Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

With more and more games under my belt, I am realizing how good the new psychic powers are. Prescience, Perfect Timing, Precognition, Hallucination, Invisibility, Iron Arm, Endurance and the list goes on. All situational, but all really good. I am sure I am reiterating a lot of what you already know. However I have been thinking with these new powers, is it better to rely on them or simply deny you opponent of using them? A good counter to my thoughts would be to simply say, "BOTH!" To that, I say that is a good, balanced idea.

To play devil's advocate with the theoretical counter, relying on the powers can be bad in a number of ways. Trying to score the power you want on the table only gives you a 1/6 chance (multiplied by how many rolls you get) leaving it to chance. They can also be unreliable due to psychic defense. Any of you who have played against RoW know what I am talking about.

On the other hand, denying powers is never really a bad thing but is limited in how you do so. RoW is king of that hill, but if it is included into your list as an Ally then you yourself will have a hard time getting off psychic powers as you will have to roll 3D6 as well. Then there are Rune Priest who can shut down powers on a 4+, but this is limited to a 24" range. Grey Knight have their aegis making you test at -4 Ld if targeting a friendly unit within 12" (may be 6", cannot remember off the top of my head).

My dilemma is in whether I should invest in:

Eldar allies for RoW and rely on mechanics other than psychic powers to get the job done.

A balanced approach of both defense and a mixture of the good powers.

Has anyone else came across the same problem in list building? Do you have a different solution?

Not sure how you can call Prescience situational; when do re-rolls to hit not help?

When you're not hitting stuff.

Duh.

Lokas wrote:When you're not hitting stuff.

Duh.

'Duh'; the word we used when we were 10 yrs old, genius.

As for your assertion, exactly when in 40k is not a single part of your army shooting a gun or mounting an assault?

Great topic.

As far as I can tell, the answer is going to be the always annoying "It depends."

It depends on your meta and your own army.

I think the meta is pretty heavy with psykers. Orks are really good right now and so are necrons, and often times they are strong enough to just muscle through enemy powers, and since they aren't trying to get their own off, they just spend points on more killing and skip support.

but...

eldar/dark eldar
marines/ig
grey knights
nids

can all just wreck you when the right power combinations and the right game situations align. Psyker defense is frustratingly random too. Almost all usable psykers are leadership 10, so that puts runes of warding at 50/50 alongside the rune weapon. But not if the person who is taking the test has runes of witnessing.

Until I've lost a palpable number of games strictly because of psychic powers, I'm going to keep doing this...

I purchase the character upgrades to psykers to gain psychic defense only when my list building plan included that character.

I wouldn't buy a farseer for a desperate ally and hide him in the corner for a coin toss on stopping the psychic test. And I wouldn't buy a rune priest and 5 grey hunters in a rhino just to have a mobile coin toss/scoring unit. However, if I wanted prescienced long fangs, or I wanted some guided warwalkers, then I would certainly go for it.

They've got to be allies of convenience or better. I'm not going to want to pay any amount of points for a non-denial, non-scoring troop. Even if it buys me some unpredictable psychic defense.

Godless-Mimicry wrote:'Duh'; the word we used when we were 10 yrs old, genius.

As for your assertion, exactly when in 40k is not a single part of your army shooting a gun or mounting an assault?

Google sarcasm.

Lokas wrote:

Godless-Mimicry wrote:'Duh'; the word we used when we were 10 yrs old, genius.

As for your assertion, exactly when in 40k is not a single part of your army shooting a gun or mounting an assault?

Google sarcasm.

Sorry for not reading your tone through the flat text you typed on a computer screen

Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Lokas wrote:

Godless-Mimicry wrote:'Duh'; the word we used when we were 10 yrs old, genius.

As for your assertion, exactly when in 40k is not a single part of your army shooting a gun or mounting an assault?

Google sarcasm.

Sorry for not reading your tone through the flat text you typed on a computer screen

Settle down kiddies. And obviously Prescience is always useful, but the OP mentioned a lot of powers that are far more situational... you just kinda ignored those and went for the best one.

