Precise measurements of the B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwavebackground are crucial for our understanding of cosmic inflation. If upcomingobservations should confirm the large tensor signal recently reported by theBICEP2 collaboration, inflation may have simply been driven by a simplemonomial potential as employed in models of chaotic inflation. If, on the otherhand, the BICEP2 signal should disappear once the dust (polarization issue) has(been) settled, attention might shift again towards small-field models of inflationbecause of their attractive properties on the particle physics side. In this talk, Iwill discuss both scenarios for the possible fate of our understanding of cosmicinflation and present recent results on explicit models that either predict a verylarge or a very small tensor-to-scalar ratio. First, I will illustrate how stronglyinteracting supersymmetric gauge theories can give rise to inflationary dynamicsthat mimic those of chaotic inflation, cf. 1403.4536 [hep-ph]; then I will revisitsupersymmetric F-term hybrid inflation and demonstrate how a notoriouslyoverlooked feature of this model can render it consistent with all observations(except for BICEP2) after all, cf. 1404.1832 [hep-ph]).