Does the biologis need a rework?

[HeadlessCross]

14 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

I agree that a Biologis can do good work with Eradicators. I often run mine as a squad of 6 so I can now fit them and a Biologis in a Repulsor for delivery.

 

If you have an easy way to fall back and shoot, you can be slightly reckless with them too which is nice. 

[Tacitus]

On 1/2/2025 at 3:10 PM, jaxom said:

 

 

Devil's Advocate on Captains: they don't deal with Tactical Precision or Target Priority because they're focusing an the specific tactics of the mission; i.e. Rites of Battle lets them use Detachments Strats as if they were a free unit ability. Outside of that, I think @HeadlessCross nailed: units need to be different; plus I think the Designers like the idea of a Captain accompanied by his Lieutenant. No need to have the same abilities in such cases.

I'm not sure they like the idea so much as they haven't questioned the idea.  People doubled up on Captains and Lieutenants when Lieutenants came out becasue they dovetailed together then.   I forget what it was, Captains Rerolled hits, Lieutenants rerolled wounds, or something like that.  They worked together whatever it was, so you saw Cap + LT + Unit for your big hitters.  And I don't think GW has revisited that paradigm since the revamp of the characters beyond the basic overlap prevention - meaning I think they made sure you could take a Cap and LT together on the same unit, but they didn't stop to ask - do we like it, hate it, or even care when people do it? 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 12/30/2024 at 9:29 AM, HeadlessCross said:

Because everything needs different bespoke rules, apparently. 

They activate the Lethal Hits more, but that doesn't mean they enjoy it more. 

 

Even if Eradicators get a reroll to wound, it skips a whole step of their weapon wounding just over half the time into a bigger target. 

S9  is going to wound more things more easily than S4.

that means you’re getting more wounds from aggressors out of lethals that they otherwise (statistically) would without them.

 

Edited January 11 by Lord_Ikka

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 1/2/2025 at 6:10 PM, jaxom said:

 

"Yet here, a change in spirit. Form fury to serenity. I cannot say. I cannot yet see."

 

It's very tropey that the study of anatomy has a beneficial effect for doing bodily harm. The Apothecarion is the catch-all office for biological studies. Not all of that is medical. Most biologists are not qualified to perform medical actions. Headshots are expected of Space Marines, but where do they aim when a creature has no head or other discernable, human-analogue anatomy? And yes, I realize that it's a somewhat silly question when Xenos miniatures have human-analogue anatomy, for the most part, but that's the power fantasy the Designers seem to be emphasizing in the larger realm of 40k where truly alien creatures exist. Apothecaries-Biologis are the subject matter experts. It's Picard pointing at what seems like a Random Spot on a borg cube (a ship with no external visual system identifiers) to hit with torpedoes and it blows up the whole thing.

 

Just of the top of my head, from the name of the ability, Tactical Precision, a Lt grants Lethal Hits because he helps direct overlapping fields of fire, focused fire, and timed salvos. It's Worf ordering a specific torpedo firing pattern to spread the enemy's shields and then puncture with a concentrated barrage.

 

The two abilities are mechanically no different because its decent ability to show increase effectiveness without dipping into re-rolls. I'm not getting into 10th ed system design, so I'll leave it at that. I humbly request that no else drag the conversation in that direction; it's been hashed to death and tends to lead to pages of wish-listing.

 

Devil's Advocate on Captains: they don't deal with Tactical Precision or Target Priority because they're focusing an the specific tactics of the mission; i.e. Rites of Battle lets them use Detachments Strats as if they were a free unit ability. Outside of that, I think @HeadlessCross nailed: units need to be different; plus I think the Designers like the idea of a Captain accompanied by his Lieutenant. No need to have the same abilities in such cases.

 

 

I think in a perfect world, or at least in the fluff, every position in a Chapter could be fielded in any armour. Apothecaries-Biologis in Phobos, Apothecaries in Gravis, Chaplains in Gravis, Chaplains in Phobos, etc, etc. But at the end of the day, it's a game dictated by the models that survived the design process from concept-to-fabrication to make it into the rules.