J Mac wrote:With more and more games under my belt, I am realizing how good the new psychic powers are. Prescience, Perfect Timing, Precognition, Hallucination, Invisibility, Iron Arm, Endurance and the list goes on. All situational, but all really good. I am sure I am reiterating a lot of what you already know. However I have been thinking with these new powers, is it better to rely on them or simply deny you opponent of using them? A good counter to my thoughts would be to simply say, "BOTH!" To that, I say that is a good, balanced idea.

To play devil's advocate with the theoretical counter, relying on the powers can be bad in a number of ways. Trying to score the power you want on the table only gives you a 1/6 chance (multiplied by how many rolls you get) leaving it to chance. They can also be unreliable due to psychic defense. Any of you who have played against RoW know what I am talking about.

On the other hand, denying powers is never really a bad thing but is limited in how you do so. RoW is king of that hill, but if it is included into your list as an Ally then you yourself will have a hard time getting off psychic powers as you will have to roll 3D6 as well. Then there are Rune Priest who can shut down powers on a 4+, but this is limited to a 24" range. Grey Knight have their aegis making you test at -4 Ld if targeting a friendly unit within 12" (may be 6", cannot remember off the top of my head).

My dilemma is in whether I should invest in:

Eldar allies for RoW and rely on mechanics other than psychic powers to get the job done.

A balanced approach of both defense and a mixture of the good powers.

Has anyone else came across the same problem in list building? Do you have a different solution?

I think you invest in psykers that help make your army better. I'm really liking the allied BA libby who sits on my gunline, throwing prescience on my Thunderfire and Devastators. I use him when needed to try to protect stuff from psychic powers, but I've also found that since you can't deny blessings and psykers don't appear in every army, having a dedicated psyker who does not help synergize your army is a waste of points. A SW libby with Rune Staff, Mastery 2 and divination is a great ally for a C:SM gunline. His powers are always useful for making your army better and the 24" range on the staff is a decent bubble for protecting part of your army. An Eldar Farseer doesn't add nearly as much value since he can't use his powers to boost the rest of the army.

I personally love it when other armies invest in Psykers its like them throwing points down the drain lol.. I love your facial expression when I tell you, that you make 4d6 leadership test lols.
Defend as you may, 3d6 is only 50/50 denial. You might as well just put up another tank on your line and let me do my thing.

As an eldar player, I am very happy about all the new psychic stuff and also very unhappy. Now everyone or everyones allies can have access to very similar stuff that were so unique to eldar (and pretty much what kept us alive). Thank god there is no replication of fortune in the rule book powers. But a BETTER guide, misfortune, psychic shriek and that other power that can hurt vehicles pretty bad are all equal or better then the eldar power comparison. BUT on the good side, we have the only defense against perils attacks (ghost helm) and hands down the best psychic defense in the game. So I think in the end it all evens out.

More on topic, I have always relied heavily on my psychic powers and will continue to do so. I trust my seers every turn to deliver. And I really dont like the randomization of the new powers. Eldrad rolling 4 times helps a lot but still, I dont want to be aiming for a power and not get it. So I mostly will stick to doom guide fortune.

I guess Eldar are the odd ones in the bunch that can answer Both to this question. I rely on them all the time and now I can deny them as much as possible as well.

Razgriz22 wrote:As an eldar player, I am very happy about all the new psychic stuff and also very unhappy. Now everyone or everyones allies can have access to very similar stuff that were so unique to eldar (and pretty much what kept us alive). Thank god there is no replication of fortune in the rule book powers. But a BETTER guide, misfortune, psychic shriek and that other power that can hurt vehicles pretty bad are all equal or better then the eldar power comparison. BUT on the good side, we have the only defense against perils attacks (ghost helm) and hands down the best psychic defense in the game. So I think in the end it all evens out.

