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bought some items on ebay and i have a biovore that came with them, but im wondering if its worth keeping it, 75 points seems rather steep for D3 s6 attacks, the spore mines could be useful if not shot but its invariably one bolter gun to sort them out.

on the flip side could have 3 von leapers with stealth 10" movement and 18 s6 attacks (strikes first), am i missing something in the biovores value? seems a pretty worthless unit and i maybe should shift it on.

thanks

I’ve not got the up to date rules. But typically they can be used for a bit of Area Denial. Drop some spore mines where you don’t particularly want your opponent to go.

Whether they’re any good at that right now, I’m afraid I’ve no idea. It if you’ve got the model(s) already, no harm in giving it a whirl.

Unless something has changed in the past few weeks, biovores are great at scoring secondaries that require a model being in a certain sector of the map to score. They can't score primaries, but that says nothing about secondaries. On top of that, they come in during the shooting phase, so the opponent can't overwatch them and they still deny deep strike with a 9 inch radius bubble which is super annoying for factions reliant on it. My list always has at least 1 in it.

It's changed max 1 unit can do it so no drop 3 mines to 3 different spot.

In purge the enemy double edged as gives easy kill more

One wonders why they didn't just say that Spore Mines cannot score/complete objectives. Surely that's the more logical solution rather than an artificial limit on spawning more mines...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
One wonders why they didn't just say that Spore Mines cannot score/complete objectives. Surely that's the more logical solution rather than an artificial limit on spawning more mines...

they have an OC of 0 and always have, so no idea how anyone was controlling objectives with them, you can deny movements with them or place them on objectives to prevent the other player from scoring, but just shoot them with a passing bolter and dont get within 3"

i think for 75 points theyre just not worth it, a pyrovore its cousin is like 30 points...

secondaries im not 100% sure if they count, but they may have a use there for a cheeky VP, seems very niche though to be spending 75pts a model on a niche opportunity

Not objectives. Secondaries. Behind enemy line. Deploy teleport. Cleanse along unit whose shooting you don't want to lose. Engage all front(

Wolfboy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
One wonders why they didn't just say that Spore Mines cannot score/complete objectives. Surely that's the more logical solution rather than an artificial limit on spawning more mines...

they have an OC of 0 and always have, so no idea how anyone was controlling objectives with them, you can deny movements with them or place them on objectives to prevent the other player from scoring, but just shoot them with a passing bolter and dont get within 3"

Short of being physically in the way & keeping 1 model off a tightly contested objective - theyre OC 0
& can't prevent anyone scoring on a objective.

Wolfboy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
One wonders why they didn't just say that Spore Mines cannot score/complete objectives. Surely that's the more logical solution rather than an artificial limit on spawning more mines...

they have an OC of 0 and always have, so no idea how anyone was controlling objectives with them, you can deny movements with them or place them on objectives to prevent the other player from scoring, but just shoot them with a passing bolter and dont get within 3"

now imagine using 250-450pts of unit to kill a bio mine, because if you don't it will fullfill missions. Thank GW, that now only one biovore per army can deploy them. Having 3 of them spawn new each turn was one of the core mechanics of top tyranid armies pre codex.

Karol wrote:

Wolfboy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
One wonders why they didn't just say that Spore Mines cannot score/complete objectives. Surely that's the more logical solution rather than an artificial limit on spawning more mines...

they have an OC of 0 and always have, so no idea how anyone was controlling objectives with them, you can deny movements with them or place them on objectives to prevent the other player from scoring, but just shoot them with a passing bolter and dont get within 3"

now imagine using 250-450pts of unit to kill a bio mine, because if you don't it will fullfill missions. Thank GW, that now only one biovore per army can deploy them. Having 3 of them spawn new each turn was one of the core mechanics of top tyranid armies pre codex.

Well, split fire exists, and spore mines are very, very fragile. So you should only be firing one or two of that 450 point unit's guns at the mine. Assuming you don't have a cheaper unit hanging out somewhere in that general area that you could use instead. Even if we're talking about an imperial knight army, you're probably popping the spores with heavy stubbers or what have you.