 

 

What's the current Gold Standard for targets in Math-hammer? Is it still Guardsmen, Intercessors, Terminators, Leman Russes, and medium-chassis Knights?

 

 

 

It doesn’t matter if not all apothecaries are medics, it doesn’t make sense xenologist being present makes battle brothers know how to kill weird xenos better…that same exact information would be given to all battle brothers in general and especially during briefings leading up to entering the actual theater of operations.

[Tacitus]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

It doesn’t matter if not all apothecaries are medics, it doesn’t make sense xenologist being present makes battle brothers know how to kill weird xenos better…that same exact information would be given to all battle brothers in general and especially during briefings leading up to entering the actual theater of operations.

Well I get it - there's a new bioform, or bioforms look alike so the Biologis is down there to pick out the subtle differences or whatever else "on the fly".  The thing I don't get is why every single Medic Apothecary only ever wears Power Armor, while every Biologis only ever wears Gravis.  They were trying to make a fluffy ersatz Lieutenant and just mucked it up. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

12 minutes ago, Tacitus said:

Well I get it - there's a new bioform, or bioforms look alike so the Biologis is down there to pick out the subtle differences or whatever else "on the fly".  The thing I don't get is why every single Medic Apothecary only ever wears Power Armor, while every Biologis only ever wears Gravis.  They were trying to make a fluffy ersatz Lieutenant and just mucked it up. 

If they look close enough to each other you need an expert to identify the differences on the battlefield good chance their physiology is also so similar it wouldn’t matter if a heavy intercessor thought it was a whozit, or a whatsit, they’d likely all have the same organs in the same places.

 

the only way it makes sense is for a situation like in that reveal video where the biologis is trying to extract something from a new form of xenos to take back to a lab for study.

[Karhedron]

There are plenty of things about Characters that do not make sense. A Space Marine Lt forgets all his existing abilities when he is promoted to Captain. At the end of the day we just need to suspend our disbelief a bit and accept that from a game POV part of the job of Characters is to impart useful abilities to the squads they lead. Sometimes the in-universe justification is a bit tenuous but is it any worse than guys hitting things much harder just because a nearby Chaplain is praying? 

[Evil Eye]

I appreciate that I sound like a broken vox-disc at this point but the Biologis strikes me as yet another case of GW's obsession with every sculpt being its own datasheet with its own unique gimmick making things worse. Ideally, it'd just be a sculpt to represent an Apothecary with Gravis/Artificer armour, with the xenobiology angle being one of several "area of expertise" upgrades you can choose from (for any Apothecary, not just a Gravis armoured one).

[Karhedron]

I suspect the reason for not getting a proper Apothecary in Gravis armour is that GW were worried that resurrecting a 3W T6 model was too strong. The regular Apothecary is limited to bringing back 2W T4 models as he cannot join squads like BGVs or Company Heroes even though  both squads have the Tacticus keyword. 

[jaxom]

16 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

It doesn’t matter if not all apothecaries are medics, it doesn’t make sense xenologist being present makes battle brothers know how to kill weird xenos better…that same exact information would be given to all battle brothers in general and especially during briefings leading up to entering the actual theater of operations.

I completely agree. All soldiers should be given as much information and theater-gear as is feasible before combat operations begin. I just don't think it's always possible and that's were boots-on-the-ground subject matter experts are important.

 

54 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I appreciate that I sound like a broken vox-disc at this point but the Biologis strikes me as yet another case of GW's obsession with every sculpt being its own datasheet with its own unique gimmick making things worse. Ideally, it'd just be a sculpt to represent an Apothecary with Gravis/Artificer armour, with the xenobiology angle being one of several "area of expertise" upgrades you can choose from (for any Apothecary, not just a Gravis armoured one).

My to do list includes converting a Gravis Lt for a counts-as.

[TheNicronomicon]

My biggest beef with the Biologie is that, due to some fluff/keyword :cuss:ery, I cannot run him with my Space Wolves Gravis models. Can’t even proxy him as a Gravis Lt because those don’t exist! Really, really annoying.