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As it reads- Regen: do we think its worth paying the (in my opinion) absurdly high price just for a 1 in 6 chance of regaining a wound?

For a tough creature with plenty of wounds, I think it's often worthwhile - you have a much higher chance of regenerating before dying.

The psychological effect is important too - your opponent is always worried that you'll regenerate, and so pours more fire than usual onto the creature in an ettempt to kill it outright before it can regenerate. That can take a lot of pressure off all your other nids scuttling forwards.

I've run it on a few big critters and found that it didn't work out so well. You'd think that the more wounds it had the better it would work out. I've had the best success with primes where the 10 points doesn't seem so bad.

Personally Im on the fence with it. My wife plays nids, and sometimes that upgrade has become an annoyance and other times it does nothing. I personally think its too pricey to use, and personally wouldnt use it, but again, Ive had games against her, where its taken a couple turns to whittle the bastard down, and them oh look a couple good rolls! and some MC is +2 wounds.

I agree, if Regen was a little cheaper or was on a 5+ it would be much more attractive, but 20 points and having to roll a 6 is asking a lot. Psychologically yes, Regen could be great. It would force someone to, say, focus a Trygon for a turn until it dies, which is no easy task, leaving everything else untouched.

I pretty much always put it on the primes. I like fexes more than should be legally allowed (even though I talk about how worthless they are at the same time) so I usually throw it on them also. The primes are the only ones that I actually get the points worth though.

Would only take regen in a couple of instances

Tyranid Prime and extra points in list. Cheap and at T5 he will often times take instakilling shots for warriors or venomthropes he has joined. Gives him a better shot at continuing to do that for minimal points. Also worth taking if using the prime in conjunction with the Tyrant deathstar (see below)

Hive tyrant deathstar: Hive Tyrant w/ 2+ save and 3 guard. Able to take krak missile hits and if he happens to fail a save then regen gives him a shot to get them back.

In both cases the key point is the regen model is also part of a unit. This allows you a better chance to keep that killing blow off the model. Its also relatively cheap on primes and tyrants.

The other monsters don't have allocation options so usually won't stick around long with 1 wound. They are also higher up on any target priority. And in some cases don't have a cover save, so just plain take wounds too quickly. All in all it just never seems to justify the extra cost on these monsters.

Also, rolling regen can be a frustrating thing. You pay significant points for something you rarely get to even roll for; that needs 6s in order to be successful. Never seems worth it in practice and is usually a let down. If you could roll for it every turn, not just your own; if it had a higher success rate; or if it worked like a psuedo inv like in fantasy then it'd be worth considering.

Pretty much everything winterman said. It's worth it on Primes and Tyrants (and I suppose carnifexes so long as they have Primes attached) due to being able to combine it with wound allocation shenanigans.
Anywhere else, it's not so great.

OIF Knight wrote:As it reads- Regen: do we think its worth paying the (in my opinion) absurdly high price just for a 1 in 6 chance of regaining a wound?

It forces your opponent to completely kill the thing or risk them getting a wound or two back. Which can be okay to take the heat off of other units....but it's pricey on already pricey units (cheap on the Prime, though).