Close and Personal is Biv’ Bodhrik’s special move, scratch that, Close and Personal is Biv’s only worthwhile move. That was a little harsh because Deadly precision is a really useful tool but I am angry with Biv for not being as good as I wanted him to be.
Hitting with a Red and Yellow die, then being able to follow up with a ranged attack means that for two strain you can deal a lot of damage.
The issue is that this costs half of your strain and you will be close enough, usually, to other characters that will be hitting you back.
It is rare that you will be unable to wipe out a single character in one attack with Close and Personal but with Stay down in tow you can lose all your endurance. Final stand will even allow you to gain your endurance back, at the cost of losing two Health and becoming stunned.
Biv needs to get up close if you want to deal a decent amount of damage with him however, I think Biv takes the worst thing about Ranged and Melee attacks, jams them together and demands a sickly grandchild.
Biv’s starting weapon, the Repeating Blaster isn’t too bad with a Red and Blue dice roll but doesn’t have great range.
Reliable for about 2-3 spaces max you will want to upgrade his weapon as soon as possible or, you could choose to use Gaarkhan instead. At least the focused direction of his melee attacks is evident from the get-go and you aren’t forced to follow one real progression path.
Building out Biv is not easy. In truth, I think the idea of Biv is better than the reality so I tend not to go for him. I feel like he should be better than he is but I never really get to use him and certainly not to his potential. The thing is, I have not played with anyone who can.
Focussing on a melee or ranged build is probably the most sensible route as splitting the focus of your build means having a mediocre character who is not good at either. If you have the team to support it then getting in close would be preferable and for this, you will want to take the Vibrobayonet, Stay down, Advance and Crushing blow, you could switch out Advance and take Final Stand if you can spare the XP but this build means you will have to use your first surge to recover strain.
If you want to stay ranged then Shake it off, Trophy Armour, Final Stand and Into the Fray would be good.
There are other ranged characters that are far better at Ranged attacks than Biv and other Melee characters that are far better at Melee than Biv placing him in this weird position of not being a good jack of all trades as it would be unwise to try and build out some middle of the road character.
Hero Cards