More on topic, I have always relied heavily on my psychic powers and will continue to do so. I trust my seers every turn to deliver. And I really dont like the randomization of the new powers. Eldrad rolling 4 times helps a lot but still, I dont want to be aiming for a power and not get it. So I mostly will stick to doom guide fortune.

I guess Eldar are the odd ones in the bunch that can answer Both to this question. I rely on them all the time and now I can deny them as much as possible as well.

Haha, I was gonna post "Easy to say when you are playing Eldar!" but then read the very last sentence and you summed it up just as well!

Totally understand where you are coming from, and that is what I need your opinion about. If you went up against another RoW, you would be rolling 4D6 for your psychic powers that you say you rely on. That could be a huge blow for Eldar, but is it enough to consider them as a desperate ally?

I actually think the average of 3D6 is 12, no? Where are you guys getting 10? Making it a lot better than you would think.

A farseer on a bike with 3 gaurdian jet bikes is only 151 pts. For those 151 points you have a durable (with fortune and their jink save), scoring, incredibly fast unit that gives you the best psychic defense in the game. However, you will not have access to all those cool psychic powers as the defense works on you too. Is it worth it?

Eldar doesn't really get hurt by RoW, Since rolling 4d6 and removeing the highest still has a 70-75%ish succes rate. With embolden This goes up to 90+%. So while it does hurt a bit, it's no where near as annoying as the 50-66% fail rate you get from a well positioned rune priest.

ps. the average of 1d6 is 3,5 so that would make the average of 3d6 10,5.

Eh, so far I've just been ignoring enemy psykers aside from DtW rolls. Yeah they are really nice, but as a SM player I don't really have a decent counter to it. I will however be absolutely loving the stuff once the new Dark Angels come out, Stubborn Sternguard with 2 Div Librarians and Pedro for scoring shenanigans is just too good to pass up.

Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Sorry for not reading your tone through the flat text you typed on a computer screen

Apology accepted

J Mac wrote:

Razgriz22 wrote:As an eldar player, I am very happy about all the new psychic stuff and also very unhappy. Now everyone or everyones allies can have access to very similar stuff that were so unique to eldar (and pretty much what kept us alive). Thank god there is no replication of fortune in the rule book powers. But a BETTER guide, misfortune, psychic shriek and that other power that can hurt vehicles pretty bad are all equal or better then the eldar power comparison. BUT on the good side, we have the only defense against perils attacks (ghost helm) and hands down the best psychic defense in the game. So I think in the end it all evens out.

More on topic, I have always relied heavily on my psychic powers and will continue to do so. I trust my seers every turn to deliver. And I really dont like the randomization of the new powers. Eldrad rolling 4 times helps a lot but still, I dont want to be aiming for a power and not get it. So I mostly will stick to doom guide fortune.

I guess Eldar are the odd ones in the bunch that can answer Both to this question. I rely on them all the time and now I can deny them as much as possible as well.

Haha, I was gonna post "Easy to say when you are playing Eldar!" but then read the very last sentence and you summed it up just as well!

Totally understand where you are coming from, and that is what I need your opinion about. If you went up against another RoW, you would be rolling 4D6 for your psychic powers that you say you rely on. That could be a huge blow for Eldar, but is it enough to consider them as a desperate ally?

I actually think the average of 3D6 is 12, no? Where are you guys getting 10? Making it a lot better than you would think.

A farseer on a bike with 3 gaurdian jet bikes is only 151 pts. For those 151 points you have a durable (with fortune and their jink save), scoring, incredibly fast unit that gives you the best psychic defense in the game. However, you will not have access to all those cool psychic powers as the defense works on you too. Is it worth it?

If I run into an Eldar army (I never do) or an allied detachment (much more likely), Then It will stink having to deal with runes of witnessing. But My runes of warding should just cancel it out. I think that is how its played. And if they take runes of warding my runes of witnessing cancels theirs out. So now im just rolling 10 or less on 2D6. Still not bad. The only time i would worry about this is if I had my seer council. But even then, i still would have embolden.

