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After having played a few games, this secondary is my biggest peeve with the new edition. More specifically, what peeves me off about it is that it strongly discourages people from taking a single psyker because it locks you out of taking the secondary, and pushes people to either super psychic heavy or completely psyker-less builds. This feels like a big step in the wrong direction, both from the perspective of list-building and the perspective of having fun games. It isn't fun to feel like you're gimping yourself by taking an Inquisitor because it means you give up a ton of easy VP in a lot of games. And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP. And because you don't choose secondaries until you see your opponent's army, the risk/reward here is really skewed - taking one psyker means they just pick something else against you instead if they don't have psykers, which is a low cost to them, but it means you can never pick that secondary against someone else, which is far more punishing in match-ups where it would be far and away the best choice.

I'm really not a big fan of these sort of hard, keyword-based counters - it feels like an expansion of the feels-bad that comes with playing Daemons when you come up against GKs, and they suddenly go all Super Saiyan on you for reasons that make sense in the fluff but are terrible for creating balanced gameplay.

It is also so rewarding - especially with the way it stacks with assassinate - that it ends up creating extremely cagey play if you do have psykers, unless you just write off those points and figure your opponent is sure to max at least one, probably two of their secondaries just by popping your psykers. With the possible exception of the knight-killing secondary, no other secondary is so punishing to particular models.

The other psychic secondaries kind-of have this same problem too, in that they also encourage skew in list-building, but Abhor The Witch is where it's most obvious.

Anti-psyker rules are enough of a deterrent to psykers; I don't think the game needs to create a second disincentive by creating punishing secondary objectives that push you to either include no psykers or go all-in.

Inquistors don't have to be psykers.

yukishiro1 wrote:
And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.

Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.

I'm starting to see similar problems with a lot of the secondaries. As a Guardsman, a hybrid list is just asking to give up both "thin their ranks" and "bring it down". 5+ tanks in a Guard list is was pretty standard for hybrid, but now it's become a bit of a liability.

Secondaries are going to be a major consideration in list design the edition.

Necrons and Tau say hello.

 harlokin wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.

Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.

And some armies have little in the way of shooting, or little in the way of mobility, or little in the way of combat. That's all fine. The books are designed with that in mind.

I just don't think "here, have 15 VP since you don't have psykers and they do" is a good way to create interesting armies. It's not about balance per se - it's more about how games actually play out. People shouldn't be thinking "I'd really like to take a psyker, but that'll mean I screw myself out of the best secondary in the game, so it would be shooting myself in the foot." It'd be like if you could only take big game hunter if you didn't have any tanks yourself, or you could only take assassinate if you had 2 HQs or less..etc etc. Whether it's "balanced" is a different question from whether it produces fun lists and fun games.

In my admittedly fairly limited experience, the effect of this secondary is not to make the game more fun - for anybody. If psykers are too powerful, the solution isn't to just give people without them a 15VP handicap.

You know, I'm tempted to take enough units to not let them max many of the secondaries. So like 2 psykers, 4 tanks, that sort of thing.

Edit: 1 titanic unit would be nice too.

 Trickstick wrote:
You know, I'm tempted to take enough units to not let them max many of the secondaries. So like 2 psykers, 4 tanks, that sort of thing.

Edit: 1 titanic unit would be nice too.

See this part of secondary interaction with list-building doesn't bother me at all. That seems fine.

The problem with abhor the witch is that (1) you can only access it if you don't take a certain thing in your army and (2) it has an out-sized reward for doing so compared to other secondaries. This doesn't promote fun gameplay.

If Abhor the Witch was something anyone could take, whether they had psykers or not, but the reward was toned down to match the rewards for all the other kill-based secondaries, it would be just fine. It's the "gimp yourself to get a handicap" (or the "here's some free VP if you play X faction that's balanced around not having psykers") part that produces bad list-building and frustrating games.