@OP: I feel like a single biovore is nice to have in most lists. Their damage output is pretty dismal, but they can sit on an objective in your backfield and toss annoying spore mines across the table to movement block and maybe score secondaries. I've been kicking around the idea of pairing them with a vanguard detachment army that focuses on locking down the enemy. The idea basically being to use 'stealers to intercept enemy units that try to go for mid-field objectives while units like the biovore sit on your home objectives. Then the spore mines could add yet another annoyance that makes it tougher for the enemy to push forward. Maybe thrown in some barbgaunts or whatever they're called to further slow whichever enemy unit most wants to push up the field.

One thing that does bug me about the biovores is that (iirc) they used to place spore mines any time their attacks missed. So you were either hitting the enemy and probably doing some damage, or else you were placing a speed bump. It meant that shooting a biovore was a win/win scenario and they didn't need to fire a lot of shots or do a ton of damage to be useful. Now, their missed shots are just misses, and they have neither the quantity nor quality of fire to do much damage. Especially if you're taking advantage of their ability to shoot out of line of sight. If GW were to do a second pass on the biovores before the next 'nid 'dex, I think they could reasonably up the strength of the mines quite a bit. After all, if they're doing mortal wounds when they wander near you, they should probably have a high chance of wounding you when they land on top of you. You could crank their strength up to something like 12 without making the biovore OP. (You'd still be looking at a max damage of 6 but a much more likely damage of about 2.) Or alternatively, just let them spawn mines when they miss again. It was a feels-good rule that was also fluffy and made the biovore primarily useful as a speed bump unit rather than competing fore damage with things like exocrines and t-fexes.

EDIT: I'm not sure what the biovore's ideal target is supposed to be right now. They don't have the volume of attacks to make DW all that useful. If you actually shoot with them, you're only making marines take like, 1 save per biovore, and the marine has decent odds of making that save. I guess theoretically you want to shoot them at a T3 horde, but then the AP is kind of overkill, and gaunts/stealers already deal with hordes reasonably well as-is. They're kind of in that okay-against-everything-but-not-great-against-anything position in a game that rewards specialization over generalization. Anyone remember acid mines? Maybe 1 in 3 biovores could be allowed to take specialist mines or something so you have an incentive to take larger squads and get more bang for your buck when doing so.

Seems that tneva82 was the only one who understood what I was saying.

And again, why they didn't just make them unable to complete objectives rather than this needless artificial limit on spawning mines (y'know, the only thing Biovores are designed to do!) is simply beyond me.

If Spore Mines couldn't complete Behind Enemy Lines or deploy Teleport Homers or whatever this wouldn't be a problem.

"But they could still be used for screening!"

Yes... and? That's the point of mines.

Yeah, GW does seem to understand what's going on with mines scoring secondaries. As they keep nerfing the biovore. But they've passed up at least two opportunities to add that rule to spore mines in favour of instead increasing the biovores cost, along with the limit to one spawn per turn.

Now we've got biovores which have a stupidly high point cost for their model and weapon stats (they cost two and a half times the pyrovore, which has the same statline with a different gun). But tyranid armies still include exactly one biovore model because they remain far too good at scoring secondary objective points.
Maybe they will finally prevent the mines from scoring secondary points someday, but knowing GW they'll leave the biovore with its overinflated cost because Reasons.

Arson Fire wrote:
Yeah, GW does seem to understand what's going on with mines scoring secondaries. As they keep nerfing the biovore. But they've passed up at least two opportunities to add that rule to spore mines in favour of instead increasing the biovores cost, along with the limit to one spawn per turn.