Lilrys wrote:Eldar doesn't really get hurt by RoW, Since rolling 4d6 and removeing the highest still has a 70-75%ish succes rate. With embolden This goes up to 90+%. So while it does hurt a bit, it's no where near as annoying as the 50-66% fail rate you get from a well positioned rune priest.

ps. the average of 1d6 is 3,5 so that would make the average of 3d6 10,5.

Ah, thanks for straightening that out.

Nids HAVE to have a counter to anti-psyker models in 6th. With the shear number of psykers in our army we have to. Otherewise we are just dumping the points that we pay for them down the drain.

Luckly we have the 3rd best anti-psyker abilities of any army (after SW and Eldar) and it is almost impossible to shut down. So enemy psykers don't worry me.

Still I am spending almost 300pts to counter anti-psyker in my 2K list. Luckly both my psykers and anti-psykers are good for more than just that one thing.

At least JotWW got a big old Nerf in this edition. Makes it a lot less painful.

Gloomfang wrote:Nids HAVE to have a counter to anti-psyker models in 6th. With the shear number of psykers in our army we have to. Otherewise we are just dumping the points that we pay for them down the drain.

Luckly we have the 3rd best anti-psyker abilities of any army (after SW and Eldar) and it is almost impossible to shut down. So enemy psykers don't worry me.

Still I am spending almost 300pts to counter anti-psyker in my 2K list. Luckly both my psykers and anti-psykers are good for more than just that one thing.

At least JotWW got a big old Nerf in this edition. Makes it a lot less painful.

Because you can't cast it from a transport?

So I am seeing a trend that it comes down to what army you are playing and what they are capable of doing. For Orks, it only makes sense to ally with Eldar for the psychic defense as they can make no use of psychic powers. For marine armies, it isn't as clear cut. It will depend on what you are trying to accomplish. Now the question becomes is it better to rely or deny for those type of armies?

@JMac

It got nerfed because every unit hit now gets to. DtW. For the units i really care about that is a 5+ becuse they are psykers (in my army at least). So that is a lot better then i used to get.

Ahhh, I see. It is also good they cannot cast them from transports either! Against Bugs, that is much better for you.

J Mac wrote:

Gloomfang wrote:Nids HAVE to have a counter to anti-psyker models in 6th. With the shear number of psykers in our army we have to. Otherewise we are just dumping the points that we pay for them down the drain.

Luckly we have the 3rd best anti-psyker abilities of any army (after SW and Eldar) and it is almost impossible to shut down. So enemy psykers don't worry me.

Still I am spending almost 300pts to counter anti-psyker in my 2K list. Luckly both my psykers and anti-psykers are good for more than just that one thing.

At least JotWW got a big old Nerf in this edition. Makes it a lot less painful.

Because you can't cast it from a transport?

So I am seeing a trend that it comes down to what army you are playing and what they are capable of doing. For Orks, it only makes sense to ally with Eldar for the psychic defense as they can make no use of psychic powers. For marine armies, it isn't as clear cut. It will depend on what you are trying to accomplish. Now the question becomes is it better to rely or deny for those type of armies?

J Mac wrote:Ahhh, I see. It is also good they cannot cast them from transports either! Against Bugs, that is much better for you.

As far as I'm aware you can still cast it from transports? Pg36 in the SW's codex calls it a 'psychic shooting attack', aka witchfire.

Pg69 of the 6th ed rulebook states 'note that, as witchfire is a psychic shooting attack, a psyker embarked on a vehicle may target an enemy outside that vehicle by using a firepoint'. Then on pg 78 it states '...passengers from inside the vehicle can fire shooting weapons (or use witchfire/psychic shooting attack).'

Damn that was geeky...nerdy even. I'm ashamed of myself.

I despise and am secretly jealous of psykers and all their fancy abilities. We tau dont get any fancy magic :(

WTB psyker kroot who have eaten a ton of eldar.

