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With the new Psychic Power leaks for Tzeentch, Siphon Magic looks interesting.

The way it's written, it is a blessing. For the remainder of the phase, anytime a friendly Psyker within 18" of this Psyker manifests a power, you place a die next to the Psyker that cast Siphon Magic. Those dice in question may be spent by said Psyker as though they are bonus Warp Charge.

Here's the catch: The dice in question aren't actually Warp Charge, and while you normally get rid of any excess Warp Charge at the end of your Psyker Phase, there's nothing about discarding excess dice that can be spent as though they were Warp Charge (but aren't Warp Charge).

The question then becomes: Can you "store" these dice over the course of multiple turns. RAW, I don't see why not. RAI, ymmv.

It wouldn't be unprecedented; you used to be able to store power/dispel dice with certain powers in previous editions of WHFB. For this edition of 40k, you now have to imagine what happens if you take a ML 1 Psyker, and this is the power he rolls. As a ML 1 Psyker, you cannot cast more than one power anyway, so if you rolled this power anyway, it would be absolutely useless if you couldn't store them. Even with the Grand Coven allowing a ML 1 Psyker to cast a 2nd power, it then becomes a choice between Force (in which case, why didn't you cast that power first), or Tzeentch's Firestorm which remains unequivocally awful as far as Primaris Powers go. While the normal advice would be "buy more Mastery Levels", this leaves the regular Rubric Marine Sorcerer in as ever a weak position as he had been.

Plus being able to hold onto the extra dice would theoretically mean being able to carry over said dice for Deny The Witch too.

Huh, good question. I don't think so though. The phase limitation is part of the same sentence. For the remainder of the phase...place a dice. Although I'm half tempted to houserule it to working that way either way lol.

They're two separate sentences though. You place dice for the remainder of the phase. There is no "for the remainder of the phase" for the subsequent sentence that allows said dice to be spent as bonus Warp Charge, and no clause about removing unspent dice. Strictly speaking by RAW, I'm not seeing anything that prevents you from storing dice.

Well if the placed dice only remain for the phase there aren't any dice to use later on

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Strictly speaking by RAW, I'm not seeing anything that prevents you from storing dice.

Which would mean that you don't have a written rule saying that you can store dice.

 Ghaz wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Strictly speaking by RAW, I'm not seeing anything that prevents you from storing dice.

Which would mean that you don't have a written rule saying that you can store dice.

It also means you don't have a rule saying you remove them, the same way you explicitly remove Warp Charge.

Why not? They're still Warp Charges.

That's the thing. They're not Warp Charge. Warp Charge goes into its own pool and isn't kept attached to a specific Psyker, and all other cases of Bonus Warp Charge (Weirdboyz, Heralds Anarchic, Psykana Divisions, etc) have always just given you bonus Warp Charge to do with as you please. The dice from Siphon Magic are specific to that Psyker in question, and can be spent as bonus Warp Charge by that Psyker Alone.

All GW had to do was say it was a bonus Warp Charge for that Psyker alone, add a "for the remainder of the phase" clause, or add a "remove any unused dice" clause, or add a "is treated as Warp Charge for all other intents and purposes", and they didn't.

Do we have an actual quote of the power?

I find it difficult to believe GW would have the phrase: "Those dice in question may be spent by Said Psyker"

So all we are seeing is maybe half the actual rule and the a summary and/or interpretation of the rest of the rule.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
Do we have an actual quote of the power?

I find it difficult to believe GW would have the phrase: "Those dice in question may be spent by Said Psyker"

So all we are seeing is maybe half the actual rule and the a summary and/or interpretation of the rest of the rule.

It was leaked yesterday.

For the rest of the phase, each time a friendly model successfully manifests a Psychic Power within 18" of them, place a dice next to this model. Any dice accrued in this manner can be used by the Psyker as bonus Warp Charge points.

"Not actually Warp Charge."
"Specific to one model."
"Nothing says to remove unused dice".

That last sentence can be read as the dice accrued are warp charges(since they may be used as bonus warp charges).

I will agree it is not very clear, but as far as using those dice in your next psychic phase? Nope. Blessings end at the beginning of your next turn, and all of those benefits are removed from the model/unit. Which means the start of your next turn your accrued dice are removed along with the blessing(just like the 5++ is removed from the model when Telekine dome ends).

The blessing is the ability to actually accrue extra dice in the first place, and such ability to accrue them lasts until the end of the phase.

Other blessings that don't last for a turn include Gate of Infinity, Boon of Mutation, Earth Blood (the healing part that is, not the IWND) Magnetokinesis, Electrodisplacement...all which by definition would not work if "all" effects from Blessings ended at the start of your next turn. Only those that "last a whole turn."

Sure, they last till the start of your next psychic phase. But as soon as you'd want to use them, they disappear.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Sure, they last till the start of your next psychic phase. But as soon as you'd want to use them, they disappear.

So potentially you could use them for Deny the Witch rolls? Though as the Psyker is the only one who can use them, would you only be able to use them on powers targeting the Psyker?

(Assuming the interpretation is correct and they last beyond the Psychic phase they're generated in)

Well, they can't be actual Warp Charges, since Warp Charge can be used by any psyker in your army. My belief is that the intention is for it to be limited to current phase.

