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Yakface++

One volley of a couple of little blast templates for a HS choice? Not worth it. Anyone who sees a biovore can space their models out so that you're only going to get one or two. And 2d6+3 just isn't that effective against most vehicles. A toxin mine wounds on a 4+, but a S10 venom cannon wounds on 2+, against everything.

Yeah, I've gotten lucky before and killed a Leman Russ with an acid mine. But so what? I've done the same with a gunfex and it wasn't luck. I killed a landspeeder with a gargoyle's bioplasma once, that doesn't make them good.

Maybe if you could fire each biovore separately and/or they used the bigger blast templates they might be worth it. But then that would make them effective against marines, and we just can't have that.

Good, once the models are spaced out you can hit them with Hormugaunts and Genestealers, Raveners, and even massed Termagants to kill-zone snipe the few engaged models in the unit, and then run down the unit.

I have had great use of them from experience.
Compared to the 'fexes I have seen them as a randomly useful association. Sometimes better. Sometimes worse. Three of them are basically the cost of a sniperfex.

I have had them kill more than their point cost in games 85% of the time, and claimed a huge number of areas. I allow the caveat the most people make Yakface's mistake, but I do not see that as making it weaker, honestly as it only works against older players. The spore mines left are simply an easy way of saying that there is even utility in missing. A three hit barrage (that can pin) is a pretty fun addition to any synapse that wanders near the mines (check that range and the rules!) and want to split the shooting targets that round. Using a broodlord in the shooting phase is pretty funny - plus if it is warriors the melee ones can detonate mines while the shooters hit an enemy unit.

Honestly I posted this based on my opponents surprise at the actual utility of this unit.

I use them in every game and they have never been the cause of consternation - for me, always for my opponent.

I know I missed nothing in this, I was looking for outside feedback.


Perhaps this is in part because the carnifex shots from BS miss an extraordinary amount of times in real games that I play.

Don't forget the stacking effect of a barrage of Spore Mines hitting a unit within range of 1 or more Psychic Screams.

i don't think it's about the utility of biovores at all. they've always seemed good to me in any edition. but the most fundamental principle of 40k list building is spam. overload your opponent with one kind of target. so filling that last heavy slot with yet another carnifex just tends to get the job done better than anything else.

I don't think taking multiples of units ("spam") is a fundamental principle of Warhammer 40k strategy (aka "list building). A fundamental principle of Warhammer 40k strategy is the ratio of units(A) to units(T) where A is an attacker with effective weapons and T is an ideal target for said effective weapon.

Something fundamental in Warhammer 40k, which only the Long Fangs Space Wolf unit breaks, is the limit of one unit being able to shoot one other unit. If there are two units shooting and three units that can be targets, then one unit that could be a target won't be a target.

Supposing that of those two attacking units (a & b) and target units (t, s, r), unit a is much more likely to affect units s & are but not unit t, and unit b is more likely to affect unit t. Now not only does one unit get a pass, but all else being equal it'll probably be unit s or unit r, because given b is more likely to affect unit t than either unit s or unit are and Warhammer players tend to be risk-adverse.

A more concrete example would be a Tactical Squad (Lascannon, Plasmagun) and a Devastator Squad (Lascannons) against two Tactical Squads (as above) and a Land Raider. I'll leave it to others to fill in the blanks above with these specific units.

Basically, by taking multiples of units a player can increase the ratio of attacking units to target units in their favour if and only if the other player has not also taken multiples of units that are effective against the units taken by the first player. Taking multiple Land Raiders, for example, only works insofar as your opponent does not take multiple units of Lascannon-armed Devastators.

If the first player has taken a variety of units to deal with a range of targets, then the other player can benefit by taking multiples of one sort of target - taking lots of infantry models or taking lots of vehicle models, for example because doing so will cut out lots of incoming fire if that incoming fire is diverse.

But this isn't a fundamental principle of Warhammer 40k, this is essentially a rock-paper-scissors strategy using a fundamental principle of Warhammer 40k, that of one shooter to one target. If it was fundamental, people would have to do this in order to play at a basic level, though unfortunately many people do consider it fundamental. But people don't have to play this rock-paper-scissors kind of strategy to play a strong side in Warhammer 40k.

Although this strategy of specialization works well enough on a level playing field where it works to minimize the benefits of diversity via target denial, it fails in two ways.

