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.

I recently wrote an article as a general guide to the 7th edition Psychic Phase: http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/7th_Edition_Psychic_Phase_Guide

It might just be that I play Eldar, but I actually really like the Psychic Phase as it currently stands. Yes, Invisibility is the most broken power in the game. Rolling for random powers also isn't a great mechanic either. But I feel that a lot has been gained from the old Leadership-test-style of psychic powers.

Take Summoning. Yes, there are plenty of people who think this mechanic is OP or broken. However, to reliably get most summoning powers off, you need 7 dice for casting, and even Daemons will have about a 30% chance of perils in that situation. I also like the new ability to deny blessings if you have enough dice to concentrate on stopping it.

Overall, I feel that the 7th edition Psychic Phase has been good for the game. It's made psychic powers as a whole less reliable, and added a layer or strategy and interactivity where previously there was none. Instead of just taking a Leadership test, now you have to consider how many dice to allocate to casting and how many dice your opponent will have to deny.

What are your thought on how the Psychic Phase has been fairing in 7th edition?

I like it. I play CSM and that the introduction of the psychic phase made me feel like I was 'better at something than many others' for the first time. Before that, the only redeeming value CSM had for me was in my Heldrake. Spell familiars mean I require less dice to be efficient when casting spells, it's like CSM were made to go psychic-heavy to me.

The psychic phase has since become my best friend and I never play ball with them without a hefty amount of warp charges.

I hate it. It takes too long and is way too luck dependant for me.

I don't mind it.

However, I hate random powers.

I understand that they exist for the same reason as random warlord traits. However, It might be cool to be able to purchase re-rolls on the tables or something of the sort.

pm713 wrote:
I hate it. It takes too long and is way too luck dependant for me.

This.

Also, what bugs me is that it's similar to combat, in that it seems to exist in its own reality with virtually no connection to anything else in the game.

e.g. Other units have to abide by certain restrictions when making shooting attacks - the entire unit has to shoot the same target, they can only assault that unit etc. But, psychic shooting attacks just ignore all these restrictions. A psyker can shoot a unit (or even several different units), but then in the shooting and assault phases this is completely ignored. Now, you could argue that these restrictions don't make sense - that psykers should be able to target different units to their squad, and I'd agree. The problem is that they don't make sense for shooting either. If the lone melta-marine in a squad fires at a rhino, it makes no sense for the other marines to not fire at something different (since they cant hurt said rhino). However, they are still bound by that restriction. And, if shooting units are going to be bound by it, psychic shooting attacks should be as well.

 gummyofallbears wrote:
I don't mind it.

However, I hate random powers.

I understand that they exist for the same reason as random warlord traits. However, It might be cool to be able to purchase re-rolls on the tables or something of the sort.

Me personally, I like that it takes longer than a simple Leadership test, and there's now a dedicated part of the game for psychic powers instead of some before movement and some before shooting. To each their own I suppose.

I hate it. But then again that may be because

A) I possess no psykers of my own and quite frankly Imperial Guard psykers are just bad.

B) One of my regular opponents plays Grey Knights and the other is a certain SM player whom just spams psychic levels like no tomorrow - the record being 20 in a 2K game.

I love it and have also rolled a 1 on the perils chart and failed the test and lost a 750pt deathstar which I though was just awesome.

Edit: not sarcasm, I genuinely thought it was hilarious.

I don't mind the psychic phase, but that may be because I don't play any psykers in my army, makes that phase go by REALLY quickly for me.

I like the new psychic system. Psychic powers before just felt like free special rules instead of actually casting something because Ld10 is so reliable. Now it actually feels engaging, especially as the opponent because now i get to do more then "did you fail a Ld test yet?" or "oh i get to roll a 6+ because you targeted my unit".

The only real problem I have is balance (but this is GW so that applies to everything) and the random tables suck but that is also because of balance. If all the tables had usable powers instead of just 2-3 broken powers and 2-3 worthless powers it wouldn't feel so luck based.

 CrownAxe wrote:
I like the new psychic system. Psychic powers before just felt like free special rules instead of actually casting something because Ld10 is so reliable. Now it actually feels engaging, especially as the opponent because now i get to do more then "did you fail a Ld test yet?" or "oh i get to roll a 6+ because you targeted my unit".

The only real problem I have is balance (but this is GW so that applies to everything) and the random tables suck but that is also because of balance. If all the tables had usable powers instead of just 2-3 broken powers and 2-3 worthless powers it wouldn't feel so luck based.

