After having played a few games, this secondary is my biggest peeve with the new edition. More specifically, what peeves me off about it is that it strongly discourages people from taking a single psyker because it locks you out of taking the secondary, and pushes people to either super psychic heavy or completely psyker-less builds. This feels like a big step in the wrong direction, both from the perspective of list-building and the perspective of having fun games. It isn't fun to feel like you're gimping yourself by taking an Inquisitor because it means you give up a ton of easy VP in a lot of games. And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP. And because you don't choose secondaries until you see your opponent's army, the risk/reward here is really skewed - taking one psyker means they just pick something else against you instead if they don't have psykers, which is a low cost to them, but it means you can never pick that secondary against someone else, which is far more punishing in match-ups where it would be far and away the best choice.
I'm really not a big fan of these sort of hard, keyword-based counters - it feels like an expansion of the feels-bad that comes with playing Daemons when you come up against GKs, and they suddenly go all Super Saiyan on you for reasons that make sense in the fluff but are terrible for creating balanced gameplay.
It is also so rewarding - especially with the way it stacks with assassinate - that it ends up creating extremely cagey play if you do have psykers, unless you just write off those points and figure your opponent is sure to max at least one, probably two of their secondaries just by popping your psykers. With the possible exception of the knight-killing secondary, no other secondary is so punishing to particular models.
The other psychic secondaries kind-of have this same problem too, in that they also encourage skew in list-building, but Abhor The Witch is where it's most obvious.
Anti-psyker rules are enough of a deterrent to psykers; I don't think the game needs to create a second disincentive by creating punishing secondary objectives that push you to either include no psykers or go all-in.
yukishiro1 wrote: And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.
Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.
I'm starting to see similar problems with a lot of the secondaries. As a Guardsman, a hybrid list is just asking to give up both "thin their ranks" and "bring it down". 5+ tanks in a Guard list is was pretty standard for hybrid, but now it's become a bit of a liability.
Secondaries are going to be a major consideration in list design the edition.
yukishiro1 wrote: And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.
Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.
And some armies have little in the way of shooting, or little in the way of mobility, or little in the way of combat. That's all fine. The books are designed with that in mind.
I just don't think "here, have 15 VP since you don't have psykers and they do" is a good way to create interesting armies. It's not about balance per se - it's more about how games actually play out. People shouldn't be thinking "I'd really like to take a psyker, but that'll mean I screw myself out of the best secondary in the game, so it would be shooting myself in the foot." It'd be like if you could only take big game hunter if you didn't have any tanks yourself, or you could only take assassinate if you had 2 HQs or less..etc etc. Whether it's "balanced" is a different question from whether it produces fun lists and fun games.
In my admittedly fairly limited experience, the effect of this secondary is not to make the game more fun - for anybody. If psykers are too powerful, the solution isn't to just give people without them a 15VP handicap.
Trickstick wrote: You know, I'm tempted to take enough units to not let them max many of the secondaries. So like 2 psykers, 4 tanks, that sort of thing.
Edit: 1 titanic unit would be nice too.
See this part of secondary interaction with list-building doesn't bother me at all. That seems fine.
The problem with abhor the witch is that (1) you can only access it if you don't take a certain thing in your army and (2) it has an out-sized reward for doing so compared to other secondaries. This doesn't promote fun gameplay.
If Abhor the Witch was something anyone could take, whether they had psykers or not, but the reward was toned down to match the rewards for all the other kill-based secondaries, it would be just fine. It's the "gimp yourself to get a handicap" (or the "here's some free VP if you play X faction that's balanced around not having psykers") part that produces bad list-building and frustrating games.
If I'm playing a psychic-heavy list, it isn't fun for me to come up against a list with zero psykers where I just get off everything with zero effort, but where they make up for it with a free 15VP. If I'm playing a list that isn't psychic-heavy, it isn't fun to have to give up my psyker because taking him feels like a tax compared to going without and getting those free 15VP. But it also doesn't feel fun to forgo the psyker and take the 15VP, because doing so involves just taking it in the chin from the opposing army in the psychic phase but then getting some points at the end for it.
Secondaries shouldn't be encouraging that sort of non-interactive gameplay.
Trickstick wrote: I'm starting to see similar problems with a lot of the secondaries. As a Guardsman, a hybrid list is just asking to give up both "thin their ranks" and "bring it down". 5+ tanks in a Guard list is was pretty standard for hybrid, but now it's become a bit of a liability.
Secondaries are going to be a major consideration in list design the edition.
A Guard list was already yielding VP in that manner from Reaper and BGH.
I don't think I knew anybody guard and having less than 80 infantry or 4 vehicles without fielding either a baneblade or souping in a knight.
I'm not a fan of the secondaries at all. I wasn't a fan of them before, though.
The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.
Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.
yukishiro1 wrote: And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.
Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.
Word. Even though everything in my army can deny the witch.
yukishiro1 wrote: The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.
Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.
I believe it was only recently that ITC didn't allow stacking, but I not 100% on that, I think the ITC is a horrible system and does nothing but breed toxic players.
I think of they were doing to do secondaries they should have made army specific ones, though that would have taken effort as opposed to just ripping off the ITC ones.
Abhor the Witch should drop the restriction on having psykers, it feels very arbitrary imo (maybe the concern was that psykers are too good at killing other psykers?).
But beyond that I like the way secondaries work. I like that they punish skew list compositions and give armies alternative ways to win a game. It's true that some secondaries punish certain comps harder, ie thin their ranks and attrition are free against guard. But on the other hand guard can throw 100 obsec models on the objectives. Pretty much every army has little tradeoffs in that way.
If they were trying to rip off ITC's secondaries, they didn't do a great job of it, as theirs are a lot less well balanced against one another, in addition to having basic issues like stacking or the Abhor The Witch "you can't take this in your army" limitation.
yukishiro1 wrote: The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.
Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.
Maybe I'm less sympathetic as I know I'm essentially going to be handing over 15 VP to my opponents in most games but realistically if you couldn't stack kills no-one is ever going to take thin theumur ranks like seriously GW I know the lethality in 8th was insane but how many people not playing marines can actually kill 150 model's not wounds models in a game. As thats what max score for thin their ranks would take.
Neither of my lists for 9th have 150 models in them period, before ecen looking at perverting people maximising secondarys against me. Also a lot of the missions require keywords to even attempt them which is fine for certain factions that most of their power units have thay keyword but for others it's going to be a challenge.
It also probably depends a lot on the Psycher killing 3 demon princes not easy killing 3 primaris psychers easier but probably not as easy as you think with sensible possitioning (ignoring the brokenness of magic NLOS sniperbolters)
UncleJetMints wrote: .I think of they were doing to do secondaries they should have made army specific ones
You're implying that they won't. I think it's all but inevitable that each army will get its own faction specific secondaries as the 9th edition codices and expansion books roll out.
UncleJetMints wrote: .I think of they were doing to do secondaries they should have made army specific ones
You're implying that they won't. I think it's all but inevitable that each army will get its own faction specific secondaries as the 9th edition codices and expansion books roll out.
Stu already confirmed as much in the live streams discussion.
yukishiro1 wrote: The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.
Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.
Maybe I'm less sympathetic as I know I'm essentially going to be handing over 15 VP to my opponents in most games but realistically if you couldn't stack kills no-one is ever going to take thin theumur ranks like seriously GW I know the lethality in 8th was insane but how many people not playing marines can actually kill 150 model's not wounds models in a game. As thats what max score for thin their ranks would take.
Neither of my lists for 9th have 150 models in them period, before ecen looking at perverting people maximising secondarys against me. Also a lot of the missions require keywords to even attempt them which is fine for certain factions that most of their power units have thay keyword but for others it's going to be a challenge.
It also probably depends a lot on the Psycher killing 3 demon princes not easy killing 3 primaris psychers easier but probably not as easy as you think with sensible possitioning (ignoring the brokenness of magic NLOS sniperbolters)
But that's a problem with the pointing of the secondary. If it's too hard to hit on its own, it should be repointed to be more valuable, not comboed with something else. But I think you may have missed that thin the ranks gets 10 points per vehicle too - which is the whole issue, because that 10 points also stacks with the VP you get for the big game hunter thing that is bizarrely in a different category.
If 5 points per psyker character and 2 per psyker squad wasn't overtuned, they wouldn't have restricted it to only be allowed to take it if you don't have psykers yourself. But it absolutely is overtuned, which is why they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself. But this - like stacking - is another sign of bad balance in the first place.
Secondaries shouldn't stack, and they shouldn't be something you have to give up something in your list to be allowed to take in return for getting a bigger bonus than normal. Neither of these produce fun, interactive games where people are forced to juggle multiple priorities - instead, they reward doubling down. That's not good mission design.
I'm just glad that the non-character points are per unit, not like 1 per model. I've been considering using a wyrdvane/primaris conclave and a few astropaths, to reap psyker secondaries. I guess it depends how easily I can hide the wyrdvanes, or if barrage weapons are common now.
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yukishiro1 wrote: ...they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself.
I 100% believe that this is not the reason they did it. It strikes me as a narrative-based rule, how armies that hate psykers should get an objective. Hanlon's razor applies.
If you don't think 5 points per psyker character and 2 per unit is overtuned compared to the other choices (with the possible exception of the knight-killing one), I dunno what to tell you.
I would be even more worried if they thought that Abhor The Witch is not overtuned in return for the restriction, because that shows basic math fail.
yukishiro1 wrote: The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.
Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.
Maybe I'm less sympathetic as I know I'm essentially going to be handing over 15 VP to my opponents in most games but realistically if you couldn't stack kills no-one is ever going to take thin theumur ranks like seriously GW I know the lethality in 8th was insane but how many people not playing marines can actually kill 150 model's not wounds models in a game. As thats what max score for thin their ranks would take.
Neither of my lists for 9th have 150 models in them period, before ecen looking at perverting people maximising secondarys against me. Also a lot of the missions require keywords to even attempt them which is fine for certain factions that most of their power units have thay keyword but for others it's going to be a challenge.
It also probably depends a lot on the Psycher killing 3 demon princes not easy killing 3 primaris psychers easier but probably not as easy as you think with sensible possitioning (ignoring the brokenness of magic NLOS sniperbolters)
But that's a problem with the pointing of the secondary. If it's too hard to hit on its own, it should be repointed to be more valuable, not comboed with something else. But I think you may have missed that thin the ranks gets 10 points per vehicle too - which is the whole issue, because that 10 points also stacks with the VP you get for the big game hunter thing that is bizarrely in a different category.
If 5 points per psyker character and 2 per psyker squad wasn't overtuned, they wouldn't have restricted it to only be allowed to take it if you don't have psykers yourself. But it absolutely is overtuned, which is why they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself. But this - like stacking - is another sign of bad balance in the first place.
Secondaries shouldn't stack, and they shouldn't be something you have to give up something in your list to be allowed to take in return for getting a bigger bonus than normal. Neither of these produce fun, interactive games where people are forced to juggle multiple priorities - instead, they reward doubling down. That's not good mission design.
I'm not disagreeing that it seems to benifit building around them but so did ITC, they were just a little less blatent in their secondarys punishing certain armies.
Also GW made the cut off for the 10 score on models 10 wounds meaning DP, venoms, Skyweavers, dreadnaughts, outriders grotesques Bullgryn etc count as the same as a Grot or a brimstone.
If it was based on wounds etc I'd maybe be more infavour of stopping the stacking, Also if your opponent has no Psychers and you have multiple the Ritual should be a fairly easy 15 VP too for Psychic armies.
Though I do hope we get some better balanced secondarys in the mission pack or a future errata to sort out the balance between secondarys.
It's not that I think it is overtuned or not (btw it's 3 per unit), I just don't think that the base intention of requiring no psykers of your own was a balance thing. It strikes me as a narrative choice, even the name of the rule hints at this. It's not like GW have never made mechanics for narrative reasons before...
Trickstick wrote: I'm just glad that the non-character points are per unit, not like 1 per model. I've been considering using a wyrdvane/primaris conclave and a few astropaths, to reap psyker secondaries. I guess it depends how easily I can hide the wyrdvanes, or if barrage weapons are common now.
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yukishiro1 wrote: ...they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself.
I 100% believe that this is not the reason they did it. It strikes me as a narrative-based rule, how armies that hate psykers should get an objective. Hanlon's razor applies.
Considering it has the same name as the Black Templar "we can't take Librarians because we hate Psykers" rule, it's definitely a Narrative based idea.
Matched play secondaries aren't a good place to put fluffy but unbalanced stuff. It's fine to put fluffy restrictions as long as the secondary isn't overtuned compared to others; what isn't good is to gate a secondary more powerful than other secondaries behind a restriction that is based on fluff.
yukishiro1 wrote: Matched play secondaries aren't a good place to put fluffy but unbalanced stuff. It's fine to put fluffy restrictions as long as the secondary isn't overtuned compared to others; what isn't good is to gate a secondary more powerful than other secondaries behind a restriction that is based on fluff.
How is killing 3 keyworded charictors harder than having a Psycher not perils for 3 turns while standing in the center of the board.
I'll grant you the whole Psychic secondary tree is up their as far as unbalanced goes. However the ability for both to score maximum points can't be overlooked.
How is killing some combination of 3 psyker characters or 5 psychic units harder than not having one of your characters killed or denied for at least 3 turns while sitting in the center of the board? Really?
I mean I don't disagree re: the whole psychic secondary tree being a bit of a dumpster fire, but it's not really seriously arguable that Abhor The Witch isn't an easier secondary to score than Psychic Ritual, especially since Psychic Ritual is all or nothing - all the opponent has to do is kill a single one of your characters and/or deny him and you get 0. Psychic ritual is not a smart pick if (1) your opponent has sniping ability, (2) your opponent has good combat ability, (3) your opponent has good shooting ability, or (4) your opponent has any significant denial ability at all. How many armies have none of sniping, combat, shooting, or psychic denial? It's a super rare list where it won't be a massive gamble, and a massive gamble is always a no-no in competitive play.
