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Sister Sydney's thread about psychic defense for psyker-less armies has inspired me to take a look at the affair. The 7th edition's Psychic phase seems to have left many players scratching their heads on how to counter this new threat. While I myself admit that I have no problem with all those psychic overhaul, it is still interesting to delve deeper into the topic, and to give Tau and DE a chance to do something in the Psychic phase.

Enough words, let the action begin ! What is your thought ?

Dark Eldar

Crucible of Malediction: 25 points (Archon and Haemunculus only)



Nightmare Doll: 20 points (Archon and Haemunculus only)



Talisman of Petrification: 20 points (Haemunculus only)



Tau

Warp Jammer: 30 points (Commander, Ethereal and Cadre Fireblade only)



Null Cannon:

Can only be taken by XV 104 Riptide and Hammerhead Gunship. The Null Cannon replaces twin-linked smart missile system on XV104 Riptide and both Gun Drones on the Hammerhead for 15 points



Aether Vassal: 35 points

Slot: HQ
Each Tau Empire Detachment may include 0-3 Aether Vassal. They do not take up a Force Organization slot, and do not qualify as a mandatory HQ selection.

The warp jammer honestly seems more like necron tech than tau. And I don't see how the nightmare doll is supposed to be psychic defense.

The other two look fine, except the Crucible of Malediction seems a little too expensive. I would say 10-15 points since it is one use only and it relies on the psykers failing a leadership test which most psykers have good leadership.

Pariah: Very different from what the 3e Pariah was, but times have changed since 3e.
Points cost: 350 Points

Slot: Elites

WS:5
BS:4
S:5
T:5
W:1
I:3 (Pariahs were noted to be fast)
A:3
Ld:10
Sv:2+
Unit comp: Five pariahs

War gear: Sempiternal weave, Pariah Warscythe

Pariah warscythe: As normal, but with Aetherbane. In shooting, may be used as a Gauss Blaster (may be swapped for a Tesla Carbine for free)

May take minor quantum shielding (to provide a 5++ save) for ten points per model.

May add up to five additional pariahs at 70 points per model.


Special rules: Pariah, Preferred Enemy (Psykers, Chaos, Eldar, Tyranids, Daemons), Fearless, Fear, Unnatural terror

Great Pariah: The gnawing void a Great Pariah has in place of a soul sucks in and cancels out the power of the warp with ease. Even the simplest of powers become nearly impossible to use in range of a pariah and using more complex abilities is virtual suicide. Manifested powers only succeed on a roll of a five or better when casted or targeted within 6" of a Pariah model. Pariahs may never be directly affected by Psychic powers. Pre-existing effects of powers such as summoned daemons, maledictions, vortex of dooms, or blessings brought within 6" of a pariah must immediately roll to be casted again with only twice as many dice allowed for the roll as the effect costs warp charges. On a failure, the effect is removed (summoned daemons are removed from play). This does not take dice from the warp charge pool. Every model with the Pariah special rule adds one dice to the deny the witch pool.

Unnatural terror: A pariah inspires great fear and dread in all things, and none are more strongly affected then those touched by the Warp, with even the Tyranid hive mind and foul Daemons recoiling from them. All enemy models suffer a -1 leadership penalty when within 6" of a Pariah, however units with at least one model with the Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers, Psychic Pilot, Daemon, Champion of Chaos, Chaos Mark, Synapse (including models under the effect of Synapse fields), or Psyker special rule instead suffer a -2 leadership penalty and are subject to fear tests even if they have the fearless, daemonic instability, stubborn, or and they shall know no fear special rules.

High Pariah: A Necron HQ to represent converted Omega Minus Pariahs.
Points cost: 280 Points

WS:6
BS:5
S:5
T:5
W:3
I:3 (Pariahs were noted to be fast)
A:4
Ld:10
Sv:2+ 5++


War gear: Sempiternal weave, minor quantum shielding, Master crafted Pariah Warscythe

Options: May take any item available to Necron lords with the exception of Phylacteries for the listed points cost.

