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So I love the game of 40k, I like the hobby but what really draws me to it is the game itself and the tactics and planning out your army and trying to make it work seamlessly. I'm not saying just trying to win every game, but trying to figure out cool combos and having fun. That is why I think that the way psychic powers are random in 6th edition is completely dumb. I can't plan an army around "oh hopefully this guy will give me a buff that I need" or "he's cool lets see what I get with him. I want to know what I am getting, and frankly I cannot ever see myself taking a psycher in this game now. This especially sucks because my army of choice is Eldar, and this has almos ruined them for me. Anyone else feel the same way?

Because making sure you get the powerful spell is stupid. If everyone could get iron arm that would be just game breaking

Coming from Fantasy first I have no issue with the randomization.

Having said that a lack of a proper psychic phase is disappointing. I'd much prefer that over the freely buff yourself, witchfires are garbage system they have now.

I think randomization, allows them to put some much more powerful Psyker abilties in, than we have seen in the past.

A good example is the Telepathy Tree. Everyone would always choose Invisibility, if they had a choice. If powers were picked, I imagine that power would not exist, or it would be much weaker.

I don't mind rolling for powers. Most trees are pretty good. The only ones that are really full of duds, are Pyro, and the CSM tables, IMO. The rest have some really good, some good, and some ok.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Because making sure you get the powerful spell is stupid. If everyone could get iron arm that would be just game breaking

You know, if they weren't random they'd probably at least try to balance them out together.

Sure lets let every caster pick their powers, that would really be fair and would not break the game. Randomization is there so people CANNOT do that kind of stuff, its a risk taking a Psyker but then again the whole game is a dice game so you gamble when you take him, and if your banking on a random power for your army then you might want to change some things up.

One of my regular opponents runs an all genestealer tyranid list with broodlords in every squad. He always rolls on the power tree that gives you terrify to make everyone run off the board. It's always amusing when one of the broodlords gets a shooting power they can't use because they have BS 0.

That said, if he ever actually gets the powers he wants and I had 4-5 morale checks coming my way at the start of every turn I might just ragequt

So basically being Tau I don't even bother to read the psychic section.

 Sasori wrote:
I think randomization, allows them to put some much more powerful Psyker abilties in, than we have seen in the past.

You realize this is a bad thing, right? Having balanced powers that are all good choices is much better than a 1/6 chance to randomly get something overpowered.

 Peregrine wrote:
You realize this is a bad thing, right? Having balanced powers that are all good choices is much better than a 1/6 chance to randomly get something overpowered.

Or they could just assign prices to each individual power based on its potency.

This isn't exactly hard.

 gmaleron wrote:
Sure lets let every caster pick their powers, that would really be fair and would not break the game. Randomization is there so people CANNOT do that kind of stuff, its a risk taking a Psyker but then again the whole game is a dice game so you gamble when you take him, and if your banking on a random power for your army then you might want to change some things up.

Not everyone should get to pick powers obviously, but the psionic masters of the galaxy (eldar) damn well should be able to.

I had been excited about the new eldar dex and was going to get back into 40k for the first time since i quit following the rapejob gw gave the nids in the form of their faq back in 5th, but eldar randomly generating powers is so unfluffy i don't even want to.

 kill dem stunties wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
Sure lets let every caster pick their powers, that would really be fair and would not break the game. Randomization is there so people CANNOT do that kind of stuff, its a risk taking a Psyker but then again the whole game is a dice game so you gamble when you take him, and if your banking on a random power for your army then you might want to change some things up.

Not everyone should get to pick powers obviously, but the psionic masters of the galaxy (eldar) damn well should be able to.

Tzeench Daemons called, they want their schtick back.

Tzeentchs shtick is more psionic gak with betrayal and change, eldar are more exclusively masters of psionic lore.

I think the self bioengineering Hive Mind would disagree about who is psychically supreme.

Rumbleguts wrote:
I think the self bioengineering Hive Mind would disagree about who is psychically supreme.

Let the Tyranids disagree all they want, Tzeench is the God of magic.

Eldar got an improved Farseer for the psionic mastery element. Giving them the cherry on top and letting them pick would be like giving the middle finger to the other dexes.

I'd agree that random powers are not the way to go.

Unlike with any other dice roll in the game, the powers you get can very much slant the balance of power to one side or the other, before any concious choices have been made.

A list of powers that have to be bought at appropriate prices, at least IMO, would make for a more tactical game.

The only reason for random powers I see is that it forces players to find ways to use less than optimal powers at times, making min-maxing a lot harder.

It's quite telling how this discussion always include people saying how their army should be able to pick their powers for one reason or another

At the end of the day, I'd much rather prefer being able to pick powers, either payed for or evenly balanced. Even the Weirdboy is preferable, because you still have some control over it.

Sticking more powerful abilities in there because of randomization is bad - 'cause then you're in a situation that if you roll good on a single roll in the beginning your army gets awesome for the entire game.