But not only that, on a VERY strict reading of the rule, the model would gain the dice that they could spend on power THIS psychic phase, but then by the next psychic phase the power has ended, but the dice would remain. Since the power has ended, the ability allowing them to spend the dice as Warp Charge has also ended. Even if you cast the identical power on them again, the dice saved up won't be the dice gained in "this manner", but rather would be the dice saved up by a separate effect.

So, ipso-facto, that very wording would preclude using the dice at any time other than the phase they were gained in.

"Until the end of the phase you generate psychic dice."
"These dice may be spent as bonus Warp Charge."

This reminds me of Java.

If (currentPhase)
add dice;
allow dice to be used as Warp Charge.

Without brackets, no conditions on the second segment.

Do the rules allow you to cast a power, move onto another psyker, and then come back to a previous one?

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Do the rules allow you to cast a power, move onto another psyker, and then come back to a previous one?

Yes.

It doesnt tell you to discard the dice at the end of the phase.

I read it that the blessing lasts until the end of the phase to allow you to siphon dice. These dice can be used as warp charge by the model.

So the dice would remain after the blessing is gone as no rule tells you to discard them, or that the dice are only available until the end of the phase

 MagicJuggler wrote:
"Until the end of the phase you generate psychic dice."
"These dice may be spent as bonus Warp Charge."

This reminds me of Java.

If (currentPhase)
add dice;
allow dice to be used as Warp Charge.

Without brackets, no conditions on the second segment.

Not good with programming, but I understand computer-grammar. This would need to be nested inside ANOTHER If-statement;

If (active power=Siphon Magic)
If (currentPhase)

etc...

But the active power, Siphon Magic, is not in effect at the start of the next psychic phase, due to the rules-encoding "When (currentPhase=Psychic), End all (Processes(PsychicType=Blessing)AND(OwningPlayer=Active))". Not only that, but each time you cast it, it is a NEW Siphon Magic unrelated to the old one, and so those old dice can't be used!

That it is different and the dice cannot be used is conjecture.

The RAW supports they are the same, if they were different you could have two psyker stack the same blessings as separate casting are different powers, but the basic rules clearly state otherwise.

In fact it is questionable you need the power active to use the dice as warp charge, you likely only need the blessing active to accumulate the siphoned dice.

This seems like a case of confirmation bias. We generally expect effects in this game to expire at end of turn (player or game). I read these rules as follows.

"For the rest of the phase, each time a friendly model successfully manifests a Psychic Power within 18" of them, place a dice next to this model. Any dice accrued in this manner can be used by the Psyker as bonus Warp Charge points. "

1. After casting this power, and for the rest of the phase, I have permission to place a die next to the casting model whenever a friendly model manifests a power within 18".

2. SEPARATELY, I have permission to use the accrued dice as bonus warp charges with no restriction on when they are used.

3. The only reason I would ever remove a die is if I use it as a bonus warp charge.

Ok let's see if i understand it.

Since the rule says Bonus Warp charge point, it's not a warp charge point and can bend rules for it.

So if any other items or rule says you generate Extra Warp charge points, they aren't real warp charge points and can bend the rules too?

Other abilities say bonus Warp Charge. This says bonus dice, specific to one model, which can be spent as bonus Warp Charge by that specific model.

 Kriswall wrote:
This seems like a case of confirmation bias. We generally expect effects in this game to expire at end of turn (player or game). I read these rules as follows.

"For the rest of the phase, each time a friendly model successfully manifests a Psychic Power within 18" of them, place a dice next to this model. Any dice accrued in this manner can be used by the Psyker as bonus Warp Charge points. "

1. After casting this power, and for the rest of the phase, I have permission to place a die next to the casting model whenever a friendly model manifests a power within 18".

2. SEPARATELY, I have permission to use the accrued dice as bonus warp charges with no restriction on when they are used.

3. The only reason I would ever remove a die is if I use it as a bonus warp charge.

This is how I interpret it as well. This fits in a permissive based gaming structure, doesn't it?

Well the wording is a bit ambiguous.The first sentence could mean that the dice ( which I agree are not Warp charges per se) only exist for the rest of the phase. It could also not mean that, in which case you gain "dice" and I see no problem with keeping some generic dice. You're only given a method to consume them, nothing else, which is a separate sentence
I'm leaning towards the dice vanishing after the phase but I'm not really convinced about either scenario.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Other abilities say bonus Warp Charge. This says bonus dice, specific to one model, which can be spent as bonus Warp Charge by that specific model.

Of course the Generate Warp Charge section refers to dice for your warp charge pool, so dice for warp charge and dice for bonus warp charge seems a mighty fine hair to try to be splitting.

Even if you could store them wouldn't the dice be useless by the time you get to your next psychic phase? You loose the blessing and the permission to use the dice as warp charges.

The way the rules are written, the ability to use bonus dice is independent of the blessing itself. The ability to gain dice itself lasts until the end of that Psychic phase, but it doesn't state anything about "while the blessing is active..."

On another note, a more...creative reading of the power could allow the Psyker to siphon his own power dice onto himself, but that would definitely go beyond RAI vs RAW arguments.

I'm playing g it this way. When you work it like this, thousand sons psychic phase becomes an unstoppable rolling stone. In the beginning turns Ahriman and Magnus can cast siphon, then local sarges cast force to buff their units, siphoning to the big guys. Exalteds cast their powers siphoning to the big guys. Bug guys cast for free or bank them for later.

Next turns regular sarges have more dice to cast their own powers, exalted have extra dice, and big guys can basically cast for free.