Triple Psychic power tervigons

[nsc]

So Tom seems pretty adamant that tervi's should just take catalyst and let sleeping gants lie.

So I ran the numbers.

80% of the time a tervigon with 3 biomancy rolls will get either Ironarm or Endurance (catalyst on crack).

50% of the time you will at least have one or the other and 20% of the time you will have both.

Since you can only cast one a spell (hurr old codices only get lvl 1 psykers) a turn 80% of the time you're casting iron arm or endurance, occasionally you'll enfeeble paladins to get that instant death brainleech action, but even then it's probably just better to endure or give yourself iron arms. Haemorrhage is a trap and so is lifeleech because BS3 is BS3.

Half the time though your catalyst also grants it will not die, and +d3 strength and toughness is nothing to sneeze at.

With only 2 rolls on biomancy the chance of getting at least one drops to 60%.



I'm still not sure the three biomancy rolls are worth it, but it's still interesting to consider the numbers.

[Jack Shrapnel]

I ran this very thing to test on Saturday...

I almost always had iron arm / endurance on the tervigons, making them very scary and difficult to take out...

then I played Tom's girl-leafbolter list and it didn't matter one bit how tough they were... so it was extra points just wasted...

catalyst is a guarentee... the triple rolls on the biomancy chart pretty much guarentee something that's at least useful... as useful as catalyst? not so sure... tervigons I normally use to buff something else... if you don't get endurance, for the most part biomancy is self-buff only...

so I guess it is about what role the tervigon is going to play in your list... if you're trying to make it a melee monster, it's going to cost you as much as a trygon, which doesn't require a psychic roll to already be a beast...

utility wise, it's nice to have options... so the flexibility of the three powers I can see being useful...

so long story short, I'm on the fence... the first game they were pretty great with the buffs... second game it did nothing... so in the end I just need more time to test it out

[Frosty the Pirate]

I've been looking a bit at Zoans used for utility, 2 Zoans nets 4 rolls on biomancy, which your really looking for enfeeble and endurance. It looks like it could work, but obviously other abilities like the lance they come with and shriek from telepathy are guarantees and are directly offensive.

[Jack Shrapnel]

I've tried zoans with biomancy a few times... it really pales in comparison to telepathy in my testing at least, as several of the "must have" biomancy rolls (ie: iron arm) and the primaris really suck on a zoan, and zoans only cast one power / turn... enfeeble is not great for nids... anything worth ID'ing still gets it's armor saves anyways... and you're much better off with endurance...

so having a zoan maybe get endurance isn't that great... having a zoan guaranteed to get psychic shriek however as a worst case scenario... yeah, a much better deal...

biomancy is for the MC's.. that's where it shines, because iron arm rocks on a FMC, and I got some mileage on a tervigon, but really I wanted to use endurance more... anytime I got iron arm that was all I casted anyways (when you only get one power the fighty dudes get iron arm and the tervigons cast endurance)

problem is, for cheaper the tervigons can automatically guarantee FNP, which is the greatest benefit of endurance anyways on the ones you want it on...

coin flipping for either useless or buffing zoans doesn't seem like a good plan to me....

[Frosty the Pirate]

Yeah, fair enough.

As far as the original point of this thread goes, I feel like just sticking to codex powers is the way to go. More consistent and reliable. There are obviously cases where literally anything on the chart is good for a unit, but those are few and far between.

[nsc]

The biggest thing about rolling is you always roll on HTs and tervigons suddenly become carnifiexes if they get iron arm. They're pretty much guaranteed to get upgraded catalyst or iron arm and having other (albeit situational) options is worth considering.

[Jack Shrapnel]

it's worth considering for sure... and I tested it out myself... I think there's some merit in it, but they're really just not that good in combat with their few attacks and WS3... but yeah iron arm makes them really hard to kill for sure...

[nsc]

I'm running mine with crushing claws because it interacts very well with smash attacks, which makes iron arm even better when it shows up.