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Having a look at it now I know I've always underrated it.
Looking at it for use in a pod army (or any army which will be in the opponents face quickly) it looks perfect!

Assail:
I cannot believe how much I have underrated this as a primaris power. Being a beam it causes a st6 hit for every model in an 18" line at st6 ap-. Coming out of a drop pod means you can place the librarian very easily to cause as many st6 hits as possible. Being smart with placement of the libby could cause far more casualties to meq than smite, despite the ap. But the best bit is that a wound caused to a unit, even if saved, causes it to act next turn as though it is in difficult terrain.

Crush:
Too random. Although I suppose it could be used to target spec/heavy weapon troopers. But to do that it becomes wc2 effectively. Would rather hit them with assail.

Objuration Mechanicum:
Excellent on high rof vehicles such as serps, scatter laser war walkers, certain ork vehicles, punishers, landraider crusaders, etc. Basically causing themselves glances. Plus the haywire hit. Fire at a squadron and you could easily cause 2-3 hps of damage before any gets hot results. Plus not having to roll to hit makes it a good flyer defense, something many pod lists struggle with.

Shockwave:
Its a nova... that means every enemy unit within 9" suffers 2d6 st 4 hits with the pinning usr. Doesn't sound much, until you think about perfect placement with a drop pod getting you a total of 6 or 8 d6 st4 hits if you are in range of 3 or 4 units... for 1WC.

Levitation:
One of the biggest disadvantages drop armies have is their lack of mobility after the initial drop. An 18" + d6" move (6" movement, d6" run, 12" levitate) drastically changes this predicament. Or 18" and shoot. It is more accurate than gate as well since you don't have to DS.

Telekine dome:
Whilst a bit pricy at 2WC, having a 12" bubble against shooting attacks (and it doesn't matter if opponents are in that bubble) is pretty nice for drop armies, as often, striving to get the best Alpha Strike possible often leaves you in the open.

Psychic Maelstrom:
WC3, but understandable for a st10 ap1 barrage large blast. Only really usable if you have stocked up on spare warp charges in your list. Or want to fore go most of your others psykers powers. Still - that blast at the right time could be utterly game changing.


Assail and shockwave are massively helped by the accurate placement that pods usually give, whilst objuration mechanicum, levitation and telekine dome help lessen the disadvantages pod armies suffer. Psychic Maelstrom is just deadly albeit exceptionally expensive to cast. The only one that doesn't really benefit or benefit from a pod army is crush... and thats just because it is rubbish.

What do you think?

So, little bit of mathhammer here. To get an expected kill rate equal to smite on MEQ (T4,3+), you must hit 6 guys. That's going to be really hard in any situation.

Between 6 and 7 really as 6 will only wound 5.
However, it is an 18" long line. Next time you have an opponent set up ask them before you start if you can just look at their army, placing the slappy red stick in various directions. I bet you can cover at least 6 models with it in most deployment set ups.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also remember it auto hits!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually that would be 6-7 needing to hit to equal smite if all the smite shots hit. All 4 hitting causes 2 wounds average (unless its SoB). So you were almost right with 6 hits needed. 4 smite shots will cause 1.3 kills on average. 6 autohitting assail hits cause 1.7 kills on average.

Kept having to edit arrggghh! Covering 5 models will still get more average kills (1.4)

Poly Ranger wrote:
Between 6 and 7 really as 6 will only wound 5.
However, it is an 18" long line. Next time you have an opponent set up ask them before you start if you can just look at their army, placing the slappy red stick in various directions. I bet you can cover at least 6 models with it in most deployment set ups.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also remember it auto hits!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually that would be 6-7 needing to hit to equal smite if all the smite shots hit. All 4 hitting causes 2 wounds average (unless its SoB). So you were almost right with 6 hits needed. 4 smite shots will cause 1.3 kills on average. 6 autohitting assail hits cause 1.7 kills on average.

Kept having to edit arrggghh! Covering 5 models will still get more average kills (1.4)

E (smite) is 1.6666. This is based on a binomial distribution with a p of 0.41666 to kill. Assail has a p=0.277777. To get an even expected kill, you must hit 6 models. Based on that, the chance of getting 4+kills with assail is 5.4%. The chance of doing better is 0.8%

Smite also had a lower probably of 0 kills (3% improvement).

It's possible if I have lots of models in a line (behind an aegis perhaps) but I don't see it as particularly likely. It's possibly better against say GEQ (especially considering the other powers) but I think biomancy is favored for MEQ/TEQ.

