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.

Loremaster GK warlord trait:

Each time a psychic test is taken for this warlord, if the result of that test was an unmodified roll of 8+, and it was greater than or equal to that power's warp charge value, your opponent cannot attempt to deny that power.

What exactly qualifies as an attempt to deny a power? Obviously the normal deny the witch attempt counts, and presumably anything else that uses the normal roll 2d6 counts as well, i.e. Helm of Spite or warlord traits that give you a deny as if you were a psyker.

It also clearly works on the Sisters deny, since that is explicitly phrased as functioning like a normal deny attempt, albeit one on 1d6 that auto-succeeds on a 6. But it's still a deny attempt.

Similarly, it presumably doesn't work on things that are just psychically immune period - Culexus, etc. Because these rules don't work via denying the power, they just negate the effect of the power; it still goes off, it just does nothing. Loremaster presumably does not let you power through these psychic immunities.

But what about deny on a 4+ strats? For example, the Graia strat says:

Roll one d6: on a 4+, that psychic power is denied.

Can you still do this, because it isn't a standard attempt to deny on 2d6? Or can you not do it, because it still says the result is the power is "denied" if you pass the 4+? You can do these even after any deny attempt - does this imply they are not a deny for purposes of Loremaster? Or is it irrelevant because the stratagem says the result of passing the roll is a denial?

yukishiro1 wrote:
Loremaster GK warlord trait:

Each time a psychic test is taken for this warlord, if the result of that test was an unmodified roll of 8+, and it was greater than or equal to that power's warp charge value, your opponent cannot attempt to deny that power.

What exactly qualifies as an attempt to deny a power? Obviously the normal deny the witch attempt counts, and presumably anything else that uses the normal roll 2d6 counts as well, i.e. Helm of Spite or warlord traits that give you a deny as if you were a psyker.

It also clearly works on the Sisters deny, since that is explicitly phrased as functioning like a normal deny attempt, albeit one on 1d6 that auto-succeeds on a 6. But it's still a deny attempt.

Similarly, it presumably doesn't work on things that are just psychically immune period - Culexus, etc. Because these rules don't work via denying the power, they just negate the effect of the power; it still goes off, it just does nothing. Loremaster presumably does not let you power through these psychic immunities.

But what about deny on a 4+ strats? For example, the Graia strat says:

Roll one d6: on a 4+, that psychic power is denied.

Can you still do this, because it isn't a standard attempt to deny on 2d6? Or can you not do it, because it still says the result is the power is "denied" if you pass the 4+? You can do these even after any deny attempt - does this imply they are not a deny for purposes of Loremaster? Or is it irrelevant because the stratagem says the result of passing the roll is a denial?

No, you couldn't do it, because you're still attempting to deny the power. It's just on 1d6, not 2d6, needing a 4+. Especially with the wording "on a 4+, that psychic power is denied", it's hard to successfully argue that you're not attempting to deny the power.

I'm inclined to agree, but the wording differs from stratagem to stratagem, and none of them say it's a denial attempt "as if you were denying the witch," as, e.g., the sisters deny on a 6+ on a d6 base rule says. Here's the black templar one, for example:

Use this Stratagem in your opponent’s Psychic phase, when
an enemy Psyker model manifests a psychic power within 24"
of any Black Templars units from your army, after any Deny
the Witch attempts have been made. Roll one D6; on a 4+ that
psychic power is resisted.

Does this change anything? Still can't do it? Or you can, because nothing anywhere in this strat says "deny"?

Yet another variation:

Use this Stratagem in your opponent’s Psychic
phase, when an ADEPTUS CUSTODES unit from
your army is selected as the target of a Psychic
power that was successfully manifested this turn.
Roll one D6, adding 1 to the result if that unit is a
CUSTODIAN WARDENS unit; on a 4+ that psychic
power has no effect.

So is this a deny? Or is it more like a Culexus' psychic immunity in that the power still goes off, it just "has no effect," so it bypasses the Loremaster effect? Note that for the Culexus, the power can still effect other targets; with this, the whole power is negated, it's just negated in a way that isn't called a "deny."

And finally, yet another variation:

Use this Stratagem in your opponent’s Psychic
phase, when an enemy PSYKER manifests a
psychic power within 18" of a SISTERS OF SILENCE
INFANTRY unit from your army, after any Deny the
Witch attempt. Roll one D6; on a 3+ that psychic
power is resisted and its effects are negated.

This one says both "resisted" and "negated!"