Lt.Soundwave wrote:I despise and am secretly jealous of psykers and all their fancy abilities. We tau dont get any fancy magic :(

WTB psyker kroot who have eaten a ton of eldar.

So convert kroot with eldar bits and goodies ans say they ate lots of eldar and have absorbed psychic energy. Then take the croot as an allied detachment as a stand in for eldar farseers/ warlocks/ whatever you want. just make them stand out and look different from normal kroot.

Tehjonny wrote:

J Mac wrote:

Gloomfang wrote:Nids HAVE to have a counter to anti-psyker models in 6th. With the shear number of psykers in our army we have to. Otherewise we are just dumping the points that we pay for them down the drain.

Luckly we have the 3rd best anti-psyker abilities of any army (after SW and Eldar) and it is almost impossible to shut down. So enemy psykers don't worry me.

Still I am spending almost 300pts to counter anti-psyker in my 2K list. Luckly both my psykers and anti-psykers are good for more than just that one thing.

At least JotWW got a big old Nerf in this edition. Makes it a lot less painful.

Because you can't cast it from a transport?

So I am seeing a trend that it comes down to what army you are playing and what they are capable of doing. For Orks, it only makes sense to ally with Eldar for the psychic defense as they can make no use of psychic powers. For marine armies, it isn't as clear cut. It will depend on what you are trying to accomplish. Now the question becomes is it better to rely or deny for those type of armies?

J Mac wrote:Ahhh, I see. It is also good they cannot cast them from transports either! Against Bugs, that is much better for you.

As far as I'm aware you can still cast it from transports? Pg36 in the SW's codex calls it a 'psychic shooting attack', aka witchfire.

Pg69 of the 6th ed rulebook states 'note that, as witchfire is a psychic shooting attack, a psyker embarked on a vehicle may target an enemy outside that vehicle by using a firepoint'. Then on pg 78 it states '...passengers from inside the vehicle can fire shooting weapons (or use witchfire/psychic shooting attack).'

Damn that was geeky...nerdy even. I'm ashamed of myself.

Good catch! It seems you can use a fire point to target only for psychic shooting attacks, but NOT for maledictions and the sort (i.e. Lash of Submission). Which totally makes sense

Someone at my last tournament told me (and I believed him upon showing me the ruling under P67 under Declare Target paragraph) that this was not possible. Makes a better argument to rely....

I played a SW army today and he had 3 runepriest. Turn one I cast my powers no worries. Then they moved up and countered 4 of my 5 powers.. I was like WTH lols. I was upset, because that was 80% denial.. I was shocked to say the least. Anyways I had 2 Farseers up and He was unable to cast the whole game.
It is my opinion after that game, you either go heavy Psykers(heavy denial) or more dakka dakka dakka!...
Just having one priest isn't enough, one seer not enough, either go heavy or go home IMO.

Nologik wrote:I played a SW army today and he had 3 runepriest. Turn one I cast my powers no worries. Then they moved up and countered 4 of my 5 powers.. I was like WTH lols. I was upset, because that was 80% denial.. I was shocked to say the least. Anyways I had 2 Farseers up and He was unable to cast the whole game.
It is my opinion after that game, you either go heavy Psykers(heavy denial) or more dakka dakka dakka!...
Just having one priest isn't enough, one seer not enough, either go heavy or go home IMO.

This makes complete sense. Running 2 seers definitely takes some dedication though as the avatar is usually a solid second choice. But at 2000 pts with a second FOC, 2 seers is quite easy.

2 Runes of warding is just stupid good. I have yet to play an army that reliant on psychic powers that I need 2 seers though. Dont ever see grey knights or tyranids.

J Mac wrote:

Tehjonny wrote:

J Mac wrote:

Gloomfang wrote:Nids HAVE to have a counter to anti-psyker models in 6th. With the shear number of psykers in our army we have to. Otherewise we are just dumping the points that we pay for them down the drain.

