Some thoughts on Biotechvore

I love Biotechvore. I think it’s a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it’s a rarely-played mission, so I don’t have a lot of practice at it. That said, I think everyone else is probably in the same boat. We all have ideas about Biotechvore, but none of us have had the opportunity to really test them thoroughly the way we have with normal missions.

So, without claiming any particular experience or expertise, I want to set out some thoughts on order economy in Biotechvore, as I think the mission plays fundamentally differently than normal Infinity.

Cheerleaders

Cheerleaders are fundamental to Infinity, right? Every list is composed mostly of cheap units that you’ll spend few or no orders on – you’ll leave them hiding in your DZ generating orders for your pool (and maybe performing additional functions like ARO hacking, ARO corner guarding, being your Lt or its decoy, providing Counterintelligence, etc.)

A cheerleader is great because it generates 3 orders over the course of the game – one each turn – which you get to spend on other, better units.

Btv is completely different. A BTS 0, 1W cheerleader has a 70% chance of dying at the end of turn one (generating only 1 order for the game), and a 21% chance of surviving turn one but dying at the end of turn two (generating 2 orders for the game), with only a 9% chance of generating orders all three turns. That’s an average of 1.39 orders generated over the game – less than half of what a cheerleader normally contributes.

Cheerleaders leaving the btv zone

Suppose you try to save a cheerleader on turn one. One order will get a 4-4 unit not quite out of the btv zone. A second order will get it out – and hopefully into a safe spot in full cover from your opponent, but that’s far from guaranteed. But, let’s be optimistic and assume we’ll manage to get our cheerleader to safety in the minimum 2 orders needed.

That means the cheerleader generates 3 orders over the game, but spends 2 of them accomplishing nothing other than keeping itself alive.

In other words, a cheerleader you try to rescue contributes at most 1 order to your pool over the game, vs. 1.39 orders if you let it die. It’s not worth rescuing cheerleaders.

6-4 units

It should be more efficient to get a fast unit out of the btv zone, right? Well, not usually. A 6-4 unit can barely get out of the zone in one order, and is very unlikely to get to safe cover. Realistically, you’ll still need to spend a second order on them, so they’re still contributing the same 1 net order to the pool over the course of the game.

Regular Impetuous units

The extra order an Impetuous unit gets is valuable. Of course, most Impetuous units are Irregular, so don’t contribute orders to the pool at all (unless you spend a command token, but in btv you generally want to save those for coordinated orders).

For Regular Impetuous units, you can use the impetuous activation to get to the edge of the btv zone, then one order to get to safety. So these can potentially contribute 2 net orders to your pool over the course of the game. You also get Impetuous activations on turns two and three which are valuable.

Infiltration skills

A Fiday is 45% likely to pass its roll, in which case it’ll generate 3 orders over the game. If it fails, it will generate the same 1.39 as any other cheerleader (or 1 if you walk it to safety). That’s an average of 2.11 orders for the game. A Farzan is only 40% likely to land, which works out to 2.03 orders for the game.

The problem is that when these units fail their roll, you don't just lose some of the orders they would have generated - you also lose a relatively expensive piece that you would have used to fight and do the mission. Losing a Fiday is a much bigger deal than losing a cheerleader. To my mind that makes them a very risky choice for btv. Nonetheless, purely in terms of order efficiency, 2.11 orders is pretty good.

NWI

NWI makes for great cheerleaders in btv. An NWI trooper will always provide orders on turns 1 and 2, will provide an order on turn 3 unless it fails both its btv saves. A BTS 0 unit has 49% odds of failing both saves, so will generate an average of 2.51 orders over the game, which is excellent.

The same is true of 2W models, although those are usually more expensive. A Digger is maybe the ultimate BTV unit, generating 2.51 orders for 14 points (despite being Impetuous, it will usually be a waste of orders to try to save it from the btv zone. It does better as a cheerleader).

Tactical Awareness

TA is even better in btv than it is in normal Infinity. Normally, a TA unit contributes 6 orders over the game (assuming the unit is strong enough that you want it to act every turn), 200% of what a cheerleader contributes. In btv, the unit contributes 4 orders (6, less the 2 it takes to get itself out of the zone), which is 288% of what a cheerleader contributes. Plus, the TA unit survives whereas the cheerleader is left to die.

Fireteam duo

In a perfect world, a duo takes 2 orders to move to safety. In practice, you often won’t find safe cover for both units within 2 orders of movement. But let’s be optimistic and say 2 orders. This means the duo generates 6 orders over the game, while spending 2, for a net contribution of 4 orders. That’s 2 orders contributed by each unit in the duo.

Fireteam haris

Ok, 3 units will generate 9 orders. I think though, that with this big a fireteam it really stops being realistic to expect to get them all to safe cover in 2 orders. Figure 3 orders to get the whole team to a safe spot, that means that the team is contributing 2 orders per unit over the game. Roughly the same as a duo.

Fireteam core

Assuming it takes a core link 3 orders to get to a safe spot, a 4-unit team is contributing 2.25 orders per unit. A 5-unit team contributes 2.4 orders per unit.

Conclusions

In a normal game of Infinity, you have 45 orders total over the course of the game (less what your opponent kills, but that’s true in BTV too), plus more from tactical awareness. Each of your 15 models contributes 3 orders to your pool.

In BTV, you have far fewer functional orders, because you lose orders when you get troopers out of the zone (because you spend orders to move them), and you lose orders when you don’t get troopers out of the zone (because they die and stop generating orders).