Psychic Ritual is bad because it's an all-or-nothing pick - some armies simply won't be able to stop it, but against anyone who can, it's almost impossible to complete and always a trap pick. It's not so much overtuned as badly calibrated.
I don't really understand the OP. Abhor the witch would make less sense if your own army included psykers, it's kind of the point. Don't forget that they said armies will get there own secondaries that are thematic with there codexes, so other options will become available.
I laid it all out in the first post re: how it promotes skew list creation and rewards non-interactive lists and play. If you don't understand it, I don't think I'll be able to help you.
If the new marine codex has a secondary that gives you 15VP for showing up with at least 500 points worth of new Primaris kits with proof you bought them directly from the GW webstore that's fine too, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
Trickstick wrote: I'm starting to see similar problems with a lot of the secondaries. As a Guardsman, a hybrid list is just asking to give up both "thin their ranks" and "bring it down". 5+ tanks in a Guard list is was pretty standard for hybrid, but now it's become a bit of a liability.
Secondaries are going to be a major consideration in list design the edition.
These secondaries are a check against skew.
Abhor the Witch is going to be something people do against me often. Realistically right now I have 3 psyker "units" and the psyker characters. For them to max they need to kill a fair amount of key units from the army. If they do this though it gives me leverage. I can slide a unit of rubrics (or two) into reserves and bring them on late game and if they have snipers I'm going to do my best to give them direct shots with Eliminators.
Thin Their Ranks requires a TON of vehicles. If you have 5 tanks that's 5 points. Then I need to kill 100 other models. It will be hard to build a list that gives this up easily.
If you've lost all 5 tanks for Bring it Down then they've killed nearly half the army. If you instead can pull wounded tanks back, keep heals around, use LOS cover, etc you can foil the scoring.
And, finally, the tournament pack may very well have a clause that prevents killing of one unit from scoring more than one secondary.
Secondarys that punish skew are generally good design. Secondaries that promote skew - i.e. Abhor the Witch - are generally not good design.
Secondarys that stack are also not good mission design. The whole purpose of secondaries is to force someone to juggle multiple priorities; allowing stacking secondaries defeats the whole purpose.
These are both pretty basic principles of mission design, and it's disappointing to see GW missed the boat on them.
I was all on board for "none of these matter because the tournament missions will be different" but then GW started saying things that made it look like the missions and secondarys in the tournament book are in addition to the match play ones, not replacing them. Which doesn't really address the problems with the ones we have.
yukishiro1 wrote: I laid it all out in the first post re: how it promotes skew list creation and rewards non-interactive lists and play. If you don't understand it, I don't think I'll be able to help you.
I guess what I should have said is, I don't agree with you. There is not going to be a situation of no psykers or tons of psykers, people will still put 1 or 2 in their lists if they want to, it's not exactly as big an issue as you're making out. You're just not seeing the big picture in that more secondaries will be added to the game for players to choose from.
In fluffy games, sure. But "don't worry, people won't min-max it, they'll just do whatever whether it's the most competitive choice or not" isn't a good answer to "this promotes unhealthy min-maxing in competitive games."
Nor is "just wait for new rules to come out," really. That's a variation on "you can't judge it until X" when X is always some time in the future.
Is it game-breaking? No, of course not. But it's bad secondary design. Secondary objectives shouldn't be built to reward skew, especially when it's skew that some factions get automatically and others cannot get period. There shouldn't be secondaries that are automatic no-brainer picks against certain factions, especially not when there aren't similar secondaries for other factions, and doubly especially not when they are locked behind a condition that discourages you from picking a well-rounded army.
With no psykers there are really two situations to consider.
1) Playing against a single psyker. Abhor the Witch will max out at 5VP. Mental Interrogation will outscore you at 6VP if it goes off just twice, and it's only WC4.
2) Playing against a psyker army. These players will 100% expect Abhor the Witch chosen against them and construct their force knowing this. With a heavy ground control element, they are pretty much guaranteed 15VP from Psychic Ritual and at best you can only match that. Not only that, they will completely control game flow because Psychic Ritual needs to be countered. It's WC3, undeniable for your army, and you only have 2 game turns to respond once the opponent initiates. Being able to both reliably score Psychic Ritual and deny max points on Abhor the Witch is a net win.
9th edition is still very, very young. I think there really needs to be more game time put in before passing judgment on the secondaries.
"Pretty much guaranteed 15VP from Psychic Ritual" if your opponent has no sniping, no combat, no shooting, and no psychic denial.
Psychic ritual is a massive trap against 90% of the lists you'll come across. They need to be neither able to kill your main psyker for 3 whole turns NOR deny him. If your opponent's list can't kill or deny a single psyker over 3 turns...that's probably a "win harder" situation anyway.
There's one game in a blue moon where it's an obvious choice, but against the vast majority of lists it's a solid way to take 0VP while also focusing on the center where there isn't an objective - in other words, to lose the game.
It's a bad secondary too, but not for the reason you seem to think.
Amishprn86 wrote: It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
I'm just going to go ahead on pile on here by saying directly: You have missed the point.
Nope, as a DE player i've been thinking of adding in Yvarine just for it and sit on objectives with wracks around. Its stupidly easy to use. For many armies like CWE, a Warlock is cheap, taking a 2nd warlock is nothing.
The point is, its a secondary you can take it and not cast spells, or not take it and cast spells, or take 2 and cast and get the secondary.
All lists are being built with Primary and Secondaries in mind now, if have a problem with this one secondary then you need to have a problem with all secondaries.
yukishiro1 wrote: They need to be neither able to kill your main psyker for 3 whole turns NOR deny him.
Well that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Its almost like people are spoiled with have no hard choices in a game of strategy for the past 3yrs and now they don't understand what it means to be a game with tactics and options.
yukishiro1 wrote: They need to be neither able to kill your main psyker for 3 whole turns NOR deny him.
Well that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Right. And it's a very rare list that is so bad at killing AND denying stuff that it can't manage to kill or deny a single model in the opponent's army over 3 turns. The idea that this is "guaranteed" against anything but the weirdest skew list is really misguided.
If someone is accomplishing Psychic Ritual against your army and your army isn't some really weird skew board control list with no killing or denying power at all, you've got huge, huge problems.
Well, if you have psyker secondaries, like Mental Interrogation, that some armies can't do at all (and can't deny the witch them), they need something that only psyker-free armies can do. Frankly I don't see non-psyker armies as skew anyway, there's a ton of armies that don't have them or have them as minor, pretty optional units.
Then, beyond that, "easy, stackable" secondaries like Thin Their Ranks and Bring it Down against a tank list don't tend to max out easily. 5 vechs/monsters with 11+ wounds isn't the easiest ask to max Bring it Down, and that's only 5 Thin points.
I think people are underestimating the 3-turns-to-15 secondaries if folks have a strategy to go for them.
Right. And it's a very rare list that is so bad at killing stuff that it can't manage to kill a single model in the opponent's army over 3 turns.
Ahriman rarely get killed (blows himself up more; less with PA), but if they have Eliminators I'm probably not taking that secondary. In fact i'll probably avoid that secondary, because I have proper spells to cast.
