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So I was wondering what everyone thinks about the psychic phase and use of psykers.

Initially I thought it would be a case either get loads or none (new shut down rules). But I haven't had any experience using them since or anything.
So I was wondering if it's a case of take psykers only if you're Grey Knights, Eldar or Daemons or is it still alright to bring 1 librarian (or equivalent)?

Anyone care to share their experiences?

I think there are some armies that can clearly dominate the psychic phase like you said, but that doesn't mean taking one or two psykers in a list is a bad choice. Against most opponents they will still be able to earn their points back, or multiply the effectiveness of other units. Added to the fact that psykers are often a cheap HQ choice that's worth taking just to minimize the points spent in HQ.

Well, in this respect I suppose for Apocalypse it is a case of that.

I was in a game where the Eldar player had so many dice that it literally was a case of rolling 40+ denial dice to block two spells. It's not fun, or amusing to be up against that kind of nonsense.

I have found it fairly even. If you have no psykers of course you will get hit by some stuff, but since generally you need 6s to stop a power they seem to go off frequently.

The disadvantage of going "big" is perils seems to ding you more often than not.

Against the majority of armies in average games, you can do just fine with two Psyker levels across the whole army. I always use Eldar with a single Psyker lvl 3 and I do just fine with that. But against Tyranids, no, your single Lvl 1 isn't worth showing up with. Not when I have seven charges naturally. But that's fighting Tyranids, Grey Knights, Daemons and such where most if not all choices in the list are Psykers. Not every game, and not even the majority of games, is like that.

I had 3 Flyrants (so 6 dice) and my opponent had a lvl 2 Rune Priest (2 dice).

He was able to consistently cast both Iron Arm and Endurance all but one turn of the game using his dice, and I only ever denied one Iron Arm.

1 Libby is still great. I like to run a ML 3 Daemon Prince so I get loads of Biomancy powers and can throw a lot of dice at whatever power I want

1 Psyker can do fine, even if he's mastery level 1 or 2.
I personally take anywhere between 1 and 6 level 2 Psykers (I play Iron Hands).
It depends on how I'm feeling, points levels, what I field, etc.
I'm normally rocking 1 - 3 if it's my homebrew rules (one level 3, two level 2).

Some of my friends field none, others field a single level 2 (a Space Wolf player). I have a friend that runs Thousand Sons, ML 3 Daemon Prince, and sometimes a level 2 sorcerer. It works out fine for him, too.

I like to drop a SS/FA libby down with Sternies sometimes. I'll roll on Pyro and hope for the nova and/or 4+ cover for the squad (really helpful, actually)
Assault Termies in a LRC: I'll replace one with a SS/FA libby sometimes, just to mix it up. If he rolls Endurance, great! If not, oh well.
I run Grav-cents, and like to throw a SS/FA libby in with them and pray to the dark dice gods that I get Endurance, or my libby is their shield.

All in all, it's going to depend on what you're fielding. They're neat, but sometimes become a liability or a one-trick-pony.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Well, in this respect I suppose for Apocalypse it is a case of that.

I was in a game where the Eldar player had so many dice that it literally was a case of rolling 40+ denial dice to block two spells. It's not fun, or amusing to be up against that kind of nonsense.

.

stopcallingmechief wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Well, in this respect I suppose for Apocalypse it is a case of that.

I was in a game where the Eldar player had so many dice that it literally was a case of rolling 40+ denial dice to block two spells. It's not fun, or amusing to be up against that kind of nonsense.

What were you playing 10k points? A three farseer 10 warlock list would only have 19 dice and would be fairly mediocre. To get 40 sounds made up

When talking Apoc, it's probably more likely to see 4-6+ Mastery Lv3's at the bare minimum. Hell, with Unbound being a thing, you could always just take nothing but Lv3 Farseers & Warlocks all on Jetbikes, if you really felt the need to be a giant donkey-cave...

