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I've been writing a series of blog posts on the evolution of different aspects of 40k from 2nd edition to the current state of the game. Previous topics have included the evolution of formations and the evolution of vehicles and transport vehicles.

My latest one looks at the evolution of the psychic phase. You can find it at http://standwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/psyched-out-evolution-of-psychic-phase.html

Are psykers a regular part of your army or do you avoid them? Is the psychic phase too powerful in the game or does it strike the right balance between the other phases?

I've taken a go-big-or-not-at-all approach now. Bringing a single Lvl 2 or a measly Lvl 1 isn't worth it any more. When a Ld check was all that was needed, it made sense, but now, if your opponent does go big, you are unlikely to get your one power off.

The new system makes it so that it doesn't matter how many dice you actually have, you throw a set number that covers the statistical likelihood of getting the power off while minimizing the risk of Perils. I could have 27 WC dice, I'm still only throwing 5 at a WC2 power. And since I'm only throwing that set amount, it has a higher chance of getting stopped by a Psyker heavy army. So at that point, I'm just wasting my time. I need redundancy to make it work. If I can't get it, I'd rather spend the points on good old fashioned Shooty shoot.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
I've taken a go-big-or-not-at-all approach now. Bringing a single Lvl 2 or a measly Lvl 1 isn't worth it any more. When a Ld check was all that was needed, it made sense, but now, if your opponent does go big, you are unlikely to get your one power off.

The new system makes it so that it doesn't matter how many dice you actually have, you throw a set number that covers the statistical likelihood of getting the power off while minimizing the risk of Perils. I could have 27 WC dice, I'm still only throwing 5 at a WC2 power. And since I'm only throwing that set amount, it has a higher chance of getting stopped by a Psyker heavy army. So at that point, I'm just wasting my time. I need redundancy to make it work. If I can't get it, I'd rather spend the points on good old fashioned Shooty shoot.

That seems like a good approach. I will frequently run a single level 2 librarian with my space marines, but he really struggles to cast even warp charge 2 powers.

I play Tzeentch so I'm more psyker heavy than the vast majority. The psychic powers as a resource that is genterated by buying upgrades is good it you want powers that are only fair/balanced if they require an investment. Like summoning, if it was jut a leadership test then summoned unites would be essentially free, the only cost being the opportunity of one other spell. With warp charges you end up dedicating most of your "psychic resources" to get summons off.

 DarkBlack wrote:
I play Tzeentch so I'm more psyker heavy than the vast majority. The psychic powers as a resource that is genterated by buying upgrades is good it you want powers that are only fair/balanced if they require an investment. Like summoning, if it was jut a leadership test then summoned unites would be essentially free, the only cost being the opportunity of one other spell. With warp charges you end up dedicating most of your "psychic resources" to get summons off.

I think the current system is pretty okay if you look at a single player's army in a vacuum. Your Tzeentch guys either toss tons of dice at daemonology powers to summon and buff daemons, or else they go shooty with Tzeentch powers. That all works well enough. The problem is when Frank wants to bring hi single ML 1 or ML 2 librarian to a casual game, and your (also casual, let's assume) list makes that librarian basically worthless by drowning his powers in deny the witch dice. I feel like uncapped mastery levels have sort of resulted in this unintentional situation where taking a psychic heavy army basically invalidates mildly psychic armies.

I also feel that the current psychic system is a bit too human-centric. It's a pretty good fit for humans. It definitely captures that feeling of, "Okay, do I just use a little warp power to do this safely, or do I dig deep and risk exploding myself in order to really pull this off?" That said, this doesn't particularly fit other factions. You could argue it's an okay fit for chaos, but you could also argue that a Thousand Sons sorcerer that's been casting spells for 10,000 years has probably figured out how to not explode his brain, or that a daemon should have a strong enough grasp of/innate connection to the powers they channel to not worry about hurting themselves in the process. Similarly, my eldar warlock could conceivably have been on the path of the seer for centuries, yet today is the one day that he decided to roll two 6's and accidentally exploded his brains.

I feel like more factions should have something similar to the Corsairs perils table where you don't really have to worry about dying from perils, but the consequences are still really visceral and problematic.

I don't hate the current psychic system the way some people do, but I'm not sure it adds enough to the game to be worth the problems it introduces. Ideally, I think I'd like something closer to the 6th edition system where it's all just leadership tests, but your powers cast are limited by the level of the power and your own mastery level. So a ML 2 librarian could either cast two level 1 powers or a single level 2 power. Also, bring back purchasable powers. Random powers aren't particularly fluffy, they actively make it hard for me to forge my narrative, and they add to bookkeeping. The only plusses to random powers that I see are that they ensure the crummy powers on each table see at least a little use and keep people from automatically taking the best powers, but that's sort of a back-handed compliment as the better solution would be to simply make the powers better balanced against one another. Haemmorhage and invisibility are both WC 2...

I avoid the Psychic Phase whenever I can. I find it a pain to work through.