The problem isn't that armies with psykers can't do it per se, it's that it's overtuned, and that it stacks with the other kill secondaries. 8 VPs to kill a single psyker is hugely punishing and promotes very cagey, non-interactive gameplay. This in effect rewards you for not taking any psykers by giving you a secondary that is deliberately overtuned to be much easier than standard secondaries. This isn't good design.
"Hide your psykers no matter what" may or may not be a viable strategy, but it's not a fun one to play, or to play against. Secondaries shouldn't be pushing people into non-interactive playstyles. If somebody takes assassinate and abhor the witch against you, your best path to victory is just to hide all your psykers all game and avoid engagement. That isn't a fun game, for either player. "I really want to play the game but instead I have to sit behind terrain hiding all game because that's what the secondaries are pushing me to do" is a sign that those secondaries probably aren't designed very well.
Right. And it's a very rare list that is so bad at killing stuff that it can't manage to kill a single model in the opponent's army over 3 turns.
Ahriman rarely get killed (blows himself up more; less with PA), but if they have Eliminators I'm probably not taking that secondary. In fact i'll probably avoid that secondary, because I have proper spells to cast.
Ahriman rarely gets killed when he sits in the middle of the board for 3 turns not doing anything? Man, the game would be a lot easier facing lists with that little killing power.
Ahriman rarely dies because you play it safe with him, and because your opponent doesn't have a strong reason to kill him. If your opponent killing your psyker or even just denying him a few times is a 23 point VP swing - denying you 15 and gaining them 8 - it's only the most skewed competitive lists that won't be able to do that.
But this is all besides the point anyway. Psychic Ritual is also a bad secondary from a design point of view. It isn't as problematic because it isn't very competitive and the gameplay it promotes isn't as toxic, but it's still not a very good secondary to have in a game.
It's at best 15 VP, and then it caps.
It might determine the outcome of the game, but it most likely won't.
4 of my 5 armies can have psykers, and 4 of 5 will continue to bring them in 9th, and then my opponent can abhor them as much as he likes, while I score VP from my (probably different) secondary objectives that are most likely picked depending on what's the best counter against my opponents army; did he bring many models? many tanks or monsters? A slow but resilient army? etc. etc.
It'll almost always be taken with assassinate, so that's 24 minimum if you max abhor. That is absolutely the difference between victory and defeat in almost any competitive game.
If somebody takes assassinate and abhor against your army, the game basically comes down to: can you hide your psykers all game and deny them these points? Because if you can, it's your best path to victory.
That's a boring, low-scoring game where your whole objective is to avoid interacting with your opponent's army. I've played it (I won, FWIW); trust me when I say it's not a game anybody enjoys. Secondaries that push you not to interact with your opponent don't produce fun games.
yukishiro1 wrote: And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.
Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.
4 of my 5 armies don't have psychic phase. So, I'm on board with this secondary. World Eaters, Khorne Daemon, Chaos Knights and Custodes. Arguably my chaos knights can have a psychic phase, but it's really bad. I get a single smite by taking a relic. So I don't count that one.
Ahriman rarely gets killed when he sits in the middle of the board for 3 turns not doing anything? Man, the game would be a lot easier facing lists with that little killing power.
So you play with no terrain and infinite snipers? Cool.
Ahriman rarely dies because you play it safe with him, and because your opponent doesn't have a strong reason to kill him. If your opponent killing your psyker or even just denying him a few times is a 23 point VP swing - denying you 15 and gaining them 8 - it's only the most skewed competitive lists that won't be able to do that.
But this is all besides the point anyway. Psychic Ritual is also a bad secondary from a design point of view. It isn't as problematic because it isn't very competitive and the gameplay it promotes isn't as toxic, but it's still not a very good secondary to have in a game.
I like how you assume how I use him. You creepin' on me bro?
If the mission lacks objectives in the middle, there is adequate cover, and low denial then it is likely a choice i'll take. Otherwise it's pretty low on my list and I expect the other secondaries from the packet will interest me more.
yukishiro1 wrote: And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.
Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.
4 of my 5 armies don't have psychic phase. So, I'm on board with this secondary. World Eaters, Khorne Daemon, Chaos Knights and Custodes. Arguably my chaos knights can have a psychic phase, but it's really bad. I get a single smite by taking a relic. So I don't count that one.
My opponent thought the same. Then we ended up with a game where my whole objective from T1 was for nothing to happen all game. Which, incidentally, armies with lots of psykers are often really good at.
At the end he was on board with me re: it being a bad secondary that results in boring games, particularly when comboed with assassinate.
I think a lot of people are just going to have to actually play a game where somebody takes abhor and assassinate against a good player who realizes the counter-play to it, and I'm pretty sure they'll realize the issue.
If the enemy's entire army is focused on stopping Psychic Ritual, you have purposefully redirected their efforts to your strongest defensive unit.
Guess what happens when they do that? The rest of your army shouldn't be sitting on their hands watching the show. You should be creating a dilemma where either your own offence will tear apart theirs, or they need to abandon their attack on the centre and you score 15VP without much opposition.
Some of the strongest lists in 8th were once oriented around Plaguebearers with layered defensive buffs -- but these lists weren't purely defensive either, they had a lot of consistent offence in Smite and 12" assault. If Eliminators are a serious problem to keeping your Ritual HQ alive, you're going to need to build in countermeasures like Ignore Cover Scorpius artillery, or alternative secondaries when you think the odds don't favour you.
If the enemy's entire army is focused on stopping Psychic Ritual, you have purposefully redirected their efforts to your strongest defensive unit.
Guess what happens when they do that? The rest of your army shouldn't be sitting on their hands watching the show. You should be creating a dilemma where either your own offence will tear apart theirs, or they need to abandon their attack on the centre and you score 15VP without much opposition.
Some of the strongest lists in 8th were once oriented around Plaguebearers with layered defensive buffs -- but these lists weren't purely defensive either, they had a lot of consistent offence in Smite and 12" assault. If Eliminators are a serious problem to keeping your Ritual HQ alive, you're going to need to build in countermeasures like Ignore Cover Scorpius artillery, or alternative secondaries when you think the odds don't favour you.
I'm genuinely glad for you if it works out that way for you. It's nice theorycrafting, and if your local scene is non-competitive enough, it might work. But as soon as you come up against a good player with a good list they're just going to pop or deny your psyker easily as soon as you start the ritual, while also beating you on the primary. I don't think you're really appreciating how killy this edition is, or how small the board is these days. It's an extremely rare list indeed that has (1) no ability to snipe a character, (2) no ability to deny a psychic test, and (3) insufficient killing power to crack through to the psyker.
Have you actually played any game where somebody took psychic ritual? I thought it looked good on paper too. Then we played some games, and it quickly became clear that it was just much too easy to deny for anything except a super skew board control list with zero killing power. Don't get me wrong: against that list it's great, a practically free 15VP. But that's another reason it's a bad secondary. It's not good to have secondaries that are traps against almost everything but auto 15VPs against other lists.
Those are good observations but they're really just tactical problems, aren't they?
1) You need the ability to neutralize Snipers or analogues.
2) You need the ability to power through deny abilities.
3) You need sufficient resilience to protect your HQs.
