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This thread is meant as a discussion thread for ideas about how to fix the psilencers in the Grey Knight Codex. As it stands, there's prety much no reason at all to actually use them, so I thought we'd come up with something together.

I'll kick off the discussion: Make them rending?

Rending might be a little much. The things are 6 shots after all.

Maybe add that successful Inv. Saves must be re-rolled vs. wounds caused by them? Still a bit niche, but makes them worth considering without loosing their purely anti-daemon role (as, ya know, Rending accomplishes nothing against demons, as a 6 wound wound anyway, and it wouldn't ignore their inv.)

My .02.

Rending? Already have psycannons for that. Biggest problem is that its basically a heavy stormbolter without AP that does slightly better against daemons. Not much use in that especially since it gets rid of power weapons and mobility. How about making it upgradeable with psybolts and also available to vehicles? Maybe give it an assault profile too or increased range so its not terribly useless to guys who are sitting down near an objective

What I'd maybe go for is:

24" S4* AP5 Assualt 6, Pinning

* Wounds allocated against daemons or psykers from a psilencer always wounds on a 4+ and on a roll of a '6' to wound inflict Perils of the Warp on a psyker.

I agree with they idea that they do need a bit of oomph, especially when compared to the Psycannon and Incinerator, but they do have their own place: Take a Purgation squad with 4 Psycannons in an Apoc game if your opponent has taken one of the particularly nasty Daemon Lords. 24 shots, (with the possibility of being BS10 if you're against a Tzeench lord, and you have a Psyocculum), wounding on 4's, you could easily force enough saves to kill them eventually.

There is nothing wrong with the psilencer, especialy considering it's price. It suffer form te same thing as the Heavy Bolter, the reason people don't take them is that it's a weapon ment for hordes in a mech heavy meta and other weapons simply outshine it (in this case the psycannon, which in honesty make every other special weapon looks bad).

Luke_Prowler wrote:There is nothing wrong with the psilencer, especialy considering it's price. It suffer form te same thing as the Heavy Bolter, the reason people don't take them is that it's a weapon ment for hordes in a mech heavy meta and other weapons simply outshine it (in this case the psycannon, which in honesty make every other special weapon looks bad).

Nothing wrong with it?

The psycannon is better than it in (almost) every situation. Don't you think that might be a wee problem?

ph34r wrote:

Luke_Prowler wrote:There is nothing wrong with the psilencer, especialy considering it's price. It suffer form te same thing as the Heavy Bolter, the reason people don't take them is that it's a weapon ment for hordes in a mech heavy meta and other weapons simply outshine it (in this case the psycannon, which in honesty make every other special weapon looks bad).

Nothing wrong with it?

The psycannon is better than it in (almost) every situation. Don't you think that might be a wee problem?

Yes

It means the Psycannon is broken

Luke_Prowler wrote:There is nothing wrong with the psilencer, especialy considering it's price. It suffer form te same thing as the Heavy Bolter, the reason people don't take them is that it's a weapon ment for hordes

Except that at least heavy bolters are S5 AP4 and have an extra foot of range

Psilencers will struggle to hurt even orks, its heavy nature makes it inconvenient for non terminator grey knights (since everyone already has storm bolters and a sword for their base cost) and those in terminator armor can then use psycannons to great effect. And psycannons are far from broken, that 24" range they have is a huge factor

kenshin620 wrote:

Luke_Prowler wrote:There is nothing wrong with the psilencer, especialy considering it's price. It suffer form te same thing as the Heavy Bolter, the reason people don't take them is that it's a weapon ment for hordes

Except that at least heavy bolters are S5 AP4 and have an extra foot of range

Psilencers will struggle to hurt even orks, its heavy nature makes it inconvenient for non terminator grey knights (since everyone already has storm bolters and a sword for their base cost) and those in terminator armor can then use psycannons to great effect. And psycannons are far from broken, that 24" range they have is a huge factor

Crunching the numbers, A Psilencer can kill 1.667 Orks or 1.778 Guardsman. A heavy bolter can only kill 1.3 of either. And the psilencer has a higher kill max. It's true that the heavy bolter has a farther range, but in this edition everyone is trying to get into the double tap/assault range anyway so you just have to wait for them to come for you. Have I mentioned that it's free?

Luke_Prowler wrote:have I mentioned that it's free?

Well of course its free on anything not purgation squads

I mean they then lose their assault weapons and their nifty power weapon, not to mention that strike and interceptors squads will only have 1/5 of their guys with it. Why would anyone pay for that?

+0 points to downgrade your force sword and assault storm bolter to a heavy, 6 shot bolter

By that logic, why would anyone buy a special weapon?

Luke_Prowler wrote:By that logic, why would anyone buy a special weapon?

Umm because there obvious benefits? In truth though there are a lot of special weapons that arent used too much since their downsides outweigh their benefits

GK arent that good with their specials sans psycannons. Incinerators actually are a liability if you're planning to assault. As explained earlier, psilencers do not match well for assaulty GK, coupled with the fact that GK are already great infantry killing machines

Luke_Prowler wrote:By that logic, why would anyone buy a special weapon?

