Being a player with multiple armies (5+) and most of them haveing psychic powers... after looking at the rules leaks yesterday I'm not sure why I'd ever bring a psyker in this new edition. You get to choose between 3 powers, most are just the same thing re-written for every army. none are great, most are meh, leaving me with an overall bland feeling. Also take into account the cost of Psykers and I have no idea why anyone would bring them now. Can anyone shed some light on to some of the more exciting powers or convince me to take the 12+ psykers I have?
for purposes of this thread the psychic armies I have are: Eldar, Harlequins, Ynnari, and GSC.
Meh psykers should be more bland rather than the cookie cutter "take invisibility" that was 7th.
Should offer minor buffs, or a shooting style attack IMO.
I think we will see some more "exciting" psychic rules in the codices regardless.
Granted I'm happy that invis WK's are no longer a thing (this is coming from an Eldar player) however we had like 6 tables in the BRB to choose from along with 2-3 tables in our respective codex's
Now we have 1 power in the BRB and 3 powers for each codex... and like I said, most are the same with a different title ex: "add +1 to hit"
digital-animal wrote: Kinda bored with psychics. Why have a phase dedicated to mediocrity?
agreed, why not just have a base buff that psykers add to a unit they're 6" from instead of dedicating a whole phase to blandness.
Why not just have three ranged and melee profiles then? The powers various psykers wield and the manner in which they wield them are as varied as the other weapons used in the setting. Some powers needing toning down and others up but they should definitely remain varied and interesting.
It is a stop gap set of indices, streamlined so that everything can be updated to the new rules for launch. Look at what came out at the release of 2nd or 3rd edition, other times when the game rules were completely overhauled. They were simple army rules so that everyone could play from the start. Codexes will expand on what we have, adding more varied rules and powers.
Trickstick wrote: It is a stop gap set of indices, streamlined so that everything can be updated to the new rules for launch. Look at what came out at the release of 2nd or 3rd edition, other times when the game rules were completely overhauled. They were simple army rules so that everyone could play from the start. Codexes will expand on what we have, adding more varied rules and powers.
so when is the "official" release with the "official" psychic powers?
Actually the biggest blow to Psykers in general is Psychic Focus, which comes into play for Matched Play games.
It reads that you cannot ATTEMPT to cast a power more than once, regardless of how many psykers know this power.
This means, you have 3 librarius Psykers, you can only attempt to manifest null zone ONCE per turn. Not once per psyker - once OVERALL. So if Psyker A, B, and C know the same power, and A attempts and fails, B & C cannot cast that power this turn.
The only power you can attempt more than once is Smite.
Trickstick wrote: It is a stop gap set of indices, streamlined so that everything can be updated to the new rules for launch. Look at what came out at the release of 2nd or 3rd edition, other times when the game rules were completely overhauled. They were simple army rules so that everyone could play from the start. Codexes will expand on what we have, adding more varied rules and powers.
so when is the "official" release with the "official" psychic powers?
supreme overlord wrote: Granted I'm happy that invis WK's are no longer a thing (this is coming from an Eldar player) however we had like 6 tables in the BRB to choose from along with 2-3 tables in our respective codex's
Now we have 1 power in the BRB and 3 powers for each codex... and like I said, most are the same with a different title ex: "add +1 to hit"
Here's your problem SM don't use psychics all the much and the two Chapters that do dip heavily into Psychic powers have their own tables already. So expect a long wait for any kind of psychic powers that expand the ability of armies that use Psy powers as a staple.
On the bright side SW get a always in cover spell!!!! So be excited for them.
Trickstick wrote: It is a stop gap set of indices, streamlined so that everything can be updated to the new rules for launch. Look at what came out at the release of 2nd or 3rd edition, other times when the game rules were completely overhauled. They were simple army rules so that everyone could play from the start. Codexes will expand on what we have, adding more varied rules and powers.
so when is the "official" release with the "official" psychic powers?
...
The 17th of March, 2019.
woah... I hope this is a joke or an exaggeration. why release an unfinished rule set 1yr and 9 months before drop?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dosiere wrote: It should stay like this IMO. The alternative is what we have with 7th, so no thanks.
not necessarily. Most of the 7ed powers were not OP. Most were balanced and fun. dont let invisibility jade your judgment
7th edition was too much, and these are not the army codices.
Is too early to complain and frankly, Psypower should be something used for support or as a special weapon.
More than that, they become ridiculous and game breaking.
I love all my nid powers. 5+ fnp. Run and shoot and charge with reduced or no penalties. Zoanthropes getting a boosted smites to hand out mortal wounds like candy. And the horror giving -1 ld and to hit coupled with venomthropes -1 to hit will make my nids great. Im pumped.
Marmatag wrote: Actually the biggest blow to Psykers in general is Psychic Focus, which comes into play for Matched Play games.
It reads that you cannot ATTEMPT to cast a power more than once, regardless of how many psykers know this power.
This means, you have 3 librarius Psykers, you can only attempt to manifest null zone ONCE per turn. Not once per psyker - once OVERALL. So if Psyker A, B, and C know the same power, and A attempts and fails, B & C cannot cast that power this turn.
The only power you can attempt more than once is Smite.
Cheers, enjoy
It's kinda funny/sad how the Thousand Sons have no reason to run more than a single psyker because either Magnus/Ahriman can cover all of their casting potential by themselves.
First, I will freely admit that I'm somewhat biased in this discussion. All of my armies had a total lack of psykers or they were basically useless (looking at you weird boy).
There is nothing more demoralizing in a game than not getting to take part in a whole phase of the game. Especially when the other player is getting massive buffs or doing massive damage to you during that phase.
I absolutely love the fact that psykers now only provide small buffs or do a couple mortal wounds. Honestly, psykers should help the rest of the army carry the load, not do the heavy lifting themselves.
I've now seen 4 different people complain about invisibility... so wouldnt we have been better off if they would have kept the tables and just taken that power out? I built a seer council for my eldar that are now utterly pointless as max I can even bring is 3 without becoming redundant.
I agree that tables with 6 powers balanced ones with the others and balanced in general with the game is better than 3 powers.
