors with Devilfish with Gun Drones and Disruption Pods

= 1500 ish

Battlereport

This Tyranid list of mine is different to what I had been using previously as I had included a Prime and some Devourer Gaunts which I swapped for the Genestealers. I really liked this change as it let me use the following simple strategy.

The mission was Seize Ground with a Pitched Battle deployment and I got to place objectives first. I placed them as centrally as possible so my strategy could work best. I then set up very centrally with everything but the Genestealers which outflanked. I drove these all quickly forward into the Tau's lines (losing a Tervigon to the Plasma suits stupidly) which caused the Tau suits to crunch up to the back board edge (meaning is they fell back they were goners) and shunting the tanks to the flanks (Genestealers.....). 

Everything was running forward to claim the objectives and just as planned I caused enough moral tests for most of the crisis suits to turn tail and run. The Genestealers in their big groups assaulted and eventually destroyed the Hammerheads although taking many casualties to those damned Flechettes! The Devilfish were then quickly stopped which left all of my troops on objectives in the centre while the Tau were stuck beside their destroyed or immobilised transports. Win for the Tyranids.

Map, Objectives are Purple Dots (IMPORTANT!)

Strategy

I walked into this game with a strategy in mind which fortunately played well into the scenario; push into the centre and surround with Genestealers. The reason I like to think it worked so well however was that right from the start I was thinking about this overall strategy. I placed my objectives centrally while limiting my opponents ability to place them on the flanks. This was great as it meant the objectives were where I was going; I wasn't going to the objectives.

I was handed first turn which I used to get close fast. I ran everything and kept moving to push the Tau to the back, away from the objectives and towards the back board where his suits would run off of if even broken once. It did not matter how many Gants or Tyranids in general died as long as the Tau were pushed back. The Genestealers did excellently as they really put pressure on the flanks and slowed the skimmer tanks. 

It sounds simple (and it is!) but I firmly believe that having an overall strategy from the get-go, right at the start, is the key to victory.