If I'm playing a psychic-heavy list, it isn't fun for me to come up against a list with zero psykers where I just get off everything with zero effort, but where they make up for it with a free 15VP. If I'm playing a list that isn't psychic-heavy, it isn't fun to have to give up my psyker because taking him feels like a tax compared to going without and getting those free 15VP. But it also doesn't feel fun to forgo the psyker and take the 15VP, because doing so involves just taking it in the chin from the opposing army in the psychic phase but then getting some points at the end for it.

Secondaries shouldn't be encouraging that sort of non-interactive gameplay.

 Trickstick wrote:
I'm starting to see similar problems with a lot of the secondaries. As a Guardsman, a hybrid list is just asking to give up both "thin their ranks" and "bring it down". 5+ tanks in a Guard list is was pretty standard for hybrid, but now it's become a bit of a liability.

Secondaries are going to be a major consideration in list design the edition.

A Guard list was already yielding VP in that manner from Reaper and BGH.

I don't think I knew anybody guard and having less than 80 infantry or 4 vehicles without fielding either a baneblade or souping in a knight.


I'm not a fan of the secondaries at all. I wasn't a fan of them before, though.

The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.

Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.

 harlokin wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
And it also doesn't feel good that the best "defense" against a psychic army is likely to just give up on the psychic phase completely and try to make it up with an easy 15VP.

Some armies have no psychic phase of their own, and spend their opponent's one removing their models.

Word. Even though everything in my army can deny the witch.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.

Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.

I believe it was only recently that ITC didn't allow stacking, but I not 100% on that, I think the ITC is a horrible system and does nothing but breed toxic players.

I think of they were doing to do secondaries they should have made army specific ones, though that would have taken effort as opposed to just ripping off the ITC ones.

 UncleJetMints wrote:
...I think the ITC is a horrible system and does nothing but breed toxic players.

As a Brit who only has a passing knowledge of ITC, could you explain that in more depth? What specifically about ITC would breed toxicity?

Abhor the Witch should drop the restriction on having psykers, it feels very arbitrary imo (maybe the concern was that psykers are too good at killing other psykers?).

But beyond that I like the way secondaries work. I like that they punish skew list compositions and give armies alternative ways to win a game. It's true that some secondaries punish certain comps harder, ie thin their ranks and attrition are free against guard. But on the other hand guard can throw 100 obsec models on the objectives. Pretty much every army has little tradeoffs in that way.

If they were trying to rip off ITC's secondaries, they didn't do a great job of it, as theirs are a lot less well balanced against one another, in addition to having basic issues like stacking or the Abhor The Witch "you can't take this in your army" limitation.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.

Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.

Maybe I'm less sympathetic as I know I'm essentially going to be handing over 15 VP to my opponents in most games but realistically if you couldn't stack kills no-one is ever going to take thin theumur ranks like seriously GW I know the lethality in 8th was insane but how many people not playing marines can actually kill 150 model's not wounds models in a game. As thats what max score for thin their ranks would take.

Neither of my lists for 9th have 150 models in them period, before ecen looking at perverting people maximising secondarys against me. Also a lot of the missions require keywords to even attempt them which is fine for certain factions that most of their power units have thay keyword but for others it's going to be a challenge.

It also probably depends a lot on the Psycher killing 3 demon princes not easy killing 3 primaris psychers easier but probably not as easy as you think with sensible possitioning (ignoring the brokenness of magic NLOS sniperbolters)

 UncleJetMints wrote:
.I think of they were doing to do secondaries they should have made army specific ones

You're implying that they won't. I think it's all but inevitable that each army will get its own faction specific secondaries as the 9th edition codices and expansion books roll out.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 UncleJetMints wrote:
.I think of they were doing to do secondaries they should have made army specific ones

You're implying that they won't. I think it's all but inevitable that each army will get its own faction specific secondaries as the 9th edition codices and expansion books roll out.

Stu already confirmed as much in the live streams discussion.

Ice_can wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.

Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.

Maybe I'm less sympathetic as I know I'm essentially going to be handing over 15 VP to my opponents in most games but realistically if you couldn't stack kills no-one is ever going to take thin theumur ranks like seriously GW I know the lethality in 8th was insane but how many people not playing marines can actually kill 150 model's not wounds models in a game. As thats what max score for thin their ranks would take.