But with so many armies theres only so much spells you can make before entering the "danger zones" of broken spells.
We all can want better rules but is GW we are talking about. Between psychics powers full of OP ones, useless ones, and broken ones one way or the other in every army, and a small amount of more "moderated" powers for all armies better balanced, I choose the second.
I play Tau, but we have talked already about erasing the restriction of only attempting one spell per turn, basically because one of my friends play TS. So if he fails he can try again with other spellcaster. At least that mitigates the problem with Psykers.
supreme overlord wrote: I've now seen 4 different people complain about invisibility... so wouldnt we have been better off if they would have kept the tables and just taken that power out? I built a seer council for my eldar that are now utterly pointless as max I can even bring is 3 without becoming redundant.
If it's not invisibility it's going to be one of the other power options. Invisibility was just the tier breaker that made everything good. I will however miss my Slaanesh powers that bolster my sonic guns now that they are better, but Warptime and Prescience are worthwhile in exchange.
I think some of the powers manage to be useful and interesting enough. The movement ones like twilight path and warp time and teleports like gate of infinity and da jump let you reposition in interesting and useful ways.
The ynarri spell that lets you soulburst is also really versatile.
Dominate and treason of tzeentch can also have nasty effects. Treason in particular can really mess up your opponent's plans.
The spells are useful, but limited in scope. I'm fine with it. It reigns in the crazyness of 7th ed. Powers open up interesting new tactical situations when you can get +1 to hit, or move a second time, etc, but don't dominate the game.
Some people like vanilla, even more after years of ultra tutti-fruty recharged with chocolate syrup and caramel sprinkles. After all, you can always add more flavour after
As fun as dozens of complicated powers and convoluted warp charge nonsense was, this is certainly a lot better.
Smite is good. It's simple, it's effective, it's scary. And several units modify it on a sliding scale of power (Like Aspiring Sorcerers or Zoanthropes), making it an effective 'baseline' to modify into any 'generic psychic shooting attack'.
The buffs are good. They're simple, they're effective, they're potent. Tagging an entire unit to have +1 to hit or wound, count as being in cover, or get 5+ FnP can be devastating. Psykers being reliable as buff-bots is certainly more favorable than rolling on a big random chart and hoping you get something useful.
The other stuff is good. Teleporting or moving units around the battlefield, debuffing enemies, making extra psychic shooting attacks other than Smite (2-spell Chaos Sorcerers potentially dealing 9 Mortal Wounds in one phase by casting Smite and Infernal Gaze? Ouch!). All of it's pretty nasty.
Sure it may not be this big fancy ordeal anymore, and sure there's not paragraphs of descriptive text and tons of little details and complex rules for every single spell, but those aren't necessary. Honestly, this is going to make things much less of a headache. And what's more, we're probably getting more in the proper codices later on anyway.
supreme overlord wrote: I've now seen 4 different people complain about invisibility... so wouldnt we have been better off if they would have kept the tables and just taken that power out? I built a seer council for my eldar that are now utterly pointless as max I can even bring is 3 without becoming redundant.
Yes there were some powers that needed to go, invis being one of them, but they didnt need to gut the tables down to 1 spell plus half tables per army.
They should have made 5 tables: melee, ranged, durability, movement, and damage. 3 powers each. Keep the limit of 1 power attempt per phase but make it so casters can sacrafice a cast to repeat a spell. IE I cast Prescience with Ahriman I can still cast it with my other Sorcerers that are too far away from the enemy so cant cast smite. But lose a cast in the process.
Yeah these are incredibly boring. Even AoS, which replaced FB's extremely diverse and tactical magic phase with the barely interactive system we see here, was at least willing to put individually interesting spells with slightly more complex effects in. Hardly any of that here.
Smite is good. It's simple, it's effective, it's scary. And several units modify it on a sliding scale of power (Like Aspiring Sorcerers or Zoanthropes), making it an effective 'baseline' to modify into any 'generic psychic shooting attack'.
Smite is gak. The range is too short to be effective for anything and you cant target so im going to have to burn it on trash before i can ever use it against the thing i would actually want to use it on.
Karoline Dianne wrote: The other stuff is good. Teleporting or moving units around the battlefield, debuffing enemies, making extra psychic shooting attacks other than Smite (2-spell Chaos Sorcerers potentially dealing 9 Mortal Wounds in one phase by casting Smite and Infernal Gaze? Ouch!). All of it's pretty nasty.
You realize all those spells are limited to single casts right? If you dont get it off you dont get the spell. Smite is the only spell that cna be cast multiple times your not going ro be moving units your going to move a unit per turn if you dont fail the cast. As for the 9 wounds per turn that will almost never happen.
Karoline Dianne wrote: Sure it may not be this big fancy ordeal anymore, and sure there's not paragraphs of descriptive text and tons of little details and complex rules for every single spell, but those aren't necessary. Honestly, this is going to make things much less of a headache. And what's more, we're probably getting more in the proper codices later on anyway.
Its not about being big and fancy, its about having the versatility that was the benefit of having a Sorcerer. Now there more expensive less reliable and have almost no versatility. What upgrades.
I play Thousand Sons and there is literally no reason to bring anyone other then Ahriman. Magnus is a giant target now that will die in 2 turns maybe 3 turns, Exalted Sorcerers do the exact same thing as Ahriman except 1 less spell. The only other useful charcters that im ALLOWED to take to be a thousand sons army are 150 points. The only way i will ha e a chance at winng any game is if i bring 3 cultists/Tzzangors for every non Cultist/Tzzangor model.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lavy wrote: They will flesh out the psychic powers in time, have patience.
I heard this same thing 5 years years ago when the CSM codex came out. No ive had enough patience.
Marmatag wrote: Actually the biggest blow to Psykers in general is Psychic Focus, which comes into play for Matched Play games.
It reads that you cannot ATTEMPT to cast a power more than once, regardless of how many psykers know this power.
This means, you have 3 librarius Psykers, you can only attempt to manifest null zone ONCE per turn. Not once per psyker - once OVERALL. So if Psyker A, B, and C know the same power, and A attempts and fails, B & C cannot cast that power this turn.
The only power you can attempt more than once is Smite.
