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Hi. I've been running my Admech against a Psychic heavy army using Telepathy Primaris - Shriek. I've never actually played with Psychic Powers before so it's been a learning curve but I'm feeling a lot of pain from the Shrieks and am wondering if we're playing it correctly.

As I understand it -
There's a 3d6 roll compared with target leadership and anything rolled above that number = a wound with no saves.
Is this a per model basis? As in, Psychic Shrieking a Kastellan Unit w/ Techpriest. Does it take the Techpriest's leadership 9 or the Kastellan individual 7?

Thanks

I've just done majority LD. Not sure if that's correct though.

You compare the "unit's" LD, which the BRB tells us is always the highest available, not the majority.
So in your example, the Kastellan unit w/ Techpriest is LD9 for the purpose of Shriek.
If the 3D6 roll is 10, the unit takes 1 wound, allocated on the closet model to the casting Psyker. Keep in mind that only armour & cover saves are ignored. Invul saves are allowed, as is FNP.

-

3d6 vs the highest leadership in the unit (like every LD test) causes auto AP2, Ignores Cover wounds. You get invulns, you get FNPs. Kastelans are fairly safe from shrieks unless they get -LD effects to boost the power.

The book does NOT say to always use highest Ld for all purposes. It says to do so for Ld tests. Psychic Shriek is not a ld test.

It tells us to use majority Toughness to wound, and FAQs for attacks that wind off of other stats read similarly. However, Psychic Shriek does not wound off of Ld.

Neither method is explicitly supported by the brb. Both sides have plausible arguments. Talk to your group, TO, or opponent.

 Jimsolo wrote:
The book does NOT say to always use highest Ld for all purposes. It says to do so for Ld tests. Psychic Shriek is not a ld test.

It tells us to use majority Toughness to wound, and FAQs for attacks that wind off of other stats read similarly. However, Psychic Shriek does not wound off of Ld.

Neither method is explicitly supported by the brb. Both sides have plausible arguments. Talk to your group, TO, or opponent.

Well that complicates matters.
Having been on the receiving end of the Majority toughness route -- I feel that way is overpowered but that might be perspective bias.

That is correct.

As most of our group are recovering fantasy players, we've opted to use the highest leadership value in the unit, but you'll have to hash that out with your opponent(s) beforehand.

You're told to use the units leadership. The only time that's given is in the context of Ld tests, but isn't constrained by it.

As a player who on average takes 12-14 mastery levels in his chaos lists and frequently (as in every game I bring a psyker) uses Psychic shriek, I would NEVER argue to use anything but the highest leadership.

3D6 on average rolls 11, that means that on average against the worst possible target, you get 1 AP2 ignores cover wound in. For a power that you can have 100% of the time, it'd be insane to rule it any other way.

In 90% of cases, the highest leadership in a squad will be a sergeant equivalent, meaning the highest ld will be only 1 higher than the average. One extra wound on average doesn't seem like it's going to be an 'insane' way to look at it.

The rules don't actually give an answer here. To my mind the 'majority Toughness' argument shouldn't really apply given that Shriek doesn't actually 'roll to wound'; the closest equivalent in form to how Shriek is resolved is a characteristic test, which is resolved on the highest available stat where possible.

This is an argument from the spirit of the rules, but I've always played it that way and never run across anyone who argued it should be handled differently.

To the OP: You're getting a lot of pain from Shriek because it's a really good power (especially since the FAQ cleared up it not rolling to hit). There's a reason Telepathy is the best discipline in the core book beyond fishing for Invisibility.

(Note that Kastelan robots specifically don't get their invulnerable save against any psychic powers. This makes psychic shriek one of their few weaknesses.)