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So the idea here is to address what some think are Tyranid weaknesses:

1. Anti-Tank power.
And you thought Orks had problems with Land Raiders: At least the smart Ork players are aware of Tankbustas. Every Tyranid anti-tank gun has some fatal weakness, such as being a psychic power, or reducing damage, or simply being insanely expensive. But seriously, bringing a gun to an avalanche of clawed death fight seems self defeating.

2. Getting there.
So you have your big bad bugs, but you notice that they're not particularly resistant to the anti-tank weapons everyone has in abundance these days. Even worse, they're slow, and don't have much in the way of anti-tank firepower. Clearly the Hive Mind has yet to figure out how to grow a proper tank.

3. Synapse.
It's so hard to grow good help these days; without proper supervision Tyranids either slack off, or lose sight of the greater strategic picture. There's no longer a special rule to prevent people from shooting at Synapse Creatures, or inflicting Instant Death upon them. What to do?

Firstly, consider the concept of the Tyranids. They're not the Imperial Guard. They're not going to bring a multitude of tanks, or even guns. A Tyranid player's expendable resources are the Tyranids themselves. Each individual Tyranid is a munition that needs to be delivered to an enemy that not only have armour and saving throws, but can actively fight back. Fortunately your average Tyranid can do more damage in half a game turn than a machine gun can do in a full game turn. If we consider each 40k army as trying to maximize its flexibility (ability to engage and destroy a variety of opposing forces), redundancy (ability to absorb damage and continue to be effective), and synergy (ability of the whole to be more than the sum of its parts, the product of its parts, if you will), then the Tyranids exemplify synergy. But let's not get carried away with the obvious.

Secondly, consider the basics of 40k, and its million caveats. Each unit can shoot one unit per turn, but charge multiple units. Each unit takes up a certain amount of space. Units locked in combat or pinned do not gain a bonus from difficult terrain, and units in combat cannot get cover saves. Units behind other units get cover, and Monstrous Creatures that are 50% obscured get cover, and you can get cover from terrain. That's a lot of cover. Monstrous Creatures and Independent Characters get Move Through Cover (but then so do most Tyranids). Tanks are hit on their Rear Armour, Walkers on their Front Armour, and AV14 is tough for everyone.

So...

Firstly, target saturation. The list needs lots of stuff, and it needs it from the start. It needs redundancy. The obvious place to start is the Tervigon, a Monstrous Creature that can poop units of Termagants and then synergize with them via special rules and psychic powers. But it's expensive. It's not certain how many Termagants you can produce. And it's a big fat target that only requires six wounds to kill, and it's not that tough. Then there's Termagants. They're cheap, right? And they can synergize with Tervigons!

For what though? They're about as tough as Imperial Guardsmen. Better Initiative, worse Save (good trade-off), and so on. But they are slow. And if they can absorb firepower, then Rippers are even better at that: being 2/3 the points for the same number of wounds. What else then? Genestealers are expensive, but they're also really murderous. Ditto for Tyranid Warriors, but they're even more expensive. That leaves Hormagaunts, which not only have Fleet and Move Through Cover, but Bounding Leap and no crappy short-ranged shooting weapons to distract them.

Trouble with keeping them in Synapse? There's Shrikes, Jump Infantry Warriors. More breakable, but they have Synapse and Shadow in the Warp - completely resistant to Jaws of the World Wolf, and equipped to make other psychic powers more difficult, and psyckers more dead. Raveners are also fast, and surprisingly cheap. Don't use Deep Strike though, unless the enemy isn't starting on the board, because then they can concentrate on the fewer units that are on the board and use a concentration of firepower to mop them up. I think the ability to Deep Strike is clouding lots of player's judgment. Sure, it gets you closer, but when? How? If you're going to go with a Mycetic Assault Swarm, you'll need a pretty specialized army.

Speaking of numbers, Gargoyles are out, in plastic, and sure have big profiles for such little bugs. It's like they're moving cover. Ditto for Sky-Slashers (who named these?!). The Harpy is another matter: it's a fighter-bomber. It's fast, relatively resistant to Instant Death, and can carry weapons to make it useful against the Infantry swarms that will kill it. It has no Synapse, but that's what Shrikes are for, and Winged Hive Tyrants.

