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Just how important are psykers in 7th ed? I'm considering running a no psykers list at an upcoming 1500pt tournament. Is this a big mistake?

It really depends on the army you are running, and what you expect to face.

Given how difficult denying the witch is, not terribly important. Especially considering you will be receiving warp charge dice from your opponent anyway.

You should be taking psykers to buff/cause their own harm, rather than as a defensive measure. This isn't fantasy.

Ok cool. This is what I'm running BTW. I should be ok then.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/610132.page

I dunno, every time I run Librarians I get perils of the warp ~ friggin hate them

Either not important at all or absolutely mandatory, depending on your army. Don't waste points on minor psykers, psyker spam tournament lists will shut you down with 20+ deny dice and make you wish you'd just brought more guns.

Of course, according to that link, you're playing in a tournament where the TO will arbitrarily ban anything that is "too powerful", so perhaps you should ask them what kind of psykers you're allowed to use. You might get more benefit out of that single rune priest if nobody is allowed to bring more than 1-2 psykers to oppose it.

I love psykers, but I always make sure they have some roll to fit (and that they're highest mastery level I can get them). I'd rather have one good psyker which adds to a different unit than a bunch of psykers just because.

As a dark angel player and guard player here is my two cents: guard is a great psyker army not the best but pretty good. Dark angels frikking stink, our ml2 is 35 points. No faq, nothing. What the heck GW?

Are you talking about a DA librarian? I could see why ML 2 would be more expensive on a SM libby than a IG primaris, they are just better, shooting, assaults, toughness, you name it.

Because DA ML2 is 35 points, whereas Guard, SM & CSM ML2 is 25 points

DA gets the the shaft again...

 The Home Nuggeteer wrote:
As a dark angel player and guard player here is my two cents: guard is a great psyker army not the best but pretty good. Dark angels frikking stink, our ml2 is 35 points. No faq, nothing. What the heck GW?

Huh. Looks like you get fearless, inner circle and preferred enemy CSM for free, but pay 10 points more for level 2.
You also get access to better gear (power field generator).

That's not a terrible deal. It's not the awesomeness of the 10 point inquisitor henchmen psyker, but still good.

Psykers give you an additional phase to play the game in. If you lack any psykers you forfeit an entire phase of the game to have a more powerful assault or shooting phase.

 Kavish wrote:
Just how important are psykers in 7th ed? I'm considering running a no psykers list at an upcoming 1500pt tournament. Is this a big mistake?

I don't think they are " must have", but they are gosh darn nice. It's kinda nice to have a little Psych power, even if its just to try a Deny or two. You'll hardly lose because you don't have any, but vs some foes, you'll likely wish you had some of your own.

Honestly, I'm laughing uncontrollably after reviewing the Psychic abilities this BRB. Looking over at what loyalists get in comparison to the Cheese they want CSM and Daemons to use. Telekinesis and Santic both have str 10/D ap1 abilities. It's almost like they made these then looked over at their bastard creations of CSM / Daemons and said to themselves "Well, they're screwed, we might as well let them summon reinforcements since they'll basically have nothing on the board"

It was a good night of drinking. Many models were painted horribly. (Don't paint models while drunk!)

Well, never been on a tourney but I think in the current Meta you should take 1-2 psykers only if you want to buff youre army and not for defensive purposes, cause against no psyker armies you dont need the defense and wasted points and against psyker heavy armies one or two psykers are nothing.

 GoliothOnline wrote:
Honestly, I'm laughing uncontrollably after reviewing the Psychic abilities this BRB. Looking over at what loyalists get in comparison to the Cheese they want CSM and Daemons to use. Telekinesis and Santic both have str 10/D ap1 abilities.

To be fair, they both only have a 12" range, and Vortex of Doom is arguably more dangerous to the psyker who is casting it than the enemy.

Eh... a single psyker can still do things to an army that uses witchfires. Put Njal somewhere and every friendly unit around him will be denying ML 2 or lower psykers on a 3+. If nothing else this might force a psyker heavy army to roll more dice per power they want to succeed and get more perils/cast fewer powers.

Against an army that relies heavily on buffs, yeah 3 extra dice won't do much.

i really dont like how the current psyker system works. it made people with fewer or no psykers virtually unable to deny the witch since you have to match or exceed the warps harnessed to deny the spell, not deny enough to prevent a WP2 or 3 spell because only 1 or 2 are un-denied...or only needing a single 6+ regardless of the spell and being able to do it every time an offensive spell is upon you.