Having people choose powers is bad - 'cause there's really awesome powers in there and why would you choose Precognition when you can choose Forewarning or Perfect Timing?

As Eldarain said, having a proper psychic phase would solve things. I don't know fantasy 7th edition or onwards, but in 6th you had an additional check in that powers which were really strong were also more difficult to cast and the mind game with dispels usually allowed the weaker magics to go through unchallenged.
It also meant that, unless you cast Witchfires on one of the very few units with Magic Resistance, Blessings weren't necessarily easier.

You buy psykers as support elements, not necessarily models to build precise tactics around. You can of course guarantee which powers you get by choosing the primaris powers. Random powers with the primaris choice allows the player to vary their tactics and play with new strategies and become generally better at problem solving, rather than just playing exactly the same game again and again and again.

But if you get the wrong stuff on your brood lord or your biker caster doesnt get invisibility , then it is not just him being bad , it could be anything from 300 to 400pts being bad. If that MC without wings doesn't get iron arm and it happens for two or three of them there is no way to change tactics , the same unit has to do the same job for the same points while being worse. At the same time a non psychic power upgrade or unit works always and all the time .

I would agree that random psychic powers largely kill the strategic elements of psykers in the list planning stage. I am not personally a fan of it and much preferred buying the powers.

Having said that as the powers stand right now ML1 psykers already effectively do this. When is the last time you did not see one of these guys get prescience when there are IG allied?

I think we are effectively stuck with this system barring a major points and rules shift in the next edition as the psyker prices have shifted to lower levels seemingly to account for this element and DA do not even have psychic powers without the BRB.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
You realize this is a bad thing, right? Having balanced powers that are all good choices is much better than a 1/6 chance to randomly get something overpowered.

Or they could just assign prices to each individual power based on its potency.

This isn't exactly hard.

+1 this, they've done it before. If it wasn't going to ruin everyone's ability to play tourneys. I'd do this in our club in a second (this and convert all vehicles to MC)

hotsauceman1 wrote:Because making sure you get the powerful spell is stupid. If everyone could get iron arm that would be just game breaking

Right, because obviously 1st-5th edition were game broken. See, we play this game and use points to balance our forces. If the powerful spells cost more, actually in-line with what they do, and the less-effective spells cost less, then the game won't be broken.

Sasori wrote:I think randomization, allows them to put some much more powerful Psyker abilties in, than we have seen in the past.

Which, of course, screws over the whole point concept. Say we have identical armies, and we paid the same number of points for a handful of MCs, but all mine got Iron Arm, and Warp Speed, while all of yours got Haemorrhage and Smite. Do you think our game is going to be fair? My MCs will, across the board, beat yours. They'll be stronger, tougher, with more attacks, striking first, and have both fleet and eternal warriors. Yours, on the other hand, will have powers that might do a wound to me, 1/6th of the time, assuming I don't deny the witch (An option you don't have).

So much for us having a fair game based on the points we paid.

This is the main reason that psychic powers are really really badly done in this edition. Because random generation throws the system that the game uses to create fair matchups out the window.

I don't mind rolling for powers. Most trees are pretty good. The only ones that are really full of duds, are Pyro, and the CSM tables, IMO. The rest have some really good, some good, and some ok.

Actually, it's really easy to pick the good tables from the bad ones. The good ones are loaded with Blessings, and the bad ones are loaded with Witchfire.

Even with a BS of 5, firing at a non-psyker target, Witchfire powers are only 70% as effective as Blessings, because you have two additional points of failure. You can miss your shot, and your opponent can Deny the Witch. Blessings don't roll to-hit and can't be denied. What really sucks is that most of the time, I'm okay with being shot by a witchfire power, and the things I'd really like to deny are Blessings and Maledictions.

Biomancy is "good" because half the powers are blessings. Divination is good because more than half the powers, including the primaris, are blessings. Telepathy is so-so because it has some blessings, and even maledictions are better than witchfire.

Pyromancy, Telekinesis, and most of both Chaos trees are bad because they're predominantly Witchfire.

Almost without exception, you'd be better off giving your psyker a simple shooting weapon than paying the points and ending up with Witchfire. The current standard appears to be 25 points for a masterey level, enough that you should be able to buy either a lascannon or assault cannon instead, and these weapons are statistically better than any Witchfire power (again, because with a gun, you just roll to-hit, with a psychic shooting attack, you have additional points of failure, the psychic test and the Deny the Witch roll).

What's more, so they went to a fantasy-style random-power generation system, but without the other things that make fantasy reasonable. In Fantasy, weaker powers are easier to cast. Your level 1 wizard doesn't want the best power in the book, because he's rarely going to cast it successfully. And, the powers that are harder to cast come with an increased chance of critical failure. The more dice you put into casting, the more likely you are to get double 1's. Fantasy's dispel mechanism is much better than 40k's Deny the Witch system. Even the non-magical fantasy race has a reasonable chance of stopping game breaking powers from being cast.