Neither of my lists for 9th have 150 models in them period, before ecen looking at perverting people maximising secondarys against me. Also a lot of the missions require keywords to even attempt them which is fine for certain factions that most of their power units have thay keyword but for others it's going to be a challenge.

It also probably depends a lot on the Psycher killing 3 demon princes not easy killing 3 primaris psychers easier but probably not as easy as you think with sensible possitioning (ignoring the brokenness of magic NLOS sniperbolters)

But that's a problem with the pointing of the secondary. If it's too hard to hit on its own, it should be repointed to be more valuable, not comboed with something else. But I think you may have missed that thin the ranks gets 10 points per vehicle too - which is the whole issue, because that 10 points also stacks with the VP you get for the big game hunter thing that is bizarrely in a different category.

If 5 points per psyker character and 2 per psyker squad wasn't overtuned, they wouldn't have restricted it to only be allowed to take it if you don't have psykers yourself. But it absolutely is overtuned, which is why they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself. But this - like stacking - is another sign of bad balance in the first place.

Secondaries shouldn't stack, and they shouldn't be something you have to give up something in your list to be allowed to take in return for getting a bigger bonus than normal. Neither of these produce fun, interactive games where people are forced to juggle multiple priorities - instead, they reward doubling down. That's not good mission design.

I'm just glad that the non-character points are per unit, not like 1 per model. I've been considering using a wyrdvane/primaris conclave and a few astropaths, to reap psyker secondaries. I guess it depends how easily I can hide the wyrdvanes, or if barrage weapons are common now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
...they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself.

I 100% believe that this is not the reason they did it. It strikes me as a narrative-based rule, how armies that hate psykers should get an objective. Hanlon's razor applies.

If you don't think 5 points per psyker character and 2 per unit is overtuned compared to the other choices (with the possible exception of the knight-killing one), I dunno what to tell you.

I would be even more worried if they thought that Abhor The Witch is not overtuned in return for the restriction, because that shows basic math fail.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Spoiler:

Ice_can wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The stacking between different secondaries is another, separate but related problem.

Really, no kill secondaries should ever stack with one another. If you have a kill that can contribute to both, you should have to allocate it to one or the other. You shouldn't be able to collect 10 points on reaper AND your 3VP for big game hunter off the same tank kill. That's another design no-no, and I'm puzzled as to why GW went with it, given that they had input from the people who came up with the much better systems like the one ITC used that don't allow that cross-stacking.

Maybe I'm less sympathetic as I know I'm essentially going to be handing over 15 VP to my opponents in most games but realistically if you couldn't stack kills no-one is ever going to take thin theumur ranks like seriously GW I know the lethality in 8th was insane but how many people not playing marines can actually kill 150 model's not wounds models in a game. As thats what max score for thin their ranks would take.

Neither of my lists for 9th have 150 models in them period, before ecen looking at perverting people maximising secondarys against me. Also a lot of the missions require keywords to even attempt them which is fine for certain factions that most of their power units have thay keyword but for others it's going to be a challenge.

It also probably depends a lot on the Psycher killing 3 demon princes not easy killing 3 primaris psychers easier but probably not as easy as you think with sensible possitioning (ignoring the brokenness of magic NLOS sniperbolters)

But that's a problem with the pointing of the secondary. If it's too hard to hit on its own, it should be repointed to be more valuable, not comboed with something else. But I think you may have missed that thin the ranks gets 10 points per vehicle too - which is the whole issue, because that 10 points also stacks with the VP you get for the big game hunter thing that is bizarrely in a different category.

If 5 points per psyker character and 2 per psyker squad wasn't overtuned, they wouldn't have restricted it to only be allowed to take it if you don't have psykers yourself. But it absolutely is overtuned, which is why they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself. But this - like stacking - is another sign of bad balance in the first place.