I would say it's much more a problem of balance between the tables. Except for Divination and Biomancy, which only have one mediocre power each, every table has about 3 mediocre powers and 3 decent powers (except for Telekinesis, which only has one decent power). If the powers were more balanced internally and externally, there wouldn't be as much of a problem.

pm713 wrote:
I hate it. It takes too long and is way too luck dependant for me.

I really got to ask, do you actually have psykers of your own? My friend who plays tau complains about this as well even though his shooting phases generally take more time than my psychic and shooting phases combined.
I understand it to some level, because he gets to do nothing during that phase (even tough I get to do nothing during his shooting phases either most of the time, but whatever).

DaPino wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I hate it. It takes too long and is way too luck dependant for me.

I really got to ask, do you actually have psykers of your own? My friend who plays tau complains about this as well even though his shooting phases generally take more time than my psychic and shooting phases combined.

I bet his combat phase is fast though.

Love it.

Then again, I play Eldar-alliance lists, so I'm as biased as it gets.

I don't mind it, it certainly is more engaging than the old "take a Ld test and gooooooooo!" that it was previously and certainly reflects the issues/risks of harnessing the warp better on the tabletop. I do agree that the main issues revolve around some of the more "no brainer" disciplines like divination or biomancy compared to the barely mentioned telekinesis and pyromancy. It would be a lot better if you could pay points costs to choose which powers you want to take. More importantly they just need to fix invisibility. Take that away and shore up some of the weaker powers with a proper price system and it would be even better.

I hate that it is so random, and armies that rely Psychic Powers (like a Tzeentch Demon army for example) are forced to spam Psykers in order to make it somewhat reliable.

All that does is lead to scenarios were a Chaos Demon army has 20+ warp charge and the poor Imperial Guard player has 1.

It seems to me that whatever Balancing GW did was with like an army with a single Librarian vs an army with a single Sorcerer. The Psychic Phase works ok there. But as soon as you get an Eldar, Grey Knight or Demon army in the system becomes totally unwieldy and frustrating.

DaPino wrote:
I like it. I play CSM and that the introduction of the psychic phase made me feel like I was 'better at something than many others' for the first time. Before that, the only redeeming value CSM had for me was in my Heldrake. Spell familiars mean I require less dice to be efficient when casting spells, it's like CSM were made to go psychic-heavy to me.

The psychic phase has since become my best friend and I never play ball with them without a hefty amount of warp charges.

Despite what expert say stating that Khorne Daemonkin is superior to the vanilla dex of 2012 by using their math hammer , I continue to use the vanilla CSM codex because i can have sorcerers and havocs and plague marines and plague zombies snd nurgle spawns and nurgle obliterators. I can have wc to deny the witch and have a small chance to summon even when I fight Seer councils. My anecdotal evidence amounts to nothing on this forum but I stand by the Vanilla CSM Codex firmly and will never turn to Khorne Daemonkin because I know what works best for me and my cheese filled meta. Eldar summoning daemons better than daemons can is what I fight. Eldar armies with atleast 2 WK. Every victory is hard earned.

I like the mechanics of how it works, for the people complaining remember that you used to not be able to deny powers at all. The thing I don't like, however, are the powers themselves: random, unbalanced, and in some cases overpowered.

The powers are the strangest part of it for me tbh... Some are amazing and others are like meh, however it is interesting to think that Daemons have no armour and hardly any ranged weapons (a concept alien in 40k) yet can win any match up simply because of their dominance in the psychic phase.

And the fact that some armies cant even pretend to interact in the phase makes it abit boring for some people.

DaPino wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I hate it. It takes too long and is way too luck dependant for me.

I really got to ask, do you actually have psykers of your own? My friend who plays tau complains about this as well even though his shooting phases generally take more time than my psychic and shooting phases combined.
I understand it to some level, because he gets to do nothing during that phase (even tough I get to do nothing during his shooting phases either most of the time, but whatever).

I do have psykers but I tend not to take them anymore due to my dislike of the phase.

On the flip side, how have psyker-less armies been dealing with it?

Straight firepower?

Stacking adamantium will?

Can I just start banging my head against the wall, until the laughter stops at this question?

