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Hi,

Sorry if this has been asked before, but last night me and my friend had a game to test out the new Space Marine psychic powers and formations. He managed rolling the Geokinesis power that lets you move a terrain piece 24", with models on top of it, and effectively created a flying fortress full of shooting units that could then do t1 charges (as if his Skyhammer wasn't enough). Now this was a friendly game and we both had a laugh over how ridiculous these new psychic powers are.

However, most tournament mission packs state that terrain is not to be moved by anyone other than the T.O. - does this mean that the Geokinesis power (whose name I forgot now) will be useless? Will tournaments allow a re-roll of the result if they ban that psychic power, or will it be a "tough luck, you rolled a power but cant use it" situation?

I don't expect a full out ban, but I do think, depending on the tournament and terrain, the power won't be as useful as people think. I believe it cannot overlap other terrain pieces, so events with fairly large terrain pieces will have very limited areas that terrain can be moved to. Still useful, but there's a lot more of the board blocked out when your average terrain piece is about 12"x12" and about 10" between terrain pieces.

On a power level, it's strong because there is no restriction from assaulting after a unit has been transported on a building.

A librarius conclave is nearly always going to cast it successfully, then you have a 24" free move on your assault deathstar.

But what I'm asking is more how tournaments will deal with space marine players potentially changing pre-placed terrain, as this is often something that T.Os spend a lot of time on setting up in a balanced way etc.

GrafWattenburg wrote:
On a power level, it's strong because there is no restriction from assaulting after a unit has been transported on a building.

A librarius conclave is nearly always going to cast it successfully, then you have a 24" free move on your assault deathstar.

But what I'm asking is more how tournaments will deal with space marine players potentially changing pre-placed terrain, as this is often something that T.Os spend a lot of time on setting up in a balanced way etc.

I think the actual utility will be much less once you factor in terrain density and deployment type. We mapped out a couple of different tables at a local tournament on Saturday. Once you account for the 1" placement restriction, we found the average move was about 12". The pieces of terrain big enough to fully hold a death star are simply too big to clear the intervening terrain pieces and end up having to be placed well short of the 24" mark. The small pieces that could really take advantage of closer to the full 24" move aren't big enough to hold a death star.

When it comes to pre-placed terrain, if you look at fortification placement as precedent most major tournaments have a rule allowing players to remove the minimum amount of terrain needed to legally place the fortification. After the match, players reset terrain to the original position. I assume it would be very similar to this for geokinesis.

There's not even consistent terrain setup or rules from event to event and jervis fire up the crack pipe once more to throw another wrench in the gears.

This was a terrain piece from the last tournament I ran... yeah

Lightspeed Briefs are my undergarment of choice! lol

But yeah, going to playtest this one a lot, interested to see how bad/good it actually is.

The Ignores Cover and Line of Sight power will be more problematic, IMO.

 Reecius wrote:
Lightspeed Briefs are my undergarment of choice! lol

But yeah, going to playtest this one a lot, interested to see how bad/good it actually is.

The Ignores Cover and Line of Sight power will be more problematic, IMO.

You sir have a discerning crotch


I dunno man, just logistically for a giant event like lvo, think of the thousands of dollars worth of models that could get damaged, either falling off the terrain piece being moved or falling and hitting other models. I'd just axe it, it's not a core power and marines are doing just fine. With the model count of 7th its dangerous enough just moving all those models on a tray from game to game.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
Lightspeed Briefs are my undergarment of choice! lol

But yeah, going to playtest this one a lot, interested to see how bad/good it actually is.

The Ignores Cover and Line of Sight power will be more problematic, IMO.

You sir have a discerning crotch


I dunno man, just logistically for a giant event like lvo, think of the thousands of dollars worth of models that could get damaged, either falling off the terrain piece being moved or falling and hitting other models. I'd just axe it, it's not a core power and marines are doing just fine. With the model count of 7th its dangerous enough just moving all those models on a tray from game to game.

Because Frontline has received generally positive internet vibes when they unilaterally remove things from armies. They'll put it up to a vote before making any changes I'm sure, that way we can (rightfully) yell at each other and not them.

I think the swap power will the big power anyway. The table as a whole is better as well.

I am running a major ITC event this weekend and we are allowing it but I have added a number of errata since it came out so soon, including reinforcing the rules ITC has in place for fortification placements as part of using worldscape power. So instead of 1" from terrain you have to place it 3" away and you also have to be 3" from the table edge. I felt like that was the lightest touch possible for playtest while keeping with the spirit of other ITC rulings. Some of the smaller things like the Imperial bunker may be able to be abused but I think it will much harder to abuse a skyshield with the errata in place. Still very powerful ability though, will be interesting to see its affect.

