I m player of 3 campaigns in sector Jerycho. Two of them are Deathwatch and one is Black Crusade.
In all of said campaigns I have faced Tyranids. We mostly won but we have one problem.
The problem is that in every encounter with Tyranids, synapse is allways 50 meters under the surface and is surounded by a lot of guards that will trow theyr lives to save it. I happend to be over the top if it comes to S bonus (81) khornite Deamon Prince
and i m able to trow custom Xeno tech trowing knifes that deal over 120 (78 at that time) dmg per hit. As a Deamon Prince I can see synapse even in the underground tunels. So i atemped to kill synapse. As a khornite I used 4 fp to land 4 hits that should kill synapse. I could only kill the guards. My point being no matter how strong are you in encounter with Tyranids you are not able to kill synapse.

As a Deathwatch Kill Team we have no option to even atempt to kill it. There is no possible gear that can help.
We have a real strugle with it we are getting countered by Tyranids. Note I play as Dead Cabal in outer reach.


Is this a standard strategy that Tyranids use or is this just the thing of my GM? I mean how to fight this?

Sorry for my bad gramar english is not my main language. Hope you understand.

ypur gm is not playing right. Tyranids have no individual fear of death and as a rule synapse creature should not hide. If he insists on these tactics then max out on long ranged firepower, stay at the edge of effective range and pick the nids off with long range fire because their synapse creature is 'anchoring' them by staying in a hole.

other tricks might be to take a librarian with offensive psyker powers and long range detection abilities, he might be able to attack the synapse creature even underground. Also just tell your gm he's not making the game fun for you.

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OK, first off, I'm this GM, so I may be slightly biased here ;). But I'll try to answer these points.

3 hours ago, Professor Tanhauser said:

ypur gm is not playing right. Tyranids have no individual fear of death and as a rule synapse creature should not hide.

Why? Tyranids do not have a fear of death, but this does not make them mindless when in range of a Synapse. Licotrs hide and use ambushes, Mawlocs try to make holes in the best possible places, generally speaking Tyranids have very good tactics. Remember Battle for Macragge? There, on the Cold Steel Ridge, they used impressive tactics to beat Guillman and his forces despite them being heavily fortified and prepared. Tyranids do hide and use cover, too.

3 hours ago, Professor Tanhauser said:

If he insists on these tactics then max out on long ranged firepower, stay at the edge of effective range and pick the nids off with long range fire because their synapse creature is 'anchoring' them by staying in a hole.

other tricks might be to take a librarian with offensive psyker powers and long range detection abilities, he might be able to attack the synapse creature even underground.

These are actually both viable tactics, especially the first one!

In what way is your exact damage output relevant to the matter at hand? Stating that you are a high level melee specialist would be sufficient.

Anyway, Tyranids are not a mindless swarm, even if they often employ that tactic- they send infinite waves of simple organisms strictly because they can easily recycle their corpses, while the enemy cannot easily replenish ammunition, therefore giving them a resource advantage.

Hell, the hive mind was even capable of outsmarting Marneus Calgar , who is considered one of the greatest tacticans in the Imperium.

What I'm trying to say is that the Tyranids will use every available asset and advantage they can, just as any other sentient race. If they have underground corridors to hide their synapses from danger, and they deem that more important than using them for their raw power (most synapses are formidable warriors as well) they will.

The point about their fearlessness actually favours their strategy of selflessly sacrificing bodyguards- there is no hesitation, no second thoughts. Any beast considered of lower value than the synapse will be sacrificed in order to protect it.

If it was easy to kill a guarded leader of the swarm, what would be the point in guarding them in the first place?

There are ways, however. Snipers are the obvious ones- it's what they're meant to do, after all. Hidden or sufficiently powerful explosives might do the trick as well. They're hiding in the caves? Great, bury them alive. Or just attack them together, wipe out their guards and kill them once their protection is gone.

Call in a lance strike to kill the bugs on the surface with a one shot, the dig the leader out of his hole after his minions have been obliterated from orbit.

Another counter to this might be to get a fix on the bigbug's location and have yourself teleported into his hideyhole. Oopsie! Now his minions can't help him.

On ‎6‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 10:00 AM, Professor Tanhauser said:

Call in a lance strike to kill the bugs on the surface with a one shot, the dig the leader out of his hole after his minions have been obliterated from orbit.

Another counter to this might be to get a fix on the bigbug's location and have yourself teleported into his hideyhole. Oopsie! Now his minions can't help him.

Yeah that works real well in starship troopers where the leader is a fat bug. With the nids... If your Lucky it's just a hive tyrant.

On 05.06.2017 at 6:21 PM, Professor Tanhauser said:

ypur gm is not playing right. Tyranids have no individual fear of death and as a rule synapse creature should not hide. If he insists on these tactics then max out on long ranged firepower, stay at the edge of effective range and pick the nids off with long range fire because their synapse creature is 'anchoring' them by staying in a hole.

other tricks might be to take a librarian with offensive psyker powers and long range detection abilities,

It doesn't need to fear death for this, just to be considered relatively "expensive" and important for holding the area. But yeah, doing this ALL the time is BS.

