Bio-Morphs Rundown

[jackedup]

So, I'm interested in everyone's opinion on the new bio-morphs. What's your favourite bio-morph, and why? How are you intending to us it?

[seethe]

I have been thinking of how to use the Bio Artefacts since i found them in the codex. I have a feeling i will try the Miasma cannon on a flyrant and the norn crown on a tervigon and go from there. although the ymgarl factor might be useful, i think the other two will outweigh it. norn crown and dominion will provide quite a hefty boost to synapse

[guns]

I'm just going to go through the wargear page...

Basic Bio-weapons

Scything Talons: What is there to even say? They don't do anything.
Spinefists: Still inferior to Fleshborers on Termagants, but at least they're free now. They suck on everything else that can take them.
Deathspitters: Same as they were in 5th/6th. You can put them on Warriors and kill infantry, but your Warriors are still a ****ty platform for ANY weapon.

Basic Bio-cannons

Barbed Strangler: Whatever. If you're obsessed with shooty Warriors you may as well pay for one of the cannons.
Venom Cannon: See above.

Monstrous Bio-cannons

TL Deathspitters: Completely suck, but at least the points cost was lowered to account for that reality.
TL Devourers with Brainleech Worms: Still excellent.
Stranglethorn Cannon: Nope. MCs can no longer take both a STC and HVC, and there's not much point just taking one of them.
Heavy Venom Cannon: See above. Slightly more useful than the STC since you can at least hit vehicles and pierce 4+ armour.

Melee Bio-weapons

Rending Claws: Basically the same, although the AP 5 will help occasionally Just unfortunate that most of the RC creatures aren't very good to begin with.
Boneswords: Kind of dumb. For 5 more points you get,
Lash-whip and Bonesword: This. Which does the same thing as Boneswords, plus something else.

Biomorphs

Toxin Sacs: 10 point version still good on MCs for the rerolls. Probably too expensive for the little critters to effectively utilize, since they all pay 2 or more points per model.
Acid Blood: Garbage, worthless, a prototypical "never take"
Adrenal Glands: Fleet MCs are fun. Like TS, probably too expensive to put on anything else. Although, to be fair, I liked AG Termagants in 6th as emergency vehicle punchers, and even though the cost of AG went up the overall price for that unit stayed the same due to an equivalent points decrease to the basic Termagant cost.
Regen: Very expensive, but seems good. Probably best if you can sling it on multiple MCs, so that your opponent can't just focus-fire the one or two models that have it.

Thorax Biomorphs

Electroshock Grubs: Good enough weapon, but lack of really good platforms to put it on.
Dessicator Larva: See above. The least versatile thorax weapon.
Shreddershard Beetles: See above.

Bio-artifacts

Maw-Claws: Bad, but honestly pretty cheap. If you get one rend or one rerolled 1 that turns into a hit/wound it pretty much pays for itself.
Miasma Cannon: I'll try it on a Troopigon. Quite expensive, but it will let the Terv camp a distant objective and still shoot stuff.
Norn Crown: Too expensive. Completely mispriced.
Ymgarl Factor: Kind of sucks. I guess it could come in handy on a combat Tyrant or Trygon Prime, but not a great idea at that cost.
Reaper: Soooooo expensive, but I'd like to try it on a Trygon Prime. And then send him out to punch a Wraithknight in the balls.

[nameless]

I've got a few comments based on guns' list.

Spine fists with termagants are statistically equivalent to fleshborers on most targets. Those of us that have lots from old editions may want to use those to unlock troop tervigons and the new ones as spawns.

Stranglethorn Cannon and HVC do two different things. I don't think you could ever take both (or was it just too expensive it was not a good idea?). With Melee fexes and enough psychers, the questions is "Do I have enough psyckers to get enough onslaught to warrant T1 and T2 shooting over an extra attack in melee?" I think the most common answer is that you'll end up doing more with the STC on the way in that one more attack that hits 50% of the time.

[gigasnail]

spinefists got an indirect nerf with ravenors and warriors, as they lost an attack.

nameless in 4th, you could take both biocannons at once, back when they werent' garbage. it was the sniperfex build and i wish i'd have been around to see it.

[scorpio]

Just to clarify something with lash whips, do they add the 3 int after other modifiers or before?
Just thinking if you charge into cover or want to smash then that could be really useful, otherwise it's a bit of a nerf in my opinion as it only affects user and still means that to get decent combat warriors you'll be paying a hefty cost for something that gets splattered by an 8+ <AP5 pie plate. And there are a lot of those. Unfortunately think they'll be stuck on the shelf again this edition.

[scorpio]

Just to clarify something with lash whips, do they add the 3 int after other modifiers or before?
Just thinking if you charge into cover or want to smash then that could be really useful, otherwise it's a bit of a nerf in my opinion as it only affects user and still means that to get decent combat warriors you'll be paying a hefty cost for something that gets splattered by an 8+ <AP5 pie plate. And there are a lot of those. Unfortunately think they'll be stuck on the shelf again this edition.
On topic, my favourite one so far looking at them is the reaper, extremely over costed but seems like it could hit extremely hard. A tyrant with it and adrenal glands hit with str 8 reroll wounds and life drain (I think it might do more but not sure).

[Kwodd]

Being able to equip dual HVCs or STCs on our MCs is pretty awesome.

[gigasnail]

you can't. its' in the footnotes ; ;

[Nightmare20]

Jan 11, 2014 9:05:31 GMT gigasnail said:

spinefists got an indirect nerf with ravenors and warriors, as they lost an attack.

nameless in 4th, you could take both biocannons at once, back when they werent' garbage. it was the sniperfex build and i wish i'd have been around to see it.

Are you sure? Raveners are always modeled as having thorax weapons so I wouldn't imagine them losing an attack over it.

[gigasnail]

warriors and ravenors both lost a base attack. spinefiests are S3, A:X where X= the model's attack characteristic.

[guns]

Jan 11, 2014 8:48:57 GMT nameless said:

I've got a few comments based on guns' list.

Spine fists with termagants are statistically equivalent to fleshborers on most targets. Those of us that have lots from old editions may want to use those to unlock troop tervigons and the new ones as spawns.

Stranglethorn Cannon and HVC do two different things. I don't think you could ever take both (or was it just too expensive it was not a good idea?). With Melee fexes and enough psychers, the questions is "Do I have enough psyckers to get enough onslaught to warrant T1 and T2 shooting over an extra attack in melee?" I think the most common answer is that you'll end up doing more with the STC on the way in that one more attack that hits 50% of the time.

I thought Fleshborers were statistically superior vs. T4 3+ and Spinefists had a minor edge vs. T3 5+

STC does something our whole codex does; kills light infantry. The HVC offers something slightly more interesting, since it can go anti-tank or anti-4+ armour. As mentioned, in 4th edition you could strap a Tyrant/Carnifex with both cannons, and they were awesome.

As I see it the choice is between Dakkafexes and bare-bones cheapo CC fexes.

[gigasnail]

with only one shot and AP4, and most platforms that carry it only hitting 50% of the time, HVC is still pretty bad AT.