Cool! You consider being outside of synaps as the same as having lost your Tau pathfinders? I feel that saying that Tau and Tyranids are on equal footing because you can remove Tau's strength by killing the pathfinders is bit...off.

I think the power level of the codex is right in the games I now have had. I have some problems, though:

1. Eldar and Tau are too powerful. All will not agree upon it but I feel they are much more in the "I can win in turn 1" than any other army. Space marines might need a nerf but otherwise I actually think that the new nids fit in rather nicely on the power level. Though many points are really stupid (no change to Stelaers and what is it with the increase of the IC warrior?).

2. Allies. I would also like to take broadsides, sorry, allies. If you had been able to take allies you could decrease the amount of synaps by taking units not as sensitive to it and instead take some effective ally.

3. No terrain LOS block. I know that it is up to the players but are there really anyone who regularly has as much LOS blocking terrain they did back when area terrain blocked it? I feel it shows in the rules overall. Flying units needs to be hit on 6:s because they can't hide anymore, even with a 24" move. Bikes needs a turbo boost that gives them invul-save because their 36" move can't take them to safety.

All in all I really like the nid codex. You can have the fleeting monsters, you can have many monsters, the army is highly dependent on synaps (which I really like) and the army actually have something I miss in other codexes; a weakness. Kill of the synaps and they are screwed. Imagine if all armies was made this way! Tau army shoots well but may not overwatch because they focus on the shooting phase so much, Eldar vehicles and monsters are all subjected to the "may not act if rolling a one"- rule unless a blessing is affecting them. And so on. Instead we see a lot of units without any downsides.

The army I have tested a few times now is cosisting on 2 dakka tyrants with 2 bodyguards each, one unit with adrenaline glands and regen on the tyrant, 3 hive guards, 2 venomthropes, 2*30 hormagaunts, 30 termagaunts, tervigon, 2 mawlocks and a exocrine (spelling?). Throw the hormagaunts forward for an average of 10,5 (ish) movement with movement and fleet. That is somewhat awkward to handle directly. The opponent will start to either rip them or the tyrants apart, most likely shooting the venomthropes down first. Keep them away from ignore cover, if possible, and they might soak up something the first turn. Point being, the tyrants have a good chance surviving also turn 2 from a shooty army list. Then at least one mawlock will arrive and some hormagaunts should almost be able to charge, the tyranid shooty units will not have gotten so much action on them. The gaunts might be able to also cause a threat and the dakka tyrants can start to fire.

In theory and in humble playtesting this might work but not against top tier armies, I think.

Thanks! A good read. I pretty much agreed on everything you said. But when I tested the game (only 2 small games in) I found that units with more armour are much less affected by suppression because you need much more fire power to actually suppress them. Although when suppressed, they act as described above. So a soldier 2 unit in cover are much easier to supress than a Soldier 3 unit in the same cover. That extra die in armour makes it much harder to supress. Someone told me this before and I didn't believe them until I played it. A unit supress a Soldier 2 unit in hard cover with three hits "pretty easy". But against a soldier 3 unit you get fewer dices to roll and must roll 4 hits to get the suppression. Game-wise I experienced this as a huge difference.

I agree with most things said in the post. I've used my nids against the Grey knights now a couple times and found the following:
1. With a simple throw of catalyst on a screening unit (I use hormagaunts to make sure the screening unit don't slow down the rest of the army) the knights have a tendency to shoot at the big ones or warriors with lash whips. This gets me to my second point.
2. Lash whipping-units kills the knights rather simply.
3. Without a librarian, the -1 to Ld-tests doesn't really make that much of an difference.
4. Warriors are great aganst grey knights. And shrikes. Lash whip, toxin sacs and no shooting weapon with instant kills against them (assuming psy-cannons to be the weapon of choice) means they can actually draw a lot of fire before going down. They are especially effective against...ahh...purifiers (guys with psychic power that wounds half of the enemy models before CC) as they have to test on 3T6 and if they succeed they only cause one casulti (at best). They will, of course, draw fire.
5. All blasts are good against grey knights. Biovores... Zoanthropes. Kill as many as normal marines but grey knights are more expensive i e more effective against grey knights.

In both lists I miss the prime and another tyrant guard and perhaps 2+ sv on the tyrant (without it, it will draw more fire away from the rest of the monsters so it has some value of not giving it 2+ sv). My preference for Elite has always been 6 Hive guards and 3 zoans. The zoans gives the opponent the feeling that it's a one way trip for battle wagons and more specifically land raiders. I always think it's enough with one tyrannofex. If range is the issue then onslaught might be useful as well, giving the hive guards a 31-36" range for shooting each turn. I must admit, though, that I've only used one tyrannofex and then most because just the off chance of it acually taking something far away down but if it's held back I've found it usually survives until the end.

Another option to the troop-warriors are shrikes with lash ship and bonesword plus toxin sacs. Can't take down vehicles but move them together with a prime the first few turns and you have an 18" killing zone. Usually they have a hard time to survive but with everything else to shoot at they might have the chance to enter combat and when they do...

Either way. List two seems more effective.