In all seriousness, one of the actual lures of Warhammer 40k was how badly the Rules where written... it is probably a form of masochism that would make Slaanesh proud. That the Psychic Phase is such a mess that it is actually impossible to complete in many easy to achieve situations, such as putting two Models with the Psyker Special Rule in a single Unit, fills me with a schadenfreude like glee. Game Workshop impresses me every new Edition release, blindly ignoring errors of the last Edition by including them in the latest and still managing to write even worse Rules to go along side them. The worse thing they could to at this point is get an actual Editor to tidy up all of their Rules, though it would mean I didn't have to patch up as many holes in the walls....

If you House Rule those broken situations, the Psychic Phase does add quite a lot to the Game and I do approve of it.

minigun762 wrote:On the flip side, how have psyker-less armies been dealing with it?

Straight firepower?

Stacking adamantium will?

As I pointed out in my article, Adamantium Will does help, but mostly it's a matter of thrwoing enough dice at denying the most dangerous power. If the dice gods favor you, it can work.

JinxDragon wrote:Can I just start banging my head against the wall, until the laughter stops at this question?

In all seriousness, one of the actual lures of Warhammer 40k was how badly the Rules where written... it is probably a form of masochism that would make Slaanesh proud. That the Psychic Phase is such a mess that it is actually impossible to complete in many easy to achieve situations, such as putting two Models with the Psyker Special Rule in a single Unit, fills me with a schadenfreude like glee. Game Workshop impresses me every new Edition release, blindly ignoring errors of the last Edition by including them in the latest and still managing to write even worse Rules to go along side them. The worse thing they could to at this point is get an actual Editor to tidy up all of their Rules, though it would mean I didn't have to patch up as many holes in the walls....

If you House Rule those broken situations, the Psychic Phase does add quite a lot to the Game and I do approve of it.

notsureifserious.gif

Blatant trollbait aside, there are problems with the Psychic Phase, but the phase as a whole is hardly unworkable. I believe that the ITC, as well as the BAO and NOVA have FAQed most of the biggest offenders in that regard.

Take a look at the last sentence once more, I approve of the Psychic Phase once those broken situations have been fixed by House Rules.

Hate it. Takes too long from the rest of the game.

Plus too prone to abuse, and I don't mean powers. TFG's will roll warp charges when you aren't looking, palm dice and roll more or less etc. Anything that adds an element where a player can cheat sucks. I don't want to have to constantly nursemaid my opponent in every single aspect of playing the game.

Oh and yeah, I get players who just roll the dice and announce they cast the power or they didn't, or they pick up the dice before you can see it. NOt always TFG, but it is just irritating.

Leadership based tests were just easier.

General Hobbs wrote:


Hate it. Takes too long from the rest of the game.

Plus too prone to abuse, and I don't mean powers. TFG's will roll warp charges when you aren't looking, palm dice and roll more or less etc. Anything that adds an element where a player can cheat sucks. I don't want to have to constantly nursemaid my opponent in every single aspect of playing the game.

Oh and yeah, I get players who just roll the dice and announce they cast the power or they didn't, or they pick up the dice before you can see it. NOt always TFG, but it is just irritating.

Leadership based tests were just easier.

To be fair, TFG will do that to any dice roll. Easy solution: don't play with people who do that.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

General Hobbs wrote:


Hate it. Takes too long from the rest of the game.

Plus too prone to abuse, and I don't mean powers. TFG's will roll warp charges when you aren't looking, palm dice and roll more or less etc. Anything that adds an element where a player can cheat sucks. I don't want to have to constantly nursemaid my opponent in every single aspect of playing the game.

Oh and yeah, I get players who just roll the dice and announce they cast the power or they didn't, or they pick up the dice before you can see it. NOt always TFG, but it is just irritating.

Leadership based tests were just easier.

To be fair, TFG will do that to any dice roll. Easy solution: don't play with people who do that.

Better solution is to just remove the dice obviously.

I like the phase it's pretty quick and straightforward compared to how it was before.

 greyknight12 wrote:
I like the mechanics of how it works, for the people complaining remember that you used to not be able to deny powers at all.

The thing is though, powers also used to be less powerful in general. So, whilst you couldn't dispel them, they also had less impact on the game even when successful.

Its very hit and miss for me. I usually only take one psycher and have had many games where do get off no powers and die quickly. Even Ezekiel , a ML3 has been having very little impact in games.

It seems very all or nothing.

 BassDrum wrote:
Its very hit and miss for me. I usually only take one psycher and have had many games where do get off no powers and die quickly. Even Ezekiel , a ML3 has been having very little impact in games.

It seems very all or nothing.

How many dice are you rolling to cast a power?