Special rules: Great Pariah, Preferred Enemy (Psykers, Chaos, Eldar, Tyranids, Daemons), Fearless, Fear, All consuming terror, Independent Character

Pariah: The gnawing void a Pariah has in place of a soul sucks in and cancels out the power of the warp with ease. Even the simplest of powers become nearly impossible to use in range of a pariah and using more complex abilities is virtual suicide. Manifested powers only succeed on a roll of a six when casted or targeted within 12" of a Great Pariah model. Great Pariahs may never be directly affected by Psychic powers. Pre-existing effects of powers such as summoned daemons, maledictions, vortex of dooms, or blessings brought within 12" of a pariah must immediately roll to be casted again with only twice as many dice allowed for the roll as the effect costs warp charges. On a failure, the effect is removed (summoned daemons are removed from play). This does not take dice from the warp charge pool. Every model with the Great Pariah special rule adds three dice to the deny the witch pool.

Unnatural terror: A pariah inspires great fear and dread in all things, and none are more strongly affected then those touched by the Warp, with even the Tyranid hive mind and foul Daemons recoiling from them. All enemy models suffer a -2 leadership penalty when within 12" of a High Pariah, however units with at least one model with the Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers, Psychic Pilot, Daemon, Champion of Chaos, Chaos Mark, Synapse (including models under the effect of Synapse fields), or Psyker special rule instead suffer a -3 leadership penalty and are subject to fear tests even if they have the fearless, daemonic instability, stubborn, or and they shall know no fear special rules.

Some great ideas. Some quick thoughts:

Pariah is scary -- and makes me want to write up a Null as a Company Command Squad option for the Imperial Guard (obviously you can't take both a Null and an Astropath....).

Nightmare Doll is cool, though I'm not sure about granting psychic powers to an army without them.

Crucible of Malediction is intriguing -- a bit of a crapshoot given that most psykers have high leadership & will pass, but those that do will get Hurt Bad. Point costing that kind of thing is very tricky.

Tau jammer probably should be a penalty to psychic rolls, rather than a straight "no you can't even try."

 SisterSydney wrote:
Some great ideas. Some quick thoughts:

Pariah is scary -- and makes me want to write up a Null as a Company Command Squad option for the Imperial Guard (obviously you can't take both a Null and an Astropath....).

Nightmare Doll is cool, though I'm not sure about granting psychic powers to an army without them.

Crucible of Malediction is intriguing -- a bit of a crapshoot given that most psykers have high leadership & will pass, but those that do will get Hurt Bad. Point costing that kind of thing is very tricky.

Tau jammer probably should be a penalty to psychic rolls, rather than a straight "no you can't even try."

Also, here's a special rule you might like.

Aetherbane: A weapon or model with the Aetherbane special rule gains +1 against Strength against units which contain at least one model with the Daemon, Synapse, Chaos Mark, Champions of Chaos, Psyker, Psychic Pilot, Brotherhood of Psykers or Brotherhood of Sorcerers special rule. Successful invulnerable saves against wounds or penetrating and glancing hits by a weapon or model with the Aetherbane special rule must be rerolled.

 NL_Cirrus wrote:
The warp jammer honestly seems more like necron tech than tau. And I don't see how the nightmare doll is supposed to be psychic defense.

The other two look fine, except the Crucible of Malediction seems a little too expensive. I would say 10-15 points since it is one use only and it relies on the psykers failing a leadership test which most psykers have good leadership.

Well, yes the warp jammer looks like it belongs to the Necron, but I will wait for people opinions first, and then change it if it flié into the face of the fluff too much.

About the Nightmare Doll, it is the Psychic-look-alike equipment the title mentions. I took the inspiration from WHFB, where models can gain magic spell from equipment.

About the Crucible of Malediction, yes, it is overcosted. I have a tendency of overcosting things, but it is hard to calculate their point cost, since it'll trash any Psyker who fails the test, but the problem is what you have mentioned above. I'll think about it.

 Kain wrote:
Pariah

This unit is great ! However, I think the Unnatural Terror rule should force enemy units within 6" to take fear test outside of combat, to represent the aura of fear the Pariahs generate.

 SisterSydney wrote:

Nightmare Doll is cool, though I'm not sure about granting psychic powers to an army without them.

Crucible of Malediction is intriguing -- a bit of a crapshoot given that most psykers have high leadership & will pass, but those that do will get Hurt Bad. Point costing that kind of thing is very tricky.

Tau jammer probably should be a penalty to psychic rolls, rather than a straight "no you can't even try."

Good points. The question about Nightmare Doll I has answer above. About the Crucible of Malediction, I am still unsure about how much it should cost. How about changing the rule to "each Psyker within 18" must take a Ld test at - 2 ?