It does make a difference, especially since the Black Templar on and the Sisters of Silence on both say "after any Deny the Witch attempt", making it clear that those two are not an attempt to deny the power. Since the Custodes stratagem doesn't say "the power is denied" then but has no effect, then it's hard to claim that it was a denail attempt. The Graia strat, however, explicitly says that the power is denied, so you can't in good faith claim that it's not being used in an attempt to deny the power. Maybe they will all be FAQ'd one day to make them all consistent with each other (probably not this edition though).

I don't think you can go based on whether it says "after a Deny the Witch attempt" or not, because the sisters of battle one says:

after a psychic test is passed and after any Deny the Witch attempt is made (if any)....on a 4+, that psychic power is denied.

Presumably you would say you can't use this one, because the result is that it is "denied" instead of "negated" or "resisited?"

I am not sure I buy the "magic word" theory, though. It seems like if the effect of negated vs denied vs resisted is the same, they should either all work, or none should work. The word "deny" isn't a defined term, so I'm not sure you can say it constitutes a term of art, such that it becomes a magic word.

If it said "you cannot attempt to Deny the Witch," that would clear things up - you could use all these 4+ strats, because none of them are an attempt to Deny the Witch. But that's not what it says, it just says deny, which isn't a defined term.

Agreed, deny the witch is Just one way of denying.

If it looks like deny, it's deny. If you don't agree that "resisted" is equivalent to "denied", then the power goes off anyway, because "resisted" has no rules effect.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
If you don't agree that "resisted" is equivalent to "denied", then the power goes off anyway, because "resisted" has no rules effect.

Though to be fair, I don't think "denied" has any explicitly defined rules effect, either. Technically the rules say:

So long as the Psychic test was successful and the psychic power was
not denied by a successful Deny the Witch test, the psychic power
is successfully manifested and its effects, which will be described in
the power itself, are then resolved.

Not just "the power was denied," but specifically by a DTW test. So maybe arguably none of these strats actually do anything by a very technical RAW reading, except for the ones that say "the effects are negated." Denied, resisted - none of that actually does anything.

This is obviously not a serious argument, mind you, just a silly observation.

Custodes strat still works since the unit "Ignores" the power on a success.

Yeah, I do see an argument that the Custodes one is different...not so much because of the "no effect" vs "denied," but because it explicitly states it occurs *after* the power is successfully manifested (which it has to be, since you only choose a target afterward, and the strat requires the unit to be targeted). The power goes off, and AFTER it goes off, it does nothing. I can see the argument that that is not a deny, it's something else.

This strikes me as different from all the other strats, which, whether they say "is denied," "is negated," "is resisted," etc, all happen before the power goes off. If I had to pick a definition of what "deny" means, it would be this - an effect that prevents the power from being successfully manifested, in the same manner that a DTW test does.

If nothing else, what this has reinforced is what a complete mess the rules writing in this game is. Every single one of these 4+ deny strats I've looked up is worded slightly different from every other one. And this is for both 8th and 9th edition strats - it's not like they've settled on one wording in 9th, they're still writing each one slightly different from every other one.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Agreed, deny the witch is Just one way of denying.

If it looks like deny, it's deny. If you don't agree that "resisted" is equivalent to "denied", then the power goes off anyway, because "resisted" has no rules effect.

Do you have a citation for this ? If not, stop making up rules.

A citation for what? That resisted has no rules impact? How could you cite a negative?

Or do you mean for the idea that DTW is one way to deny a psychic power, but not the only way? That's the question being asked here. There is nothing that explicitly references this one way or another. But the Loremaster trait doesn't say DTW, it just says "deny." That's the issue - what constitutes the denial of a psychic power? There's no definition.

A citation for "If it looks like a deny, its a deny." There is no rules basis for this, its completely made up.

That was pretty obviously an expression of opinion - there is no definitive answer here, hence why I was asking for peoples' opinions what to do in the absence of a FAQ - but I'll let that poster speak for themselves from now on.

What's your view? What is a deny and what isn't? Shooting down someone else's view isn't really useful if you don't have anything alternative to offer.

GW needs to clarify this, what do they mean by negate, or resist ? Does this work against loremaster ? Until then, talk to your opponent before the game how to handle it, if the situation comes up.

So your view is we can't know - where's that leave us? Flipping a coin each time it comes up?

"Talk to your opponent" isn't an answer. Talk to your opponent...and say what?

