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Hey,
I have a buddy who likes to play Ahriman, but I think he is misusing the character. Ahrimans Black staff lets him use 3 witchfire powers/phase so the guy is using 3 Tzeentchs firestorm/turn. I have only recently started playing and have been hearing stories about this madness but after reading the rulebook found a bold rule stating no character may use the same power more than once per turn. No one apparently has said anything to the guy so I figured I was missing something. Can he do that? Or is it a case of wishful interpretation?

The relevant part is that Ahriman's staff has been Errata'd (the Codex just allows him to use three Witchfires, but doesn't specify that they may be the same one).

Here is a link to the document on GW's site.

And here is the relevant bit under Amendments:

Page 60 - The Black Staff of Ahriman, rules
The second sentence should be replaced with: 'It allows Ahriman to attempt to manifest the same witchfire power up to three times per Psychic phase'.

urgh nvm...

Well, that is just redonkulous...

Are you really afraid of the worst psychic lore in the game?

Like I was saying, I haven't played much but from what I have seen, if you don't have a solid counter he can wreck you. I want to play chaos, can you suggest counters?

Evangelos wrote:
I want to play chaos, can you suggest counters?

I'm sure there are much better (i.e. more efficient) counters, but nothing is as hilarious as Kharn - passes Deny the Witch tests on a 2+, and immune to the Force special rule.

Any kind of Psyker in the targeted unit will up their Deny roll to a 5+ (as Ahriman is ML4, you can't out-mastery him for a 4+), as well as giving you more dice to try and counter with.

That was the gist of my 'redonkulous' comment, any non psyker unit just takes it on the chin. But, I will load up best I can.

Remember that he's got to spend warp charge to cast it (and doesn't have a spell familiar to re-roll with), hit with it, roll a random strength, and then you need to fail your armour save. Even without a Psyker in the unit you should be able to save your charge for when he only gets one success and try for the 6 for a Deny.

Ahriman is also the cost of a Land Raider, he's meant to be at least a bit scary.

Yea, I know, lol. Thank you for all the help.

Ahriman is MUCH less threatening in practice than he looks on paper.

You can cast the same power trice, but do you really have the warp charges to do so? Sure you can bring other psykers to give him more charges but what re the others going to cast then?


On top of this, the current draft of the FAQ only allows him to cast 4 powers each turn (equal to his mastery level). If we ever get a definitive version of them, that's going to put him in quite the bind as the only fun (albeit not very strong) thing to do with him is chuck out 10 Witchfires using an enourmous reserve of Daemon-fueled warpcharges.

Bottom line is he can seem and be suite threatening if you're a new player but he really isn't once you get to know how he works.