Crones are a mixed bag of awesome usefulness str 8 vector strike makes them extremely useful for killing most space marines or space marine equivalents. The vector strike also provided very good anti tank and anti monstrous creatures and is one of the best ways to deal with flyers on the codex, it can also be used (with a little bit of luck) its droll cannon for a very effective transport wiper and content wiper, the vector strike can also be very useful for killing high cover save units like white scars bikers, and venomthropes The tenteclid missiles are also a good option as they are twin-linked against fliers and have srt 5 haywire which with some moderate rolls can cause 2 hull points per each missile (one from the str 5 and one from the haywire). The missile though are sup par vs any other thing in the game and are not a very good option vs ground vehicles due to the bs 3 but an option none the less. The droll cannon is probably the worst and best part of the models. A str 6 flamer is awesome for forcing armor saves on marine equivalents and is really good for killing high cover saving models which pairs nicely with its vector strike. Though this model has suffered greatly from the helldrake scare, tis is why its flamer is not a torrent weapon or ap 3, it still is a very good source of anit cover and anti flyer found within the codex i would definitely recommend one for an all comers tournament army. Silly issues with the unit. Its armor save is a great way to have it die, the solution is having venomethropes and being within 6" of a venomethrope and jinking to get yourself a nice 3+ cover save, this pairs nicely with its ability to vector strike which it can do even after jinking. its t5 which means that a lucky enfeeble combined with a failed grounding test will instant death it. It has sub par close combat abilities so bubble wrap the model behind walls of cannon fodder (gaunts) Also biovores ARE a very good unit to be in a tyranid list, that unit can force so many saves on marine equivalents it is just silly, and due to being a barrage they can snipe out important modles like heavy wepaons, sargents, specail weapons, or even characters. They can rain down a lot of ap4 large blasts of doom which shreds a taudar gun line and forces the tau player to deal with the bios that are out of line of sight (hopefully) and have a 3+ cover save which forces markerlights or ignores cover shots to be used vs them and not other more important units, additionally a failed barraged will create 1-3 mines which will charge in that assault phase with 1-3 srt 5-7 large blasts that ignore cover ie murdur tau, and if that can be combined with other charges it can force some unideal overwatch to be used vs them and not the units you care about. My list of events that i go to is x2 flyrants with x2 brain leech devourers, electro shock grubs x2 tervigons x2 cluster spines x1 norn crown x60 gaunt with spiker rifles (extra range is worth the str 3 ) x4 venomthropes x2 units of x2 x3 hive guard x3 biovores x1 exocrine x1 hive crone This is a 1950 list that can easily be made into 1999+1, 1850, 1750, 1500 (if you found this helpful i can do more reviews on units i generally have an optimistic view of most units in the codex that i use though i do find that a lot of the codex will never see competitive play (for me at least)) placed 2nd local event of 22 people and am on game 13 with all wins i am thinking of being at railhead this year as well as Alamo
umm synapse is not a problem only time i had an issue was vs a necron player who got really luck on a tessaract cube and a JOTWW space wolf player who nuked 2 tervigons in one turn. Also tyranid shrikes make a synapse bubble just to add to the list.
A couple things. For one, synapse is extremely important. The main thing is having enough of it in your list so it can't be taken out easily, as it will often be the first thing your opponent attacks. Depending on your list, if your out of synapse range its almost an auto-lose in the new book. Secondly, Biovores are very good, though the big problem is they are a smaller unit that takes up a HS slot, which, along with HQ, will probably be filled up in every game you play. As far as units that you want go, you'll probably be wanting to pick up 1-2 hive tyrants, a zoanthrope, a venomthrope, perhaps a tervigon, and some termagants to jumpstart your army, the Hive Tyrant and Zoanthrope being the most important units IMO. This will be the core of almost every list you build with the new book. You should also pick up some HS choices, though there are a lot of good ones. Hope I could help.
I dont play TT but when I visited /tg/ about a week or so ago they were screaming bloody murder at how awful the new codex was. But they have a tendency to do that sometimes so take it with a grain of salt.
Something you probably didn't know about nids as long as one model from the squad is in synapse it counts like they all are same with venomtrhope shroud so in theory they can leave a "tail" of units from synapse to wherever there ya go a tip