Cheers, enjoy
I just dug through the leaks to find that. I was really hoping you'd misread it. Nope.
WTF, GW??? My brand new Thousand Sons get one go at each spell, then a million smites. Gee, thanks! At least any Chaos Character can summon demons now... I need more demons.
I'm starting to suspect that Narrative play with points may become a thing.
Smite is good. It's simple, it's effective, it's scary. And several units modify it on a sliding scale of power (Like Aspiring Sorcerers or Zoanthropes), making it an effective 'baseline' to modify into any 'generic psychic shooting attack'.
Smite is gak. The range is too short to be effective for anything and you cant target so im going to have to burn it on trash before i can ever use it against the thing i would actually want to use it on.
Karoline Dianne wrote: The other stuff is good. Teleporting or moving units around the battlefield, debuffing enemies, making extra psychic shooting attacks other than Smite (2-spell Chaos Sorcerers potentially dealing 9 Mortal Wounds in one phase by casting Smite and Infernal Gaze? Ouch!). All of it's pretty nasty.
You realize all those spells are limited to single casts right? If you dont get it off you dont get the spell. Smite is the only spell that cna be cast multiple times your not going ro be moving units your going to move a unit per turn if you dont fail the cast. As for the 9 wounds per turn that will almost never happen.
Karoline Dianne wrote: Sure it may not be this big fancy ordeal anymore, and sure there's not paragraphs of descriptive text and tons of little details and complex rules for every single spell, but those aren't necessary. Honestly, this is going to make things much less of a headache. And what's more, we're probably getting more in the proper codices later on anyway.
Its not about being big and fancy, its about having the versatility that was the benefit of having a Sorcerer. Now there more expensive less reliable and have almost no versatility. What upgrades.
I play Thousand Sons and there is literally no reason to bring anyone other then Ahriman. Magnus is a giant target now that will die in 2 turns maybe 3 turns, Exalted Sorcerers do the exact same thing as Ahriman except 1 less spell. The only other useful charcters that im ALLOWED to take to be a thousand sons army are 150 points. The only way i will ha e a chance at winng any game is if i bring 3 cultists/Tzzangors for every non Cultist/Tzzangor model.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lavy wrote: They will flesh out the psychic powers in time, have patience.
I heard this same thing 5 years years ago when the CSM codex came out. No ive had enough patience.
1. So you see no value in multiple Smites? You will do an average of 2 mortal wounds 5/6 attempts. That will decimate most non-horde units. You do lose control of what you get to target, granted, because it happens before movement, which means opponent will always get to choose which are the closest units 90% of the time. For any CC that the opponent starts with a Psyker you will get two "free" mortal wounds on the offenders before even having to make a "fall back or fight" choice. Properly used Smites will be making the difference in morale checks. 18" range is average for a weapon, except you only have to make one roll, and may be countered.
2. Unless you know some way for a single unit to be in multiple places at once, having the option of using psychic abilities in the most needed spots seems better than just having all your eggs in one basket, one that is quite easily countered.
3. Being Thousand Sons, you will most likely have more Psykers on the board than your opponent, meaning they have to 1) maneuver their Psykers to either stay out of denial range or to stay within denial range of as many of yours as possible, and 2) choose which power to counter. So if they know you have Big Bad Power X , you will most likely get off all Smites until they get to the 1 deny attempt per Psyker limit. They have to choose to deny or not BEFORE you roll the result.
You can choose to take the advantages your army gives you, or not. But complaining about you not choosing to take advantage of an army's strengths or uniqueness is quite silly, simply choose differently...
By itself, the fact that you can't control who you target with Smite makes it pretty much substandard imo. Add to it a short ranged and you're not really getting anything amazing out of the deal.
Yeah you can cast it 83,3% of the time and 8,3% of the time you'll score the D6 wounds but also remember that the more you spam a psychic power the higher your chances of getting Perils are.
But there are not big bad power X at all Hahahaha.
Use more than one sorcerer on chaos is a bad idea.
Also broke most tsons lists since them carry multiple sorcerers or exalted ones. Easily you could find 3 or 4 on an army beside the aspirants.
Now is terrible idea. The funny is that chaos sorcerers are expensive haha.
And smile has a very low range. Don't will allow harm enemies if you left the psyker on a shooty unit.
So beside very specific psyker of certain armies.... Why not put any other hq? They will do more kills and be more flexible.
Also you can put 2 or 3 melee or shooty hq and no problem. Imagine that if a tau commander shoot a weapon, other tau commander can't use the same weapon on this turn.....
Also we can't forget the warp perils xD
Automatically Appended Next Post: Now psyker phase is a joke. No real reason beside do a thematic army that take psykers
docdoom77 wrote: I love it like this. I'm going to enjoy this much simpler, less broken format for as long as it lasts.
Rule wise psychics actually got boost on small point levels with more powers off more reliably. If psychic got nerf that's because of spells but that's not dependant on psychic rules themselves...
Big issue is crappy scalability. The bigger the game, less effect psykers have.
docdoom77 wrote: I love it like this. I'm going to enjoy this much simpler, less broken format for as long as it lasts.
Rule wise psychics actually got boost on small point levels with more powers off more reliably. If psychic got nerf that's because of spells but that's not dependant on psychic rules themselves...
Big issue is crappy scalability. The bigger the game, less effect psykers have.
That's what happened in my 3k 8TH Game I played yesterday...no freaking scalability!
KurtAngle2 wrote: That's what happened in my 3k 8TH Game I played yesterday...no freaking scalability!
Yeah. It's like 2 psykers and after that all others are smite spammers. Okay TECHNICALLY it's scalable in that every psyker can do something but effect diminishes a lot.
I hate unskalable rules. Even 7th ed wasn't truly scalable suffering from same effect though to lesser degree. And that's the major bugbear I have about 2nd ed psychic rules as well as that too was non-scalable.
GW has yet to do good scalable psychic rules that I know off.
supreme overlord wrote: I've now seen 4 different people complain about invisibility... so wouldnt we have been better off if they would have kept the tables and just taken that power out? I built a seer council for my eldar that are now utterly pointless as max I can even bring is 3 without becoming redundant.