If it is better than a 6 shot bolter












Amazing, I know.

Maybe Make it Rending (with a Twist)

on a roll of a 6 to wound against a Daemon, the wound ignores the Invunerable Save.

I'd keep it's stats as they are except for one change to them - make it an AP2 weapon.

Make them cost more for Terminators and Paladins - maybe the same as psycannons. Keep them the same cost for Strike Squads, Purifiers and Interceptors. It would help address the lack of AP2 weaponry that GK suffer from but, in all honesty, I don't think that GK players would all of a sudden swap their psycannons out for psilencers because then there'd be a serious lack of anti tank in a GK army. Power armour Knights would suffer with mobility issues taking them but Terminators/Paladins would obviously fare better. It would give options and make the psilencer worth considering, especially on models with Terminator armour.

ColdSadHungry wrote:I'd keep it's stats as they are except for one change to them - make it an AP2 weapon.

Well, that's not QUITE the direction I would take it.....

Make them cost more for Terminators and Paladins - maybe the same as psycannons. Keep them the same cost for Strike Squads, Purifiers and Interceptors. It would help address the lack of AP2 weaponry that GK suffer from but, in all honesty, I don't think that GK players would all of a sudden swap their psycannons out for psilencers because then there'd be a serious lack of anti tank in a GK army.

I think they'd be really really good at what they weren't supposed to do then. I'd think they'd need to be at least as expensive as a psycannon, probably more. I've NEVER been wanting for an AP2 hit with the new GK. Psycannons more than kill enough stuff for me. Here's how I'd fix it: Make 5 points more expensive across the board. Give it AP4. Let it ignore invul saves on a 6 to wound.

Still great at what it's supposed to be doing, and it's not so useless that you're only taking it when you're anti-demon tailoring.

Um, we really don't need plentifully available 6 shot AP2 weaponry in the game. Even at only S4, you're nearly doubling the number of kills against T4 3+/2+sv units that you'd get with an S7 Plasma gun.

daedalus wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:I'd keep it's stats as they are except for one change to them - make it an AP2 weapon.

Well, that's not QUITE the direction I would take it.....

Make them cost more for Terminators and Paladins - maybe the same as psycannons. Keep them the same cost for Strike Squads, Purifiers and Interceptors. It would help address the lack of AP2 weaponry that GK suffer from but, in all honesty, I don't think that GK players would all of a sudden swap their psycannons out for psilencers because then there'd be a serious lack of anti tank in a GK army.

I think they'd be really really good at what they weren't supposed to do then. I'd think they'd need to be at least as expensive as a psycannon, probably more. I've NEVER been wanting for an AP2 hit with the new GK. Psycannons more than kill enough stuff for me. Here's how I'd fix it: Make 5 points more expensive across the board. Give it AP4. Let it ignore invul saves on a 6 to wound.

Still great at what it's supposed to be doing, and it's not so useless that you're only taking it when you're anti-demon tailoring.

Vaktathi wrote:Um, we really don't need plentifully available 6 shot AP2 weaponry in the game. Even at only S4, you're nearly doubling the number of kills against T4 3+/2+sv units that you'd get with an S7 Plasma gun.

Remember, it's a heavy 6 weapon, though. Would you replace all of your psycannons with psilencers? Probably not. So you wouldn't all of a sudden see tonnes of AP2 shots flying around. And not being able to move and fire them restricts how many you'd want to take on power armour. AP2 psilencers would give different options to what they have now, though and you'd likely see different army builds based around them besides purifier spam.

As for the idea to make it AP4, ignore invuls on a 6 roll, I can see how that's a more sensible and certainly less controversial idea but all it would really do is create yet another gun that marines laugh at and everyone else struggles against, whereas AP2 is basically an armour ignoring gun full stop. But it couldn't take out any kind of tank (glancing hits notwithstanding), it couldn't be fired on the move and at S4, it's not going to cause an unfair amount of wounds. It may be a little stronger on Terminator armour models but you adjust their points cost to reflect this.

Maybe strength 5 or that psybolt ammo will work for them

Oooooh, or maybe it should be made an assault weapon!

I think making it assault would be plenty fine. That's a lot of move+shoot firepower. AP2 would make it about doubly as effective at killing heavy infantry as a plasma gun without the risk of blowing up and would just be too easy to abuse.

But since it's not assault, I don't see how. It would be much more situational plus it would still only be S4. Seriously, 6 shots, 4 would hit and 2 would wound against a S4 target and only if you stayed still in the movement phase. It COULD be really powerful but you would have to adjust your tactics for that to be the case.

ColdSadHungry wrote:But since it's not assault, I don't see how. It would be much more situational plus it would still only be S4. Seriously, 6 shots, 4 would hit and 2 would wound against a S4 target and only if you stayed still in the movement phase. It COULD be really powerful but you would have to adjust your tactics for that to be the case.

It's assault for terminators. It's also supposed to be an anti-demon gun. Low AP makes no sense for it really.