Experiment 626 wrote:

stopcallingmechief wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Well, in this respect I suppose for Apocalypse it is a case of that.

I was in a game where the Eldar player had so many dice that it literally was a case of rolling 40+ denial dice to block two spells. It's not fun, or amusing to be up against that kind of nonsense.

What were you playing 10k points? A three farseer 10 warlock list would only have 19 dice and would be fairly mediocre. To get 40 sounds made up

When talking Apoc, it's probably more likely to see 4-6+ Mastery Lv3's at the bare minimum. Hell, with Unbound being a thing, you could always just take nothing but Lv3 Farseers & Warlocks all on Jetbikes, if you really felt the need to be a giant donkey-cave...

.

I use one or two ML 3 Chaos Sorcerers with Spell familiars, and usually get off the powers I want. I've had better rolls than Grey Knights in a few games.

For a casual game, one Sorcerer is fine.

i found that taking extra psychers helps me. Not because I expect them all to use their abilities but just to give me the extra dice on the ones that i do want to go off. This means If I "go psycher" I take one or two "more powerful ones and the rest are puny ones I dont put anything into.
That said, it doesnt hurt to take just one for the reasons given already.

It can be "Go big or go home" as you described, but in most games it won't be.

Bringing along a single or a couple of psyker usually works fine.

The only exception is when you run into a very heavy psychic list, list a daemon summoning factory. In this case you will be lucky to successfully use any power, as they can have 4 or 5 power dice to your 1.

I tend to run a ML 2 libby as a buff stick in most of my games. He rarely doesn't get his powers off, and even less gets them denied. Sure if you are facing a psyker heavy army they will have more chance to deny, but they are still only doing so on 6s if I'm buffing my own guys (usually), and it gives me a few more dice for my own denial rolls.

I played a guy the other day at 1850 who used something along these lines:

Lord of Change
Heralds of Tzeentch
16 Horrors
16 Horrors
Eldar Farseer
Wraithguard in Waveserpent
3 Obliterators
5 Combi Melta Terminators
3 Spawn
and who knows what else because he had over 20 dice turn 1, plus whatever Warp Charge he rolled.

By turn 2 I was just killing summoned units, and I couldn't shut down any powers because he was flinging a lot of warp charge dice around. I wanted the game to be over fast by turn 3 because he was too busy trying to remember which psyker had which power and it just took too long, you have no idea. I literally got tired of standing up just watching him fiddle with psychic powers.. He bought multiple psychic card decks just to mark them and the board was covered. Not to mention trying to remember to do all the Perils results, randomize Perils in large units, and randomize losing psychic powers. My psychic phases were uneventful and boring, and my only option in the face of such high enemy warp charge was to throw everything at a single power or two.. which got shut down anyways

I ended up giving up by turn 3 when none of my stuff was coming in and I was getting decimated.. I don't mind losing a game (I play Thousand Sons), but please for the sake of your opponent do not spam psykers unless you can reliably 1.) Keep track of powers and 2.) quickly put summoned units on the board.

By the way the game by turn 3 went on for almost 3 hours. And this is with his girlfriend helping him place summoned units on the board.

I was working with Ahriman and 4 sorcerers so 9 warp charge minimum. Not good enough. Either spam psykers like crazy or spend points elsewhere.

Against that list, yes. But that's an Unbound list specifically built to spam powers. That's the exception, not the rule. I wouldn't judge Psykers as an all or nothing type deal with that example. Casual games against various opponents, a light amount of Psykers is fine. Worst case, your Librarian protects a few squads from Witchfires and has a Power Sword because you can't get Force off. Still a fine reason to have just one Lvl 2 Librarian and eat the points of him being psychic.

I got poker chips and put stickers on them with numbers. This way, I can just put the chips with the number that match the powers they hve with them. Easier than using dice which I might accidentally pick up or knock off their number.

1 librarian works fine for me. cheap, does the job. I mean outside of spam lists, its fairly well working. any situations where you have 40+ dice is either unbound spam, or a daemon list at high points.

