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While I won't argue that Pyromancy is a must-take, I don't understand the hatred the community is expressing for it during this new edition. I do understand the disdain in the previous, but the corrections to witchfire seem to make Pyromancy a viable discipline: namely, the ability to use more than one witchfire per pyker, and the ability to shoot a multiple & different targets. Where am I wrong?

Pyromancy Power #1 Fiery Form has an interesting proviso: "Whilst the power is in effect, the psyker re-rolls failed To Wound rolls inflicted by further Pyromancy powers he manifests." Pretty sweet. Makes up for the otherwise middling-ness of close combat psychic power for a model you would (usually) not want in close combat.

Spending 50+ points for an unreliable heavy flamer or meltagun is not exactly what most people get thrilled about. Witchfires are basically strictly worse than equivalent shooting from wargear and unis. Fire shield is the only decent power for use on shrouded units for 2+ cover anywhere.

Pyromancy provides precious little the guns your list already has cannot and has the opportunity cost of preventing your psyker from getting other powers. It's unreliability and the extra chance to prevent taking damage in the form of DTW only decreases it's low standing. And the Primaris power sucks too. And even as witchfires, pyromancy powers are pretty lame.

Generally it's that first impressions of the new psyker mechanics didn't seem to buff witchfires enough to make them individually good: last edition, they were the powers that you actively didn't want to get. As Scimitar said, you were getting a heavy flamer or meltagun that was more expensive and less reliable than the non-psychic version, when you could be taking powers that did things that you couldn't get elsewhere. Pyromancy's powers didn't change very much from last edition to this one, so that adds to the negative impression. It takes a lot of thinking about how you're going to actually run psykers to make you give any real thought to it.

It may well be a viable strategy to get a bunch of witchfires from pyromancy and just let loose with 1-2 dice on each one, not really caring that they all go off since each one doesn't have that much impact. This may be a bluff to get your opponent to spend Dispel dice on the witchfires instead of on your other psyker with Invisibility/power-you-actually-need-to-go-off. This requires a high-level psyker to know/cast all these attacks, Ahriman's really the best one to do this with, although Tigurius or a Chaos Sorcerer also can do it with the casting rerolls.

However, there's still the problem that pyromancy attacks aren't really that good, even if you get to use 2-3 of them at a time. Flame Breath requires you to be in template range (ie charge range), Spontaneous Combustion wants you to throw more dice at it to get the focused target. Sunburst is a nova, and you still can't be in combat to use it, which makes it really hard to use optimally. Both Inferno and Molten Beam are WC2, which means you need to throw 4+ dice at it so that you aren't just wasting dice, so that somewhat ruins the cheap expendable witchfire strategy.

Instead of taking everything from Pyromancy, with Ahriman you'd probably just go for Psychic Shriek and cast that three times, getting you about 3 AP2 Ignores Cover wounds per casting (if target is LD8). With a Chaos Sorcerer, you could MoT and get Firestorm + Psychic Shriek + Smite or MoS and get Sensory Overload + Shriek + Smite.

So yeah, there's some potential in taking a bunch of witchfire powers this edition, but pyromancy still isn't what I'd take to spam witchfires...

Though the last power received quite a buff with 7E.

Can you not use novas in CC? I've been getting nova'd by nurgley powers ever since novas became a thing. Am I getting cheated?

 Jimsolo wrote:
Can you not use novas in CC? I've been getting nova'd by nurgley powers ever since novas became a thing. Am I getting cheated?

Yes, yes you are.

Unless the power or power type specifically states that you can use it in CC, you cannot manifest a power in assault.

Thump your local Nurgle player in the head.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Can you not use novas in CC? I've been getting nova'd by nurgley powers ever since novas became a thing. Am I getting cheated?

Probably an old hold-over from way back when the Nurgle AoE power could be explicitly used in CC. AFAIK not true anymore with the new table.

It should be noted that you are allowed to Nova into combat.

Personally, I'd commit murder for being allowed pyromancy on Warpheads

One nifty (albeit costly) tactic:
Sorcerer on a disc of tzeentch with all manner of witchfire powers. Move 12" towards your enemy, cast as many witchfires as possible, turbo-boost 24" back out of LoS in the shooting phase.