Secondaries shouldn't stack, and they shouldn't be something you have to give up something in your list to be allowed to take in return for getting a bigger bonus than normal. Neither of these produce fun, interactive games where people are forced to juggle multiple priorities - instead, they reward doubling down. That's not good mission design.

I'm not disagreeing that it seems to benifit building around them but so did ITC, they were just a little less blatent in their secondarys punishing certain armies.
Also GW made the cut off for the 10 score on models 10 wounds meaning DP, venoms, Skyweavers, dreadnaughts, outriders grotesques Bullgryn etc count as the same as a Grot or a brimstone.
If it was based on wounds etc I'd maybe be more infavour of stopping the stacking, Also if your opponent has no Psychers and you have multiple the Ritual should be a fairly easy 15 VP too for Psychic armies.

Though I do hope we get some better balanced secondarys in the mission pack or a future errata to sort out the balance between secondarys.

It's not that I think it is overtuned or not (btw it's 3 per unit), I just don't think that the base intention of requiring no psykers of your own was a balance thing. It strikes me as a narrative choice, even the name of the rule hints at this. It's not like GW have never made mechanics for narrative reasons before...

 Blndmage wrote:
Necrons and Tau say hello.

Everyone forgets the Drew Carey :(

 Trickstick wrote:
I'm just glad that the non-character points are per unit, not like 1 per model. I've been considering using a wyrdvane/primaris conclave and a few astropaths, to reap psyker secondaries. I guess it depends how easily I can hide the wyrdvanes, or if barrage weapons are common now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
...they apparently tried to "balance" it by saying you can't take it if you have any psykers yourself.

I 100% believe that this is not the reason they did it. It strikes me as a narrative-based rule, how armies that hate psykers should get an objective. Hanlon's razor applies.

Considering it has the same name as the Black Templar "we can't take Librarians because we hate Psykers" rule, it's definitely a Narrative based idea.

Matched play secondaries aren't a good place to put fluffy but unbalanced stuff. It's fine to put fluffy restrictions as long as the secondary isn't overtuned compared to others; what isn't good is to gate a secondary more powerful than other secondaries behind a restriction that is based on fluff.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Matched play secondaries aren't a good place to put fluffy but unbalanced stuff. It's fine to put fluffy restrictions as long as the secondary isn't overtuned compared to others; what isn't good is to gate a secondary more powerful than other secondaries behind a restriction that is based on fluff.

How is killing 3 keyworded charictors harder than having a Psycher not perils for 3 turns while standing in the center of the board.

I'll grant you the whole Psychic secondary tree is up their as far as unbalanced goes. However the ability for both to score maximum points can't be overlooked.

How is killing some combination of 3 psyker characters or 5 psychic units harder than not having one of your characters killed or denied for at least 3 turns while sitting in the center of the board? Really?

I mean I don't disagree re: the whole psychic secondary tree being a bit of a dumpster fire, but it's not really seriously arguable that Abhor The Witch isn't an easier secondary to score than Psychic Ritual, especially since Psychic Ritual is all or nothing - all the opponent has to do is kill a single one of your characters and/or deny him and you get 0. Psychic ritual is not a smart pick if (1) your opponent has sniping ability, (2) your opponent has good combat ability, (3) your opponent has good shooting ability, or (4) your opponent has any significant denial ability at all. How many armies have none of sniping, combat, shooting, or psychic denial? It's a super rare list where it won't be a massive gamble, and a massive gamble is always a no-no in competitive play.

Psychic Ritual is bad because it's an all-or-nothing pick - some armies simply won't be able to stop it, but against anyone who can, it's almost impossible to complete and always a trap pick. It's not so much overtuned as badly calibrated.

I don't really understand the OP. Abhor the witch would make less sense if your own army included psykers, it's kind of the point. Don't forget that they said armies will get there own secondaries that are thematic with there codexes, so other options will become available.

I laid it all out in the first post re: how it promotes skew list creation and rewards non-interactive lists and play. If you don't understand it, I don't think I'll be able to help you.