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My friend's LR always draws a ton of fire from my IG....just because i know what is inside waiting to crash my lines.

On the other side...my two most common opponents will spend alot of Dakka on trying to remove my Hammerhead or my Broadsides....to the detriment of their battle plan. Even though the Broadsides usually are only shooting at a few targets a turn....(in small games i put 1 Broadside in two different HS slots) they recieve 1/3 of the incoming fire. I use this effect to make my own power moves in the game...if its exposing FWs or other weak units to fire anticipating that my opponent will still try and take the RailGuns out.

I once had a game where a sentinel was a psychological unit. Also, I know that I've definitely had basilisks draw an inordinate amount of my opponent's brainpower.

That said, I'd say that the benefit of fear-based psychological units is to get them to break down and do things on the tabletop that don't make sense given how they've built their list (I've seen tau suits charge into assault with guardians before). As mentioned, this implies that your opponent is not resistant enough to remain unphased in the face of your fear units.

Instead, I think that one of the most insidious used of psychological units is to make your opponent do things differently than the norm while simultaneously thinking they have everything under control. For example, if your army is built primarily around mobility, a really good psychological effect would be to bring a bunch of heavy weapons. The heavy weapons make your opponent move and deploy in such a way so as not to get caught out in the open against these guns. If your opponent is rationally concerned about (rather than belligerently afraid of) moving out in the open, they're less likely to move at all, which makes it much easier for the rest of your army to use its mobility to take our your opponent's spread-out forces piecemeal. Likewise in my army, which relies on mass and concentration of forces, I take artillery, which, rightly so, will cause any rational opponent to spread their forces out (un-concentrate in the face of my concentration). Against fear-units, people can train themselves to not be afraid. Against rational-concern-units it is difficult for people to train themselves to be irrational.

And this is forgetting the opposite of the fear unit. I mean, if I field 12 ogryn in two squads, the opponent sees two small groups of a few models. They would then be HIGHLY surprised when the unit they didn't think they needed to pay attention to (much less be afraid of) suddenly pops out 86 S5/6 attacks per turn.

That said, back in the day I was tempted slightly into playing Necron by the idea of during deployment being like "This is my first monolith. This is my second... to last monolith". It would be so easy to phase out, but that would assume enough discipline in my opponents to shoot at my warriors while three monoliths pooped on their stuff.

This is something I wrote almost a year ago about a game against my buddy's Tau. I think it captures the [raging] spirit of my Dreadnought.

"The Tau were down to their last squad, huddled behind a crumbling wall. The Shas'O stood, it's guns still smoking as it stared into the smoke screen launched by the Chaos Dreadnought to thwart his fire. He knew the enemy had lost their transports and they had only to hold the objective to claim equal ground with the gui'la.

Else where the Obliterator watched as the corroded backdrop of the battlebarge faded, and for a brief moment, he could see twisting expanse that defied explanation. A roar of pistons ignited his audio sensors and his vision was clouded by black smoke. The plan had been that they would deepstrike behind the Tau, and lay into them with flamers from both sides, claiming the objective.

The smoke began to clear and he realised the noise had stopped. He glanced towards his partner and then turned around to come face to grill with the corrupted, mechanical abomination.

'Oh, frag.'

The thought hung in his head and timed seemed to stop. Then the creature roared and spewed flames so intense nothing was left of the Obliterator but it's large, mutated greeves. The second Obliterator began to run only to be hit by a Multi-meltagun shot through its abdomin, cutting it in half.

The Shas'O blinked. He wasn't quite sure what was happening, but he thought it best to take advantage of the situation. He opened up with both of his energy weapons, scorching the hull of the monster, but he could not seem to break it. The Dreadnought reared and opened up with as much fire as it had released on its allies. All he could hear were the screams of his Firewarriors next to him before he was cut down by a Multi-melta shot." (DOUBLE KILL TRIPPLE KILL SPLATTER BONUS!)

Instances like this occured so frequently that my friends couldn't figure out what to do with the metal behemoth. Sure it'll kill my infantry, but if left unchecked it'll hurt them too. To kill it, or not to kill it? That is the question my friends eventually figured out. He's long since been replaced by my (legendary) Great Unclean One, but I've been renevating him. He'll return, a servant of the long lost Malal, and with every model a target, we'll see how he holds up this time around.

I notice that newer players always gun for the scary looking Exorcists i have parked at the back of the board; only to have the rest of their army carved up by the flying nuns and rending flamers a couple of turns later.

Cannier players just concentrate on wiping out my troops and hoping that the Exorcists roll badly (which they often do). If they do this, i generally lose

Psychological effecting units.

The first things that come to mind or kommandos and monoliths

Kommandos for the obvious reason. The ability to pop up on any side of the table at any time with the ability to pop side/rear armour easily and flame heavy weapon teams is down right scary. With calling a waagh the ork player can get a potential 13-18inch assault range. Not to mention that'll make you want to move away from the sides making you that much closer to the green tide

The monolith is self explanatory as a 40k player. For the inexperienced it draws a lot of fire. Even if you are experienced you may fire at it anyways out of desperation or because its doing too much damage and just looks hella scary. It draws you away from getting that all important phase out that should always be the end to a necron player

the whole psycological thing does work both ways though, your opponent thinks he has an unstopable unit of death and when you destroy it in one turn due to amazing dice roling, his battle plan goes straight out the window

I've found just playing against the necrons can have a psychological effect...

Work your way close to them, shooting at them, taking equal infantry casualties...

all of his getting back up....

My opponents always go nuts trying to get rid of my vendettas... which is not a bad idea, because vendettas will kill you dead, but theyre not always the optimal target.

Marbo is another person who invokes fear and can subtly alter my opponents actions. Knowing that I have one little 65 point glass cannon that could feasible wipe a full termie squad is a powerful tool.

I find that recently I've been receiving an usually large amount of shots at my Eldar Pathfinders from Marines and Tau.

When I run an Avatar in games though - it usually is my sponge.