Profit (a little).

It'd be awesome if Salamander chapter tactics would affect the Pyromancy powers.

Fiery form would be good... If it were the Primaris power. As is, you're only getting that re roll to wound on flame breath unless you're real lucky on your rolls with a high lvl psyker. If you could reliably get fiery form paired with the other powers, then pyromancy might be worth it. Otherwise, with psychic focus you'll probably end up with a nova power and a template power. Currently, biomancy just seems like a better choice, smite is much better than flame breath.

Make sure it isn't Typhus using his Destroyer Hive as that IS supposed to be used in combat lol

Also, Nova's can hurt people locked in combat now and also hit flying monstrous creatures and vehicles!

 TheSilo wrote:
Fiery form would be good... If it were the Primaris power. As is, you're only getting that re roll to wound on flame breath unless you're real lucky on your rolls with a high lvl psyker. If you could reliably get fiery form paired with the other powers, then pyromancy might be worth it. Otherwise, with psychic focus you'll probably end up with a nova power and a template power. Currently, biomancy just seems like a better choice, smite is much better than flame breath.

And to add insult to injury, you can't even overwatch with flamebreath.

 Jidmah wrote:
Personally, I'd commit murder for being allowed pyromancy on Warpheads

This!

Why the Hades would they not give Orks Telekinesis and Pyromancy

Orks (especially wierdboyz) being telekinetic is well established in the background (it's actually one of the ways to tell that a new wierdboy is in the offing) and setting things on fire is very very orky.

But no, we get summoning deamons (NOT an ork thing, traditionally) and banishing daemons (ditto, but less so. There are instances of wierdboyz driving out daemons in ork fluff history).

It's entirely dependent on the role of your psyker in your strategy. If your plan is for them to sit back and provide force multipliers and support, then pyromancy is not good.

I currently run GK Mordrak with a librarian attached. Potentially casting 3 (or 4) different flame-based shooting attacks at different targets when able to deepstrike turn 1 without scattering is an attractive option.

 Kain wrote:
Unless the power or power type specifically states that you can use it in CC, you cannot manifest a power in assault.

What's the page reference for this?

 Shas'o_Longshot wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Unless the power or power type specifically states that you can use it in CC, you cannot manifest a power in assault.

What's the page reference for this?

I don't have the physical book with me but under Types of Psychic Powers -> Witchfires first paragraph:

Just like when shooting a weapon, a Psyker must be able to see the target unit (or target point) and cannot be locked in combat if he wishes to manifest a witchfire power.

As a nova is a witchfire the previous restriction applies.

Thank you! Sorry for thread hijacking

The issue as others have mentioned is essentially that though improved Witchfires are still not amazing.

They are more easily denied than buffs, or Summonings.

Despite being able to multi cast them you still need to have the warp charges to do it, which means not casting other powers.

Take Firey form for instance, if we were still in 6th ed, this power would be good, but now you are looking at an additional 2 or 3 dice spend to get re-rolls to wound on a power you then need to cast later. Which might get denied.

Therefore though the powers themselves appear to have been buffed, and you potentially could cast more of them. Realistically you won't be able to.

Breng77 wrote:
The issue as others have mentioned is essentially that though improved Witchfires are still not amazing.

They are more easily denied than buffs, or Summonings.

Despite being able to multi cast them you still need to have the warp charges to do it, which means not casting other powers.

Take Firey form for instance, if we were still in 6th ed, this power would be good, but now you are looking at an additional 2 or 3 dice spend to get re-rolls to wound on a power you then need to cast later. Which might get denied.

Therefore though the powers themselves appear to have been buffed, and you potentially could cast more of them. Realistically you won't be able to.

Not to mention that Pyromancy's witchfires are generally very low key compared to what other disciplines can do.

Oh yay, a Melta, a heavy flamer, a nova with cover ignoring bolter hits, and a flamer large blast that can't penetrate MEQ armour. *Yawn*

Meanwhile Telepathy and Biomancy have the far more potent Smite and Psychic shriek, and Sanctic has wandering D-blasts that eat everything they touch. Even telekinesis at least has Maelstrom to make up for the uninspiring lameness of Assail and Shockwave and the wonkiness of Crush.