Then there's the usual suspects in the Heavy Support section. Carnifexes come in broods, but they're expensive. Mawlocs, Tyrannofexes, and Trygons are all pretty specialized, but two of those are Fleet. The Tyrannofex looks like a tank, but it's really just a big expensive anti-horde shooter with no close combat ability of its own to really speak of. For some reason, perhaps the Rupture Cannon, perhaps the Sv2+, people want to use this beast to hunt tanks.

Instead, consider:

Tyranid Onslaught
HQ
Hive Tyrant
w/Two sets of Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands, Wings, Leech Essence, Paroxysm

Hive Tyrant
w/Two sets of Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands, Wings, Leech Essence, Paroxysm

Troops
Genestealers (x20)
w/Adrenal Glands, Scything Talons

Genestealers (x20)
w/Adrenal Glands, Scything Talons

Hormagaunts (x25)
w/Toxin Sacs

Hormagaunts (x25)
w/Toxin Sacs

Warriors (x3)
w/Rending Claws, Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands

Warriors (x3)
w/Rending Claws, Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands

Fast Attack
Gargoyle Brood (x25)
w/Toxin Sacs

Gargoyle Brood (x25)
w/Toxin Sacs

Harpy
w/Twin-Linked Heavy Venom Cannon, Cluster Spines

Nice post dude, and from your post and army list you see to know your stuff, this seems like a nice list to with lots of bodies to soak up a few turns of shooting many holes into your resources.

I'm eager to know how it does, has this been play tested at all?

Hmm, i forgot to mention the TYRANIDS SUCK THEIR WEAPONS CAN'T HARM A BANEBLADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

L0rdF1end:

No, it has yet to be play-tested. That's why it's in a thread about concepts for Tyranid armies.

Nurglitch, may I ask why you selected Adrenal Glands + Scything Talons without Poison Sacs for your stealers?


the only thing I can think of is that you are planning on using stealers for anti-tank duty, which seems odd to me.

Adrenal glands +1 I is relatively useless considering the base I of stealers.
the +1 S vs wounding on a 4+/rerolling 4+ shows that the only time +1 S is actually better is against T2 they about tie at T3 because rerolls will give you more rends, where as poison sacs give you much better odds against T4, the same odds against T5, and better odds against anything over T5.

Scytals overall are an underwhelming when you look at the math behind it, but they have the added benefit of working against vehicles...

I selected Adrenal Glands because they give the Genestealers Furious Charge and the Scything Talons give 1/6 to hit rolls a re-roll. They don't need Toxin Sacs for anti-infantry work since they already have plenty of attacks, rending, and S5, I7 and so on. They're not on anti-tank duty so much as on dual. As with the Chaos Space Marine list they're already good against infantry in assaults, so they need an emphasis of their anti-vehicular capabilities.

Maybe Toxin Sacs do give you a slightly better chances against T4 and T6, and the Scything Talons increase the number of hits on both infantry and vehicles, which is good and all my Genestealer models have Scything Talons...

If you look at it the entire army should be able to threaten vehicles, with the Tyrants, Genestealers, Warriors, and Harpie all able to threaten AV14. Remember that S4(5)+6+3 = 14, for Warriors and Genestealers, which ain't great but consider the Warriors can have 12 attacks, or around 30 for the Genestealers.

In terms of the Warriors, that's 7 hits on a vehicle being hit on 4+, with one penetration roll rending.

In terms of the Genestealers, that's about ~18 hits on a vehicle being hit on 4+, with three penetration rolls rending.

Only glancing on Land Raiders either way, but it beasts the heck out of what they can accomplish via shooting.

I'm liking the idea nurglitch. I have yet to see a list that did not include heavy support in some form from the new Nids. What size of list is that?

If anything, your list has the advantage of being counter-meta. That is, most players seem to be bringing tanks and weapons to deal with tanks. Therefore, the anti-infantry firepower is reduced in many armies. Being able to lay down ~150 models and threaten anything on the board is nice.

One thing I am not convinced of, however, is the build on the Stealers. Those big units tend to get tied down when trying to take out vehicles that move at cruising speed. Many times with my mech list I will use forward vehicles moving at cruising speed simply as a speedbump to allow me to deal with your army piecemeal. I think you might find yourself better served by have at least some outflanking stealers to try and move your opponent off the back of the board. Castling is going to be pretty effective against this list, and is thematic in the current meta. Some outflanking stealers will force strategical and tactical options not available to you otherwise.

I think you have the right idea.

