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With the release of the new codex, synapse coverage is now more important than ever. With the beating Tervigons took, what is the new best option for synapse? MSU warriors? Tyrants with synapse range buffs? Tervigons with crowns and dominion? With all the options, and a need to fill the gap left by Tervigon spam. Whats the best option?

All I can see working in my meta is loads of Warriors backed up by MC overload. If almost everything is a synapse creature, then you mitigate a lot of the issues people seem to be having.

The issue is, they can still be mowed down quite readily, so... we'll see.

Ive been thinking of trying a tyrant walking with VC, miasma, and crown. Take dominion and 2 or 3 guard and walk him up the board. 24 synapse range will cover a major chunk of the field, but its an expensive unit. I would have to try to keep him in cover. Not sure if its worth the points....

When I get around to doing a Tyranid army I was considering trying out heaps of Tyranid Warriors and Primes, with absolutely bucket loads of Gaunts and Gants. No big bugs anywhere in the list. Not sure it would be evenly remotely competitive though.

Zoanthropes are a pretty decent, cheap and survivable option since they're our only unit with a real Invulnerable save. Aside from that, I'm thinking a Flyrant, small units of backfield Warriors and/or a Prime.

An important thing to keep in mind for synapse is that ideally you want overlapping coverage on everything in your army. You don't want your opponent figuring out the critical Artosis Pylon...er... synapse creature to take out that results in units taking IB tests. This means that you need lots of sources of synapse, and you need them cheap, cause even the tougher ones aren't that tough anymore.

While you're going to be taking Hive Tyrants, they're probably not going to be good sources of synapse, since footslogging them alongside the rest of your army isn't anywhere as good an option as it used to be. The preferred option, flyrants, are not going to be in a good position for synapse coverage, even with Dominion, if you want their firepower to do anything.

Tervigons are way too expensive and not effective enough to provide effective synapse coverage either. One might be okay, but that's not full synapse coverage, and must be supported by other elements.

Zoanthropes do work, although they're also quite squishy. You'll probably have to take multiple single Zoans to get effective cheap coverage, which cuts into your Hive Guard (then again, Hive Guard aren't auto-takes anymore either).

We all know how sucky warriors are, but they might be one of the less gakky options as long as they're kept very cheap. Maybe just three with one Barbed Strangler and they stay in the backfield alongside Zoanthropes.

Full synapse coverage that I'd be mildly comfortable with would be something like:
2 x Flyrants
2 x single Zoanthrope
2 x 3 Warriors with Barbed Strangler
(optional, potentially replacing a synapse element) 1 x Tervigon

Without a Tervigon, you're only wasting about 300 points of your list on keeping your army from falling apart (The Flyrants are useful apart from synapse coverage), and the synapse providers can help keep your backlines safe. You're still going to fail hard against Tau and Eldar, but them's the breaks for Codex:Tyranids in general.

Flying hive tyrants, obviously.

Zoanthropes. At least 2, I'd say, either as a pair if you are using your elite slots for other stuff, or as two singletons if possible.

Warriors are an option but I think if you have Fast Attack slots spare (admittedly tricky), upgrading them to Shrikes is better still. They don't score, but they're twice as fast-moving for the same price, can still contest, and will hopefully be getting a better cover save from Gargoyle screen + near-ish venomthropes that you don't have to worry too much about the weaker armour save.

I think it just has to be a strong mesh of units. All of the units with synapse capabilities have decent other uses. A prime can all ways jump into a unit. Zoeys are great because they do still provide useful abilities to the army. Your warriors can be used to sit towards the back and possibly counter assault anything that threatens backfield objectives. Honestly at this point warriors are begging to be assaulted by quite a few things. With LW/BS they get to strike at I 7 with ap 3 and a chance of ID they can only hope to have something that isn't a CC monster charge them. Your tervigon is now a baby sitter for the big shooters or carnifexes. Have him trot beside them and sprint any gaunts he spawns into the closest synapse bubble, which shouldn't be far. Regardless he can still be a 6w t6 scoring monstrous creature. Once he doubles out on spawning as long as there aren't any gaunts around he shouldn't be a huge target. There still is the ability to DS Trygon primes for down field Synapse coverage, though not as effective as podding in creatures it can mitigate the repercussions on your faster creatures. It still may be incredibly easy to blow apart synapse for your tower defense armies, the ones that set up their defenses and hope nothing can get by. It will take strategy but tyranid players are use to not having easy wins.

It depends on the rest of your army and what kind of advance you plan to make.

Ground Pounder Army
-Most survivable synapes for you points IMO is Zoanthropes but... they will not keep up with a fast paced army and compete with venomthropes for elite slots. If your walking across the board at standard infantry pace you will need that cover save bonus if you want anything to actually make it to the enemy.
-Shrikes and Trygon Primes are flexible but ones squishy and the other is well, not exactly cheap.
-Primes are quite survivable with a unit but you wont be able to take Flyrants...
-Warriors are a little(not much) more survivable than Shrikes but less flexable.

Fast and Furious Army(planning on being at your opponents front door on turn 2?)
-Flyrants synapse range can be useful here but I wouldn't 100% depend on it. Those are best left with the flexibility to deal with threats your other units can't easily get to.
-Up to two units of warriors could be outflanked with hive commander but there's no guarantee they will come in on the side you need them to...
-Due to lace of spore pods (curse you GW!) deep striking Shrikes and/or Trygon Primes are your only real options here IMO.

I'm sure there's more to consider but all in all I'd say you can have flexible and/or cheap and/or survivable synapse but never all three of those things.

It seriously depends on the army as a whole.

Defensive armies benefit from Tervigons, Warriors and Zoanthropes.

Offensive fast armies benefit from Flyrants and Trygon Primes.

Whatever you choose you need a proper net, as has been mentioned even a tanked up 3 Guard Tyrant with catalyst and a venomthrope can be got to if your opponent wants it bad enough, and if it's your only synapse they will.
A regenning Tyrant taking the first wound or two then passing them back to his guard makes him a pseudo 10W regenner which is kinda tough.

I'm currently favouring one such Tyrant with a smattering of Tervigons, Zoans and the odd Warrior brood. I've even been toying with letting the Trygon Prime back into the list but there are so many nice heavy support options.