Clearly, if you can't satisfy the above conditions, you aren't going to take Psychic Ritual. But do you think the above conditions are inherently impossible to achieve?
Yes, against any list except a skew board control list, as I mentioned above. But even that list usually has a psyker or two (think orks or nids). And then you're just at the mercy of dice to see whether you get the 15VP or not because a couple denies and boom, it's over.
A lot of the issue is that there is really is no way in the game to "power through denies." It's just rolling dice, and you're going to lose frequently, no matter what kind of + to cast you can manage (and a lot of the +s to cast strats only work on powers, so it's hard to get more than +1 to cast). And the reroll strat favors the deny, too, because they can always safely fish for it, whereas you can't safely fish for a higher test roll in the first place. The rub is that someone with even a single deny will realistically deny you at least 25% of the time, and often more like 40%. And that means the odds of just rolling bad dice and losing 15VP because of it too high.
So if your opponent has even one deny, it's generally a no-go - it's just too risky. So that's a lot of lists you can't take it against. And then you also can't take it against any list with lots of snipers. And then you also can't take it against any list with a huge amount of killing power it can deploy on a single point on the table. Once you stack up all those venn diagrams, you're left with a tiny percentage of lists against which it's a doable choice.
And then you add into THAT that if they don't have psykers they can take abhor, and if they do that and kill your psyker the swing in points is large enough that the game's probably just over.
I want to like it, but in practice it only works when the stars align just right when you compare your list to theirs. Which doesn't feel like good game design.
yukishiro1 wrote: And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.
Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.
4 of my 5 armies don't have psychic phase. So, I'm on board with this secondary. World Eaters, Khorne Daemon, Chaos Knights and Custodes. Arguably my chaos knights can have a psychic phase, but it's really bad. I get a single smite by taking a relic. So I don't count that one.
My opponent thought the same. Then we ended up with a game where my whole objective from T1 was for nothing to happen all game. Which, incidentally, armies with lots of psykers are often really good at.
At the end he was on board with me re: it being a bad secondary that results in boring games, particularly when comboed with assassinate.
I think a lot of people are just going to have to actually play a game where somebody takes abhor and assassinate against a good player who realizes the counter-play to it, and I'm pretty sure they'll realize the issue.
I'm not sure if you realize but your example just shows that combo'ing abhor and assassinate is putting way too many eggs in one basket and isn't actually that great of an idea. By protecting the units in your army that have special rules for keeping them protected you denied him two of his secondaries, which severely limited his scoring potential. Sounds like he should have picked a different objective in one of those slots.
It wasn't an easy win or anything. It could have gone either way if I had screwed up even once. It wasn't necessarily a bad pick strategically, it was just a pick that led to a very bad game.
The point is that it promotes a non-interactive game where one player's priority is to try to have a game where nothing happens. Secondaries should never encourage that kind of game. If they are, they're badly designed.
If your goal is to spend 5 turns hiding in your deployment zone, your opponent should win easily on the Primary mission by taking the fight to your objectives.
Oddly enough, my 'nids are fairly happy with casting for VPs. Neurothropes are durable enough to viably go for it, I'm already taking them, and it appears that the Kronos strat works to stop it. And this ignores Zoanthrope spam, which will be showing up at least a few times, particularly if double smite remains a thing.
For OP, i don't think it will result in list skew the way you do. People bring casters because they want the spell/combo/unit. I'm not giving up exploding sixes on Exocrines just to enable Abhore the Witch. Caster heavy factions will still bring them, armies with strong combos will still bring them, armies who have power units who happen to be casters will bring them. Nobody is leaving a Patriarch at home because of Abhor. Now, they might leave him at home because of GSC players not being able to stand after being kicked in the balls by GW so many times, but thats different.
babelfish wrote: Oddly enough, my 'nids are fairly happy with casting for VPs. Neurothropes are durable enough to viably go for it, I'm already taking them, and it appears that the Kronos strat works to stop it. And this ignores Zoanthrope spam, which will be showing up at least a few times, particularly if double smite remains a thing.
For OP, i don't think it will result in list skew the way you do. People bring casters because they want the spell/combo/unit. I'm not giving up exploding sixes on Exocrines just to enable Abhore the Witch. Caster heavy factions will still bring them, armies with strong combos will still bring them, armies who have power units who happen to be casters will bring them. Nobody is leaving a Patriarch at home because of Abhor. Now, they might leave him at home because of GSC players not being able to stand after being kicked in the balls by GW so many times, but thats different.
I just sold my nids. I honestly wish i didn't. 9th seems to be the best edition for them IMO.
babelfish wrote: Oddly enough, my 'nids are fairly happy with casting for VPs. Neurothropes are durable enough to viably go for it, I'm already taking them, and it appears that the Kronos strat works to stop it. And this ignores Zoanthrope spam, which will be showing up at least a few times, particularly if double smite remains a thing.
For OP, i don't think it will result in list skew the way you do. People bring casters because they want the spell/combo/unit. I'm not giving up exploding sixes on Exocrines just to enable Abhore the Witch. Caster heavy factions will still bring them, armies with strong combos will still bring them, armies who have power units who happen to be casters will bring them. Nobody is leaving a Patriarch at home because of Abhor. Now, they might leave him at home because of GSC players not being able to stand after being kicked in the balls by GW so many times, but thats different.
yeah I actually agree with this, from where I stand.
Yoyoyo wrote: If your goal is to spend 5 turns hiding in your deployment zone, your opponent should win easily on the Primary mission by taking the fight to your objectives.
That's got nothing to do with Secondaries.
I'm not trying to be rude, but this is a bore to address because it's such a straw man. Of course you would lose if you sat in your deployment zone for five turns. You can't hide for 5 turns in a deployment zone; you couldn't in 8th and you can't now. I wasn't hiding with my whole army, just with my three psykers. And you don't hide by staying hunkering in one place, you do it by making sure you've got a plan for how you're going to keep them out of LOS and out of charge range each turn. In my case that meant DSing two of them and playing rope a dope with the last one while the rest of my army went around scoring secondaries and getting enough on the primary to squeak out a win by denying him two of his three secondaries.
The point is this makes for a terrible game for both players to actually play. It isn't fun to have your gameplay revolve around using tricks to keep your psykers as far away as possible from actually doing anything while the rest of your army does everything it can to score points while not interacting with your opponent's army, and it isn't fun to play against someone who's executing that plan either.
Secondaries should encourage you to interact with your opponent's army, not encourage you not to interact with your opponent's army. This is especially so when there is no kill primary; if your primary is non-interactive and your secondaries also promote non-interaction you end up with the possibility of a very boring game.
For OP, i don't think it will result in list skew the way you do. People bring casters because they want the spell/combo/unit. I'm not giving up exploding sixes on Exocrines just to enable Abhore the Witch. Caster heavy factions will still bring them, armies with strong combos will still bring them, armies who have power units who happen to be casters will bring them. Nobody is leaving a Patriarch at home because of Abhor. Now, they might leave him at home because of GSC players not being able to stand after being kicked in the balls by GW so many times, but thats different.
Of course you won't, because GSC rely heavily on psychic powers. You won't see eldar lists without farseers either.