I want to try this at 2000 points:

Prime with Deathspitter and Swords
Prime with Deathspitter and Swords
60 Genestealers with Adrenal Glands
60 Hormagaunts
9 Hive Guard


Typically the guants would screen and the stealers would deliver the kill cut - against AV14, I reverse it, sacrificing stealers and then letting the Gaunts chew up the insides.

Dracos:

The list is 2000pts. Something to consider about anti-vehicular capability is that the Hive Tyrants have two pairs of Scything Talons, essentially giving them Preferred Enemy. Along with the Harpie they're the primary anti-vehicle nastiness of the list with the Warriors and Genestealers acting as back up. The Gargoyles have some anti-tank capability by being mobile and having Fleshborers that they can fire into the AV10 rears of tanks.

So the Warriors and Genestealers shouldn't get hung up on tanks, although all the units are equipped to deal with vehicles (AV10) in some way.

Something to consider that if you drove some Rhinos forward to make the swarm stop to over-whelm them, the swarm can go around them, avoid any tank-shock, shoot their rear armour, or hit them with Monstrous Creature attacks on the way by.

A Hive Tyrant could move 12", then assault 6" in front of a Rhino, and wreck it, then hide behind the wreckage. That Rhino just provided the Tyrant with +6" movement and some cover.

All Genestealers infiltrate, so they can be outflanked as needed.

I thought it was just the elite stealers that could outflank, d'oh!

Nurglitch - that list you have is 2390 points

Nice list. may try it out my self

Give at least one of the tyrants Old Adversary, to give the gargoyles rerolls to hit in CC. That combined with auto-wounding on 6 to hit should be nice.

If you're really using your stealers to hunt tanks, I'm confused about not putting in a broodlord for the extra strength...

kaiservonhugal:

I'll check the numbers. I could have sworn it was 2000pts.

DaveL:

No, the ability is too expensive. I'd have to shrink the broods even more, and the concept behind the list is to swamp the enemy with targets. Part of swamping the enemy with targets is making sure they can't reduce the number of targets too easily.

The Genestealers are dual-purpose. Everything in the list can harm vehicles. The Genestealers are as much anti-infantry and anti-tank, and they're expensive enough without the Brood Lord.

Well it's looking pretty good, but I do have a few suggestions based on my experiences
But I'll list what I feel are the strengths of your list.

1. Genestealers are badass, I'm glad you have so many of them. Outflanking an opponent can really catch them off-guard and there's a good chance that you can kill the lightly armored vehicles as well.
2. You have a ton of deepstrike, which is good. Tyranids thrive on the element of surprise.
3. You were thinking about synapse, which is good.


Here's my breakdown of the list by unit type.

HQ
Well I can see that you like deepstrikey tyrants(or fast ones if you choose not to drop them), it's also a good way to get synapse across the board. What it is not, however, is cost effective. Each tyrant is... 240? correct? They also cannot move or assault the turn they arrive, so effectively they have to stand and wave at the enemy for a turn which tends to get them blasted to bits. (can't get them too close either cause space marines will doubletap you and you can't land on them lest you risk dying. I'm pretty sure you are planning to deepstrike them though or you'd probably have not given them wings and used a tyrant guard instead. But that being said this ironically to me (because you said you don't prefer deepstrike) to me seems is a HUGE deepstriking army and you should probably spend the points on hive commander. Paroxysm is good if you can land within 12" of an enemy unit, but otehr than that the psychic powers are useless on this tyrant cause if you're in melee you can't shoot anyway. Oh also with hive commander you could outflank your 2 hormagaunt units too (if you got it on both tyrants, and +2 to your reserve rolls meaning all you'd have to get on turn 2 would be a 2+ roll!!).

Troops
I really disagree with giving genestealers scything talons and adrenal glands. First off, stealers already have I6, that's faster than like 90% of the units out there. Scything talons are ok, but tbh toxin sacs are far better as not only can you wound everything on a 4+ (which makes them so much more viable vs things like demons, monstrous creatures, and anything with T5 or higher), the other advantage is that, yea you may get to reroll 1's to hit with scything but with poison you'll get to reroll anything that doesn't wound on something with T <= 4. And the rerolls can also rend! Assault marines, chaos marines, any mob army, kroot; this really reduced them ALL to rubble. So if I werre going to make an arguement for point/benefit I'd say give them toxin sacs and drop the scything talons and adrenal sacs, they don't need them.
The hormagaunts are a nice solid choice. They may be a tad weaker but they are cheap and fast and many, good job here.
Your warriors will more than likely die very early on. That, combined with running so many gaunts and stealers, means that unless you're going to give them guns or hold an objective, they really have no point. Especially because even if you don't have synapse your hormagaunts will still move and run towards the nearest enemy But they'll probably catch up with the tyrants anyway if they outflank.

