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I've been draw to the tyranid codex of late, but I'm no experienced hive commander, and beyond that, not exactly a seasoned general.
I feel like nids are one of those finesse races, who's benefits come with understanding and making use of your variety of choices. Of course it's also true that giving a player a lot of little interactions can often lead to a major flop or two down the road.

That's why I'm coming to you Dakka! I've been seeing all this focus on the tervigon, and how everyone loves an army multiplier and unit generation, I hear about all kinds of neat tricks to using them, but I can't help but feel like something is missing in my understanding. How do you make the most of your tervigons?

I believe most of my problems lay in judging how the unit is to be used, and playing around it's bonuses. Those ranges are awfully short for a lumbering oaf like the tervigon, and the rest of your army is awfully fast or likes to be deployed in whacky ways. In addition, I can't figure out if you should be aggressive with them or not, given the short buff range and the heavy synapse body, and the gants pooping out with the ability to do damage, it seems like a really good idea. But it feels like their slow speed would make their eventual presence less gratifying, that they would be better off trying to keep themselves defensively positioned around another vulnerable cornerstone like hiveguard and try to take objectives.

So how do you juggle the various ranges and check timings of your Tervigons. Do you let your other unit's do their thing and let the tervigon's bonus come up when it presents itself? Do you keep him safe, finding other ways to get synapse forward, while they hold objectives with other long/midrange units. Do you hold your speed and deployment in check so as to make use of all the buffs you can in one big scary wave?

I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I'm starting to think you can't rely on brood progenitor so much. I bet there is also a lot of benefit to be taken from thoughtful placement of objectives. I'm just looking to get some advice from some seasoned generals before I get excited and buy a bunch of stuff I'm not sure what to do with!

How you play your tervigons does depend a good deal on what else is in the list. Are they supporting stealers or trygons or are the tervigons themselves the assauling power (well the termagants they support).

I don't play a shooty tervigon spam list so can't comment there. I tend to run two big blocks of stealers with two tervigons. In that case the tervigons are generally scoring and support (eg giving stealers FNP), the stealers are doing most of the initial killing and the termagants are mop up.

Couple of tips:
The short range of the powers can be mitigated somewhat.
--You get to move before catalyst so that helps.
--Give your termagants units some 'tails'. You can ensure they are within 12" even with assault/react moves if you keep a tail of termagants trailing back to your tervigon. You can do the same for catalyst also (my stealers will often times infiltrate up forward but have a tail back to ensure catalyst can be cast on them).

Tervigons are not as slow as they seem
--Spawning gants have a pretty impressive threat range, 6" from base + 1" for base size + 6" move +6" assault = 19" threat range. The issue for them is getting enough of a spawn to matter. There will be instances you get 5 gants and they aren't a threat or even a speed bump. That threat range is part of using them aggresively, you will sometimes catch opponents unawares or get some termagants onto faraway objectives using spawn.

Know when you have to do things and don't forget!
--Spawning happens before move/catalyst. You also move the termagants after a spawn. Note the way the rule reads you can spawn/move the gants then come back to the tervigon sometime later to do its moves and psychic powers.
--Catalyst has to be cast sometime while you move the tervigon, either before or after it moves. Timing here is key often times you want to cast catalyst before moving the target, etc. Just really think through timings and ranges. Be carefull too as I have had somem bubble wrapping termagants block neccesary moves of my tervigon.

Hope that helps

The advice given above is very usefull, I'll second that.

But, if you feel the Tervigon is not the model that fits your style, then by all means use another build! I for example, run a list made of all Deep Striking units (Trygons, Spore Pods). There are alot of builds that, in my opinion, do not need the finesse your talking about to be effective.

For example a list which uses really tough units like the Hive Tyrant bunker, Tervigons as troops, and Trygons as heavy support (and some Hive Guard). This army works well if you simply deploy and run as fast as you can forward.

Feluca