W already have been there. The 7th edition system was unbalanced, clunky and full of stinkers. The sad thing is that to appeal to psi-spankers, in the codices new powers will come back and we will have broken psionics all over again.
Psi-stuff should give you an edge, not something you base your strategy on. Actually strategy is a big word - is just a deathstar building tool.
supreme overlord wrote: I've now seen 4 different people complain about invisibility... so wouldnt we have been better off if they would have kept the tables and just taken that power out? I built a seer council for my eldar that are now utterly pointless as max I can even bring is 3 without becoming redundant.
W already have been there. The 7th edition system was unbalanced, clunky and full of stinkers. The sad thing is that to appeal to psi-spankers, in the codices new powers will come back and we will have broken psionics all over again.
Psi-stuff should give you an edge, not something you base your strategy on. Actually strategy is a big word - is just a deathstar building tool.
You are essentially saying: "I miss deathstars".
Of course if you were to give 7th ed powers to 8th ed psychic rules in smaller games they would be even MORE broken. 8th ed archieves "balance" mostly by being unscalable and works thus only at bigger point level.
8th is mostly built out of a bunch of little rules that more or less amount to options. Yes. In matched play only you can only cast each power once per turn. Or you could just ignore that limitation among your group. I suggest you do so.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I know I will be using bits and pieces of different advanced rules. Like the flyers being able to leave the table and other stuff.
supreme overlord wrote: I've now seen 4 different people complain about invisibility... so wouldnt we have been better off if they would have kept the tables and just taken that power out? I built a seer council for my eldar that are now utterly pointless as max I can even bring is 3 without becoming redundant.
W already have been there. The 7th edition system was unbalanced, clunky and full of stinkers. The sad thing is that to appeal to psi-spankers, in the codices new powers will come back and we will have broken psionics all over again.
Psi-stuff should give you an edge, not something you base your strategy on. Actually strategy is a big word - is just a deathstar building tool.
You are essentially saying: "I miss deathstars".
umm...no. I am not essentially saying "I miss deathstars" I'm saying a seer council is a completely fluffy way to build an eldar list and now it's pointless. I'm saying I spent money on models that I cannot use now because they dumbed the psychic phase down too much. Don't just assume that because I want to bring psykers and they be useful that I'm WAAC
That's essentially saying that all thousand sons and tzeench players dont care about their armies they were just WAAC.
Pedroig wrote: 1. So you see no value in multiple Smites? You will do an average of 2 mortal wounds 5/6 attempts. That will decimate most non-horde units. You do lose control of what you get to target, granted, because it happens before movement, which means opponent will always get to choose which are the closest units 90% of the time. For any CC that the opponent starts with a Psyker you will get two "free" mortal wounds on the offenders before even having to make a "fall back or fight" choice. Properly used Smites will be making the difference in morale checks. 18" range is average for a weapon, except you only have to make one roll, and may be countered.
First off half of my sorcerers will be embedded in units and will only do 1 mortal wound per turn with them. It would decimate non horde units but your almost never going to use it on non horde units. Smite is borderline useless, here let me put it this way. Imagine you have a unit with a Lascannon but you can only shoot the closest enemy and it has an 18" range. You wont get two "Free" mortal wounds you have to cast it still and you can perils or be denied. The only way to properly use smite is to put a 3 wound Character in CC with an enemy that will most likely kill him in 1 round.
Pedroig wrote: 2. Unless you know some way for a single unit to be in multiple places at once, having the option of using psychic abilities in the most needed spots seems better than just having all your eggs in one basket, one that is quite easily countered.
so buy 3 Sorcerers and never benefit from more then 1 a turn. Sounds like a super strategy. Why not bring 3 units of Terminators and only ever shoot 1 a turn?
Pedroig wrote: 3. Being Thousand Sons, you will most likely have more Psykers on the board than your opponent, meaning they have to 1) maneuver their Psykers to either stay out of denial range or to stay within denial range of as many of yours as possible, and 2) choose which power to counter. So if they know you have Big Bad Power X , you will most likely get off all Smites until they get to the 1 deny attempt per Psyker limit. They have to choose to deny or not BEFORE you roll the result.
Well I'm supposed to have more Psykers, but I wont. They wont have to maneuver gak all they will have to do is keep 1 or 2 large units in front of everything. Choose which power to counter? LMAO TS have a total of 4 options, smite can be countered by 5 PPM units, 2 sorcerers can counter the rest...AMAZING...Big bad power X um you mean Smite, or Smite, or maybe Smite, oh possibly Smite? Yeah and they will let the Smites through and prevent things Like Prescience. If I bring 3 Sorcerers 3 Units of Rubrics and 3 Units of SOT that is a total of 12 Mortal wounds, If there all in range rolling that many Psy Tests is going to result in a much higher chance of Perils.
Pedroig wrote: You can choose to take the advantages your army gives you, or not. But complaining about you not choosing to take advantage of an army's strengths or uniqueness is quite silly, simply choose differently...
My army has to give me advantages for me to take advantage of first.
Compared to the Infinite wounds BS harlequins were capable Im glad to see these bland rules. Yous should have expected a power drop once they could be chosen instead of rolled randomly.
I mean I cannot see taking 12 psykers in 8th, but for your armies.
Eldar -
Guide is good, as good as it always has been. It isn't exciting but re-rolls to hit are always nice, especially on units with lots of shooting like warwalkers.
Doom is good, always has been. But not new or exciting.
Fortune, was a bit nerfed but 5+ FNP is good in this edition so far. SO it isn't bad.
Ynnari-
Gaze - is good, not great, but 1-6 mortal wounds is not terrible.
Ancestors Gaze - is ok. If you have a unit that hits on a 2+ it is a guarantee to hit.
Word of Pheonix looks very good as it gives you extra soulburst, somove twice, shoot twice, fight twice in a turn. No need for a unit to have died. So if you are in combat, fight, trigger a charge into another unit to fight in your own combat phase, seems super good.
Harlequins
-Twilight Pathways - good, double move in a turn is good. An average use of this would have a troupe moving 23" and still be able to charge
-Fog of Dreams - good in an all harlequin list, can add a bit more durability to your harlequins. Not amazing, but not bad
-Mirror of minds - very swingy can be great, can be garbage.