Luckly we have the 3rd best anti-psyker abilities of any army (after SW and Eldar) and it is almost impossible to shut down. So enemy psykers don't worry me.

Still I am spending almost 300pts to counter anti-psyker in my 2K list. Luckly both my psykers and anti-psykers are good for more than just that one thing.

At least JotWW got a big old Nerf in this edition. Makes it a lot less painful.

Because you can't cast it from a transport?

So I am seeing a trend that it comes down to what army you are playing and what they are capable of doing. For Orks, it only makes sense to ally with Eldar for the psychic defense as they can make no use of psychic powers. For marine armies, it isn't as clear cut. It will depend on what you are trying to accomplish. Now the question becomes is it better to rely or deny for those type of armies?

J Mac wrote:Ahhh, I see. It is also good they cannot cast them from transports either! Against Bugs, that is much better for you.

As far as I'm aware you can still cast it from transports? Pg36 in the SW's codex calls it a 'psychic shooting attack', aka witchfire.

Pg69 of the 6th ed rulebook states 'note that, as witchfire is a psychic shooting attack, a psyker embarked on a vehicle may target an enemy outside that vehicle by using a firepoint'. Then on pg 78 it states '...passengers from inside the vehicle can fire shooting weapons (or use witchfire/psychic shooting attack).'

Damn that was geeky...nerdy even. I'm ashamed of myself.

Good catch! It seems you can use a fire point to target only for psychic shooting attacks, but NOT for maledictions and the sort (i.e. Lash of Submission). Which totally makes sense

Someone at my last tournament told me (and I believed him upon showing me the ruling under P67 under Declare Target paragraph) that this was not possible. Makes a better argument to rely....

Sneaky git :p. I can see how you would take that to mean ALL psychic attacks. Obviously the rules stated slightly later make an exception to that .

Nologik wrote:I played a SW army today and he had 3 runepriest. Turn one I cast my powers no worries. Then they moved up and countered 4 of my 5 powers.. I was like WTH lols. I was upset, because that was 80% denial.. I was shocked to say the least. Anyways I had 2 Farseers up and He was unable to cast the whole game.
It is my opinion after that game, you either go heavy Psykers(heavy denial) or more dakka dakka dakka!...
Just having one priest isn't enough, one seer not enough, either go heavy or go home IMO.

Yeah, it seems thats Wolves have it pretty good because they can have the best of both worlds. Let's be honest, some characters (particularly RP is runic armor) get 4 rolls against a psychic power targeting themselves. 1 for the runic weapon, 1 for Deny the Witch, 1 for wolf tail talisman, and 1 for his runic armor. That is pretty good, however that number of rolls comes down to 3 if the power targets the character's unit.

Also, I feel wolves don't need to rely on their powers to be competitive but at a cheap price (100 pts) they can bring a fair amount of competitiveness through the deny and rely (if necessary).

Tehjonny wrote:Sneaky git :p. I can see how you would take that to mean ALL psychic attacks. Obviously the rules stated slightly later make an exception to that .

Yeah, I feel GW is usually never straight forward with you about their rules. Just by examining rule sets of other games, you can see the flaw in GW's writer's abilities in developing a flowing ruleset. Part of it is the language barrier between their international popularity. I am getting way off topic here...

I feel through your catch on my rule understanding and previous discussions here have concluded my thoughts on whether to deny or rely on psychic powers in 6th. Especially in all comers list where you will see so much diversity in other lists, you should be prepared to take advantage of both. This is reinforced even more if your army of choice excels in both (Eldar, Wolves and Nids), but can be applied in other armies that aren't as strong in that area (Orks for example).

So convert kroot with eldar bits and goodies ans say they ate lots of eldar and have absorbed psychic energy. Then take the croot as an allied detachment as a stand in for eldar farseers/ warlocks/ whatever you want. just make them stand out and look different from normal kroot.

...That sounds fantastic! Only thing is I want to run wraith lords and guard so ill have to find a good way of modeling that. Still... I am sold on the concept