And the Jammer. How about making psykers within 8" roll a D6. On the roll of 4+, they act normally, but on the roll of 1, 2, 3 they suffer the above penalties ?

Or any psychic power whose caster OR target is within 12" only succeeds on 5+ rather than the usual 4+; if within 6", only succeeds on 6+.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Some great ideas. Some quick thoughts:

Pariah is scary -- and makes me want to write up a Null as a Company Command Squad option for the Imperial Guard (obviously you can't take both a Null and an Astropath....).

Nightmare Doll is cool, though I'm not sure about granting psychic powers to an army without them.

Crucible of Malediction is intriguing -- a bit of a crapshoot given that most psykers have high leadership & will pass, but those that do will get Hurt Bad. Point costing that kind of thing is very tricky.

Tau jammer probably should be a penalty to psychic rolls, rather than a straight "no you can't even try."

Sure, I made the Pariah rules to be usable for all blanks.

The Necrons are just putting them in fancy shells. All that fear and power comes from being a blank.

I'm a bit hesitant to make the Pariah power even more far reaching but I'll playtest it a bit against the /tg/brew Tyranids to see if the Pariah and Unnatural terror rules are overpowering.

But hopefully the extortionate cost (pariahs are extremely rare after all) and poor resiliency per point (one wound, even a T5 TEQ wound, at 80 or so points, is very fragile) should prevent the spamming of them.

However the forcing powers to be recast in their presence thing, butchering most Daemons in melee, and severely penalizing daemonic instability tests (and introducing daemon players to the morale game) should let them quickly put a stop to Daemon Factory nonsense. Meanwhile the rule should also keep psychic death-stars under control. Because invisible seerstars are bs.

Feel free to use the rules for your custom units. .

Harbinger of the Void/Null Discipline Cryptek.

Stats: See Codex: Necrons

Scepter of Naught: Deny the witch attempts made within 12" of a model with a Scepter of naught may be rerolled, each Scepter of Naught adds one dice to the Deny the Witch pool and can be used as a power maul with the aetherbane special rule.

Void Ankh: Models with a Void Ankh add d3+1 dice to the deny the witch pool (which stacks with the Scepter of Naught) In addittion, any failed manifestation roll now results in a perils of the warp test.


To go with the high cryptek shown here

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/597104.page

Have some more goodies!

Scepter of Emptiness: As the Scepter of Naught, but deny the witch attempts succeed on a dice roll one better than before, and each Scepter of Emptiness adds two dice to the deny the witch pool and can be used as a power maul with an added point of strength, and AP value of 3 and the aetherbane special rule.

Oblivion Ankh: As the Void Ankh, but improved to d3+2, in addittion, perils of the warp results must be rerolled, taking the lowest of the two.

And some Overlord/Lord wargear:

Warp deflection generators: A model with this option is treated as having the Adamantium will special rule and adds a single dice to the deny the witch pool. 20 pts.

And relics (credit to Sasori):

Scythe of Endless Night- (Overlord and Destroyer Lords only) When the Nightbringer was shattered, part of his undying hatred and hunger leaked into A Necron Warscythe, creating the Baleful Scythe of Endless Night. A powerful weapon, however it Causes the bearer to always seek to prove his superiority, with an insatiable appetite for blood that is most strongly felt by those touched by the warp. Tyranid Hive Tyrants, Greater Daemons, Chaos Lords, Inquisitors, Space Marine Chief Librarians, Eldar Farseers, and more have all been slain in short order by the mighty weapon.

Stats- Master crafted Warscythe with the aetherbane special rule that improves WS and attack by one each, and inflicts Instant death on to wound rolls of 6, while models targetable by the bonus to strength from the Aetherbane special rule receive instant death on all any successful to wound roll. In addition, the Bearer must always issue and accept challenges, adds d3 dice to the deny the witch pool and improves deny rolls for the user by one point if used. 75 points.