I would say these powers are more interesting than most of what we see get played in 7e.
Invis, re-roll powers.
not super exciting but I think most are pretty cool.
You just won't need 12 psykers maybe 2.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pedroig wrote: [
1. So you see no value in multiple Smites? You will do an average of 2 mortal wounds 5/6 attempts. That will decimate most non-horde units. You do lose control of what you get to target, granted, because it happens before movement, which means opponent will always get to choose which are the closest units 90% of the time. For any CC that the opponent starts with a Psyker you will get two "free" mortal wounds on the offenders before even having to make a "fall back or fight" choice. Properly used Smites will be making the difference in morale checks. 18" range is average for a weapon, except you only have to make one roll, and may be countered.
Ummm...Movement is the first phase followed by Psychic. So 100% of the time you will decide the closest unit, from amongst the options your opponent has given you.
JNAProductions wrote: Grey Knights too. They pay a big premium for being Psykers, and have three powers to cast amongst them.
Exactly this.
Also Grey Knights don't get anything special to protect themselves from psychic powers. Shouldn't they have a +1 at least to Deny, or no perils on double 6s?
Basically, the psyker army of space marines is actually weaker at the psychic phase than other space marine armies.
I don't even.
I want Grey Knights to be good, because "KNIGHTS - IN - SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE" is too cool for school. But i'm pretty disappointed :( They could have at least given them ChaosBane, instead of DaemonBane.
For psychic heavy armies, only being able to cast (or, rather, attempt to cast) 3 unique spells besides smite seems pretty limiting.
But........I suppose you want to pick your powers, said powers can't be overly broken (i.e. invisibility).
I think if they had more powers, or brought back generalist disciplines, It would be just fine. But just having 3 to pick from doesn't seem like enough. (for some).
For orks, I'm ok with what I got. Except 'eadbanger, which was, is, and probably forever shall be, garbage.
psychic OPness was a large part of what was wrong with 7th. if they can't figure out a way to balance them i would rather they just be boring and predictable. it was also sort of a way to list tailor as powers were not set so facing a horde lie orks or tyranids... take shriek, and template powers. facin guard aim for all the invisibility. i prefer boring stable and on the list before you know what you are facing.
They went a step too far. Especially since they KNEW what the big offenders were. They could've easily kept the tables, nerfing or removing the big offenders.
There's nothing wrong with the majority of physic powers-it's only a select few that are broken.
JNAProductions wrote: Grey Knights too. They pay a big premium for being Psykers, and have three powers to cast amongst them.
Exactly this.
Also Grey Knights don't get anything special to protect themselves from psychic powers. Shouldn't they have a +1 at least to Deny, or no perils on double 6s?
Basically, the psyker army of space marines is actually weaker at the psychic phase than other space marine armies.
I don't even.
I want Grey Knights to be good, because "KNIGHTS - IN - SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE" is too cool for school. But i'm pretty disappointed :( They could have at least given them ChaosBane, instead of DaemonBane.
I wouldn't think units like Ahriman or Scarab Occult were problems in 7th. And they had access to 11 psychic tables (72 powers). Likewise Grey Knights who had multiple psykers but a lot of fixed powers.
Invis deathstars and summoning circus were ITC faves and notorious, however the issues with less common psychic builds were moreso the prolonged bookkeeping and awkward WC mechanics. Also lack of interaction and psychic defense but this hasn't been fixed for armies that can't take psykers.
So far this is the only part of 8th I'm not really impressed by. Seems like something is missing.
JNAProductions wrote: They went a step too far. Especially since they KNEW what the big offenders were. They could've easily kept the tables, nerfing or removing the big offenders.
There's nothing wrong with the majority of physic powers-it's only a select few that are broken.
Yeah, they definitely went too far. But, this is the base ruleset. Maybe they'll expand in the future.
I'm fine with starting bland at reboot and getting more interesting later.
It would just have been nice to see my factions keep some of their flavor.
1) Yes, I forgot majoirty of your Psykers are mini-Psykers, Smite not as powerful, true, but still, you will get off any Smite attempts you make unless the model is the only Psyker within denial range.
2. Denial is not 5+ it has to be higher than whatever you roll, so 6+ at a minimum, and if you take the 12 hit, at least it can't be countered by any "base" Psyker.
3) If you don't want the mortal wounds you are paying for, I'm sure your opponent will take them instead...
8+ cost powers are just way too unreliable to be any good. So you mostly resort to smite only, after your first psyker.
For example: Mirror of minds (8+, Harlequin) has a 24% to do 1 mortal wound. That's a 86% chance to fail! Yes you can continue casting if successful, but then 8% chance for 3 mortal wounds is not what I call reliable or fun in any way.
Compare to smite that has a 66% chance to do d3 mortal wounds and 16% to do d6 mortal wounds. 17% chance to fail.
psychic powers in 7th made some lists broken, i m fine with psyonic being tuned down a lot, and im sure when specific codex will get out, some more powers will be described there.
Maybe now player become more important than the list agaon
Lance845 wrote: 8th is mostly built out of a bunch of little rules that more or less amount to options. Yes. In matched play only you can only cast each power once per turn. Or you could just ignore that limitation among your group. I suggest you do so.
.
Of course that means psychic powers would be cast even more than in 7th ed so only thing keeping them check would be spell powers. If 7th ed spells were transported here it would be totally broken. Which points to 7th ed psychic issue being with spells rather than core psychic rules
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lance845 wrote: 8th is mostly built out of a bunch of little rules that more or less amount to options. Yes. In matched play only you can only cast each power once per turn. Or you could just ignore that limitation among your group. I suggest you do so.
.