Fast Attack
Gargoyles. I don't think you actually need these with so many gaunts and stealers. Sure you can tie people up in melee, and even get a "cover save". But this might actually work against you as so many models might block your gaunts or stealers from getting into combat with something. That and you still run the risk of landing on an opponent or difficult terrain and losing the whole unit. I'd rather see you take more hormagaunts than these guys; especially if you hate termagants cause that's pretty much what these guys are... flying termagants. You don't really need the cover save either cause I can gaurantee that they're gonna go for the big creatures most of the time because that 2d6 armor pen on tanks is nasty.
The Harpy is actually a good choice and good job on giving it the HVC's, it can be a hidden tank killer. Or a melee'r of skimmers.

My suggestions.
1. Drop a tyrant and grab a trygon prime instead. Same amount of points as your tyrant and is much more durable. Combine that with the fact that it's also synapse, doesn't have to worry about landing on terrain or enemies, has 2 more wounds, more attacks, the same 2x scything talons oh and a nifty 18" s5 gun with 12 shots, it's a much better/scarier choice, I also suggest giving said trygon regeneration for 25 more points.
2. Give a tyrant(s) hive commander, it's good for your army and will let your hormagaunts outflank.
3. Drop the warriors and some/all of the gargoyles and try to either. A: grab some more anti-tank units. Zoanthrops in a pod, trygons, hive guard. Any will do. B: replace them with something else like... 10 more gaunts to round out your squads C: Lictors, raveners, elite genestealers (the more the merrier)

Other than that good job, lots of units, lots of targets, lots of waaaagh.

hivefleetmonolith:

The whole point of giving the Tyrants Wings is not so they can deep strike, but so they can move 12" a turn. That's the concept of this army, that it starts on the table and is fast. So Hive Commander is useless.

As mentioned with the Genestealers: they don't need help against infantry, but the Adrenal Glands gives them the ability to threaten AV14, and Scything Talons increase their number of hits. Whether you agree with the choice or not is irrelevant because the whole point of the threat is to showcase concept list, not get bogged down in irrelevant details.

Part of the concept of this list that I went to pains to explain is to overwhelm the enemy with targets. The Warriors achieve this goal by not only providing the other Troops with Synapse, but provide redundancy to each other, and to the other Missile Launcher and Autocannon targets in the army. Without any guns they are free to run to keep the faster elements in the army moving in the right direction.

Again with the Gargoyles you miss the point that they don't Deep Strike. Sure, they could, but the whole point is to have masses of fast-moving and flexible units.

So all of your suggestions completely miss the point of the concept I was trying to illustrate using that list.

Nurglitch that army is kickass! The majority of armies are going to have trouble taking down that much synapse and that many gaunts and gargoyles. The best way to play nids is target saturation and this list does it perfectly. Also having so much anti-tank without having Carnifexes or Zoanthropes is an achievement in itself.

Just one point though . . . The Harpy, although cool (and looks awesome when made from a Trygon with Balrog wings =p) it's quite weak at T5. I would just go for more targets instead of a Harpy personally. The more the merrier =]

Oshova

This was a very interesting army idea. I need to think a bit more about this one.

Large blast markers and coherency. They will hurt, but no more than about 4-7 hits per turn with around 1.5" spread. Might be around 10 if you need to squeeze.

Small blast markers and coherency. With about 1.25" coherency small blastmarkers should only hit one model at a time. ML seems popular in current meta.

Difficult terrain. Stealers and Hormies have move through cover. 3D6 pick highest averages 4.96, there is just a few percent risk of rolling 1,2 or 3. Jumpers don't care. Seems allright.

Board area required. Lets assume each unit of 20 is deployed 5 wide and 4 deep. We want a coherency of 1.25" to lessen losses from blast markers. This means about 10" wide and 6-7" deep. Six such units will cover pretty much the entire length of the table, or they will need to deploy more than 6" away from the forward deployment line if deploying behind eachother.

Lets instead assume we bunch up a bit, only not much enough to give free hits to large blast markers, so a coherency of 0.75". Then each unit of 5x4 will be 8" wide and about 5" deep. So just over 4 foot wide, including some span between units. Much more reasonable, but frag missiles will hit a lot of targets.