When it IS dug in, repeatedly calling artillery, or even better orbital bombardment is the most obvious solution. After all, it's not going to run anywhere...

On ‎13‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 10:50 PM, TBeholder said:

It doesn't need to fear death for this, just to be considered relatively "expensive" and important for holding the area. But yeah, doing this ALL the time is BS.

When it IS dug in, repeatedly calling artillery, or even better orbital bombardment is the most obvious solution. After all, it's not going to run anywhere...

Depends how deep they burrow. One of the older codexes mentioned 'nids burried so deep in the planet's crust they survived exterminatus.

On 13.06.2017 at 10:50 PM, TBeholder said:

It doesn't need to fear death for this, just to be considered relatively "expensive" and important for holding the area. But yeah, doing this ALL the time is BS.

When it IS dug in, repeatedly calling artillery, or even better orbital bombardment is the most obvious solution. After all, it's not going to run anywhere...

Yep, that's why I'm not doing it ALL the time ;). However, using every available cover is definitely rational in case of important units facing enemies with strong firepower.
Obviously, this tactic is useless, for example, if enemies use artillery (Medusa with bunker-penetrating rounds will destroy any underground Synapse), if there is no time to make tunnels (like when they're attacking, which happens 90% of the time if not more) or if there's a need for mobility. That's why my players lately managed to kill 9 Zoanthropes and are going to kill even more other Synapse creatures on the next session, because nids are attacking and they did not have time to make tunnels, as they are in a haste.
However, when you are in a Tyranid-controlled area with little to no cover except digging underground and you need some Synapse to control long-range firing units like Hive Guards, than putting Synapse under 20 or more meters of ground is a good thing. This way, expensive Synapse has cover, Hive Guards are under control, and since they are firing at long ranges and nearly all Synapse units are useless in a long-range firefight, you do not lose firepower that way.
As for orbital bombardment, I highly doubt you need more than 1 accurate hit to wreck every underground Synapse, so you do not even need to call it multiple times ;). Lance from orbit will kill it instantly, if it hits. Actually, let me continue this point here...

On 6.06.2017 at 10:00 AM, Professor Tanhauser said:

Call in a lance strike to kill the bugs on the surface with a one shot, the dig the leader out of his hole after his minions have been obliterated from orbit.

Another counter to this might be to get a fix on the bigbug's location and have yourself teleported into his hideyhole. Oopsie! Now his minions can't help him.

If you have access to orbital bombardment, nothing short of Titan or Void Shield can stop it. Since Tyranids do not use Void Shields and Bio-Titans are extremely rare (no pun on Availability intended),you can pretty much destroy any target this way. Which is a good idea, if you have it.
However, since Tyranid armies are vulnerable against fire from the orbit, the only way you will get extensive fire support against them is you won the orbit, nuked their main army from orbit and you are hunting survivors. Which is a good idea for a few missions, actually.
But if they have an army on the ground, it stands to reason that they control most of the space above the planet to prevent bombardment, or at least they are engaging Imperial Navy and it can't really spare a ship to fire an orbital strike somewhere, especially since orbital bombardment is not too accurate and probably few shots will be necessary even considering their awesome destructing power. Even Blast 20 100d10 of Damage is useless if it hits 50 meters away from the target, after all.
But yes, if you have some Orbital Bombardment to spare, it can work wonders.

As for the teleporting - it's a great idea, but once you kill Synapse, now you have to either survive X minutes (30, if I'm not mistaken) for the Teleportarium to cool down, or escape on foot, from Tyranid tunnels while being in a middle of a force that was previously controlled by a synapse and now is either in frenzy or hiding and waiting for you to come out and shoot with whatever weapons they happen to have. It's doable, but risky. I'm not sure if I wouldn't prefer to fight them in ranged combat on the surface, rather than close-quarters in underground tunnels and such.

On ‎14‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 9:52 PM, Robin Graves said:

Depends how deep they burrow. One of the older codexes mentioned 'nids burried so deep in the planet's crust they survived exterminatus.

True, but a bug dug in deep enough for that is not going to be providing synapse connection to anything on the surface.

Ultimately, killing a hive tyrant - even on the surface - generally requires punching through tyrant guard and surrounding swarms. But if it's been so kind as to burrow itself tens of metres underground, then (a) its non-trivial combat potential is not being included in the fight, giving you more of an advantage over the swarm on the surface, and (b) it's not able to redeploy. Unless the mission is, for some reason, to kill this specific synapse creature, follow standard special forces protocol - "If the enemy has an unassailable defensive position, let him stay there - whilst you go and blow up something important elsewhere."

The Deathwatch don't exist to do unsophisticated frontal assaults. That's what the Imperial Guard is for. You should be hitting choke points as the enemy tries to advance (and is stuck out of cover), or deploying chem-weapons to digestion pools, or hunting spawning nests to wipe out immature genestealer and carnifex broods before they become a threat, or performing covert recon to spot for orbital strikes and drop pod deployment, not attacking fixed positions.