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Here's something I've brewed up. If this has mentioned this prior then please disregard.

Take a Primaris Psycher and choose the Telepathy branch.

I don't care what you roll for, the big thing here is to take the main Primaris Power of Psychic Shriek.

Now, pair this with a 10 man Psycher Battle Squad.

My idea is to use the 10 man's ability of Weaken Resolve. They can sit back 36'' and you only need 1 psycher to have LoS of the enemy.
After lowing the enemies leadership to 2 you then use your Primaris Psycher and cast Psychic Shriek. 3D6, Minus the target units leadership. The targeted squad takes X amount of wounds The huge deal here is armor/cover saves are NOT allowed from these wounds.

Now tell me, wouldn't this be a brilliant 1-2 punch against Termies and the likes? I think it would be a downright dirty combination.

Let me know what you think.

Btw, the points cost for the Psycher + the 10 man squad would come out to be 180 pts. I know some of you might say that if part of the 1-2 punch gets taken out. It becomes negligible. However, I think it's worth the risk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess the only major downside is the 12'' range of shriek. Maybe a primaris in a chimera?

The PBS has to pass a psychic test (.844), and the opponent has to fail a deny the witch roll (.71). Then the primaris needs to pass a psychic test (.65), and then roll successfully to hit (.43), and your opponent has to fail another deny the witch (.36).

Put another way, in the absolute best circumstances, you're only looking at this combo getting off about a third of the time.

And then look at the circumstances. The PBS can't be in a chimera, which means the lifespan of your PBS is very short. Even if it isn't wiped out completely, even a few casualties will start to drastically eat into the effectiveness of this combo (much less a failed perils test). It will also have a hard time if there is psychic defense around, especially runes.

And the primaris has to survive, once again, outside of a transport, which likely means putting it in a squad, which likely makes the squad he's in rather useless, as they've got to target the same squad as the primaris.

And it will never work against vehicles. And it will never work against units embarked in vehicles. And in order to REALLY work on infantry, you've got to roll well on a 2D6 for the psychic shriek itself. Rolling a 2 or a 3 is going to be shrugged off as if nothing had happened, and opponents can still take an invul save if they have one.

Like psykers have been for the entirety of the time we've had this codex, the allure is there, given the maximum possible damage in the ideal circumstances. Reality, though, scarcely ever actually yields those perfect die rolls in the perfect circumstances, though, and when they don't, they're pretty crappy.

The list can be shutdown by runes of warding. Ld9 tests are as likely to perils as they are to pass. Eldar are very popular allies, and people almost always bring a farseer with runes of warding.

 Ailaros wrote:
The PBS can't be in a chimera

?

Care to elaborate on that? Can you no longer cast psychic powers from a chimera?

page 67 of the BRB.

A psyker in a transport can only target himself or a unit that he's riding with.

Wow the usefulness of the PBS just dropped way down.

yeah, but to be fair, they were only SO useful in the first place...

Page 78 of the transport rules states that psykers can fire witchfire or shooting attacks out of fireports.

Weaken resolve is done in the shooting phase, but is not implicitly a shooting attack, so Iunno. Seems sorta grey to me.

Tried this the iother day actually. Stuck the prim with a unit of ogryn for Lo,s shenanigans and hid the battle squad backfield behind a vet squad. My opponent, running marines, had a big ol' assault blob of termies and he saw the trick. Funny enough, the unit was most effective as firebait with its 3+ cover going to ground behind ruins. The bulk of his demolished shots went straight for them with limited effectiveness (he killed them over the course of I think 3 turns) and I was free as a bird to use my own leman Russ demolishers to do the same to his termies, biding their time away from the scary, scary primaris and his ogryns.

Speaking of whom, those ogryns and their nightshrouding screamy buddy managed to beat the pulp out of a landspeeder and 2 fulltac squads, screaming at least 2 marines each time.

Effective for the reason you'd think? Nah, too obvious, too fragile. Effective for a different reason? Oh yeah. This is my new favorite big scary unit.

also, pyschic shriek only has a 12" range, and most things you'll be targeting with it you do NOT want to be within 12" of.

And no offense, but people came up with this tactic literally 5 minutes after they got their hands on the new rule book. I think it was literally one of the first IG 6th ed threads posted here.

 McGibs wrote:
Page 78 of the transport rules states that psykers can fire witchfire or shooting attacks out of fireports.

Weaken resolve is done in the shooting phase, but is not implicitly a shooting attack, so Iunno. Seems sorta grey to me.

I'd agree. I think it falls into the "special" camp, rather than wychfire, and so would be treated like any other psychic power.

Which is good, because if it was a shooting attack, then the PBS could sit in a chimera, but then it would have to successfully hit with a BS3 shooting attack, which would cut the effectiveness down to 1 in 6 times you tried it. Hardly reliable

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Moustaffa, I figured someone had posted it at one point or another but had never read anything. The only viable way I can think of pulling this off effectively would be to bring a small SM ally detachment with a librarian. If you put him in terminator armor it makes him hardy enough to get up there in 12''. Aillaros, you're right - too many things have to go right to pull it off effectively though. Remember though, you stated that the Shriek was 2D6 when in fact it is 3D6 - which means you'll always cause wounds if you have a sizeable PBS. Really is a let down that the PBS can't ride around in a Chimera. I might play with the Librarian/PBS combo tomorrow just to see how it goes.

 liam0404 wrote:
Wow the usefulness of the PBS just dropped way down.

Down from 1/10 to .8/10 maybe

 TheCaptain wrote:

 liam0404 wrote:
Wow the usefulness of the PBS just dropped way down.

Down from 1/10 to .8/10 maybe

PBS were a top tier unit in 5th ed. They were a finesse unit often needing to be combined with marbo, vendettas, stromies, or penal legion to walk a unit off the board. Multi lasers were excellent weapons to toss shots at units until they drop just below 50%, drop their ld, and the unit is effectively removed from the game if it's not meq (which require walking).

Now between the 6" rule being gone and the 25% to regroup + eldar being a popular ally pbs are a bottom tier unit.

That being said they are a lurking menace. As soon as runes of warding gets nerfed pbs become viable again, though in a very different roll. In 6th ed they are a 60 point unit that has a pair of 6th ed powers for a combo such as divination + manticore. Leadership drop can be mixed with ba psykers for fear of the darkness. There is a lot of potential in 6th ed for a pbs, but until runes of warding gets the nerfbat they are too much of a risk in an all comers list.

The new answer is to place the PSBs in area terrain, go to ground if they get shot at and then order them back to their feet with a command squad.

Pyschic shriek is not a good choice, you have to be within 12 inches which is assault range and guard don't do assault well.

I'm currently experimenting with blood angel allies, it's not working against necrons because they have a high portion of fearless units but I'm still learning the niche of this.

Why blood angels? Because a BA librarian is mastery 2, so you can take blood lance and fear of the dark.

1) Fear of the dark is range 24, so you can stay alive a little easier.
2) If they're fearless you can blood lance them or pick another BA power and do something else.
3) A unit that falls back in the first turn is within 2d6 inches of a 6'*4' table edge so there's a plausible chance that they will run off the table. This means it doesnt matter how many you kill, they'd be dead.
4) Brothers in Arms means you can add the librarian to a blob squad if you want to go crazy with look out sirs. (unless he red thirsts)
5) If they rally they can't shoot or charge, so if you force them off the board or not, that unit is disabled for a turn.

I have had some success hiding the PBS behind los blocking terrain. Only one member needs to poke his head around the corner, so only one can die to return fire. Well, barring any flanking moves or barrage.