Here are the best ways to generate usable orders, in descending order:

Tactical awareness: 4 orders/unit

NWI: 2.51 order/unit (more if it has BTS) (but dies at the end)

5-link: 2.4 orders/unit

4-link: 2.25 orders/unit

Infiltrator (Fiday): 2.11 orders/unit (but risk of losing the unit)

Duo or haris: 2 orders/unit (less if it can't find safe cover nearby)

Regular Impetuous unit: 2 orders/unit (less if it can’t find safe cover nearby)

Sacrificial cheerleader: 1.39 orders/unit (more if it has BTS)

Cheerleader escaping the btv zone: 1 order/unit

A take-away here is that vanilla can compete with sectorials in Btv. Vanilla has access to Tactical Awareness and NWI, which are the two best sources of order efficiency. We can’t get 2.4 orders/unit from a core link, but we can get close to that from infiltrators, duos, and regular impetuous units.

Honourable mention

In vanilla Haqq, we have a particularly great option: bring Saladin and Rouhani, and leave them together in the btv zone.

Rouhani has NWI and BTS 6, so he generates 2.84 orders.

Saladin has a 55% chance of taking a wound after T1, in which case Rouhani will spend an order healing him (for simple math, I’ll assume he succeeds, on an 18 with rerolls). So Saladin will generate 6 orders (because of Strategos), less a 55% chance of having to spend 1 order, for 5.45 orders.

On average, this pair contributes 4.15 orders each to the pool, which is great, better even than two tac aware units. The downside of course is that they both die at the end.

A list

Here is a hypothetical list. It’s not perfect – I know some players like to have more ARO presence than this in BTV, which is legit (although the Shakush and Shaytaniyah can both potentially be put on ARO duty). But it’s very efficient:

- Saladin, Rouhani, and the Diggers can all stay in the DZ all game, generating orders.
- Two units have Tactical Awareness
- Two duos

The Mukhtar can also stay in the DZ for at least one turn, though that’s less for order efficiency and more to keep her safe while everyone is fighting in the midfield.

On turn one, the list can spend as few as 4 group 1 orders moving units out of the btv zone (two on each duo – only the Shakush, Asawira, Rafiq, and Shaytaniyah need to leave the zone). That leaves 7 orders to spend on other things (fighting ARO pieces, doing classifieds, setting up defense, doing an attack run…) which I think is very good for BTV.

BTV
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GROUP 1 10 1 2
SALADIN (Lieutenant [+1 Command Token]) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser(+1B) / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 36)
ROUHANI Submachine Gun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 21)
MUKHTAR (Hacker, Hacking Device) Rifle, Light Shotgun, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 31)
ASAWIRA AP Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 39)
SHAKUSH Heavy Machine Gun, Heavy Flamethrower / AP CC Weapon. (1.5 | 58)
SHAKUSH PILOT Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 0)
RAFIQ REMOTE Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 14)
SHAYTANIYAH REMOTE Missile Launcher / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 16)
FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
DIGGER Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades / Pistol, AP CC Weapon(+1B). (0 | 14)
DIGGER Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades / Pistol, AP CC Weapon(+1B). (0 | 14)

GROUP 2 5 5
KUM Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 7)
KUM Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 7)
KUM Rifle, Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
ZAMIRA Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
ZULEYKA Light Flamethrower(+1B), Smoke Grenades / Breaker Pistol(+2B), EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 12)

5 SWC | 298 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

Fixed an error on Fiday math - for some reason I thought they deploy on WIP-3. In fact it's PH-3, so less good.

 

Definitely a solid option, given how good Tac Awareness is in Btv. And super-jumping onto a building would be excellent for keeping safe in the midfield.

Worth considering, for sure. FD+8 isn't enough to deploy quite outside the DZ, though. If you go first, you've got a 55% chance to only need to spend one order on it, 45% chance to have to spend two. So, contributes 1.55 orders to the pool. Either way, you lose the decoy (when you move to escape the zone, even if you passed your roll).

You could take the neuro feuerbach profile and, if going second, deploy in the DZ so that the opponent has to face potential ranged AROs from two camo tokens.

I don't think any of these numbers apply to Panic Room. IMO Panic Room is a lot more like normal Infinity than it is like Btv. You don't have to get _anyone_ out on turn one, you can just deploy them in the safe part of your DZ.

That'll generate 2 orders total in the game, and spend 2 getting out of the DZ, for a net order contribution of 0. Worse even than a cheerleader.

But, I can certainly see an argument for a group 2 Nadhir for ARO purposes, to make it hard to the opponent to get out of their DZ. Hidden deployment means it'll still be available for ARO duty if you go first. After you reveal it, in the unlikely event that your opponent doesn't kill it, you'll probably leave it in the btv zone to die.

Shakush is great, but I'd never leave it in the btv zone - those wounds are too valuable to waste. Having Tac Aware, duo, and fast movement, it's a perfect unit for escaping the zone.

Agreed - same order economy as TA, which is huge.

 

Yeah, it's true that T1 orders are particularly important, and you can do a calculation of only T1 orders instead. I opted for orders over the whole game to account for units that stay in the DZ - if you only look at T1 orders, you don't account for what you lose from those units dying from the plague.

The problem with the Nadhir is that it doesn't generate an order on T1 at all, so if we're prioritizing T1 orders, it's still less good than a sacrificial cheerleader. That's why I wouldn't put one in group 1, but I can see putting it in group 2 with other stuff that doesn't need orders (e.g. Kum that can get out on their own).

On T2, once the Nadhir is revealed, the math changes. It's already generated an order for T2, so if you spend that order, and another T2 order, to escape the zone, you only gain one more order generated on T3. You're paying two T2 orders to gain one T3 order. Usually you'll be better off spending the two orders on something else and letting the Nadhir die at that point. The same logic applies to anything else that's still in the zone on T2 (NWI units, sacrificial cheerleaders that made their save) - it'll rarely worth saving something on T2 that wasn't worth saving on T1.