Smite hits 2/3 of the time it wounds (t4) 1/2 the time. There are 4 shots. Making the average 4 x 2/3 x 1/2 = 1.333333(rec)

The average kills of 5 models being hit by assail gives 5/6 (wound) x1/3 (failed save) x 5 = 1.388888 (rec) kills on average.

You can draw the 18" line anywhere as the drop pod is a very accurate deployment due to the 6" disembark and the fact that you can position its original drop very close to where you want safe in the knowledge that it will only ever mishap if it goes off the table.
Unless you have a massive deployment zone or are playing a very small game you can be veey sure to cover 5 models even spread out and not in a traditional line. Diagonals at almost any degrees will cover a lot of models with an 18" line. Just try it next time you deploy.

Don't forget that those S6 hits also can clip a vehicle or two. Killing a guy and getting a bonus glance of a vehicle would be awesome.

You are looking at averages. I am calculating the probability mass function. I am also assuming BS 5 for the libby, that might be too high. That does give about a 2% advantage to assail.

You are also glossing the potential positioning downside of trying to line up 5-6 models for one attack. It's not hard to spread out in 4 feet of space and most tables/deployment gives you 6. Drop pods grant flexibility, why sacrifice it for an attack that is marginally better if at all?

Ok we will agree to disagree on the ease or lack of to hit models with assail.
The reason to sacrifice rolling on another table is the fact that you can get OM, shockwave, levitation and TD. Which all benefit a pod army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Don't forget that those S6 hits also can clip a vehicle or two. Killing a guy and getting a bonus glance of a vehicle would be awesome.

Good point!

I think Telekinesis as a whole is severely underrated, but the main problem with it is that its so RANDOM.

Some powers are attack powers, some are movement, others are defensive, some are generally debuffs. you just never know what you get when you roll on telekinesis.

Levitation is HILARIOUS on grav centurions.

On the whole, though, if you compare telekinesis to other options, I don't see a compelling reason to take it. For example, if you're going with pods, you can get telepathy.

Primaris: Okay, can be very powerful, hits automatically, and bypasses armor and cover saves. Any wounds will hit a unit UNLESS they have an invuln save.

You have a 62.5% chance to roll a 10 or more on 3d6 (50% to roll 11 or more). That's not fantastic, but against avg. ldshp 7, that's not a bad chance to get 2 wounds. Personally, I've had tons of success with the primaris alone. The chance to get invisibility (or, less excitingly, shrouding) is just gravy.

Dominate: Meh. Too random, but okay against certain things.

Mental fortitude: useless for marines, good in some other cases.

Terrify: Okay, pretty strong against certain units.

Shrouding: Automatic +2 to cover save. Quite good.

Invisibility: BONKERS INSANE. Crazy crazy crazy good.

Hallucination: random and meh.


The real advantage telepathy has is invisibility's crazy strength, shrouding's effectiveness, and the primaris. As well, given marine psykers are typically quite low lvl (normally lvl 2 at max, lvl 1 on the cheap), they do well with the relatively cheaper powers of telepathy, too.

You make a pretty compelling argument for Telekinesis. I think that the choice of a discipline should be more based around either your own needs (ie deathstar needs invisibility, etc.) or on the opponent if you don't need specific powers. I could see an excellent argument to take telekinesis against high Ld (or mech'd up) armies with AV10-11 vehicles. Against armies like DE and IG you have an excellent chance to get into an AV10 side of their vehicles and they tend to spend the first turn bunched up. With just the nova and beam you could very likely kill dozens of models and put down 10+ HP if you manage to get the positioning right. More importantly though both of these armies will be almost unaffected by the other major disciplines as they are either mech'd up or have most of their units with Ld10 characters in them. Also making a stormlord roll gets hot for every shot it shoots is a thing of beauty.

Against most Tau builds (or really anything with low Ld MCs) I would be hard pressed to give up telepathy as it works incredibly well when the opponent has poor Ld.

Telepathy is not the be all end all of MSU low psyker builds. People bring up invisibility for these builds all the time but invisibility at 2 WC to protect 1 unit in an MSU build is a waste. The best powers in an MSU build from telepathy are usually shrouding (affects a bunch of units and makes vehicles much harder to pop) and psychic shriek (one of the best damage dealing powers in the game). I would much rather get off these two powers each turn (3 dice each for 88% chance) and one invisibility to protect a single 5 man TAC squad (6 dice 89%) and take a perils 26% of the time for my troubles.

Very good points guys! Its good that you don't have to select your discipline until the battle.