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This is the way, I've interpreted it,
First i look to the psychic phase

"Manifesting Psychic powers sequence"
1. Select Psyker and Psychic Power.
2. Declare Target.
3. Take Psychic Test.
4. Deny the Witch.
5. Resolve Psychic Power"

Then i look to the witchfire rules

"Witchfire powers are shooting attacks"

So i go to shooting attacks

"Shooting Phase Sequence
1. Nominate Unit to Shoot.
2. Choose a Target.
3. Select a Weapon
4. Roll To Hit. "

Then I look at the individual rule and try to resolve it,

"is a focused witchfire power with a range... The target must take a leadership test on 3D6."

Now I work the order:
I start at the psychic sequence,
Select my psyker> I declare my target> >take the psy test>>deny witch[power goes off]>Ressolve power>
Power is focused witchfire, the target must take a leadership test
so i enter the shooting sequence
Nominate my psyker to shoot>choose my target>
(at this point i return to the psy power as i have my target)> Target must take a leadership test
And then i finish resolving the power and then exit the sequence.

For arguments sake i could continue through the shooting sequence without interrupting it to ressolve the power,
(things get a bit funky)
Nominate my psyker to shoot>choose my target>roll to hit[hit failed]>roll to wound[no wounds]>allocate wounds[no wounds]>
exit shooting sequence-return to psychic sequence>target must take a LD test[i still have a target both from the shooting sequence and the psychic sequence]>
>finish resolving power

In both cases the outcome of the "to hit roll" doesn't matter

The only way i can see this being wrong is if after failing to hit, that means the psychic power fails, I cant find any rules to support this, all i found is
" a witchfire power must roll To Hit," but after rolling to hit, i still have my target, from, as i already stated, two separate sequences psy and shooting. If this is wrong,
if i missed something, please post it up, site rules supporting your claim, and lets see if we can finally put this dam thing to rest. =D

Gee, this got heated fast, uhm ok lets see here:

 God In Action wrote:
I

Guess what, nor do the actual Shooting rules on p.32 of the BRB explicitly say that failing To Hit causes the shooting attack to fail. Seriously

This statement isn't correct
5th step of the shooting sequence
" 5. Roll To Wound. For each shot that hit, roll again to see if it wounds the target. The result needed is determined by comparing the Strength of the firing weapon with the majority Toughness of the target unit."

Most of the things you wrote have little to do with my reply, im not saying the "a To Wound component, that makes the To Hit become irrelevant." Please show me how my interpretation doens hold up GiA

 God In Action wrote:
I

Are they genuinely believing that GW deliberately took effort to write in all the lines about 'must roll to hit' whilst also knowing that it would entirely irrelevant? Are people genuinely believing that because the Witchfire rules on p.27 don't explicitly say that missing the target results in failing the psychic test, but simply leaves it at 'must roll To Hit' without saying what happens either way, the To Hit roll becomes irrelevant?

My post clearly says none of these things, I am saying that before the roll to hit is made a witchfire, like shriek, is designed, by GW, to ressolve its ability. a simpler way to think of it is, just how you have on hit affects, shriek is an "on target affect", rules as written the phrase "the target takes" is no different that "the targeted model/unit takes." If a rule says "the hit model must take an initiative test," you do this action as the model is hit, in the same way "the targeted model must take a leadership test" you do this as the model is targeted.

The number of shots, argument seems to be a bit silly to me, as the psychic power is effectively the weapon, and as there no indication of a "number of shots" the power can be considered to be a single shot, that affects all witchfires without weapons profiles tho, and i feel like that arguement has little to do with this particular issue.

 grendel083 wrote:

no rule says that. It's a guess, it might be logical guess, but a guess all the same. This was also brought up in the first page of the thread listed above.

Incorrect
"Just like when shooting a weapon, a Psyker must be able to see the target unit (or target point) and cannot be locked in combat if he wishes to manifest a witchfire power.
Similarly, a witchfire power must roll To Hit, unless it is has the Blast special rule, in which case it scatters as described in the Blast special rule,
or it is a Template weapon, which hit automatically"
One power, one roll to hit, unless it states otherwise or it has a weapon profile[see the lines before the quoted rule in the BrB,sorry i cant site pg numbers i have the E book version]

If someone could please tell me how my interpretation is incorrect, its the 3rd post in this thread, id really appreciate it.

