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.

Ok, everyone knows these guys just suck. For a weapon with suck a cool name GW really dropped the ball on making it a viable weapon.


Psilencer Range: 24" StrX AP- assault 6 psilence*

Gatling Psilencer Range: 36" StrX AP- assault 12 psilence*


Psilence: Psilencers always wound on a 4+ regardless of the targets toughness, Invuln saves may not be taken against wounds caused by a Psilencer.

Maybe just 4+ against units which are psykers, to stop it trashing units which it wouldn't have any reason to be good against (Tyrgons/Mawlocs/Fex's) while helping against a wider variety of units than the current 'just daemons'. Gives it more of a reason to be taken.

Str 4 otherwise or something, 6 on the gatling psilencer maybe

To be honest, psylencers don't need fixing, it's psycannons that do
Why take anything else when you got such an impressive and relatively cheap weapon ?

If you play against daemons as you should with GK the psilencers are great as you can cut down swathes through lesser daemons, or any other horde unit, and take multiple wounds of Greater ones at a good range so acording to me it doesn't need fixing, at least not the gatling psilencer. And 24 S4 shots that ignores line of sight for 140 points is pretty good.

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, psylencers don't need fixing, it's psycannons that do
Why take anything else when you got such an impressive and relatively cheap weapon ?

For a moment I thought you were going to say Psycannons need to be better.

Moreover, can you IMAGINE if Incinerators had AP3? They'd be the equivalent of LAND RAIDER weaponry.

 motyak wrote:
Maybe just 4+ against units which are psykers, to stop it trashing units which it wouldn't have any reason to be good against (Tyrgons/Mawlocs/Fex's) while helping against a wider variety of units than the current 'just daemons'. Gives it more of a reason to be taken.

Str 4 otherwise or something, 6 on the gatling psilencer maybe

Str X.
3+ against psykers, 5+ against not psykers, useless against vehicles

We had a thread about this during 5th. The one idea I liked the most was making it AP2 and upping the cost by quite a bit, at least on Terminators and Paladins. The Psycannon already has everything else pretty much covered.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
We had a thread about this during 5th. The one idea I liked the most was making it AP2 and upping the cost by quite a bit, at least on Terminators and Paladins. The Psycannon already has everything else pretty much covered.

that really is the problem, psycannons are just too good. They deal with everything, and everythign well and are cheap. Their only really issue is AV14(not much actually) and 24" range. The psilenser would be pretty dumb to be long ranged.

Just for the record, I do not approve of Psilencers being turned into what is basically a 24" range, assault 6, sniper rifle. That's just ... no. Sorry.

Although psilencers are really kind of on the bad side, I do agree with others here that boosting them to match the psycannons greatness is not the answer.

How about making them salvo3/6 range 30" ?

Here's a thought: Keep it as it is, but make it Heavy 18. It's still only something like 4 dead Orks (or 1.5 Space Marines), but at least it'd almost sorta do something.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Here's a thought: Keep it as it is, but make it Heavy 18. It's still only something like 4 dead Orks (or 1.5 Space Marines), but at least it'd almost sorta do something.

I think actually 5 dead orks. It'd give a reason to take purgation squads, as they would be able to clear out an entire ork mob in one shooting phase, but it just feels a little silly. I like the ap 2 idea.

Personally, looking at my codex and a lot of GK armies...

Psilencers don't need to be made stronger, Psycannons need to be made a bit weaker. At the moment, there is no real reason to take anything but a Psycannon. Instead of making weapons stronger (because GK need more strong things), lets dim the Psycannon a bit to a point where I actually may need to think about what special weapon to use

EDIT: Or, do both. Make Psilencers a bit stronger (note: just a bit), while making Psycannons a tad weaker. At the moment I will agree with this: Psilencers are a bit weak, Psycannons are a bit strong.