Usually if you're only bringing one psyker planning a support/defensive role for him works just fine, bringing one psyker and planning on him doing much offensively doesn't work.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Usually if you're only bringing one psyker planning a support/defensive role for him works just fine, bringing one psyker and planning on him doing much offensively doesn't work.

true, but the thread started with OP asking if 1 liby was okay, which I think it is. (this was a not so hidden attempt to bring it back to his question, as the recent posts seemed to have been about WAAC players bringing 40k+ dice in the phase)

yeah my original point was more, "what is the state of 40k psychic phase" and "will one or two psykers be worth bringing".

I got the early 'doom and gloom' opinion it was a phase where if you were outnumbered by psykers it was a waste of time bringing them.

Being a GK and Ork player I have played both ways. When running the GKs I have a large amount of dice and psykic powers and they are very handy. Also is good at denies. Then When I run Orks, I'll play my lone weirdboy...why you may ask?

Cause I like getting weird!

Same here, I sometime bring a wierdboy, and it's ok. But it sucks when you fight grey knight/elder/demon psyker spam lists.

Hell, grey knights don't even need a super cheesy list to have a dozen+ dispel dice to cancel out your handful.

I actually like the new psychic phase, in general, but the deny system needs tweaking. Only having like 6 casting dice and your opponent having 40 dispel isn't fun or fair.

Or maybe bring over the irresistible force mechanic from fantasy. I often wonder why they didn't, since they brought everything else over. But risking a PoTW to have a unblockable spell would be a pretty reasonable, quick fix.

The psychic phase makes me feel like I have a shooting phase.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

Hell, grey knights don't even need a super cheesy list to have a dozen+ dispel dice to cancel out your handful.

I actually like the new psychic phase, in general, but the deny system needs tweaking. Only having like 6 casting dice and your opponent having 40 dispel isn't fun or fair.

Since the thread is kinda about this...

I'm just getting back into the game, my friends and I are having our first match on Saturday. I was under the impression that for Denial you only got the number of dice rolled as extra for the player whose turn it was. So if they had a Farseer, a ML 2 Spirit Seer and say a council of 3 Warlocks they'd get 8 dice plus the extra d6 and you would only get the d6 to Deny. It sounds like I read that completely wrong here...

Also, as a tip, buy the Psychic cards (and the Daemon cards if you play Daemons). It may seem silly, but its only $15 for a rather nice tool. It makes the Psychic phase go so much faster, and I can always reference my stuff or let my opponent see it, plus I usually put any buffs/de-buffs next to units to help remind me.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:


Hell, grey knights don't even need a super cheesy list to have a dozen+ dispel dice to cancel out your handful.

Honestly with GKs I think if you DON'T have a dozen or so dispel dice it's proably odd. only way to not have a lot of dispel dice would be to take large squads of high point cost units. (like I dunno 4 ten man Paladin Squads or something)

 Brennonjw wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Usually if you're only bringing one psyker planning a support/defensive role for him works just fine, bringing one psyker and planning on him doing much offensively doesn't work.

true, but the thread started with OP asking if 1 liby was okay, which I think it is. (this was a not so hidden attempt to bring it back to his question, as the recent posts seemed to have been about WAAC players bringing 40k+ dice in the phase)

One Libby is fine, but make sure he's using Divination or Sanctic or Biomancy or praying for Invis on Telepathy, taking one Libby for Shriek, or Pyromancy, or Malefic, or Telekinesis is a bad plan.

A single Lvl 2-3 psyker in a unit can be enough to get the DTW bonus. That might be enough of a deterrent to stop witchfire shots at that unit.
A Librarian's aegis hood stretches that out to an area IIRC. Stick a couple of low level Librarians in a list to get better DTW rolls.
This doesn't prevent blessings being cast on the enemy, but makes casting Pyro or Telepathy powers more difficult.