 God In Action wrote:
But it's quite obvious that changing Psychic Overload to be an automatic hit is interpreting a rule with a clear advantage gained. The inclusion of a To Hit roll in the Witchfire rule very clearly demonstrates the intention of there being a chance to miss. Taking away that chance to miss is very clearly interpreting to gain a benefit. In order to claim that interpreting the power as an automatic hit is not against the intended spirit of the Witchfire rules, you'd need to claim that the entire inclusion of the requirement to roll To Hit was accidental on the authors' part. That is a far larger assumption than the assumption involved in the solution of 1x To Hit roll per manifestation.

If interpreting Psychic Overload as an automatic hit were not to be as a gained advantage, you would need to show that there was no evidence of an intended chance to miss in the rules. Whilst those rules are RAW broken and don't specify what exactly the chance to miss or hit should be, they nonetheless do spell out that there is an undefined chance in there somewhere.

Ok first my interpretation isn't technically an automatic hit, the order of operations has the spell resolve prior to the "to hit roll,"
if you can show me how that interpretation is incorrect please do.

Your second sentence completely ignores my first post, and doesn't really seem to be adding anything other than arguing for arguing sake.

As you have said "The inclusion of a To Hit roll in the Witchfire rule very clearly demonstrates the intention of there being a chance to miss"
I could easily say,"The inclusion of the word Target in the Shriek rule very clearly demonstrates the intention of the being no chance to miss.
Taking away no chance to miss is very learly interpreting the rule to nerf it"
See that kind of statement doesnt really work...=S

" In order to claim that interpreting the power as an automatic hit " I'm not making that claim.

"If interpreting Psychic Overload as an automatic hit were not to be as a gained advantage,
you would need to show that there was no evidence of an intended chance to miss in the rules."

That sentence I don't understand, please rephrase it

col_impact wrote:


SaJeel - I appreciate that you have a more polished argument and we should address it. First things first, we need to shut down the "Skip the To Hit" solution as having no rules justification and being untenable, or else the thread gets polluted and defocused.

Meanwhile, SaJeel, clarify what you do in your solution on successful To Hit rolls.

Thanks and i yes simply saying that you "skip the to hit" doesn't make any sense.
I am saying however the psychic power is ressolved prior to the Hit roll being made,
so nothing really happens on the successful or unsuccessful to hit roll
Quoting my first post

I start at the psychic sequence,
Select my psyker> I declare my target> >take the psy test>>deny witch[power goes off]>Ressolve power>
Power is focused witchfire, the target must take a leadership test
so i enter the shooting sequence
Nominate my psyker to shoot>choose my target>
(at this point i return to the psy power as i have my target)> Target must take a leadership test
And then i finish resolving the power and then exit the sequence.

I realize there is probably some hole in this logic and thats why i posted it up so you guys can find it =D.
My first post goes into greater detail outlining every sequence rule in the psychic and shooting phase,
along with the case where my proposition runs into trouble.
Col_Impact, im sorry i can't specifically answer your question =S, i hope you can see why im having trouble with it,

The number of shots is one, because it is one psychic attack the rules clearly state that, and I already clarified that in a previous post, One psy ability=one to hit roll unless otherwise stated

Here we go

Witchfire powers are shooting attacks. Indeed, they are often referred to as psychic shooting attacks, and many have profiles similar to ranged weapons. Just like when shooting a weapon, a Psyker must be able to see the target unit (or target point) and cannot be locked in combat if he wishes to manifest a witchfire power. Similarly, a witchfire power must roll To Hit, unless it is has the Blast special rule, in which case it scatters as described in the Blast special rule, or it is a Template weapon, which hit automatically.

Alright so lets run through this with psy shriek, Ok so first, it is a shooting attack, it doesn't have a profile similar to a ranged weapon. It can see a target. It must roll to hit. It is one power so it must roll one time. So that makes one roll to hit when i try to manifest the power, but... and here is the big butt, with my solution that doesnt even matter, because you never reach the roll to hit, the power resolves before that

 God In Action wrote:


Why would the Ld test occur before the To Hit roll? Surely: 1. declare target. 2. take psychic test. 3. deny the witch. 4. To Hit. 5. Ld Test. 6. Resolve wounds.
The method for resolving a Witchfire test places the To Hit roll before the effect of the psychic power. In an unambiguous example- you wouldn't work out the effects of being hit by Smite before you had rolled to see if it hit. Likewise, why would you work out the effects of Psychic Shriek or Overload before rolling to see if it hit?