Of course that means psychic powers would be cast even more than in 7th ed so only thing keeping them check would be spell powers. If 7th ed spells were transported here it would be totally broken. Which points to 7th ed psychic issue being with spells rather than core psychic rules
I just started building a thousand sons army and must admit that i am disappointed to see the changes to psychic powers. It feels like their idea of balancing is to just take away the flavor that made factions unique. I mean, the thousand sons don't have their own table, but the death guard do? I get they're one of the new armies but come on; many factions got a unique list in the indices, but the legion of sorcerers is left out. For an army that is supposed to be full of psykers, you won't see many sorcerers in a thousand sons list, not one that has a hope of doing well anyway. This new system is excellent for armies that rely on the occassional single psyker for support. But the armies that are reliant on the psychic phase feel so meh now. I've definitely lost some excitement for the thousand sons.
Why are y'all expecting Games Workshop to come up with good and interesting choices for anything tbh?
If the 7th ed psychic power choices were anything to go by (ex: the power difference between telepathy/biomancy and pyromancy), why would this edition have been any better? It's clear the people writing up the psychic powers haven't gotten any (edit: spelling) more of a clue.
7e Psykers were non-scalable due to the amount of Warp Charge needed for each Psyker outpacing the WC you took by taking more psykers. The main offenders were BRB Invisibility (ITC Invisibility was more bearable) and 2++ rerollables (a general recommendation is Invulnerable Saves cannot be improved to greater than 3++). Other than that I felt the WC system was good because it's a risk versus reward system (more power = better chance to succeed but a higher chance to fail). Of course you also had outliers like Magnus being a Cannon for all your Daemons to pour their WC into (note I said Daemons and not Thousand Sons).
My general thought was: 2 Warp Charge per ML, but Psykers can only use their own WC. Psychic powers should not be all-or-nothing. Rather, you have degrees of success, and denial subtracts successes, rather than "I put all my dice in Invisibility and roll 5 successes. Hope you can roll 5 6s to deny."
Really there's a lot they could have done besides doing the AOS simplification route.
See, i dont even mind the AOS way because while there is still the limit of one of each power per turn, warscrolls have unique spells for that model to cast. So its ok to have many spellcasters, since they can all cast their own stuff and aren't sharing a spell pool besides mystic shield and arcane bolt. why can't we have that for 40k? Just seems lazy.
Nightlord1987 wrote: Compared to the Infinite wounds BS harlequins were capable Im glad to see these bland rules. Yous should have expected a power drop once they could be chosen instead of rolled randomly.
They cant be chosen they have to be rolled.
Edit: NM they can be chosen I don't why but whatever.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pedroig wrote: 1) Yes, I forgot majoirty of your Psykers are mini-Psykers, Smite not as powerful, true, but still, you will get off any Smite attempts you make unless the model is the only Psyker within denial range.
That's fine but when I blow up my unit because I periled and lose 3 models on average in rubrics / 2 models in SOT that hurts a lot, and with 12 casts I have a 66% chance of it happening every psychic phase
Pedroig wrote: 2. Denial is not 5+ it has to be higher than whatever you roll, so 6+ at a minimum, and if you take the 12 hit, at least it can't be countered by any "base" Psyker.
They don't have to deny the wounds they can just bring 2 or 3 cheap units to absorb the wounds.
Pedroig wrote: 3) If you don't want the mortal wounds you are paying for, I'm sure your opponent will take them instead...
They will take the wounds on models that are 5 PPM and lose 60 points of models while I lose 100ish per perils.
Lance845 wrote: 8th is mostly built out of a bunch of little rules that more or less amount to options. Yes. In matched play only you can only cast each power once per turn. Or you could just ignore that limitation among your group. I suggest you do so.
.
Of course that means psychic powers would be cast even more than in 7th ed so only thing keeping them check would be spell powers. If 7th ed spells were transported here it would be totally broken. Which points to 7th ed psychic issue being with spells rather than core psychic rules
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lance845 wrote: 8th is mostly built out of a bunch of little rules that more or less amount to options. Yes. In matched play only you can only cast each power once per turn. Or you could just ignore that limitation among your group. I suggest you do so.
.
Of course that means psychic powers would be cast even more than in 7th ed so only thing keeping them check would be spell powers. If 7th ed spells were transported here it would be totally broken. Which points to 7th ed psychic issue being with spells rather than core psychic rules
how? how would it be broken? please explain. Just saying something would be "broken" and giving no evidence as to why doesn't justify any argument.
I rather enjoyed the idea behind 7th where the more dice you committed, the more likely your success but also your perils.
It created some balance.
Perils chance is low if you only roll a few times. When you get up to 12 casts per turn your looking at 66% chance. Which is high enough to make me hesitant to field more then 3 Sorcerers total per game.
Thousand Sons get to dish out tons of mortal wounds and have an antimagic screen throughout their entire army to deny enemy psykers. I dunno about you but that seems pretty spiffy to me. None of your Aspiring Sorcerers know anything but Smite, so they aren't bumping elbows with your other spells anyway, and you generally aren't taking more than 2 HQ units in a single list to begin with. So what, your two HQ sorcerers have one spell in common they know (other than smite) and one other unique to them. I don't see a problem here.
TS Sorcerers could drop tough AV with Heretech powers, remove MCs with Shriek and Devolution, turn laughable shooting imbalances on their head with Treason, pick apart deathstars with Beams and Debuffs, and wreck entire squads with Force weapons and Biomancy. Even Pyromancy was useful at times because Horde control is sometimes an issue!
This made their army ultra-elite, brittle, and demanding. Casualties were not to be taken lightly. Which was very flavourful considering how their Legion has suffered historically.
Now they are just spamming Smite. It's not just a power level thing -- there was a ton of decision making and flavour in the psychic phase. Not only that, but the army revolved around effective use of the psychic phase. Shooting was widely held as overpowered in 7th -- having an army expanding what's viable is a good thing IMO.
So that's more of the issue. If Smite spam is effective, it'll still be bland and flavourless. It smacks of tokenism rather than putting thought into designing a fun phase.
Karoline Dianne wrote: Thousand Sons get to dish out tons of mortal wounds and have an antimagic screen throughout their entire army to deny enemy psykers. I dunno about you but that seems pretty spiffy to me. None of your Aspiring Sorcerers know anything but Smite, so they aren't bumping elbows with your other spells anyway, and you generally aren't taking more than 2 HQ units in a single list to begin with. So what, your two HQ sorcerers have one spell in common they know (other than smite) and one other unique to them. I don't see a problem here.