I use a weirdboy but i dont play in a tournament setting. Any time i go "competitive" hes out of the picture and i bring either a KFF or a SAG in his place - weirdboy is more fun, but in a competitive scene he wont last for squat and probably wont even get anything off. His spells gets denied once in awhile even against armies that dont have psykers just from lucky dice (i have 2 dice left...you used Da Krunch and harnessed 2? ok... *rolls 2 6s* .... are you serious?) i cant imagine against people able to throw 5-7 dice PER SPELL to deny it, which can EASILY happen right now

I feel like if you can't get to 10 Warp Charge dice, it's not really really worth it. You might as well spend your points elsewhere.

Short answer:

You don't need psykers.

Long Answer:

You don't need psykers unless you're running an army or list that relies on psychic powers (demon factory). For space marines of most sorts, you don't really need a ton of psykers. They can be helpful, but they're not make or beak, or as reliably effective (as with eldar).

The exception to space marines not needing them is grey knights, as they are all psykers.

 Kavish wrote:
Just how important are psykers in 7th ed? I'm considering running a no psykers list at an upcoming 1500pt tournament. Is this a big mistake?

They are critical for my opponent as my Black Templars love to purge the witch and are sad when none show up to the fight.

If you aren't casting buffs on yourself, the psychic phase can be ignored. Yes some of the offensive powers are nice, but as an ork player, I've never had a wierdboy be worth the points I spent on him and the HQ slot is better used on a painboy who is almost a shoe in to earn his points back with saves.


Psykers now are for playing Buffhammer. It's pretty lame, but I personally never regret not running them anymore. If you don't have access to divination, telepathy or biomancy, just twirl your finger and spend the points on something that throws a pie plate. Problem solved.

While many of the witchfire powers are kinda junk, for some armies they pretty much double your shooting phase. Thousand Sons can shoot beams and small blasts, then rapid fire, and then assault. They utilize every phase in the game that gives them a lot of hidden benefits that aren't immediately noticeable.
Daemons on their skimmer chariots can play keep-away indefinitely by moving in, shooting spells, then zipping away. Any psyker can do this to some extent, essentially giving them all mini jet packs.

What's a psyker? Does that have anything to do with that weird thing my opponent does after they move where they roll some dice then either move some models around or tell me to remove stuff from the table?

On that subject, what are these "power weapons" I read people posting about all the time?

(got to love the Tau codex)

Had a game tonight, top of 5, the guy across the table said "Should we have been rolling for warp charges, just to say we did?"


Needless to say we both didn't miss the psychic phase.

I've killed some extremely important models with psychic powers. I always take at least 1 so I'm not just sitting there doing nothing for a whole phase. Orks and IG should spend the points somewhere else but every other army can definitely benefit from a psyker or two.

People also tend to miss the new value of Nova Powers. It's actually pretty scary if you manage to get one and use it. 12" Novas like Cacophonic Choir 12" LD Test on units hit and denies Armor and Cover saves.

Or Beam weapons in this current edition. Since they don't lower the strength of the ability for each individual model hit now. Things like Bolt of Change are actually decent now. 24" D6+4 AP2. Guaranteed str 5. Pretty nice.

I don't see why more people don't just use Primaris powers. Just ran a game using Psychic Shriek for the first time and if I did it right, that thing is incredible. A Spiritseer killed off a final two Sternguard Veterans and that's considered a bad roll. Just imagine a good roll against something with LD 7... Psykers, even weak ones, can shift a battle immensely. Some of them can be considered entire squad killers alone.

I am going to try no psykers soon since my current army is not going to work once the new grey knights come out.

However I think around 10 warp charges is the money point and if you cant then its difficult to get enough to be worthwhile.

 IHateNids wrote:
Because DA ML2 is 35 points, whereas Guard, SM & CSM ML2 is 25 points

So? Why should everything be equal?

 changerofways wrote:
Psykers give you an additional phase to play the game in. If you lack any psykers you forfeit an entire phase of the game to have a more powerful assault or shooting phase.

True, but tau players play the game without movement, assault, or the psychic phase, and they seem to do just fine.

Certainly having a bit of versatility is nice, but playing with more phases isn't strictly better, especially given that you have to drain points away from playing other phases better to improve your psychic phase.