Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just a fun tactic when using psykers that have access to "Terrify" and "Purge Soul"

If you have something like an inquisitor that can Terrify a unit "Lower Leadership down to 1"

And then a second psyker cast Purge Soul on that same unit "Roll a D6 and add it to your leadership, the target model loses number of mortal wounds as is the difference"

For a nice combo

gratz

A good addition to this is, I think it's the Primaris Psyker, who can drop it another 2. It's funny, Imperium might be able to do a better fear circus now then Dark Eldar.

Scary Clownz just lost their laugh.
Speaking of Laughs add Lukas the Trickster in there for a Master of Mischief aura, no Psychic tomfoolery needed.

Fun psychic tactic. Casting warptime on a lord of skulls, have it drive up 20 inches and then charging someone on your first turn... lol

(I managed to do that. but I still lost... go figure. lol but it was great fun!)

This is mostly not very effective. Leadership debuffs are not worth much in 8th.

For example, a -1 Ld debuff by itself has basically no effect unless the target has to take a morale test later, and even then the best case scenario is that it takes one additional casualty. Of course, when it's guaranteed to cause one additional casualty, the enemy probably has good reason to spend 2 CP to auto-pass the test, and otherwise it only has a chance of causing an additional casualty. Meanwhile Smite has an expected value of over 2 mortal wounds on a successful cast.

So by itself a Ld debuff power is just bad, but even in combination with one other effect it's not very impressive. If you cast Purge Soul on something with a -1 Ld debuff, then it's just like a morale test -- you expect to inflict at most 1 extra mortal wound because of the debuff. Now, at least this doubles up on the effect, since you'll benefit from the debuff again later when the unit has to take a morale test, but it's still expecting fewer mortal wounds than Smite, and in most cases significantly fewer.

The -2 Ld debuff one of the Imperial psykers has really isn't much better. It has a warp charge of 7 and so is only 70% as likely to manifest as a warp charge 5 power. By itself you still expect much less out of this than you'd get from Smite, and it really only becomes comparable to Smite when combined with Purge Soul and additional shooting to guarantee a failed morale test.

Granted, Smite isn't targetable, but I'm using it as a damage comparison because it's not that great and it provides some context. If your psychic power has significantly less impact than Smite then it's probably a bad power.

Terrify lowers leadership BY 1, not TO 1. Very different.

I wrote a post about this a few days ago. To go all in, take an Astropath (-2 ld) and Sicarian Infiltrators (-1 ld to enemies within 3").

Its a good tactic if you can get multiple Purges in, especially if you include Voldus who gives +1 ld to units within 6". You can wipe a unit in the psychic phase if you have Three Grey Knight squads.

HOWEVER. Perils is intense. I perils'd my Coteaz + 2 Jokaero + 1 acolyte on turn 1 trying to get the Terrify off. I could've used a command roll but I figured I might as well feel the pain.

a ld10 model rolling against a ld 5 or 6 (-4ld from stacked debuffs) is going to cause a LOT of mortal wounds.

For added fun, use the Callidus's weapon, that deals d3 Mortal Wounds on a leadership check too.