Did something similar with Phase Form with an ITC inspired errata. We are limiting its ability to provide ignore cover to things ITC bans from having such rules, mostly largeer than 5" blasts and D blasts and larger. I am guessing that is how ITC will vote or temp rule it but had to make a call with the event happening now.

 Reecius wrote:
Lightspeed Briefs are my undergarment of choice! lol

But yeah, going to playtest this one a lot, interested to see how bad/good it actually is.

The Ignores Cover and Line of Sight power will be more problematic, IMO.

I swear every time the ITC tries/does fix the brokeness of 40k, GW just goes FU buddy try to fix this and boom magic broken physic powers for space testicles.

We have elected to ban it from Norwich Conflicts at the present, although we will take notice how the situation evolves. Our reasons are:

1) How tables look is very important to us. We have some of the best terrain tables for any event in the UK and are very careful to set up every table such that it has a narrative and story behind it.

2) We don’t have time between rounds to go back and check that scenery is still in the same place on every table

3) We don’t want people picking up big pieces of terrain we have spent a lot of time on and damaging them

4) We equally don’t want arguments from people damaging other people’s models. I know it should be easy to avoid this, but at some point someone will topple someone else’s beautifully painted forgeworld knight

Some players tried the psychic power in a couple of games on last Thursday on a club night, TauMechanius vs Bike marines (Iron Hands + White Scars). First game the marines put their IH command squad in a small wood, shot in up the board 24” and multicharged first turn, such that the game was over end of turn 2. We had a re-rack, they rolled both move terrain and fortune, and the Taudar conceded end of turn 1 after the command squad killed a knight plus some other stuff and bounced the entire army shooting for no loss.

I don’t see how it is difficult to find a space to drop a terrain piece on either are boards nor the ones I’ve seen on webcasts form the US at UK events. Are you playing it such that the piece moves like a model? (i.e makes a 24” move staying 1” away from other models and terrain pieces as well) That’s not how I read the rule, its seems to me to be a lift it up and put it down in 24” power.

We use the ITC FAQ as its quite sensible, so if a vote alters the power, we may change our stance.

 torgoch wrote:
I don’t see how it is difficult to find a space to drop a terrain piece on either are boards nor the ones I’ve seen on webcasts form the US at UK events. Are you playing it such that the piece moves like a model? (i.e makes a 24” move staying 1” away from other models and terrain pieces as well) That’s not how I read the rule, its seems to me to be a lift it up and put it down in 24” power..

I suspect the difference is terrain density. The tables we have locally generally have 5 bigger pieces of terrain (1 LOS blocking center roughly 18" by 18", 1 in each quadrant that was roughly a 12" by 12" ruin base) with the spaces in between plugged by area terrain. What we found when mapping it out is that the quadrant pieces were big enough that between the area terrain and the center terrain piece they just couldn't be placed for a consistent advantage. They'd end up getting a roughly 12" move and ending up in front of the center LOS piece. On the flanks you could get close to a 24" move towards the other quadrant piece but knowing this, the opponent can mitigate with deployment to an extent.

That does sound a rather area-terrain dense table. Taking this shot from the LVO via google as an example, there is nothing on any of the tables that I can see that would stop you placing the terrain pieces pretty much where you needed to, even the larger ones. And our terrain is generally much more dense than this.

Looking at the center line in that screen shot, you'd be hard pressed to get the full 24" in a straight line off a dawn of war or hammer and anvil deployment except for with some of the smaller pieces in the top. But yes, locally we play with more terrain than I've played with at LVO the last two years.

Are we playing the rule the same way?

I'm thinking that I can pick a piece of terrain up and then put it down (having turned it to whatever facing I like) and then put it down such that it is more than 24" away from where it started... I think I can see loads of opportunities to do that on those tables.

However if you read the rule that the piece has to move along the table, then it becomes much harder. I didn't get that from the text, but happy to be wrong.

I guess what this really needs is for someone to do some experiments with some typical tables. I would do some at our club this Thursday, but I'm holiday the rest of this week so can't attend.

I say keep it. I want to make planet bowling ball

Keep in mind that Psychic is done after Movement. In other words, no casting the power to move terrain, then moving off the terrain and then doing an assault. So that does help to limit movement slightly.

If I were to house-rule this power, I would go like this:

1. Move terrain as you would a vehicle, not a skimmer/jump infantry. That means you can't go over other models and terrain. You need to go around them and you need to maintain 1" away from enemy models and other terrain.

2. Still need to follow ITC terrain placement restrictions, meaning no terrain can be closer than 4" of another terrain. Thus, you need to end the placement of the "moving" terrain at least 4" from any other terrain (and the board edges).