The second sentence about the intention of there being a chance to miss: I am arguing that the emphasis on To Hit rolls in the Witchfire rules is evidence of the intended meaning being that a To Hit roll should always be taken before a psychic power is cast, which would then be failed if the To Hit roll missed.

The word target doesn't have anything to do with automatic hits. An enemy unit is a target of a normal shooting attack, just because that enemy units is the target doesn't make all shots hit automatically, or not need to roll To Hit. So no I don't see that you could just as easily say Target = intention of automatic hit. 'Target' has literally no connection to automatic hits, in either rules or language.

But the most important thing here is, if I've understood correctly, your interpretation is that you do not need to roll To Hit with Psychic Shriek or Overload, because the effect of the psychic power is resolved before the To Hit roll?

I'll start backwards, by addressing you last statement first, and thanks for responding! Yes you have understood me correctly.

Correct the word target has nothing to do with auto hits, infact auto hits don't exist in the game
"Note that the minimum roll needed To Hit is always at least 2. When rolling To Hit,
there is no such thing as an automatic hit and a roll of a 1 always misses." And i realize why this idea is so dam hard to swallow at first glance.

Ok im gonna try to break down my interpretation into points so each one can be discussed, and so it'll be easier to say, " i disagree with #3"

1) You can have a targeted unit/model
So by this i simply mean that targeted, is a state, just falling back, hit, and wounded are all states that a unit/model can be in
2) you ressolve affects as soon as possible,
So by this i mean if a rule states "a model hit must take an initative test" the initative test is taken as soon as the model is hit.
3) In the shooting sequence as outlined in the rules step 2 is choose a target, once the target is chosen that unit/model becomes the targeted unit
4) The psychic abilities in question interact with the targeted model, and therefore the ability triggers at step 2 of the shooting sequence
for reference this is the shooting sequence as taken from the BrB

The Shooting Sequence
1. Nominate Unit to Shoot. Choose one of your units that is able to shoot but has yet to do so this turn.
2. Choose a Target. The unit can shoot at an enemy unit that it can see.
3. Select a Weapon. Select a weapon the firing unit is equipped with. All models equipped with a weapon with the same name can now shoot that weapon at the target. Every model that wishes to shoot must be within range of at least one visible model in the target unit. Models that cannot see the target, or are not in range, cannot shoot.
4. Roll To Hit. Roll a D6 for each shot fired. A model’s Ballistic Skill determines what it must roll in order to hit the target.
5. Roll To Wound. For each shot that hit, roll again to see if it wounds the target. The result needed is determined by comparing the Strength of the firing weapon with the majority Toughness of the target unit.
6. Allocate Wounds & Remove Casualties. Any Wounds caused by the firing unit must now be allocated, one at a time, to the closest model in the target unit. A model with a Wound allocated to it can take a saving throw (if it has one) to avoid being wounded. If a model is reduced to 0 Wounds, it is removed as a casualty. Wounds are then allocated to the next closest model. Continue to allocate Wounds and take saving throws until all Wounds have been resolved.
7. Select Another Weapon. After resolving all shots from the currently selected weapon, if the firing unit is equipped with differently named weapons that have yet to fire, select another weapon and repeat steps 3 to 6.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 grendel083 wrote:

SaJeel wrote:
It is one power so it must roll one time. So that makes one roll to hit when i try to manifest the power

Again, no rule says that.

but... and here is the big butt, with my solution that doesnt even matter, because you never reach the roll to hit, the power resolves before that

This however, I think deserves looking more into.

There is just one stage at this point of the Psychic Sequence (step 5 Resolve the Power). This is normally broken down further to a shooting sequence.
Now it's an assumption that the effect of Psychic shriek is similar damaging effect of a weapon - that it is resolved last, it's the end result of an attack, if you get my meaning.

Food for thought at least.

I do indeed get your meaning, and that is the problem, but if a psy ability says "models hit take a initative test test" don't you take the initative test as soon as the models are hit, or do you try to wound them, fail to do soe because the psy power doesnt have strength and then make the model take an ini test