Firstly it fails against a tit-for-tat strategy wherein the other player knows that the opposing army will be specialized to deny targets and simply specializes so firepower isn't wasted. You bring tanks to deny the other player the use of anti-infantry weapons/units, they ditch the anti-infantry weapons/units and concentrate on maximizing anti-tank weapons/units. Likewise it fails when the other player simply out-guesses you (an anti-tank infantry army against an anti-tank tank army, for example).

Secondly it fails against a volume-generalization strategy wherein the other player does not have to sacrifice firepower against one unit for firepower against another, the attacking player has enough units toting enough weapons that the other player taking multiples of one unit does not deny targets. A volume-generalization strategy in this context is making sure every unit in an army has some mix of anti-vehicle, anti-tank, and anti-infantry weapons. Armies with the Combat Squads rule can use this strategy well because they can not only increase the range of targets they can engage with shooting, but increase the number of units as well.

In terms of doing the same job, I don't think that a Carnifex can do as good a job as Biovores because they don't have the same job.

..uhm... right... I kind of think you invalidated your own first point Nurgy.

The idea behind taking multiples is two part.
1) If you need job X done, and done reliably, you need multiple units to help make up for random chance.
2) If you have one unit of a type, the rocks/papers/scissors that are strong against it in your opponant's army will quickly be thrown to destroy it. This denies it's purpose, assuming that purpose wasn't "soak up fire".

So to use your example, you take multiple lascannon squads because you need to kill vehicles/big things. One squad might kill a tank that needs killing, but then it can miss, or roll poor pen. That's why point 1 is important. That same lascannon squad can also take a battle cannon shot to the face, meaning it can no longer fulfill it's role. That's point 2.

That is why redundancy in a list is a staple of army building, ie. Warhammer 40k strat.

The trouble with mixing anti-tank in with anti-infantry is that since the vast majority of purchased units can not shoot two different targets (or break into combat squads) all their anti-infantry is wasted shooting at tanks, and all their anti-tank is wasted shooting at orks. (Shooting space marines with anti-tank is always fun, and is why SAFH marines works so well.)

Nurglitch wrote:
Firstly it fails against a tit-for-tat strategy wherein the other player knows that the opposing army will be specialized to deny targets and simply specializes so firepower isn't wasted. You bring tanks to deny the other player the use of anti-infantry weapons/units, they ditch the anti-infantry weapons/units and concentrate on maximizing anti-tank weapons/units. Likewise it fails when the other player simply out-guesses you (an anti-tank infantry army against an anti-tank tank army, for example).

Secondly it fails against a volume-generalization strategy wherein the other player does not have to sacrifice firepower against one unit for firepower against another, the attacking player has enough units toting enough weapons that the other player taking multiples of one unit does not deny targets. A volume-generalization strategy in this context is making sure every unit in an army has some mix of anti-vehicle, anti-tank, and anti-infantry weapons. Armies with the Combat Squads rule can use this strategy well because they can not only increase the range of targets they can engage with shooting, but increase the number of units as well.

as to your first point, building to beat a known list is never worth discussing. if you build an army with all one weapon type you need to get lucky, but build an army with all one target type and you can take on anyone.

and in your second point you seem to assume that taking a little of everything doesn't dilute your firepower against a particular target type, but it clearly does.

this is why 6 fexes is popular, 3 anti-troop dakka fexes and 3 sniper fexes gives you well rounded shooting but forces your opponent to chew through a huge number of high toughness wounds.

No, my point remains valid. Redundancy (that is a better word for it, I agree) is not a fundamental principle of Warhammer 40k, while the ratio of shooting units to target units is.

Redundancy is only a good strategy if, like so many Warhammer 40k players, you are risk-adverse and always play it safe. But it isn't fundamental, it's just another strategic option, and one that emphasizes certain fundamentals (reliability) at the cost of others (flexibility, synergy).

What is fundamental in Warhammer 40k is balancing the number of units with their stamina (size, toughtness, saves) and lethality (shooting, close combat). One step up from that co-ordinating units in combinations complement, synergy, redundancy. If redundancy was fundamental, then it would be prior to (more basic than) considerations of what units can actually do. Which is silly, as players employing redundancy tend to look at what a unit can do (say, Carnificies, or Obliterators) and then double (or triple) up for the reasons you've given. Saying that it is fundamental 'puts the cart before the horse' to use a popular phrase.