And finally on maximum squeeze, hexagon pattern. 20 hormies/stealers needs ~5" wide, ~3.5" deep. A big blast can hit pretty much every model, a small can hit 10, very dangerous. I'll assume gargoyles can't really squeeze base to base with eachother, but needs about 0.5" coherency sideways to fit wings. So 20 gargoyles will need 7" wide and ~3.5" deep.

This army would probably roll over any of the armies that I regularly play with or against. And I can see some truly earthshattering epic battles fought between this list and an ork footslogger list :-)

Yes, I like this army. I'd like to do some math on how much damage it would take from a couple of different setups of blast weapons. Very good work there Nurglitch!

Mellon I think you just caused my brain to leak out of my nose . . . I thought I could handle numbers . . . But let me get this straight . . . The army is screwed if you get Spearhead?

Oshova

Sorry about that, wasn't my intention. *hands over a napkin* ;-) Honestly, thank you for that compliment.

Well, spearhead would be pretty... crowded. A lot of the army would have to start far back. On the other hand, in a spearhead setup there is likely to be room to set up the stealers in infiltration. The gargoyles can move 12"+run 1d6" first turn, 12"+6" assault next turn. Thats 31-36" threat range over two turns, wich might be far enough. There is for example less than 18" between the spots where the 12" circle intersects the lines that divides into table quarters. So parts of the battlelines can be much closer than during a pitched battle.

Even if nurglitch doesn't imgaine the army so, there are a lot of units that can start in reserve to preserve space on table. And an opposing gunline army would be faced with the worry of either deploying far back towards the short table edge and then risk the stealers outflanking, or setting up more than 18" from the short edge, and then end up much closer to the main army. The stealers doesn't have to decide what to do until at the infiltrators deployment.

All in all, I don't think this list is that very screwed by a spearhead. And a dawn of war would be just hilarious. Two units of stealers on the table, infiltrated far forward. Then just roll on the flying 12+1D6" hordes. Most gunline armies would have significantly reduced firepower the first turn with both the need to move and the night fighting.

Yeah those stealers would be awesome on spearhead . . . really make the opposition think about the possible threats, and then hit them hard with the waves of nids . . . I'm liking this army more and more by the minute =D

Oshova

My bad, I can see where you were going with the army now. It's hard for me to cross over becuase my entire army deepstrikes lol. I dunno, you do have a lot of fast moving units. The fact that you aren't deepstriking anything though is worrisome to me though. Especially if you're fighting a heavy mec or flamer army.

So I'm sorry I didn't grasp the concept of your army. I still think that outflanking the genestealers atleast is a good idea, but my way of playing nids is very different from yours after all :-)

And mine is different again . . . Good ol' fashioned Nidzilla . . . Just cos I would love to field an army with as many monstrous creatures as possible =p

IMO Nurglitch's looks the best competitive army I've seen out of the new codex . . . and it ties in well with the fluff. Memories of the 2nd Ultramarines book, waves and waves of gaunts and gargoyles to wear down the trenches before the monstrous creatures come battering through. =D

Oshova

Good list Nurglitch, its similar to my own but has a completely different thought process to it (no heavies or elites).

Im going to try your list out with some modifications (to fit models I actually own, and a few weapon/upgrade swaps).

I love the list, but it is way over 2k.

I agree with kaiservonhugal:

kaiservonhugal wrote:Nurglitch - that list you have is 2390 points

Panurgle and kaiservonhugal are quite right, although according to the spreadsheet that I worked up it's 2370 points.

For the concept of over-whelming numbers able to affect vehicles, there's plenty of fat that can be cut: the scything talons on the Genestealers, for exampe. They're nice, but they're also marginal.

But we'd also need to drop the Genestealers down to 15 per brood, the Hormagaunts down to 21/22 per brood, and the Gargoyles down to 20 per brood. That's a loss of 27 bodies.