Y'all are overreacting.
10 mortal wounds is not tons espically when they will be spread out over 9-12 units IF they can even cast the 18" spell. There shooting is crap due to low model count, and thier CC is crap because thier crap at CC. The only thing they do well is psychic powers. And that is the most underwelming part of thier performance.
Smite is bad. Like really bad, almost exclusivly becuase you cant target units. Perils on a Rubric or SOT Sorc will cost me 90 points on average.
This is how out of the know you are. No one is going to bring more then 1 Sorcerer and its going to be Ahriman since he gets all 3 spells and can cast all three spells. Why would I spend 160 points when i can spend 130 and get the same capabilities?
Automatically Appended Next Post: So an article on thousand sons specifically came out.
Karoline Dianne wrote: Thousand Sons get to dish out tons of mortal wounds and have an antimagic screen throughout their entire army to deny enemy psykers. I dunno about you but that seems pretty spiffy to me. None of your Aspiring Sorcerers know anything but Smite, so they aren't bumping elbows with your other spells anyway, and you generally aren't taking more than 2 HQ units in a single list to begin with. So what, your two HQ sorcerers have one spell in common they know (other than smite) and one other unique to them. I don't see a problem here.
Y'all are overreacting.
Yeah... i was planning on ahriman, an exalted sorcerer, and 2/3 basic sorcerers. So yes, they will be stepping on each others' toes a bit. Because i liked the idea of ahriman and a cabal of sorcerers striding the battlefield with their terminator bodyguards. Low model count and a heavy focus on a myriad of different powers sounds like thousand sons to me. Now it just looks like im playing a regular chaos marine army painted blue.
docdoom77 wrote: I love it like this. I'm going to enjoy this much simpler, less broken format for as long as it lasts.
I think that psykers should pay for their abilities as other's pay for guns and they should be resolved similarly and simply. Psykers are a condiment not the main dish. I am happy that we can choose the powers as this opens up specific conversion potential. Also allows a psykers to have a specific role reliably on the field. And I am especially happy if psykers stay no more powerful than say an assassin or other special op.
docdoom77 wrote: I love it like this. I'm going to enjoy this much simpler, less broken format for as long as it lasts.
I think that psykers should pay for their abilities as other's pay for guns and they should be resolved similarly and simply. Psykers are a condiment not the main dish. I am happy that we can choose the powers as this opens up specific conversion potential. Also allows a psykers to have a specific role reliably on the field. And I am especially happy if psykers stay no more powerful than say an assassin or other special op.
Except they pay for their powers, regardless of if they can use it.
supreme overlord wrote: Being a player with multiple armies (5+) and most of them haveing psychic powers... after looking at the rules leaks yesterday I'm not sure why I'd ever bring a psyker in this new edition. You get to choose between 3 powers, most are just the same thing re-written for every army. none are great, most are meh, leaving me with an overall bland feeling. Also take into account the cost of Psykers and I have no idea why anyone would bring them now. Can anyone shed some light on to some of the more exciting powers or convince me to take the 12+ psykers I have?
for purposes of this thread the psychic armies I have are: Eldar, Harlequins, Ynnari, and GSC.
Good, pyskers were ridiculous in 7th and heavily contributed to some of the awful shenanigans we saw that destroyed game balance.
JNAProductions wrote: Except they pay for their powers, regardless of if they can use it.
Yeah thats one of the big issues with TS the embeded psykers have such short range that all the enemy has to do is sit back and shoot at you and you will lose 3 turns worth of casting. The only way to counter this is bring Rhinos but then your increasing you cost per unit by 35 at least. And thats if you dont take any any additional models, which means you lose out on special weapons.
"This army of powerful, heretical Sorcerers use the baleful power of the Warp and a finely honed tactical cunning to win their battles" (From the faction focus article)
For the Thousand Sons sorcerers ARE the army. Everything else is just support.
I hope they get something like Ahriman's Exiles updated to make them a legion of sorcerers again. Right now, they seem gimped by Psychic Focus in matched play.
Paying full price for handicapped Exalted Sorcerers? No thanks, !
Don't care about the discussion, just have a question that has already probably been touched on, how many powers were really used from most of those tables that were in 7th. So many powers were just useless in that edition.
As a tyranid player i strongly prefer 8th solution.
7th had the following problems:
1) 2/3 of the powers were useless, so you brought lot of psykers just to have a chance at getting the few useful powers.
2) Witch fires were largely useless, due to the enormous amount or rolls needed to finally get some wounds in (manifest, DtW, hit, wound and save).
3) Some powers were utterly broken.
4) It was all or nothing, if you brought a fluffy amount of psykers, they would be completely negated if the other had invested in lots of dices.
5) DtW mechanic sucked.
6) Zero tactical depth. Huge ranges on the useful powers, and positioning didn't matter. In 8th dispersion is all about positioning and a lot of powers are short ranged. This adds a lot of depth to this phase.
Smite is a nice move by GW, it is an incredibly powerful attack (something that takes a terminator in one hit witout any save allowed is really powerful in my book), that can be mitigated by proper positioning of your models and layering of psy defenses.. This will round list building a lot, by giving cheap troops (up until now only taken as a tax), an additional role.
I play Thousand Sons and there is literally no reason to bring anyone other then Ahriman. Magnus is a giant target now that will die in 2 turns maybe 3 turns, Exalted Sorcerers do the exact same thing as Ahriman except 1 less spell. The only other useful charcters that im ALLOWED to take to be a thousand sons army are 150 points. The only way i will ha e a chance at winng any game is if i bring 3 cultists/Tzzangors for every non Cultist/Tzzangor model.
Really? Are you complaining that in 3 turns (2 turns is impossible in 8th, 2000 points army lists will pack a max of 2 long range heavy weapon platforms) of focused fire you can take down a model that costs less that an imperial knight?
At the same time you are saying that you don't see value in having redoundancy in powers?
Hahaha!
Abusing the allied forces matrix is how you work the Psychic Phase, just like in 7th edition.
One shot at any given spell? Nae worries laddie, grab some Grey Knights, Dark Angels and Space Wolves psykers, now you have a goodly spread of powers to take a dig at.