But if you absolutely will see lots of imperium lists without psykers because taking just one locks you out of the best secondary. And you might even start seeing ork lists without psykers too, because as good as da jump is, people may decide it's not worth it, especially if green tide is as dead as it seems.
A secondary isn't well designed when it encourages you not to take a certain type of unit in order to unlock it, and doubly so when it also encourages non-interactive gameplay.
Amishprn86 wrote: It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
The point is if you want to take it you can't have ANY psykers. Which means people, to be able to take it, will opt out of taking any Psykers so they when they can get what amounts to free VPs for fighting an army that is Psyker heavy.
Coupled with things like Assassinate, people will get 8 VP for killing a Psychic Character, which is nothing to scoff at, and it doesn't require them to neuter one of their units to do so.
Compare this to the other options which actually require you to have a Psyker.
Mental Interrogation requires you to give up at LEAST 5 casts and you HAVE to leave enemy CHARACTERS alive to do it. It's literally the polar opposite of what you want to do, since characters are force multipliers.
Psychic Ritual requires you to give up at LEAST 3 casts and you have to be with in 6" of the center of the board for 3 turns. You have to do it with the SAME Psyker. That means wait till turn 3 kill who ever was doing it and prevent it from happening at all.
Abhor is quite a crappy secondary which is good only against TS and GK.
Against many lists, it will cap at 5 points... wow.
Against those two factions it makes the game more interesting. You have no psy defense against the heavy psy assault of your opponent, but you get points for killing the psykers. Seems fine.
Abhr is perfectly fine design wise, if you are looking at bad ones, look at "While We Stand We Fight". That one can be gamed during list building phase, which means that it is a bad one. Good secondaries are reactive ones, you should never come into a game having already decided which secondaries to take before looking at your opponent list and at the mission. You can have an idea which secondaries you are better at pursuing, but nothing more than that.
Also, secondaries always impact list bulding. It has always been the biggest issue of the ITC packet, and now we have that problem in canon 40K too. Luckily these secondaries are better designed than the old ITC ones, and for the most part they punish only blatant skews.
Psychic ritual should be redesigned and become 3/7/15 points, so that you are not 100% gimped if you don't complete it.
Amishprn86 wrote: It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
The point is if you want to take it you can't have ANY psykers. Which means people, to be able to take it, will opt out of taking any Psykers so they when they can get what amounts to free VPs for fighting an army that is Psyker heavy.
Coupled with things like Assassinate, people will get 8 VP for killing a Psychic Character, which is nothing to scoff at, and it doesn't require them to neuter one of their units to do so.
Compare this to the other options which actually require you to have a Psyker.
Mental Interrogation requires you to give up at LEAST 5 casts and you HAVE to leave enemy CHARACTERS alive to do it. It's literally the polar opposite of what you want to do, since characters are force multipliers.
Psychic Ritual requires you to give up at LEAST 3 casts and you have to be with in 6" of the center of the board for 3 turns. You have to do it with the SAME Psyker. That means wait till turn 3 kill who ever was doing it and prevent it from happening at all.
You can couple it with assassinate only if you ALSO have skewed on characters, which TS and GK don't typically (now). Assassinate works against those factions with a lot of characters in the elite slot like Sisters, IG and Marines.
Against most lists Assassinate will net 3-6 VP over the course of the game. 9 if you table him. Not really great.
If you take no psykers to counter TS and GK you are kneecapping yourself against any army that just has one or two psykers to cast powerful spells or combo-enablers like warptime, miasma or da jump, as you can no longer deny an of them.
On top of that, maxing out the 15 points is rather difficult when you consider that most armies will be limited to 3 HQ slots which the vast majority psykers do require. Most armies bring at least one warboss, big mek, autarch, chaos lord, captain or similar HQ, which would instantly reduce the potential of this secondary to 10 or 5 points.
Not to mention that psykers like hive tyrants or hemlocks are not trivial to kill either.
IMO you are just getting worked up about the potential of this secondary while being blind to the risks and downsides. Feel free to leave your psykers at home for this, I won't.
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Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: Psychic Ritual requires you to give up at LEAST 3 casts and you have to be with in 6" of the center of the board for 3 turns. You have to do it with the SAME Psyker. That means wait till turn 3 kill who ever was doing it and prevent it from happening at all.
While I agree that it's not a very good secondary to pick, I had no issues archiving it with a malignant plague caster(my only psyker) hiding behind a pair of PBC. Good luck getting him out of there.
In general, you seem to missing that you do not have to pick any of the psychic objectives. You have four categories to pick from, the mission secondary and in future probably army secondaries as well. And that is assuming that CA doesn't have more secondaries.
It doesn't really matter whether this category sucks.
Trickstick wrote: I'm starting to see similar problems with a lot of the secondaries. As a Guardsman, a hybrid list is just asking to give up both "thin their ranks" and "bring it down". 5+ tanks in a Guard list is was pretty standard for hybrid, but now it's become a bit of a liability.
Secondaries are going to be a major consideration in list design the edition.
Well of course it is. It's basically itc which caused many useful units going into trash because they give secondaries. You aren"t building armies to do well but to deny secondaries
Amishprn86 wrote: It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
The point is if you want to take it you can't have ANY psykers. Which means people, to be able to take it, will opt out of taking any Psykers so they when they can get what amounts to free VPs for fighting an army that is Psyker heavy.
Coupled with things like Assassinate, people will get 8 VP for killing a Psychic Character, which is nothing to scoff at, and it doesn't require them to neuter one of their units to do so.
Compare this to the other options which actually require you to have a Psyker.
Mental Interrogation requires you to give up at LEAST 5 casts and you HAVE to leave enemy CHARACTERS alive to do it. It's literally the polar opposite of what you want to do, since characters are force multipliers.
Psychic Ritual requires you to give up at LEAST 3 casts and you have to be with in 6" of the center of the board for 3 turns. You have to do it with the SAME Psyker. That means wait till turn 3 kill who ever was doing it and prevent it from happening at all.
You can couple it with assassinate only if you ALSO have skewed on characters, which TS and GK don't typically (now). Assassinate works against those factions with a lot of characters in the elite slot like Sisters, IG and Marines.
Against most lists Assassinate will net 3-6 VP over the course of the game. 9 if you table him. Not really great.
Okay first of all TS skew super heavy into Characters, it's basically where all their power comes from. In fact they are so good people will bring a Supreme Command detachment with 3 TS Psykers.
Every list I make always has at LEAST 4 Characters and with the changes to CP guess what? Brigade are going to be way more common. That means 3 HQ choices minimum. Most armies will have 4-5 Characters in them with few exceptions.
The 9th edition battalion is 2-3 HQ's. 3 is the maximum unless you're buying extra detachments. Worth it for Thousand Sons, likely, but few other factions are that much in love with their HQ choices.
Arachnofiend wrote: The 9th edition battalion is 2-3 HQ's. 3 is the maximum unless you're buying extra detachments. Worth it for Thousand Sons, likely, but few other factions are that much in love with their HQ choices.
yukishiro1 wrote: It'll almost always be taken with assassinate, so that's 24 minimum if you max abhor. That is absolutely the difference between victory and defeat in almost any competitive game.