So here's what I'm inclined to do to try and preserve the concept of as many large fast-moving vehicle threatening units are possible:

HQ
Hive Tyrant
w/Pair of Scything Talons, Acid Blood, Wings

Hive Tyrant
w/Pair of Scything Talons, Acid Blood, Wings

Troops
Genestealers (x15)
w/Adrenal Glands

Genestealers (x15)
w/Adrenal Glands

Hormagaunts (x20)
w/Adrenal Glands

Hormagaunts (x20)
w/Adrenal Glands

Hormagaunts (x20)
w/Adrenal Glands

Termagants (x14)
One w/Strangleweb

Fast Attack
Shrikes (x3)
Rending Claws, Scything Talons

Shrikes (x3)
Rending Claws, Scything Talons

Harpie
Twin-Linked Heavy Venom Cannon


Automatically Appended Next Post:
HQ
Tyranid Prime
Pair of Bonesword
Regeneration

HQ
Tyranid Prime
Pair of Bonesword
Rending Claws

Elites
Lictor

Lictor

Troops
Termagants (x30)
w/Adrenal Glands

Termagants (x30)
w/Adrenal Glands

Termagants (x30)
w/Adrenal Glands

Termagants (x30)
w/Toxin Sacs

Termagants (x30)
w/Toxin Sacs

Termagants (x30)
w/Toxin Sacs

Fast Attack
Harpie
Twin-Linked Heavy Venom Cannon

Harpie
Twin-Linked Heavy Venom Cannon

Harpie
Twin-Linked Heavy Venom Cannon

Heavy Support
Biovore

Biovore

Okay, looking at the above list I think I would swap the Lictors out for Venomthropes. The cover will be more useful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Right, some of what Shep described in this thread got me thinking: How to interdict the board.

Here's the plan:

HQ
Hive Tyrant
w/Bone Sword and Lash Whip, Heavy Venom Cannon, Acid Blood, Hive Commander, Regeneration, Thorax Swarm - Desiccator Larve.

Tyrant Guard Brood
Tyrant Guard x2

Elites
Venomthrope Brood
Venomthrope x2

Venomthrope Brood
Venomthrope x2

Hive Guard Brood
Hive Guard x3

Troops
30 Hormagaunts, Adrenal Glands

30 Hormagaunts, Adrenal Glands

Tyranid Warrior Brood
Three Warriors w/Rending Claws, Deathspitter (x2), Venom Cannon (x1)

Tyranid Warrior Brood
Three Warriors w/Rending Claws, Deathspitter (x2), Venom Cannon (x1)

Genestealer Brood
10x Genestealers w/Adrenal Glands

Genestealer Brood
10x Genestealers w/Adrenal Glands

Fast Attack
Spore Mine Cluster
6 Spore Mines

Spore Mine Cluster
6 Spore Mines

Spore Mine Cluster
6 Spore Mines

The notion here is that you can deploy with the Tyrant in the middle of the board, with an identical wing on each side, Genestealers in reserve. In a pitched battle the Tyrant is placed central in cover from one of the two units of Venomthropes. Hormagaunts front Warriors who deploy a foot or so right and left of the Hive Tyrant. The Hive Guard huddle behind the Tyrant. So everything should have a 5+ cover save, etc. Except the Spore Mines. These are deploy to block off the corners and anywhere in the middle that can easily see the Hive Tyrant on the fire turn. Deploying entirely or mostly in reserves gives the Tyranids time to swarm up the board un-molested to make sure that the tanks are driving into their guns and charge ranges. Or, if the enemy tends to Deep Strike, castle towards the objectives. Spore mines placement should prevent castling - if you miss with one of the sides, use the middle cluster to cut off that avenue of deployment. In a spearhead, try to saturate that corner. Dawn of war as for pitched battle.

I have a question for you nurg, how much better is the twin-linked venom cannon? Also have you considered old advesary for your tyrants, that ability would insure that a charge with any of your units will wipe out units in one turn, allowing you to be able to constantly threaten several targets.

I've got 2015 on that last list. I'm also a little concerned about its synapse coverage.

CKO:

I've considered Old Adversay, but the effect is too short-ranged to work on a Tyrant that doesn't have Wings. Moreover it's not entirely the case that a charge with a single unit that wipes out the enemy is entirely a good thing, particularly since it will expose the Tyranids to point-blank enemy fire. Extra movement like Fleet goes further to allowing multiple-charges, particularly if you can dog-leg the run to sneak around expendable screening units if they aren't sufficiently wrapped.

The Twin-Linked Heavy Venom Cannon is more accurate, but having it mounted on Harpies means you have a better chance of getting side and rear shots, where the accuracy acts as a leverage. Also less chance of friendly fire, which is good because the rest of the army is designed to close.

Hesperus:

Probably. I've been lazy recently and haven't been working out lists on spreadsheets like I usually do. Drop a Spore Mine off each Cluster and it's <2000pts again.