More units won't help if the units are easily neutralized or they can't hit hard enough with a long enough reach, tougher units won't help if they cannot hit hard enough with a long enough reach, and hard-hitting units with a long enough reach won't help if they have a short lifespan or there's not enough of them. However you can use different sorts units to cover for each other's faults, to complement each other, you can use units to multiply each other's effects, to create synergy, and you can increase reliability via redundancy.

Redundancy only works as a strategy where it increases the shooting units to target units ratio in favour of the player. It does not work where against tit-for-tat redundancy where you either end up with multiples of the same useless unit or multiples of the same ideal targets (rock or scissors to another rock). It does not work against volume-generalization where there are many units capable of engaging a wide range of targets and you end up tactically strait-jacketed by lack of flexibility.

That's one reason I like the 4th edition of 40k and came back to 40k after quitting in the 3rd edition - the strategic options of synergy and flexibility are emphasized more than they were in the 3rd edition - more and more people are realizing that they don't have to play the old cookie-cutter spam lists. I think that the Eldar best emphasize flexibility, while the Tau emphasize synergy, but Space Marines, Tyranids, and Orks all reward diversity and generalization. Redundancy is still rewards (you'd have to change the game pretty fundamentaly for that), but there are limits to those rewards.

Of course, if you just never bother to take Biovores in the first place or you never actually use them well, of course you're going to have a low opinion of them and fall back on the old and dull Carnifex spam. Nothing saying that you can't actually prefer taking a Carnifex instead of a brood of Biovores (hopefully they'll get rid of the 0-1 limit in the current codex, a bit of rebound from the previous codex I think), I'm just saying that pronouncing that taking multiple Carnifex units is a fundamental part of the game is trying to substitute your own personal standards for objective ones.

Perhaps redundancy is a staple of the way you build armies. It isn't necessary, it isn't fundamental, it's just one of several strategies that's being sold as the only way to play the game well and that's wrong. Fortunately we have forums like this one where people can air some dissent and point out that it's possible to run armies that have more than just the 'no-brainer' choices that forum campers brow-beat people with in the name of advice.

So yeah, having said all that, the only thing I hate about Biovores as they currently are is the 0-1 limit on them!

corinth: Firstly I'm not talking about building to beat a known list, I'm talking about two armies based on a redundancy strategy meeting and the three possible match-ups. If I build all tanks but with an even spread of anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, and anti-tank, and you do the same but emphasize the anti-tank at the expense of the anti-vehicle, my redundancy is simply going to offer you more targets.

Also, there's a difference between taking a little of everything and taking a lot of everything. My second point is that while the former is vulnerable to a redundancy-based strategy like taking six Carnificies because weaker weapons are denied targets, the latter is not. As any Ork player knows, quantity can succeed where quality fails its 2+ armour save.

The interesting thing is, of course, that six Carnificies at T6-7 and Sv3-2+ is considered a huge number of wounds to chew through considering just how many more you can get with the small stuff, regardless of the added flexibility, firepower, etc.

Nurglitch wrote:So yeah, having said all that, the only thing I hate about Biovores as they currently are is the 0-1 limit on them!

Yeppers. I love the things and wish I could use more.

I have managed to kill more with biovores consistently (in both models and points) per game than with just about anything else.
There are exceptions for sure (there was a round I thought bikes were vehicles for some assinie reason and shot T7 with S3 mines - duh).
And my own stupidity makes me forget to fire them once a game.

But even the 'fex needs synapse. Calling 'vores lame for falling prey to pinning is like saying a 'fex stinks because it may need to lurk (so no claiming objectives/quarters) and are denied the +1 cover save.

/shrug

Most of my opponents snicker at them as they are placed but then end the game dumbfounded and impressed.

Nurglitch wrote:corinth: Firstly I'm not talking about building to beat a known list, I'm talking about two armies based on a redundancy strategy meeting and the three possible match-ups. If I build all tanks but with an even spread of anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, and anti-tank, and you do the same but emphasize the anti-tank at the expense of the anti-vehicle, my redundancy is simply going to offer you more targets.

Also, there's a difference between taking a little of everything and taking a lot of everything. My second point is that while the former is vulnerable to a redundancy-based strategy like taking six Carnificies because weaker weapons are denied targets, the latter is not. As any Ork player knows, quantity can succeed where quality fails its 2+ armour save.