If somebody takes assassinate and abhor against your army, the game basically comes down to: can you hide your psykers all game and deny them these points? Because if you can, it's your best path to victory.
That's a boring, low-scoring game where your whole objective is to avoid interacting with your opponent's army. I've played it (I won, FWIW); trust me when I say it's not a game anybody enjoys. Secondaries that push you not to interact with your opponent don't produce fun games.
I mean... wouldn't you try to keep your psykers safe and alive, regardless if secondary objectives was a thing or not?
I don't agree that trying to keep key elements of your army alive makes for a boring game. That's been a facet of 40k since... well, forever.
You can couple it with assassinate only if you ALSO have skewed on characters, which TS and GK don't typically (now).
Considering all the new psychic powers from PA and how our super doctrin works requires us to run characters, I think you are going to see 4 HQs in most, if not all, GK list.
Amishprn86 wrote: It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
The point is if you want to take it you can't have ANY psykers. Which means people, to be able to take it, will opt out of taking any Psykers so they when they can get what amounts to free VPs for fighting an army that is Psyker heavy.
Coupled with things like Assassinate, people will get 8 VP for killing a Psychic Character, which is nothing to scoff at, and it doesn't require them to neuter one of their units to do so.
Compare this to the other options which actually require you to have a Psyker.
Mental Interrogation requires you to give up at LEAST 5 casts and you HAVE to leave enemy CHARACTERS alive to do it. It's literally the polar opposite of what you want to do, since characters are force multipliers.
Psychic Ritual requires you to give up at LEAST 3 casts and you have to be with in 6" of the center of the board for 3 turns. You have to do it with the SAME Psyker. That means wait till turn 3 kill who ever was doing it and prevent it from happening at all.
You can couple it with assassinate only if you ALSO have skewed on characters, which TS and GK don't typically (now). Assassinate works against those factions with a lot of characters in the elite slot like Sisters, IG and Marines.
Against most lists Assassinate will net 3-6 VP over the course of the game. 9 if you table him. Not really great.
Okay first of all TS skew super heavy into Characters, it's basically where all their power comes from. In fact they are so good people will bring a Supreme Command detachment with 3 TS Psykers.
Every list I make always has at LEAST 4 Characters and with the changes to CP guess what? Brigade are going to be way more common. That means 3 HQ choices minimum. Most armies will have 4-5 Characters in them with few exceptions.
Edit: Brain error fixed.
Except that you don't.
SCD no longer allows to bring additional HQs and the smite spam has been hugely nerfed. TS will no longer spam HQ.
Yes, I play TS.
Similar issue will be there for GK. They have costly troops AND costly troops, so they can't really spam detachments even if they want to spend CP.
You still have to spam HQs for GK, because all the new psychic powers can only be cast by HQs. If I could switch tides with a unit of termintors, it would be awesome. But it ain't the case. And without the PAGK are a horrible army.
It might be a weird thing but reading that I had the thought that factions with really cheap and weak psykers might also be able to use this once or twice to "lure" the enemy to take this secondary and then leave the psyker units in deepstrike.
Just to illustrate what I mean:
Lets say I'm IG and deploy, declaring that I put 3 Minimum Wyrdvane Psyker Units (72 Points) and two astropaths (50 Points) into strategic reserves. Those are 6 PL, so it's one CP with still place to spare for other units.
The enemy sees: "nice, 3xT3, W3, 6+ without character protection for 6 VP and 2xT3,W1,6+ characters for another 10 VP. Easy peasy, I take Abhor the witch"
And then I leave them in reserves until Turn 6 when I bring them somewhere save. Sure I sacrifice my psychic phase, but on the other hand I only invested 122 Points and 1 CP to lure him into taking a secondary he can not score.
It's just a wild idea and I don't know if that would work...
Jidmah wrote:The only way for you to do so is to bring at least four units of troops for a patrol and a battalion.
You can get 4 HQs with 2 Troops by going double Patrol. You are just limited to 4 Elites.
Pyroalchi wrote:It might be a weird thing but reading that I had the thought that factions with really cheap and weak psykers might also be able to use this once or twice to "lure" the enemy to take this secondary and then leave the psyker units in deepstrike.
Just to illustrate what I mean:
Lets say I'm IG and deploy, declaring that I put 3 Minimum Wyrdvane Psyker Units (72 Points) and two astropaths (50 Points) into strategic reserves. Those are 6 PL, so it's one CP with still place to spare for other units.
The enemy sees: "nice, 3xT3, W3, 6+ without character protection for 6 VP and 2xT3,W1,6+ characters for another 10 VP. Easy peasy, I take Abhor the witch"
And then I leave them in reserves until Turn 6 when I bring them somewhere save. Sure I sacrifice my psychic phase, but on the other hand I only invested 122 Points and 1 CP to lure him into taking a secondary he can not score.
It's just a wild idea and I don't know if that would work...
Matched Play still requires you to deploy by turn 3.
Well, you could still try it. That was OPs strategy.
However, there's still almost ~1900pts in that IG army, and they've sacrificed Orders and Tank Commanders for Primaris Psykers and Wyrdvanes that start in Reserves and move 6" per turn after they come in.
How well will this gimmick work when it runs into a conventional SM army with a single Librarian? In that case, they can't select Abhor the Witch because they have a psyker, and your overall army composition will be much weaker as a result.
Sorry forgot to mention: the intention was to use that against armies without psykers (Tau, Necrons) who are more likely to fall for it. Also you wouldn't miss out orders as I mentioned astropaths (elite) since they cost half of a Primaris psyker (HQ). But you would need to invest 5 elite slots so it's most likely not worth it even under most optimal circumstances
Edit: just realized: Skip the wyrdvane, take three astropaths, it would be even cheaper and seem almost as easy to score 15VP
Yoyoyo wrote: If your goal is to spend 5 turns hiding in your deployment zone, your opponent should win easily on the Primary mission by taking the fight to your objectives.
That's got nothing to do with Secondaries.
I'm not trying to be rude, but this is a bore to address because it's such a straw man. Of course you would lose if you sat in your deployment zone for five turns. You can't hide for 5 turns in a deployment zone; you couldn't in 8th and you can't now. I wasn't hiding with my whole army, just with my three psykers. And you don't hide by staying hunkering in one place, you do it by making sure you've got a plan for how you're going to keep them out of LOS and out of charge range each turn. In my case that meant DSing two of them and playing rope a dope with the last one while the rest of my army went around scoring secondaries and getting enough on the primary to squeak out a win by denying him two of his three secondaries.
The point is this makes for a terrible game for both players to actually play. It isn't fun to have your gameplay revolve around using tricks to keep your psykers as far away as possible from actually doing anything while the rest of your army does everything it can to score points while not interacting with your opponent's army, and it isn't fun to play against someone who's executing that plan either.
Secondaries should encourage you to interact with your opponent's army, not encourage you not to interact with your opponent's army. This is especially so when there is no kill primary; if your primary is non-interactive and your secondaries also promote non-interaction you end up with the possibility of a very boring game.