Say whatever you think, and listen to what your opponent has to say. Maybe you both agree that a stratagem can be used against a loremasters psychic power.

So your opinion is that both possibilities are equally valid and there is no basis for edging in one direction or the other, hence if you don't agree, it should be determined by a 4+ roll? You have no opinion yourself on which is the better way to read the text?

Is this true for all the strats - what about the one that specifically says "is denied?" Does that one clearly not work, or is that unknowable too? I.e. is it the specific wording that makes it unknowable, or is it that we don't know what denying is itself that makes it unknowable?

yukishiro1 wrote:
So your opinion is that both possibilities are equally valid and there is no basis for edging in one direction or the other, hence if you don't agree, it should be determined by a 4+ roll? You have no opinion yourself on which is the better way to read the text?

Yes, because you are not supposed to make up rules, ask nosferatu1001.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Is this true for all the strats - what about the one that specifically says "is denied?" Does that one clearly not work, or is that unknowable too? I.e. is it the specific wording that makes it unknowable, or is it that we don't know what denying is itself that makes it unknowable?

Yes, i dont know if resisted or no effect, or negated means the same as denied. No one, except the GW rules team, knows that, they need to clarify it.

Uh, ok. Well...thanks for your contribution, I guess.

No resisted and negated are different to deny

Resisted = psychic power works but has no effect on the targeted model/unit. If it multitargets it still functions on the other targets..it occurs after manifestation.

Negated same effect as deny but not a deny as it is never called a deny anywhere.

U02dah4 wrote:
No resisted and negated are different to deny

Resisted = psychic power works but has no effect on the targeted model/unit. If it multitargets it still functions on the other targets..

Negated same effect as deny but not a deny as it is never called a deny anywhere.

Citation please. Dont make up rules.

It’s plain English, p5freak, which we default to in lieu of defined rules terms. Don’t be obtuse.

In the case of negated never being called a deny you can't prove a negative. But I can technically quote all rules sources in the game which is definitive proof. So if you can present one instance where it is I'm wrong you disprove my argument. But if you cant I'm right.

In the case of resisted the same argument applies that it is not a deny. The argument that it occurs at or after manifesting is a little bit more cloudy because abhor the witch in the BT book has a unit resist a psychic power that's not targeting it and this leads to it being negated however

Sisters of silence

"after any Deny the Witch attempt. Roll one D6; on a 3+ that psychic power is resisted and its effects are negated."

Clear time after a deny attempt which means the power is manifested

Infact if it were a deny this would be circular as it couldn't be used until after it was used

U02dah4 wrote:

Infact if it were a deny this would be circular as it couldn't be used until after it was used

That assumes that only a DTW attempt is a deny, which is itself circular to the question being discussed, unsupported by anything in the rules text, and actively refuted by the Graia strat which provides a different way from a DTW test that results in a power being "denied."

yukishiro1 wrote:


If nothing else, what this has reinforced is what a complete mess the rules writing in this game is. Every single one of these 4+ deny strats I've looked up is worded slightly different from every other one. And this is for both 8th and 9th edition strats - it's not like they've settled on one wording in 9th, they're still writing each one slightly different from every other one.

Absolutely. It's baffling that GW doesn't have standard templated language for this kind of thing.

It's obviously a very grey area as the rules are so unclear here but I think if the strat uses the word "deny" or any variation of it, or specifically calls out the dice roll as a DTW attempt, you can't use it against a Loremaster. If it uses any other words it seems reasonable to assume you can use that strat/ability against a Loremaster.

yukishiro1 wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:

Infact if it were a deny this would be circular as it couldn't be used until after it was used

That assumes that only a DTW attempt is a deny, which is itself circular to the question being discussed, unsupported by anything in the rules text, and actively refuted by the Graia strat which provides a different way from a DTW test that results in a power being "denied."

No it makes no assumption it references the specific rule

"after any Deny the Witch attempt. Roll one D6; on a 3+ that psychic power is resisted and its effects are negated."

Which becomes circular if resisting is a deny the witch.


As to the more general assumption your referring to that is also wrong Its not an assumption I make. I can provide examples disproving it such as sisters of battle shield of faith or some stratagems, Gotfret de Montbard

The assumption I make is not circular in anyway. It is that for something to be something it must be defined as that thing as under RAW thats all you have permission to do. Ergo to be a deny the witch somewhere it must be defined as deny the witch. If not you have no permission to treat it as such under RAW.