The interesting thing is, of course, that six Carnificies at T6-7 and Sv3-2+ is considered a huge number of wounds to chew through considering just how many more you can get with the small stuff, regardless of the added flexibility, firepower, etc.

you specifically mentioned knowing the opponent's list, but that's not really important. yes, a tank army with balanced weapons will lose to an army with all anti-tank, but specializing weaponry that way makes for a very weak list.

lots of everything? ok, except most people play with points limits. there are only two weapon types in the game that can genuinely hurt anything: rending and gauss. the assault cannon is the only rending weapon that is particularly good against hordes, and gauss is limited to necrons. you have to balance your firepower, there's no free lunch.

as to unit selection being more fundamental than redundancy, well i suppose i would agree that "don't use crap units" is a pretty important principle. of course the effectiveness of a unit increases the more of them you have (with some exceptions) so we're not getting away from redundancy that way.

and you can call it shooter to target ratio instead of redundancy/spam if you want, but it's the same thing.

Edit: just curious, what is the distinction you're making between tanks and vehicles?

I generally take biovores. I find that they are extremely durable in my list (which incorporates a lot of genestealers and a large brood of hormagaunts).

In addition to their durability (most opponents don't have the firepower to dedicate to both the biovores and the genestealers/hormagaunts), the biovore brood lets me hold parts of the table and distract my opponent (the more things in play, the better). After they do those things, any significant kills they get are a bonus.

My best bright spot is the game that my biovores killed a devilfish and 4 of the fire warriors that had just dismounted. The DF exploded, killing 3 additional fire warriors, who broke, and fled the table.

corinth: I'm pretty sure I didn't mention knowing an opponent's army list. Could you please quote me so we can get to the bottom of this misunderstanding?

When I say there's a difference between taking a little of everything and lots of everything I certainly acknowledge the points limit. Indeed the use of points in these games is what allows us to choose between small elite forces and larger but less efficient forces. Orks, for example, have an easier time taking lots of everything because they can have big mobs of boyz and big mobs of heavy weapons as a strategic option. They can also have small elite mobs and small mobs of heavy weapons, depending on what the player wants. Similarly Space Marine players can take small squads with Lascannons and Plasmaguns or they can take full squads with Multi-Meltas and Melta Guns. The latter is good at both anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, and anti-tank fire. The former is only good at anti-vehicle and anti-tank fire, and has less stamina.

The shooter to target ratio is not redundancy because the shooter to target ratio is about numbers and not kinds of units. When you add in the kinds of units then you can start to push redundancy as a strategic move. I call them different names because they are different things and amphiboly sucks.

The difference between vehicles and tanks should be obvious. Vehicles are simply vehicles, whereas tanks typically have heavier armour, heavier weapons, and follow the extra tank rules. For the purposes of anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, and anti-tank classifications of weapons think of anti-infantry as S2-4, anti-vehicle as S5-7, and anti-tank as S8-10. These aren't discrete categories, and some weapons bridge them - Rail Guns, for example, are great all-around weapons, Heavy Bolters aren't too shabby against the lighter vehicles, Autocannons and Plasma Weapons do heavy infantry and light tanks equally well.

The only thing I truly dislike about Warhammer 40k is how much more list-building means as compared to fantasy. In Warhammer fantasy, tactics dictate list builds, at least in my experience. People take units that support one another. Units that do not have direct combat function on their own are still useful by enhancing others. The flank charge, the heroic character at the front of a large unit, the forcing of charges and the disruption of marching all mean that people take units more on their role than on the idea that they are worth more than their points indicate. In Warhammer 40k, people consider the game straightforward, entirely a game of odds and ratios and packing as much hurt into a few points as possible. Non-conventional lists are often simply not competitive because we are expected to play in cookie-cutter fashion with cookie-cutter lists.

Because I had few people to play with my early warhammer days, tactical theory was the cornerstone of the game for me. As a result, once I began playing regularly, I had a vastly different outlook on the game than the people that played from the second they started the hobby. I lost quite of few of my early games, but I approached the problem in a different way than most. I never much got into the idea of creating "ultra-lists", but instead I learned to play the game, not the lists. I tooled up my Heroic Senior Officer, despite the points inefficiency of doing so, but I used clever assaults and supporting units to make that choice effective. I would take Leman Russ Demolishers fully expect never to fire the cannon and then use the threat of the weapon to deny my enemy paths to the objective. And it worked. I beat many, many "competitive" armies using mathematically unsound lists because I played a game more about tactics, maneuvering and deployment than the metagame of points and efficiency. When I lost, it was spectacular, but when I won, which was more frequent, it was equally devastating and usually completely unexpected for my overconfident, powergaming opponent.

