Email: Team Tournament in Belarus!

From Erle:

My name is Erle, I'm a newbie 40k tyranid player from Belarus. I read
your blog with a great pleasure. I haven't participated in any sort of
tournaments yet, but, at last, my growing hive fleet Hyenna is going
to take part in a team
tournament. So I wonder if you can help me thinking on my list and
strategy:)

I'm going to participate in pair with a CSM player. The rules of the
tournament is: 2 players at each side, 1000 pts each player.
FOC organization:
1 HQ
0-2 Elite
2-4 Troops
0-2 Fast
0-2 Heavy
Cannot duplicate non troops units. No more than 2 MC's.
So, We had some discussion with my teammate and decided to make a
shooty CSM with Lash accompanied by strong close-combat Nids. After
some toying with numbers I wrote this variant:
== HQ ==
Hive Tyrant (1) - Twin-Linked Devourer - Brainleech Worms, Twin-Linked
Devourer - Brainleech Worms, Wings, Paroxysm, Leech Essence, Hive
Commander, Old Adversary
== Troops ==
Tervigon (1) - Scything Talons, Cluster Spines, AG, Toxin Sacs
Genestealer Brood (18)
Genestealer Brood (17)
== Total ==
1000 pts.

Our plan is to deploy CSM on board with a lot of shooting with Lash
DP. Tyranids start in reserve - stealers and Tervigon outflanking and
Tyrant deepstriking.
As an option, genestealers can infiltrate with chosens:)
As I have not much experience, I'd like to here anything about this concept.
Best regards, Erle.

And his partner's list:

Hi, finally I've got something like a list from my partner:
Chaos Space Marines Army
3 Obliterator Cult (Heavy Support)
1 Chaos Vindicator (Heavy Support) 
    Daemonic Possession
1 Chaos Dreadnought (Elites) 
    Twin Lascannon; Dreadnought CCW; Twin Boltgun
1 Daemon Prince (HQ)  
    Wings; Mark of Slaanesh; Lash of Submission
5 Chaos Space Marines (Troops)  
    1 Aspiring Champion  
         Power Fist; Bolt Pistol; Boltgun
    1 Chaos Rhino
         Pintle-mounted Combi-Melta
5 Chaos Space Marines (Troops) 
    1 Aspiring Champion 
         Power Fist; Bolt Pistol; Boltgun
    1 Chaos Rhino 
         Pintle-mounted Combi-Melta

Ok, here we go...  Just remember it's your first tournament, tyranids have a big learning curve, and team tournaments create unusual dynamics that are often hard to prepare for.  I'll give you my thoughts, but with only 1,000pts to play with, everyone you talk to is going to give you different advice.

Let's start with your partner's list as a solid foundation and assume he is not going to change anything.  All though, I would suggest putting the combi-meltas on the champions instead of the rhinos.  You can still fire from the hatch and you don't lose the melta when the rhino dies.  He's heavily kitted out for anti-armor shooting.  He's mostly close/mid range between the meltas, lash, and vindicator.  So, to work well with him, you want to create targetting issues and synergy with lash and templates.

Applying your list with his, I think we have several areas to improve on.  First don't forget you need at least 10 termagants to make the tervigon a troop.  I think the flyrant is a bit top heavy.  Genestealers are nice, but with a combined force of 2,000pts, I think you'll want one unit to have poison.  FWIW, I always start big units of genestealers on the table to force my opponents into a reactionary stance.

So here's my version:

Tyrant + wings (nothing else, just psychic powers)
Hive Guard x3
Genestealers x19 + poison, broodlord + scything talons (BL only)
Tervigon + poison, furious charge, FnP
Termagants x10

I tried to keep it close to your original list as I don't know what models you have.  The major difference is the hive guard so hopefully you have models.  If you don't consider it, they're probably the best investment in the codex right now.  I added them to compete for heavy fire with the oblits and thus creating a targeting issue.  The oblits ideally want to be templating lashed units anyways, so it's nice to take some weight off their shoulders in the anti-armor department.  I kept the tervigon because you want backfield objective holders.  The chaos marines are suicide squads with melta and fists, you don't want them sitting in the backfield.  The genestealers have poison now and a broodlord.  He actually adds a lot of survivability to the unit with a better armor save and extra wounds.  Give him two wounds before you start knocking over normal genestealers.  The tyrant is cheaper with just wings.  He's going to tag along with the prince so while one is getting shot down, the other has a better chance to make it into assault.

I'm also going to give you a run-down of how I imagine it working, which is the biggest difference to your original email.  I think leaving your partner alone on the field during deployment will lead to him getting shot down quickly, so we're going to start everything on.  Deploy normal forces centrally with your partner, don't spread out across the field.  You want the prince, tyrant, hive guard, and vindicator central to maximize threat arcs.  Deploy the dread on a far flank so if he goes crazy, he doesn't kill anything important.  Put the gaunts closest to him just in case.  If you're clever, you can use the rhinos to cover the flyrant/prince, or vice versa if you have first turn.  You want the two flying monsters to be buddies, keep them close to each other for cover, and psy defense.  Hide the hive guard and tervigon behind the rhinos for cover.  Then, infiltrate the genestealers on the opposite side of the board from the dread.  Make sure you get them 50% in cover and at least one model strung into synapse/catalyst range.  So you have the bulk of your force dead center, dread on one flank, and genestealers on the other. 

Play aggressively with this combination.  Send the rhinos and fliers up fast to get off your psychic powers and apply frontal pressure.  Get the genestealers into assault as soon as possible, but keep them away from your partner's vindicator templates.  When the hive guard get into range, shoot them first so if they open a transport, the oblits can drop plasma templates.  Hopefully the fliers, marines, hive guard, and genestealers are drawing most of the attention leaving the dread to get into optimal position and the tervigon fill up the area behind your line with scoring units.

Overall, it's a good combo given the format and will perform very well if you play it smart.  Good luck and let me know how it goes!