Psylencers are absolute crap.
I guess they were intended as an anti horde weapon but sadly fail at that since the psycannon outshines the psilences by miles against all infantry hordes even though it costs 10p more.

The whole thing reeks of a bad GW joke where some very slow person cooked up its rules over a coffe break just to rush it into final printing before deadline on the last possible minute.

Giving a static weapon for a mobile army that already gets a dirt cheap option that is far better at everything is sheer idiocy. Has anyone even seen one single psilencer being used in any tournament?


There is only one instance where a psilencer is better then a psycannon and that is in one very narrow game setup in apocalypse play where the opponent picks those insane 888 point super deamons but this is also all.


To fix the weapon it would need a niche that it was significanly better at then the psycannon. However with all the storm bolters and other anti horde options I see no real need for a special anti horde weapon what so ever, especially when it means replacing the much needed anti tank option in the squad.

The little niches that remain are anti inv saves, Ld test forcing and Telion-alike aim picking plus it NEEDS to be made mobile as in assault and not heavy.


Assault 6
S4
AP-
Ignores inv saves
Benefits from psybolt ammo
No deamon 4+ wounding, the psycannon already wound everything on a 2+

For starters.

These ideas would mean I might and I mean might consider taking one squad with them but still probably not since armour is such a big problem in todays meta that no amount of assault psilencer will offer a better option then the psycannon.

Even better would be:

Assault 6
S = Brotherhood of psychers Leadership (if justicar in squad then it´s S9, if HQ then S10)
Ap-
Ignores inv saves
No deamon special wounding
Strength taken against targets majority toughness
Cannot harm vehicles
Pinning forced if wound made with a modifier based on Ld vs Ld meaning if justical read squad shoots at a Ld 8 target then target takes pinning at -1.

Point cost is half of the squads psycannon option since psycannon is STILL better in the majority of scenarios.


Then I would pay for on average one squad in the army having those but I would still consider not taking them in tournament gaming because the loss of any little anti vehicle psycannon power is just not worth it no matter how much effective a psilencer would be against weenie hordes. It doesnt matter if it can mow down low Ld orks at 24' when almost every ork rushes you mounted in transports.

Pyriel- wrote:

Assault 6
S4
AP-
Ignores inv saves
Benefits from psybolt ammo
No deamon 4+ wounding, the psycannon already wound everything on a 2+

For starters.

That sounds like a good base, nice and anti daemony

Pyriel- wrote:
Even better would be:

Assault 6
S = Brotherhood of psychers Leadership (if justicar in squad then it´s S9, if HQ then S10)
Ap-
Ignores inv saves
No deamon special wounding
Strength taken against targets majority toughness
Cannot harm vehicles
Pinning forced if wound made with a modifier based on Ld vs Ld meaning if justical read squad shoots at a Ld 8 target then target takes pinning at -1.

Point cost is half of the squads psycannon option since psycannon is STILL better in the majority of scenarios.

Hmm....sounds a bit extreme. With this you can pretty much instantgib anything not a MC. Sure it can affect armor but you still have some other psycannons or autocannons running around.

Give it a Shredder Cannon style option; Fire as Heavy 6 or Assault 3.

Hmm....sounds a bit extreme. With this you can pretty much instantgib anything not a MC. Sure it can affect armor but you still have some other psycannons or autocannons running around.

Well no since the LD S goes against the targets Ld. This in most cases you fire at S9 against other T9 or 10 wounding most things on a 4+ or 5+.

Oh I see, you didnt really make that obvious there at first

daedalus wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:But since it's not assault, I don't see how. It would be much more situational plus it would still only be S4. Seriously, 6 shots, 4 would hit and 2 would wound against a S4 target and only if you stayed still in the movement phase. It COULD be really powerful but you would have to adjust your tactics for that to be the case.

It's assault for terminators. It's also supposed to be an anti-demon gun. Low AP makes no sense for it really.

The thing that makes it a 'daemon gun' is the special rule about wounding them on 4+ and that rule could just stay as it is or be tweaked or whatever - make up a new anti daemon rule even.

And the thing with it being assault for terminators is that they become very expensive that way. If my version of a psilencer was 25 points on a terminator, then to you'd need to have, at minimum a 225 point squad to take just one or 450 points to take two in a 10 man squad. To get a full 4 in a Paladin squad of 10, with all the upgrades they are likely to have, you'd be looking at around 900 points! So, it's not as if you're not paying a premium for assault 6 AP2 weapons.

My reasoning behind the AP2 idea is to give the psilencer a real reason to be taken. 6 AP2 shots is enough to make people consider it - especially on Terminator armour or maybe in purgation squads. The other ideas that I've read, whilst more realistic don't make me think 'I'd take that over a psycannon.' With AP2, it would have realistic applications that could tempt you into taking them. But, because it would still only be S4 and therefore almost worthless against tanks and transports, and weak against high T units, it wouldn't replace the popularity of psycannons. This, in turn would mean that you'd see some of them but not loads and loads of them and, therefore, it wouldn't be in any way overpowered or broken. It would just add more variety and give other options which would go some way to encouraging diversity - and it's not like people don't moan about the prevalence of purifer spam.