Honestly I was fine with the Eldar until their new codex came out. Using the random powers from the book I found fun sometimes (getting invisibility and using it on a group of warlock jetbikers LOL SO OP) but really I would honestly just have been happy with getting to choose to buy fortune, doom, and guide exactly the way they were in the old codex.

Right, because obviously 1st-5th edition were game broken. See, we play this game and use points to balance our forces. If the powerful spells cost more, actually in-line with what they do, and the less-effective spells cost less, then the game won't be broken.

Jaws of the World Wolf. (5th)

Lash of Submission (4th)

Siren (3.5 edition)

Purifiers Psyker ability (5th)

Sanctuary Daemonhunters (4th vs Codex Daemons)

Strike Squads Psyker Ability (5th)

Also, 2nd edition Psykers were outright broken at times, I'm not sure what game you were playing back then..

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Because making sure you get the powerful spell is stupid. If everyone could get iron arm that would be just game breaking

Because making sure you get the powerful units is stupid. If everyone could get Doom scythes that would be just game breaking

 gmaleron wrote:
Sure lets let every caster pick their powers, that would really be fair and would not break the game. Randomization is there so people CANNOT do that kind of stuff, its a risk taking a Psyker but then again the whole game is a dice game so you gamble when you take him, and if your banking on a random power for your army then you might want to change some things up.

Sure lets let every unit pick their weapons, that would really be fair and would not break the game. Randomization is there so people CANNOT do that kind of stuff, its a risk taking a unit but then again the whole game is a dice game so you gamble when you take it, and if your banking on a random weapon for your army then you might want to change some things up.


Because there is no such thing as point values. Weapon options for each end every unit are the same and cost the same.No matter the codex, the FOC or anything.
Fortune cannot simply be more expensive than Destructor. Different cost and availability for Tervigon and MEQ psyker for Iron Arm? That's just madness!
I have a better idea. You pay 100 points and roll a dice: 4+ you get Vendetta, if not have some get Rough Riders. That's how you do balance!

I make 1000 points army. One game I get indestructible death machine. The same army next game is piece of crap. That's balance!

So people are now complaining that they build an army around specific powers, and if they dont get them, they are screwed?

Theres a moral to this story, stop building an entire army and plans around a few models.

Seriously, this is turning into hero-hammer all over again, just for 40k.
I rather rely on a different plan and army building idea than have everything revolve around a few models.

So, how do people cope when a few precision shots remove a farseer or the likes that is boosting the unit?
Invis on a bike lord is nice, but once he dies, whats the plan?
Because said unit is now pretty much useless without him.

People need to rely on units and support units more, instead of characters.

I get that Eldar players are hurt that they now have to roll for random powers like everybody else (including the forces of the freakin' god of magic), but at least Eldar have a really good (and large) set of race specific powers, many of which have dual uses, and they get access to the best BRB power trees.

Meanwhile, Tzeentch daemon powers are all witchfire (and none of them are particularly good) and limited to 4 powers. Funny that the god of magic, subtle manipulations, and extensive intricate planning has powers that basically boil down to "PEW PEW".

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Right, because obviously 1st-5th edition were game broken. See, we play this game and use points to balance our forces. If the powerful spells cost more, actually in-line with what they do, and the less-effective spells cost less, then the game won't be broken.

Jaws of the World Wolf. (5th)

Jaws is a bad example of this, because it does not cost more than the other powers. For some reason they decided that all SW powers should cost the same, so of course people picked the best one.

Lash of Submission (4th)

One power that did not affect units in transports and was probably mis-priced a little too low, in a codex with really poor alternatives, is not illustrative of a flawed system, it's just one power that got missed.

Siren (3.5 edition)

Well, you had to roll to get siren. It's more like a 6th ed power than any of the others you mention because there was no guarantee you got it, and people who built armies around it ended up losing games when they didn't get it.

Purifiers Psyker ability (5th)
Strike Squads Psyker Ability (5th)

I fail to see why you're mentioning these. Each are strong against a couple of units, but neither are game breaking. You'll also note that this is another bad example to use to contest my point that when you use points to price better powers higher, you get a better system, because neither of these are optional powers, nor do they cost a variable number of points.

Sanctuary Daemonhunters (4th vs Codex Daemons)

Yeah, sure. You know how many people took sanctuary in take-all-comer lists? 0. Because it wasn't good against any but one codex.


So, let's see, you managed to get one single example (Lash), where the power was slightly undercosted compared to the other options in that codex, and so was taken disproportionately. Hardly indicative of a flaw in the underlying concept, unless you want to also argue that Helldrakes invalidate the concept of using points to balance the game entirely. Every other example you cited was a case where they went away from the base points-for-power concept - more of an argument to keep that system than to discount it, I'd say.

The Blood God says psychic powers have always been dumb as hell!

seriously though its a good thing that most units come with their own psychic powers I have still yet to roll for unit appropriate powers for my nids : / not that theyre useless just havent gotten to use the "cool" ones maybe theyll come up in a few games... maybe...