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Greetings 40K players.  I have a Tyranid team with a variety of characters in it, from both close combat genestealers to shooting zoanthropes and carnifexes.  However, I have a very hard time with Tyranids when it comes to beating Tau.  They have great long range and the "shuffle" after every shot makes them near impossible to hit.  I have the bad habit of spreading out my hive too much and everyone is getting massacred by the fourth and fifth turns.

Anyone know how the hive can best these Tau menaces?  Thanks!

Meiotic Spore Sacks (from FW, rules in IA4) should give crisis and stealth suits fits. I'm currently painting up 6 of them.

Gunfexes (venom cannon + barbed strangler, enh. senses and reinforced chitin) will beat hammerheads as long as they don't play the range game. Marching the fexes up the center makes their 36" range move & shoot wepaons hard to avoid. Give the gunfexes T7 to help vs crisis weapons.

Psychic Choir lists are very fun against Tau with their low LD, especially with respect to target priority tests.

Basic Hormagaunts are pretty good against Tau and can close range fast. Again, come up the middle so he can't just redeploy over to the opposite flank and make you come down the length of the board.

I would go with hordes of hormagaunts, full choir with CC Flyrant and shooty Tyrant, 2 Gunfexes and 6 Meiotic Spore Mines.

I agree with Strange about the Hormagaunts. Now, I have learned that our favorite leaping 'gaunt is next to worthless against your average MEQ, but they can put some pain down on Tau. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to catch up with those jumpy suits (other alternatives being flying/rending warriors or possibly lictors, rather costly).

Can leaping hormagaunts still be made rending? If so, are they not essentially as good (if not better) then harlequins for about half the points?

No rending for hormagaunts in 4th ed.

(non-monstrous) RC platforms include Raveners, Genestealers, Lictors and Warriors.

Raveners are my favourite, but they are *very* fragile to shooting; you really need to be able to hide them completely until they can pull off their 19-24" assault. Preferably behind a wall of MCs. It can be hard to guarantee hiding them against jet pack troops.

Stealers are good only with extended carapace and in large numbers, so you have to commit a lot of points and troop slots to them. Not really worth it unless you're facing MEQs. Crisis and Stealth (their targets) can move away faster than stealers can advance even with the best fleet rolls. The only way to make it work is to pin down the suits with Hormagaunts and get the stealers in a turn later.

Lictors are only half-decent if you charge two of them in at the same target. I almost always scatter them badly on the deepstrike, so I don't use them anymore.

Warriors are expensive for what they do, compared to Raveners. They need extended carapace and leaping, but they still don't get to fleet. I've used them successfully against Necrons when combined with Hormagaunts to pin down a big shooty unit for a turn, then bring in the leaping Warriors.

Rending is over-rated if you're not facing all 3+ save. Even against Crisis heavy Tau, I'd want to overwhelm them with bodies and make them roll lots of saves. Unless the Crisis are sporting burst cannons and flamers (not popular configurations) they won't be very effective against lots of light troops. Invulnerable Shield Drone saves work against rending, remember.