Now we've got biovores which have a stupidly high point cost for their model and weapon stats (they cost two and a half times the pyrovore, which has the same statline with a different gun). But tyranid armies still include exactly one biovore model because they remain far too good at scoring secondary objective points.
Maybe they will finally prevent the mines from scoring secondary points someday, but knowing GW they'll leave the biovore with its overinflated cost because Reasons.

i think if they didnt score secondaries they really would be absolutely pointless, i guess my question was more around at what point do they get useful, 500-1500pt battles it seems a big expense when theres other units which are more flexible for objective control, i.e. i tend to find box standard termagants more useful in objective control, 10x of those are 60pts they have OC and skulking horrors is a very useful trait, and players often ignore them + assualt weapons theyre an all round favorite for me

and 1 biovore vs 3 von leapers... or vs a nuerolicter or deathleaper in fact, just seems much better options when points are tight, its very rare i play 1500pt+ battles, and even then winning on technicalities feels a little 'beardy' like a recent battle i had with 12 termagants remaining vs 300pt of marines left on the board, but hey VP are VP and its turn 5!

its good to read other nid players tactics though as im relativly new to nids so its certainly a change of playstyle for me.

Beardy?

Wars aren't won by who kills most so why should 40k?

Wolfboy wrote:
and even then winning on technicalities feels a little 'beardy' like a recent battle i had with 12 termagants remaining vs 300pt of marines left on the board, but hey VP are VP and its turn 5!

Get used to it. Because here in 10e, save for that one mission in the Core Rules (or unless you're making up your own missions/scenarios of course), this game is won/lost on VPs.
You could completely table the opponent & still lose if you don't achieve the victory conditions (usually VPs)....

ccs wrote:

Wolfboy wrote:
and even then winning on technicalities feels a little 'beardy' like a recent battle i had with 12 termagants remaining vs 300pt of marines left on the board, but hey VP are VP and its turn 5!

Get used to it. Because here in 10e, save for that one mission in the Core Rules (or unless you're making up your own missions/scenarios of course), this game is won/lost on VPs.
You could completely table the opponent & still lose if you don't achieve the victory conditions (usually VPs)....

which is a GOOD thing for the game. tabling your opponent should never be a win condition

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

Wolfboy wrote:
and even then winning on technicalities feels a little 'beardy' like a recent battle i had with 12 termagants remaining vs 300pt of marines left on the board, but hey VP are VP and its turn 5!

Get used to it. Because here in 10e, save for that one mission in the Core Rules (or unless you're making up your own missions/scenarios of course), this game is won/lost on VPs.
You could completely table the opponent & still lose if you don't achieve the victory conditions (usually VPs)....

which is a GOOD thing for the game. tabling your opponent should never be a win condition

I think that some missions could include tabling/killing as VP-scoring activites.
But it should NOT be the default-you already want to kill stuff to make your opponent have less units and options.

Wolfboy wrote:
bought some items on ebay and i have a biovore that came with them, but im wondering if its worth keeping it, 75 points seems rather steep for D3 s6 attacks, the spore mines could be useful if not shot but its invariably one bolter gun to sort them out.

on the flip side could have 3 von leapers with stealth 10" movement and 18 s6 attacks (strikes first), am i missing something in the biovores value? seems a pretty worthless unit and i maybe should shift it on.

thanks

Biovore's are arguably the best unit in the Nids dex, even after some very significant nerfs.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Karol wrote:

Wolfboy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
One wonders why they didn't just say that Spore Mines cannot score/complete objectives. Surely that's the more logical solution rather than an artificial limit on spawning more mines...

they have an OC of 0 and always have, so no idea how anyone was controlling objectives with them, you can deny movements with them or place them on objectives to prevent the other player from scoring, but just shoot them with a passing bolter and dont get within 3"

now imagine using 250-450pts of unit to kill a bio mine, because if you don't it will fullfill missions. Thank GW, that now only one biovore per army can deploy them. Having 3 of them spawn new each turn was one of the core mechanics of top tyranid armies pre codex.

Well, split fire exists, and spore mines are very, very fragile. So you should only be firing one or two of that 450 point unit's guns at the mine. Assuming you don't have a cheaper unit hanging out somewhere in that general area that you could use instead. Even if we're talking about an imperial knight army, you're probably popping the spores with heavy stubbers or what have you.