Keep in mind that many models also have -2" when charging through terrain.

 jy2 wrote:
Keep in mind that Psychic is done after Movement. In other words, no casting the power to move terrain, then moving off the terrain and then doing an assault. So that does help to limit movement slightly.

Very very slightly.

Move into (or deploy inside) terrain, psychically move terrain 24", assault out of terrain. That's like being able to assault out of a ork trukk that went cruising speed, then flat-outted, which sounds pretty damned broken to me.

Doesn't levitation have some caveat on it that says you can't assault after using it? If so, is there no similar clarification on this ability? If not, how could they have overlooked that?

 torgoch wrote:
Are we playing the rule the same way?

I'm thinking that I can pick a piece of terrain up and then put it down (having turned it to whatever facing I like) and then put it down such that it is more than 24" away from where it started... I think I can see loads of opportunities to do that on those tables.

However if you read the rule that the piece has to move along the table, then it becomes much harder. I didn't get that from the text, but happy to be wrong.

I guess what this really needs is for someone to do some experiments with some typical tables. I would do some at our club this Thursday, but I'm holiday the rest of this week so can't attend.

I'm reading it like you: pick up and then put down so that no portion is more than 24" from the initial starting point. Once you account for the relative size, I see a lot of opportunities for 12" to 18" jumps (still good mind you) but not large windows for a full 24" jump for that turn one guaranteed charge. Enemy and friendly units also hinder this placement so a few infiltrating scouts can really reduce the utility. The fulmination swap power is much better than shifting worldscape.

jy2 wrote:Keep in mind that Psychic is done after Movement. In other words, no casting the power to move terrain, then moving off the terrain and then doing an assault. So that does help to limit movement slightly.

Keep in mind that many models also have -2" when charging through terrain.

True, but that does mean you can move into terrain mid-table and get the catapult affect from there. I don't think many people looking to develop this tactic would be using things slowed by the terrain.

PanzerLeader wrote:

I'm reading it like you: pick up and then put down so that no portion is more than 24" from the initial starting point. Once you account for the relative size, I see a lot of opportunities for 12" to 18" jumps (still good mind you) but not large windows for a full 24" jump for that turn one guaranteed charge. Enemy and friendly units also hinder this placement so a few infiltrating scouts can really reduce the utility. The fulmination swap power is much better than shifting worldscape.

Agree, some scout deployments could hinder this. And also agree, the fulmination power is potentially equally as devastating, although Tau (probably the faction most impacted by it) have sufficient interceptor to mitigate it's ability to go off somewhat. I'm kind of guessing that one will get ITC FAQd to not being able to charge after swapping places.

I say keep it the same. It really isnt that bad. Its a one trick thing people are not going to fall for twice. I say just have a stipulation that all terrain must be put back where it started at the end of the game

Would servo skulls serve to stop terrain from being placed in open areas?

I figured stores will ban it once all their nice terrain starts get broken.

Seems like events allowing the Shifting Worldscape power also need to clarify what happens to objective markers fully and partially on the terrain.

People really don't see an issue with the ability to move friendly or enemy models 24" across the board, or removing LoS blockers that were carefully placed?

This power is nuts. Any event that doesn't ban it or at the very least nerfs it is going to be in for a world of hurt by any Libby Conclave player worth his or her salt. It's for sure worse than Invisibility, which ITC already nerfs.

All tournaments need to do is bust out the double sided tape.

The power specifically says it must be a movable piece of terrain for the power to work.

So secure Tournament terrain before game, then all that can be moved is purchased Fortifications, hampering the ability to cheese our with this power within the rules of the power itself. Especially when you can't move to less than 1 inch away from another terrain feature.

It's a very powerful power but it is self limiting if people are willing to read the whole thing, and play by that.

I think if we limit the movement to vehicle style movement it will make things a little better but this power is pretty broken. The swap power is stupid strong too for non meq armies. It is bad enough that non marine armies have to deal with the marine Swiss Army knife ability to take whatever they want, but now we have to deal with first turn charges and deathstars dropped right in our front grill with no ability to react. At least with alpha strike you had options to react. With these powers you do not and that makes the game non challenging and non fun for your opponent. DE and Tau will really suffer as they don't have any means to stop the psy powers and everyone will try to ally with librarius heh. Imagine shunting a Knight or pair of storm surges right on top of you turn one. I can't wait to see how these get balanced out.

The real winner is the ability to swap places and then assault. Drop a throwaway unit near the enemy deployment zone, swap the Libby and his death star squad with the chumps and multi assault everything on T1. I expect that these powers are going to force everyone to either run a Death Star or a meched up list like battle company.

Just curious... wouldn't this power be usable on an immobilized LR or similar transport? As I recall, once a vehicle is immobilized it becomes, effectively, "terrain".

The LR is not "terrain" until it is destroyed