The Eye of Omokk- Omokk is one of the moost esteemed crypteks to have delved into the intricacies, of anti-Warp material. He helped invent many of the principles that went behind Null Fields, Gloom Prisms, and the Powerful Pylons that render the Warp Inert. One of his more eldritch devices is known as the “Eye of Omokk” a powerful enhancement made during the War of Heaven, for the most prestigious of Necron Nobles. This Device made the user nearly immune to the effects of the warp, and stunted the powers of any users nearby trying to use the warp while Daemons find their connection to the Materium under extreme threat.
.
Any unit or model within 12’ of the bearer of the Eye of Omokk, attempting to use a Psychic ability or rolling for Daemonic instability, must reroll any successful dice to manifest a power and must roll 3d6 dice for daemonic instability tests. If this ability is specifically targeting the Bearer of the Eye or the Daemonic instability test is occuring during assault with the bearer or the Bearers unit, add one to the warp charge cost and the instability test must be made on a 4d6. In addition, the Bearer's deny the witch rolls are improved by one step, and the user gains Preferred Enemy (Psykers, Daemons, Tyranids, Chaos, Eldar) Special rule. 45 points

This is all being playtested against the /tg/brew codexes being generated, so some balance assumptions are different.

Warp jammer is a bad name for tech held by the tau. Accordining to cannon, the warp is anathemaic to them.

Tau already do have some psychic defence, it's called the talisman of arthas moloch.

I believe it works by multiplying each dispel dice to be four at the moment.

Haven't heard of the talisman; interesting. The "Tau Warp Jammer" idea is they don't understand or like the Warp, but they've reverse-engineered enough captured Imperial tech by now -- and suffered enough losses to psykers -- that they can kludge something together to mess up the Warp in a limited area. It's a bit like a species that doesn't understand radio technology figuring out a crude jammer that just emits static on all frequencies.

Kain, lots of cool ideas. Definitely be interesting to see playtest results, since some of them look very powerful and potentially game-changing.

Update on the first post:

- Add Talisman of Petrification

- Crucible of Malediction now costs 25 points, and force enemy Psykers to take a Ld test at -2.

- Enemy Psykers within 12" of a model equipped with warp jammer only pass Psychic test on 5+, and Psykers within 6" only pass Psychic test on 6+

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Warp jammer is a bad name for tech held by the tau. Accordining to cannon, the warp is anathemaic to them.

Tau already do have some psychic defence, it's called the talisman of arthas moloch.

I believe it works by multiplying each dispel dice to be four at the moment.

IIRC, Talisman of Arthas Moloch can only be taken by Farsight Enclave, and only one per army. However, the Warp Jammer (admittedly a bad name) can be taken by vanilla Tau, and up to 2 per army.
And Tau are somewhat resistant to Warp-based powers



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SisterSydney wrote:
Haven't heard of the talisman; interesting. The "Tau Warp Jammer" idea is they don't understand or like the Warp, but they've reverse-engineered enough captured Imperial tech by now -- and suffered enough losses to psykers -- that they can kludge something together to mess up the Warp in a limited area. It's a bit like a species that doesn't understand radio technology figuring out a crude jammer that just emits static on all frequencies.

Kain, lots of cool ideas. Definitely be interesting to see playtest results, since some of them look very powerful and potentially game-changing.

Exalt !

 SisterSydney wrote:
Haven't heard of the talisman; interesting. The "Tau Warp Jammer" idea is they don't understand or like the Warp, but they've reverse-engineered enough captured Imperial tech by now -- and suffered enough losses to psykers -- that they can kludge something together to mess up the Warp in a limited area. It's a bit like a species that doesn't understand radio technology figuring out a crude jammer that just emits static on all frequencies.

Kain, lots of cool ideas. Definitely be interesting to see playtest results, since some of them look very powerful and potentially game-changing.

The anti-warp crons will be going against heavy weights like 1d4chan's Angry marines book, the massive Tyranid fandex, the Squat book (once it's in a game-ready state), the redone 1d4chan Dark Angels book, their SoB fandex, the reign of Chaos Fandex, Daemons, Eldar, and Imperial-Supercodex armies (essentially armies meant to take advantage of the overly generous BB options for the Imperials and their many special detachments).

The /tg/hammer 40k project is essentially meant to make every army feel powerful, unique, fluff compliant, and viable while minimizing dead weight units.

I'm always looking for more people to join me on 1d4chan in an essential hard reset of 40k balance as we redo every army from the ground up and give them the variability, balance, and fluffiness than GW won't and give players the ability to use sections of 40k left behind (hence the Squat and Slaugth books) or invented by /tg/, and provide 40k fans with living army books.