@OP: I feel like a single biovore is nice to have in most lists. Their damage output is pretty dismal, but they can sit on an objective in your backfield and toss annoying spore mines across the table to movement block and maybe score secondaries. I've been kicking around the idea of pairing them with a vanguard detachment army that focuses on locking down the enemy. The idea basically being to use 'stealers to intercept enemy units that try to go for mid-field objectives while units like the biovore sit on your home objectives. Then the spore mines could add yet another annoyance that makes it tougher for the enemy to push forward. Maybe thrown in some barbgaunts or whatever they're called to further slow whichever enemy unit most wants to push up the field.

One thing that does bug me about the biovores is that (iirc) they used to place spore mines any time their attacks missed. So you were either hitting the enemy and probably doing some damage, or else you were placing a speed bump. It meant that shooting a biovore was a win/win scenario and they didn't need to fire a lot of shots or do a ton of damage to be useful. Now, their missed shots are just misses, and they have neither the quantity nor quality of fire to do much damage. Especially if you're taking advantage of their ability to shoot out of line of sight. If GW were to do a second pass on the biovores before the next 'nid 'dex, I think they could reasonably up the strength of the mines quite a bit. After all, if they're doing mortal wounds when they wander near you, they should probably have a high chance of wounding you when they land on top of you. You could crank their strength up to something like 12 without making the biovore OP. (You'd still be looking at a max damage of 6 but a much more likely damage of about 2.) Or alternatively, just let them spawn mines when they miss again. It was a feels-good rule that was also fluffy and made the biovore primarily useful as a speed bump unit rather than competing fore damage with things like exocrines and t-fexes.

EDIT: I'm not sure what the biovore's ideal target is supposed to be right now. They don't have the volume of attacks to make DW all that useful. If you actually shoot with them, you're only making marines take like, 1 save per biovore, and the marine has decent odds of making that save. I guess theoretically you want to shoot them at a T3 horde, but then the AP is kind of overkill, and gaunts/stealers already deal with hordes reasonably well as-is. They're kind of in that okay-against-everything-but-not-great-against-anything position in a game that rewards specialization over generalization. Anyone remember acid mines? Maybe 1 in 3 biovores could be allowed to take specialist mines or something so you have an incentive to take larger squads and get more bang for your buck when doing so.

They're relatively cheap objective campers that create free objective campers and also can shoot indirect.

If they kill 4 marines over the course of a 5 turn, they've just about made their points back while also allowing you to score basically any objective on the board that gets left undefended.

Spore mines are OC 0 though. Can an OC 0 unit "control" an objective provided no one else is standing on it?

The spore mines can still score secondaries of course, but I'm not sure they function as "objective campers."

Edit: Also, I'm pretty sure killing 4 marines over 5 turns might actually be rolling a little above average for a biovore. Haven't crunched the numbers, but you're probably rolling pretty hot if you both kill 4 marines and also have time to spit out some mines.

Edit 2 Electric Boogaloo: Sloppy math says the biovore averages 2 shots when it shoots. Assuming it holds still but shoots indirectly, it will hit on 4+ for a single hit on average. Strength 6 means you'll make marines take 0.67 saves. AP-1 means the marines will fail 0.335 saves. Which would mean you'd average about 1 dead marine every 3 rounds. Or put another way, an average of 1 and 2/3rds dead marines in a 5 round game. Devastating Wounds brings that up a little, but averaging 1 hit per round means you'll only get 5/6ths of a critical wound per game. And of course shooting at marines in cover would bring the average down a smidge. So you're probably going to get closer to 2 dead marines per biovore rather than 4.

So if you're playing against marines, a biovore does very, very little offensively. Their value is almost entirely in being a cheap-ish objective sitter that stays out of sight (but other units could do it cheaper) and in whatever the spores bring to the table. Which is roughly 15 points worth of value based on the points cost of a unit of 3 spore mines. So I guess GW's logic is that a single biovore allowed to hang out in the backfield all game is adding roughly 75 (15 times 5) points of value to your army over the course of a game, although obviously spores are less valuable in later turns as they won't be able to movement block or get in exploding position as reliably.

Maybe the biovore's shooting profile is more worthwhile against something like guardsmen?

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Spore mines are OC 0 though. Can an OC 0 unit "control" an objective provided no one else is standing on it?

No.