The same would be true of any other rule in the game. A vehicle is not infantry unless a rule tells you to treat it as infantry for a given purpose (e.g. the cyclops)

It's not circular in anyway either it is defined or it is not there's no grey. The whole system of rules is underpinned by that assumption.

And if you don't accept it then fine my guardsmen will fire there lasguns with the weapons profile of a warlord titan sure I have no permission to treat it as such but it's grey in exactly the same way I mean there both weapon profiles and there's no rule saying a lasgun isn't a vulcan mega bolter.

 p5freak wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Agreed, deny the witch is Just one way of denying.

If it looks like deny, it's deny. If you don't agree that "resisted" is equivalent to "denied", then the power goes off anyway, because "resisted" has no rules effect.

Do you have a citation for this ? If not, stop making up rules.

i never said it was a rule. Unlike you, I don't claim my opinion is a rule

"Resist" is synonymous with "deny", so from a language perspective you can argue it.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Yeah, I do see an argument that the Custodes one is different...not so much because of the "no effect" vs "denied," but because it explicitly states it occurs *after* the power is successfully manifested (which it has to be, since you only choose a target afterward, and the strat requires the unit to be targeted). The power goes off, and AFTER it goes off, it does nothing. I can see the argument that that is not a deny, it's something else.

The Custodes isn't the only one. The Black Templar strat you quoted, as I mentioned above, also use the wording "after any Deny the Witch attempt", so that would work too. It would be nice if they had some consistency so that you don't get one strat saying "it is negated" or "it is resisted". Saying "it is denied" still makes it look like it would be stopped by anything preventing a power to be denied. If the Black Templar or Sisters of Silence things should also be stopped, they would need to FAQ it since they don't mention Deny anywhere except that the strat comes after any Deny the Witch rolls (suggesting that it isn't a denial attempt). Just because the strats walk like a duck because they can negate powers doesn't make them a duck. Groucho Marx often walked like a duck but that didn't make him a duck.

U02dah4 wrote:

The same would be true of any other rule in the game. A vehicle is not infantry unless a rule tells you to treat it as infantry for a given purpose (e.g. the cyclops)

VEHICLE is a defined term. Deny the Witch is a defined term. "Deny" is not a defined term. It'd be like if a strat that causes engine failure so a model can't move keyed off something being "vehicular," without defining that term, and then we were debating whether BIKERS are vehicular, and you said no, they can't be, because they aren't VEHICLES. And then there were other examples in other similar rules text of vehicular being applicable to bikers, but then other text where bikers are referred to as something else.

If Loremaster said "your opponent cannot attempt to Deny The Witch" this would be clear. But the strat doesn't say that, it says they can't attempt to deny the power, period. Exact same wording in the new Cabalistic Ritual, btw. In neither case do they use Deny The Witch. Is this just terrible drafting? Well, it's definitely terrible drafting, but is it meant to say Deny The Witch in both cases and they just forgot to spell it out? I don't think we can assume that. So there's no rules basis for assuming that "deny" means only taking a DTW test, especially when the ad mech strat specifically refutes that hypothesis by giving us another way that a power "is denied" which is not via a DTW test or even via something described as being "in the same manner as a DTW test." So if we accept that "is denied" is a deny, we can't say that "deny" means only a DTW test.

This gets even murkier when we note that GW writes psychic rules loosely - see their FAQ making clear that you can use any strat that works on a psychic power on a psychic action, too, even though this same FAQ says that these aren't actually the same thing. But we are told to treat the matter leniently and allow any of these strats to work on psychic actions as well, because <reasons>. So we have a concrete example of GW telling us not to read the language around psychic stuff too literally and restrictively.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

U02dah4 wrote:


Which becomes circular if resisting is a deny the witch.

But that isn't the question. The question is whether it's a deny, not whether it's a Deny The Witch, because Loremaster doesn't say anything about Deny The Witch.

U02dah4 wrote:
Ergo to be a deny the witch somewhere it must be defined as deny the witch. If not you have no permission to treat it as such under RAW.

Once again, Loremaster doesn't say Deny The Witch. Your circular assumption is that deny = only DTW so only something that is a DTW is a deny.

It is only a deny if it says it is. if you can provide no rule saying it is you have proved it isn't under the current raw

No my assumption is deny is any rule that says it Denys whether it's a strat gotfriet or anything else.

The fact is only deny the witches or rules that say they count as deny the witches say they deny so only they count. Feel free to provide any non deny the witch rule that says it Denys and I will count is as a deny