The lists I use for my Space Marine army is as ineffective as possible in a purely mathematical sense. I use razorback combat squads, small marine units riding 75 points of overpriced, underperforming light IFV. You know what? My wins to losses ratio is still roughly 2-1 because I don't play a game of how many las-plas squads I can pack into 1500 points, but because the choices I make reflect the army as a whole instead of the usefulness of the individual unit. A single razorback combat squad means nothing. But if ALL your infantry are razorback combat squads, equipped correctly, and you use them well, then your returns are greater than the sum of their parts.

"Firstly it fails against a tit-for-tat strategy wherein the other player knows that the opposing army will be specialized to deny targets and simply specializes so firepower isn't wasted. You bring tanks to deny the other player the use of anti-infantry weapons/units, they ditch the anti-infantry weapons/units and concentrate on maximizing anti-tank weapons/units."

that was what i was referring to.

in any case, i see the distinction you're making between shooter-target ratio being a pure mathematical relationship and redundancy being the list building strategy derived from it. i'm not sure why you feel this makes redundancy any less fundamental to the game, but whatever. this has strayed far enough from the topic of biovores.

the point is that simply looking at the merits of the biovore is insufficient if you want to know why the unit is relatively unpopular. the biovore is a great unit, but the fex has added value that must be considered.

I win I'd say 50% of the games I play with Biovore and Mine heavy list, but I have fun....winning is not everything. When I'm tired of running the same old lists it's nice to make a wacky list that can win...

Nurglitch wrote:Good, once the models are spaced out you can hit them with Hormugaunts and Genestealers, Raveners, and even massed Termagants to kill-zone snipe the few engaged models in the unit, and then run down the unit.

True, but barbed stranglers are a much better reason to spread your infantry out than spore mines.

Anarchyman99 wrote:I win I'd say 50% of the games I play with Biovore and Mine heavy list, but I have fun....winning is not everything. When I'm tired of running the same old lists it's nice to make a wacky list that can win...

If I want to use my spore mines from the Macragge set, which I do only for a bit of a change. I buy them as fast attack. Its a nice way to spend the odd few points of filler if I have any FA slots remaining. Though between my winged warriors and raveners this is unlikely to happen often.

i think biovores are highly effective. i play with a large group of people with many different armies and play styles and it rarly fails me.
they have been multipule times i destroied land raiders on first turn. i normaly just equipt them with just bio acid spore mines.
lets face it Carnifex Venom Cannon has 2 shots with bs of 3 meaning on adverage one will hit. and the str 10 with Armor of 14 have a 50% chance that it will not even land a peneitrate. and if you did you can only glance so you have to roll a 6 to destroy it. so you just have to roll a 4, 4, 6, to destroy it and only one chance to miss these numbers. while with bio acid spore mines the chances of destroing the land raider is the same but at least you you can penitrate if you roll high enough. and if you miss you they land on the table and might still have a chance to get to wound on somthing.

For what its worth, the top placed Tyranid list at the UK GT has for two years now included 3 Biovores.

biovores use the large blast marker dont they?

Yah, depending of course on what mine you use. Some only have the small template.

i have my codex, and i dont see which ones have the smaller template. i have been using bioacid mines with my three biovores to great effect against space marines and which hunters. (with the larger of the two templates)
three biovores can easly = less then a well equiped carni and be just as effective. they are great for killing or boxing in foot troops. one of the few ways to get past that dam 3+ saves i hate so much.

They ALL use the small blast marker now.

I've been reading online that spore mines would now yield a kill point to the enemy. Anyone have access to a book to confirm this? It would be a pretty good reason not to take biovores anymore unless you know beforehand what mission you'll be playing.

They do(1vp for every single unit) untill they FAQ it in about 2 years or so and they must all be fired like a squad(if you have 3 in a battery for example)

A fired set of spore mines is not a VP unit.

One sent via Deepstrike is.

This does not touch on Biovores - this hits the FS mines as hard as the 36 points for deploying them in 4e.