I'm hoping to get the proposed rules section behind it so we can reach our goals before the next edition.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Category:Warhammer_Homebrew

Here's where we're working.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Haven't heard of the talisman; interesting. The "Tau Warp Jammer" idea is they don't understand or like the Warp, but they've reverse-engineered enough captured Imperial tech by now -- and suffered enough losses to psykers -- that they can kludge something together to mess up the Warp in a limited area. It's a bit like a species that doesn't understand radio technology figuring out a crude jammer that just emits static on all frequencies.

I can get behind that.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 SisterSydney wrote:
Haven't heard of the talisman; interesting. The "Tau Warp Jammer" idea is they don't understand or like the Warp, but they've reverse-engineered enough captured Imperial tech by now -- and suffered enough losses to psykers -- that they can kludge something together to mess up the Warp in a limited area. It's a bit like a species that doesn't understand radio technology figuring out a crude jammer that just emits static on all frequencies.

I can get behind that.

You seem like a Marine/Guard player with a good head on his shoulders.

Feel like helping us out with redoing 40k's armies?

Talisman of Petrification is interesting, but I'm still skeptical of Dark Eldar using psychic powers, even temporarily through wargear -- isn't their whole deal about avoiding any use of the Warp so Slaanesh doesn't come for them and eat their delicious souls? I would think they'd run screaming from anything that has the potential to cause Perils.

UPDATE IN FIRST POST:

-Add Aether Vassal (Tau)

-Talisman of Petrification and Nightmare Doll now cost 20 points, no longer cause Perils, and become one-use wargears.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Talisman of Petrification is interesting, but I'm still skeptical of Dark Eldar using psychic powers, even temporarily through wargear -- isn't their whole deal about avoiding any use of the Warp so Slaanesh doesn't come for them and eat their delicious souls? I would think they'd run screaming from anything that has the potential to cause Perils.

Ah, yes, but it is not actually them who use the power, but rather the souls of captured and tortured Psykers who were trapped within the wargears. I've changed it to one-use items, no longer cause Peril, and dropped their cost to 20 points, How does it sound ?

And I'll introduce you to the Aether Vassal:

Aether Vassal: 35 points

Slot: HQ
Each Tau Empire Detachment may include 0-3 Aether Vassal. They do not take up a Force Organization slot, and do not qualify as a mandatory HQ selection.

In an attempt to unlock the secrets of the Warp, the Ethereals decreed that all Psykers of currently reside on human worlds within the Tau Empire must be handed over to the Earth Caste. Many of these poor creatures, after repeated tampering with their minds, finally went insane. Earth Caste personnel also noted a rising number of strange phenomena, even after unstable test subjects had been terminated. Following an accident that almost destroyed one of the Tau's most valuable research facility, these Psykers, the so called Aether Vassals, were taken by the Fire Caste to exploit their ability to interfere with enemy psychic powers. Now fitted with a multitude of machineries, the Vassals fly across the battlefield to act as living lightning rods to preserve the life of others from hostile sorceries, while providing Tau scientists with knowledge of the Warp through pict-captures.


WS: 2
BS: 2
S:3
T:3
W:2
I:3
A:2
Ld: 5
Sv: -

Unit type: Infantry (Character)
Unit composition: 1 Aether Vassal
Wargear: Pulse pistol, Stimulant injector, close combat weapon.

Special rules: Bulky, Daemon, Fearless, Preferred Enemy (Psykers, Daemons), Move Through Cover, Rending, Psychic Static.

Psychic Static: Friendly units within 6" of this model have the Adamantium Will special rule. In addition, Invulnerable Saves cannot be taken against Wounds caused by this model's close combat attacks.

Regarding the Tau tools...

The jammer...steps on FE talisman. seriously. high-cost-high-effect of anti-psyker debuff?
Why not instead use the built-in system that tau has to "make your own semi-hero" of the crisis suits, and make it into a small, cheap defensive upgrade as a support system?
We got plenty of situational optional upgrades there as it is, another option will not do any harm.


The cannon....is weird.
How can a single large cannon take the place of the two gun drones of the hammerhead?
I'd say, either make it a MAIN weapon for the two, and by such much stronger (and NOVA profile for riptide), or a real secondary system, and as such a TL weaker gun (small blast, lower profile). its currently in the middle, and the middle is bad.
And I don't think it should be a full-stop "no powers for you on hit" kind of thing, that's just frustrating as it prevents any chance to resist, especially in psyker-dependant armies. it should do something akin to a -1 penalty to cast rolls if a small gun, or -2 if main cannon.



EDIT: accidental necromancery...sorry....