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It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.

Now this is a hot take.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
It fine, its optional, you don't have to do it, or you can if you want, just like all the secondarys.

Now this is a hot take.

 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 don't have to take genestealers, but I sure have to deal with them if they charge my Guardsmen...

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.

 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.

 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.

I guess we'll see.

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.

ERJAK wrote:

 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?

Yoyoyo wrote:

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.

Yoyoyo wrote:

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.

yukishiro1 wrote:

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.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

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.

 harlokin wrote:

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.

yukishiro1 wrote:

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.

 chimeara wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

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.

Yukishiro -- think, man.

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.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Yukishiro -- think, man.

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:

 chimeara wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

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.