Psycannons are strong because they have to be. Its literally the only thing GKs have to take out tanks outside of melee or the odd lascannon.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Psycannons are strong because they have to be. Its literally the only thing GKs have to take out tanks outside of melee or the odd lascannon.

or the odd Multi Melta

S5 AP5
that would make a world of difference, wounding spacemarines on a 3+ would be a lot better

Dantioch wrote:
If you play against daemons as you should with GK the psilencers are great as you can cut down swathes through lesser daemons, or any other horde unit, and take multiple wounds of Greater ones at a good range so acording to me it doesn't need fixing, at least not the gatling psilencer. And 24 S4 shots that ignores line of sight for 140 points is pretty good.

This does seem like a opponent specific weapon and reasonable. If it needs an upgrade, then it should be upgraded to make it more effective against daemons, such as reduce their invunrable save, or even elimnate it. But it shouldn't be better against regular, or even psychic, opponents.

Rumbleguts wrote:

Dantioch wrote:
If you play against daemons as you should with GK the psilencers are great as you can cut down swathes through lesser daemons, or any other horde unit, and take multiple wounds of Greater ones at a good range so acording to me it doesn't need fixing, at least not the gatling psilencer. And 24 S4 shots that ignores line of sight for 140 points is pretty good.

This does seem like a opponent specific weapon and reasonable. If it needs an upgrade, then it should be upgraded to make it more effective against daemons, such as reduce their invunrable save, or even elimnate it. But it shouldn't be better against regular, or even psychic, opponents.

In a tournament where you don't actually know who you'll be playing, it's not a good investment. If you schedule a game a day in advance and you know you'll be fighting daemons, go for it, but other than that it has no place on a TAC list.

I think the simplest fix would be to either make it an assault weapon or give it more range. It's statline is pretty good (6 S4 shots), the issue is that it doesn't mesh well with the mid-range move-shoot-assault units in the GK codex. The couple times I've taken psilencers just for fun, the main issue was that I rarely got to shoot with them because I was either out of range or had to move them forward (because when everyone else has a storm bolter...)

I think they should remain as an optimized Daemon-killing weapon though, because that's fluffy.

 McNinja wrote:

Rumbleguts wrote:

Dantioch wrote:
If you play against daemons as you should with GK the psilencers are great as you can cut down swathes through lesser daemons, or any other horde unit, and take multiple wounds of Greater ones at a good range so acording to me it doesn't need fixing, at least not the gatling psilencer. And 24 S4 shots that ignores line of sight for 140 points is pretty good.

This does seem like a opponent specific weapon and reasonable. If it needs an upgrade, then it should be upgraded to make it more effective against daemons, such as reduce their invunrable save, or even elimnate it. But it shouldn't be better against regular, or even psychic, opponents.

In a tournament where you don't actually know who you'll be playing, it's not a good investment. If you schedule a game a day in advance and you know you'll be fighting daemons, go for it, but other than that it has no place on a TAC list.

Then don't field them for a tournament. Tyranids have a ton of weapons/units that are almost as situational. And considering how good overall the Grey Knights are, having one weapon designed to affect one specific army, an army that is one of the primary concerns of the Grey Knights, isn't something to be too upset about.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Psycannons are strong because they have to be. Its literally the only thing GKs have to take out tanks outside of melee or the odd lascannon.

well yes, the GK book is broken. The psycannon is great anti MC, anti Infantry, and anti Tank at medium and short ranges. Why take anything else.

In a perfect world different special weapons would have different roles, and they would all be good at their role while being not so good at other roles.

That doesn't make it broken.

It just means they are slightly one dimensional.

But the Psycannon is appropriatly priced for what it does.

 Grey Templar wrote:
That doesn't make it broken.

It just means they are slightly one dimensional.

But the Psycannon is appropriatly priced for what it does.

where they are cheaper and better than assault cannons on similar troops?

Consider, the Grey Knights have no other real anti-tank weapons.

So they get Psycannons at a discount.

Also, on non-relentless units they arn't as good so thats why they are slightly cheaper.


Opprotunity Cost is an important factor in pricing an upgrade.

And assault cannons on regular terminators are overpriced anyway.