They all hate each other so it's about as fluffy as your average piece of sandpaper and every bit as likely to rub opponents the wrong way.
The more things change...
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hahaha!
Abusing the allied forces matrix is how you work the Psychic Phase, just like in 7th edition.
One shot at any given spell? Nae worries laddie, grab some Grey Knights, Dark Angels and Space Wolves psykers, now you have a goodly spread of powers to take a dig at.
They all hate each other so it's about as fluffy as your average piece of sandpaper and every bit as likely to rub opponents the wrong way.
The more things change...
Yeah, too bad that said psykers will buff only the ones from theyr own faction, right?
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hahaha!
Abusing the allied forces matrix is how you work the Psychic Phase, just like in 7th edition.
One shot at any given spell? Nae worries laddie, grab some Grey Knights, Dark Angels and Space Wolves psykers, now you have a goodly spread of powers to take a dig at.
They all hate each other so it's about as fluffy as your average piece of sandpaper and every bit as likely to rub opponents the wrong way.
The more things change...
Yeah, too bad that said psykers will buff only the ones from theyr own faction, right?
Yep if you're speaking of Buffs, but Debuffs/attacks work nonetheless (Dark Angels have 3, Space Wolves 2, Blood Angels/Grey Knights 1)
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hahaha!
Abusing the allied forces matrix is how you work the Psychic Phase, just like in 7th edition.
One shot at any given spell? Nae worries laddie, grab some Grey Knights, Dark Angels and Space Wolves psykers, now you have a goodly spread of powers to take a dig at.
They all hate each other so it's about as fluffy as your average piece of sandpaper and every bit as likely to rub opponents the wrong way.
The more things change...
Yeah, too bad that said psykers will buff only the ones from theyr own faction, right?
Yep if you're speaking of Buffs, but Debuffs/attacks work nonetheless (Dark Angels have 3, Space Wolves 2, Blood Angels/Grey Knights 1)
You're on the money.
It also beats out buying three psykers and having two become useless because the first has tried and failed at activating the only decent spell.
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hahaha!
Abusing the allied forces matrix is how you work the Psychic Phase, just like in 7th edition.
One shot at any given spell? Nae worries laddie, grab some Grey Knights, Dark Angels and Space Wolves psykers, now you have a goodly spread of powers to take a dig at.
They all hate each other so it's about as fluffy as your average piece of sandpaper and every bit as likely to rub opponents the wrong way.
The more things change...
Yeah, too bad that said psykers will buff only the ones from theyr own faction, right?
Yep if you're speaking of Buffs, but Debuffs/attacks work nonetheless (Dark Angels have 3, Space Wolves 2, Blood Angels/Grey Knights 1)
Good point, but don't forget that you are breaking allegiance this way. Once allegiance abilities start being a thing, i don't see this being a good strategy.
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hahaha!
Abusing the allied forces matrix is how you work the Psychic Phase, just like in 7th edition.
One shot at any given spell? Nae worries laddie, grab some Grey Knights, Dark Angels and Space Wolves psykers, now you have a goodly spread of powers to take a dig at.
They all hate each other so it's about as fluffy as your average piece of sandpaper and every bit as likely to rub opponents the wrong way.
The more things change...
Yeah, too bad that said psykers will buff only the ones from theyr own faction, right?
Yep if you're speaking of Buffs, but Debuffs/attacks work nonetheless (Dark Angels have 3, Space Wolves 2, Blood Angels/Grey Knights 1)
Good point, but don't forget that you are breaking allegiance this way. Once allegiance abilities start being a thing, i don't see this being a good strategy.
Abusing, not breaking.
Besides, we have months before that happens and no guarantee it will happen.
That sucks, but much better than 7ed spells which seemed absolutly insane to me, the Death Guard spells don't look great, -1 to hit unit isnt great, after 10 shots you avoid about 2 hit (Not great), having d3 to have enemy -1 attack, -1 strength and -1 toughness isnt great consdering getting a 1 is borderline useless or very very situational and plague wind having a dice roll on a unit and on a d6 a mortal wound actually sounds alright, a few kills on troops and a good chance for a kill on elite units sounds alright.
So use -1 to hit for survivability, gift of contagion if you have a melee focus specifically on more elite units and use plague wind if you want a more offense-based psyker.
Honestly im excited to use a psyker for the first time!
Why do you say that each psychic power can only be used once per army per turn? What I read interprets as each individual psyker can only cast each power once per turn.
Edit: It's a Match rule. Kind of nice to streamline that phase, but hopefully certain armies/units will get an exception.
xmbk wrote: Why do you say that each psychic power can only be used once per army per turn? What I read interprets as each individual psyker can only cast each power once per turn.
I ran a Word Bearers army with a Chaos Warband. When Traitor Legions updated the Lore of Nurgle, I modified my list so that my Lord would have the Scrolls of Magnus and my Sorcerer would be on a Palanquin of Nurgle.
The Scrolls were random done right IMO. I could in theory learn any of the BRB powers (barring Daemonology) but I payed a premium for my Lord to have Psyker powers, and both the table and Power were random. However, 4 in 6 Primaris powers (I could get psychic focus and Chaos focus) were quite usable. The fact I learned a new power at the start of each turn (rather than the start of the Psychic phase) also meant I could plan movement beforehand.
gummyofallbears wrote: Don't care about the discussion, just have a question that has already probably been touched on, how many powers were really used from most of those tables that were in 7th. So many powers were just useless in that edition.
I used a lot of them. What table I rolled on depended on the army I was playimg against.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote: Really? Are you complaining that in 3 turns (2 turns is impossible in 8th, 2000 points army lists will pack a max of 2 long range heavy weapon platforms) of focused fire you can take down a model that costs less that an imperial knight?
At the same time you are saying that you don't see value in having redundancy in powers?
Not complaining, pointing out. Magnus' range is melee to 18" he has 18 wounds, the enemy doesn't need long range weapon platforms to kill him. Rapid Fire weapons will do the trick. 8 Meltas will do 9 wounds to him in 1 turn. 18 Sounds like a lot but 2000 points will bring him down in 1-2 turns.
army. Everything else is just support.