Sure pyromancy has more witchfires, but they're all rather lame as a rule.

Meh Flame Breath is probably better than smite in most cases, as is the Melta beam. But yeah they are not all that great.

I really don't see a use. If you cluster together and try and 1 die spam a bunch of powers, everyone in the group is done as soon as the first fails.

I'd rather roll on TK. Good number of useful powers, and a 18" beam of S6 strike down have enough range to be useful without committing to being at point blank. Strike Down is fun, in that it puts the enemy in difficult ground, so you can slow down the enemy.

Breng77 wrote:
Meh Flame Breath is probably better than smite in most cases, as is the Melta beam. But yeah they are not all that great.

How is flame breath better than smite? Flame breath is just a heavy flamer with soul blaze (which sucks). Smite is an assault 4, S4, no gets hot plasma gun. And smite actually pairs with decent close combat powers under biomancy. Flame breath has a good chance to pair with another weak pyromancy power.

 TheSilo wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Meh Flame Breath is probably better than smite in most cases, as is the Melta beam. But yeah they are not all that great.

How is flame breath better than smite? Flame breath is just a heavy flamer with soul blaze (which sucks). Smite is an assault 4, S4, no gets hot plasma gun. And smite actually pairs with decent close combat powers under biomancy. Flame breath has a good chance to pair with another weak pyromancy power.

Correction, Flame breath is a heavy flamer with soul blaze you can't even overwatch with and can only be used in ranges your enemies can be pretty sure of getting a charge at.

Awesome.

Because Smite on average causes about 1 wound to a lot of things. Against armies with a 4+ save or worse Flame Breath Does more damage, so long as it is on a mobile platform it is generally better than smite.

The fact that you get smite as essentially a bonus to rolling on a better overal tree is not relavent to the usefuless of the power itself. If flame breath were on biomancy, would it be better or worse than smite.

Like I said Pyromancy in general got better, but it is still not good. That does not make smite good though.

Smite got better simply because you get it for free for rolling powers you already wanted, but it in general is the second worst power on the Biomancy tree.

Smite got a 50% range boost. And it's very important that it's paired with a useful biomancy spell, psychic focus is an important element of each Primaris power. Smite has much better synergy with all of its discipline's powers.

 Kain wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Meh Flame Breath is probably better than smite in most cases, as is the Melta beam. But yeah they are not all that great.

How is flame breath better than smite? Flame breath is just a heavy flamer with soul blaze (which sucks). Smite is an assault 4, S4, no gets hot plasma gun. And smite actually pairs with decent close combat powers under biomancy. Flame breath has a good chance to pair with another weak pyromancy power.

Correction, Flame breath is a heavy flamer with soul blaze you can't even overwatch with and can only be used in ranges your enemies can be pretty sure of getting a charge at.

Awesome.

I have to say that a Tzeentch Herald on Burning Chariot with Pyromancy is on my list of units to try out as a gunship type unit. Suspect using the god powers (and therefore getting all four) is probably a better idea, but I'm not one to theory hammer in isolation, I like to see how things really work on the table as well.

12" move, shoot, 18" move is the ultimate JSJ unit!

 TheSilo wrote:
Smite got a 50% range boost. And it's very important that it's paired with a useful biomancy spell, psychic focus is an important element of each Primaris power. Smite has much better synergy with all of its discipline's powers.

Disagree, being paired with a better tree does not make the power in and of itself better, and I feel like it does not synergize that well at all (mostly because in a more useful tree you are less likely to cast it.). It got better, but it is still not a great power. Neither is flame breath, but it is better against more targets. (Anything with a 4+ save, anything with a good cover save, open topped vehicles, AV 10, T8 etc.) None of that makes pyromancy worth taking over other trees, but lets just consider Fateweaver, one of the only psykers that will roll on pyromancy. He is fairly likely to swap out for Flame Breath as a power, he is highly unlikely to swap out for smite (I can only see doing it if you roll Haemorage, or maybe warp speed.)