For OP, i don't think it will result in list skew the way you do. People bring casters because they want the spell/combo/unit. I'm not giving up exploding sixes on Exocrines just to enable Abhore the Witch. Caster heavy factions will still bring them, armies with strong combos will still bring them, armies who have power units who happen to be casters will bring them. Nobody is leaving a Patriarch at home because of Abhor. Now, they might leave him at home because of GSC players not being able to stand after being kicked in the balls by GW so many times, but thats different.
Of course you won't, because GSC rely heavily on psychic powers. You won't see eldar lists without farseers either.
But if you absolutely will see lots of imperium lists without psykers because taking just one locks you out of the best secondary. And you might even start seeing ork lists without psykers too, because as good as da jump is, people may decide it's not worth it, especially if green tide is as dead as it seems.
A secondary isn't well designed when it encourages you not to take a certain type of unit in order to unlock it, and doubly so when it also encourages non-interactive gameplay.
I disagree. A secondary is good when it compels difficult choices, and adds depth to the game.
GSC isn't reliant on powers. They have useful ones, but it isn't the powers that won them games. Running a Broodcoven is good because you get three useful warlord traits on three models that are you want to run anyway. Two of them also being psykers is icing on the cake.
The hypothetical ork player giving up da jump in order to access abhor the witch has to ask if losing that mobility will cost more points than he can get from abhor the witch. After all, he still has to get to them and kill them. He also has to be aware of Necrons, Sisters and Tau still being out there. Sure, he can take a different secondary against them, but he probably would have been better off with a Psyker in those games.
I don't know if it overpowered or not. I haven't played 9th yet. Being able to max it might be too much. I personally feel like some lists are going to shrug and give up the points because they like their casters too much to worry about it, much like how Knight players accepted that people would score titan slayer points against them, and everyone else will find ways to make it harder to score, like bringing less than 3, or by hiding/protecting them.
I'll run my one Neurothrope, for Synapse and exploding hits on my Exocrines or Hive Guard. Sure, I can't score Abhor the Witch against psyker heavy armies, but nobody can really take it against me either, and for every match up I have a very strong shooting power.
Automatically Appended Next Post: oh gak I remembered my Broodlord is a psyker too. Oh well, still not the end of the world.
Amishprn86 wrote: It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
The point is if you want to take it you can't have ANY psykers. Which means people, to be able to take it, will opt out of taking any Psykers so they when they can get what amounts to free VPs for fighting an army that is Psyker heavy.
Coupled with things like Assassinate, people will get 8 VP for killing a Psychic Character, which is nothing to scoff at, and it doesn't require them to neuter one of their units to do so.
Compare this to the other options which actually require you to have a Psyker.
Mental Interrogation requires you to give up at LEAST 5 casts and you HAVE to leave enemy CHARACTERS alive to do it. It's literally the polar opposite of what you want to do, since characters are force multipliers.
Psychic Ritual requires you to give up at LEAST 3 casts and you have to be with in 6" of the center of the board for 3 turns. You have to do it with the SAME Psyker. That means wait till turn 3 kill who ever was doing it and prevent it from happening at all.
You can couple it with assassinate only if you ALSO have skewed on characters, which TS and GK don't typically (now). Assassinate works against those factions with a lot of characters in the elite slot like Sisters, IG and Marines.
Against most lists Assassinate will net 3-6 VP over the course of the game. 9 if you table him. Not really great.
Okay first of all TS skew super heavy into Characters, it's basically where all their power comes from. In fact they are so good people will bring a Supreme Command detachment with 3 TS Psykers.
Every list I make always has at LEAST 4 Characters and with the changes to CP guess what? Brigade are going to be way more common. That means 3 HQ choices minimum. Most armies will have 4-5 Characters in them with few exceptions.
Edit: Brain error fixed.
Except that you don't.
SCD no longer allows to bring additional HQs and the smite spam has been hugely nerfed. TS will no longer spam HQ.
Yes, I play TS.
Similar issue will be there for GK. They have costly troops AND costly troops, so they can't really spam detachments even if they want to spend CP.
I just discovered the Titan Slayer secondary. As a knight player, I find this to be super unbalanced. More so than Abhor the Witch. If my opponent can kill half my army (2 titanic) he gets max points for that secondary. With the amount of firepower that's already in place in events it may be an uphill battle until that gets fixed, if it does.
Ok the tournament stuff leaked and some secondaries have changes
Engage on All Front - as is
Linebreaker - as is
Domination - as is
Thin Their Ranks - as is
Grind Them Down (replaces Attrition) - 3 VP more enemy units destroyed - end of round
While We Stand, We Fight - as is
Titan Hunter - 10, 12, and 15 now
Bring It Down - as is
Cut Off The Head (replaces Slay Warlord) - 13VP if done round 1 down to 1VP for round 5
Assassinate - as is
Raise the Banners - as is
Investigate Sites - as is
Deploy Scramblers - 10 VP, 3 actions - one in your zone, one in opponents, one 6" away from both deployments
Teleport Homer - as is
Abhor the Witch - as is
Mental Interrogation - as is
Psychic Ritual - as is
Pierce the Veil - 8VP for 2 times; 15VP for 5 times - WC4 6" from opponent's edge and no enemies w/i 6".
Amishprn86 wrote: It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.
The point is if you want to take it you can't have ANY psykers. Which means people, to be able to take it, will opt out of taking any Psykers so they when they can get what amounts to free VPs for fighting an army that is Psyker heavy.
Coupled with things like Assassinate, people will get 8 VP for killing a Psychic Character, which is nothing to scoff at, and it doesn't require them to neuter one of their units to do so.
Compare this to the other options which actually require you to have a Psyker.
Mental Interrogation requires you to give up at LEAST 5 casts and you HAVE to leave enemy CHARACTERS alive to do it. It's literally the polar opposite of what you want to do, since characters are force multipliers.
Psychic Ritual requires you to give up at LEAST 3 casts and you have to be with in 6" of the center of the board for 3 turns. You have to do it with the SAME Psyker. That means wait till turn 3 kill who ever was doing it and prevent it from happening at all.
You can couple it with assassinate only if you ALSO have skewed on characters, which TS and GK don't typically (now). Assassinate works against those factions with a lot of characters in the elite slot like Sisters, IG and Marines.
Against most lists Assassinate will net 3-6 VP over the course of the game. 9 if you table him. Not really great.
Okay first of all TS skew super heavy into Characters, it's basically where all their power comes from. In fact they are so good people will bring a Supreme Command detachment with 3 TS Psykers.
Every list I make always has at LEAST 4 Characters and with the changes to CP guess what? Brigade are going to be way more common. That means 3 HQ choices minimum. Most armies will have 4-5 Characters in them with few exceptions.
Edit: Brain error fixed.
Except that you don't.
SCD no longer allows to bring additional HQs and the smite spam has been hugely nerfed. TS will no longer spam HQ.
Yes, I play TS.
Similar issue will be there for GK. They have costly troops AND costly troops, so they can't really spam detachments even if they want to spend CP.
How was smite spam nerfed?
There isn't a caveat for Brotherhood ignoring the +1 to cast.
