Learnings of the Shas

Fighting Tyranids part 1: Synapse and Separation.
For the first article of this series, I'll start with what I consider to be the main weakness of a Tyranid force.
The Synapse requires you to keep all you're non-Synapse creatures within 12" of a Synapse creature or they will stop being fearless and revert to their not very high base leadership. This means if you're opponent is running gaunt swarms, hive guard, etc, they will need to be babysat by a Synapse creature. Killing off said synapse creature ruins the moral of the non-Synapse unit and makes them more susceptible to fleeing. Killing these big nasties is quite difficult but not impossible, something I'll be covering in part 2. The important thing is if you can split the swarm into little groups and limit the Synapse web, they become easier to fight off.

This brings us to separation. Separation means splitting off bits of the tyranid swarm into more manageable chunks. The Nid army I regularly face uses two 30 termagaunt broods backed up by two Tervigons, Venomthropes and a Hive Tyrant. This means those gaunts now have Furious Charge, Fearless, Counter-attack, Preffered Enemy, grenades, poisoned (4+) attacks, permanent 5+ cover save and units charging them must take dangerous terrain tests. This all sounds very scary, but if you can separate these groups out they get a lot less frightening, especially when you consider gaunts only have a 6+ save, toughness 3 and leadership 5. There are multiple ways you can split the army but the key is forcing your opponent to separate their forces not just offering them the chance. Objectives play a huge part in this. Putting your objectives as far apart as possible forces your opponent to split their army, especially if you're holding one of these objecitves quite securely. You can then split your own army into two firebases, one on each objective and blast away. If the Tyranid player doesn't want to separate their forces, they have to footslog through your army's fire power to claim an objective and kill the fire base there. Then they have to face all the fire power from the other objective if they want to claim it as well. If they want to get both, they have to split. Even in a Capture and Control mission this tactic is still viable. Use your killiest units as a second objective, constantly damaging your opponents force as they make for your objective.
Part 2 will cover target priority and application of fire power.
Let me know what you think,
Ko'vash