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I know out Codex is just around the corner, so I can only go off my Index for now.

I’m not especially experienced in 8th Ed, and looking st the Maleceptor, I’m just not seeing much of a use for it.

Sure, the Psychic Overload is funny. But unless I’m reading it wrong, you only roll one die for each unit it affects?

It's an elite psycher unit that's also kinda big and scary. It hits hard and it's able to get its psychic power's Off more reliable.

Azuza001 wrote:
It's an elite psycher unit that's also kinda big and scary. It hits hard and it's able to get its psychic power's Off more reliable.

Except none of that is true. Its psychic abilties are as good as any others, if it uses its (pretty lame) aura it can use any other powers and it doesn't hit as hard as other cheaper monsters.

Again, I don’t know what tweaks might come from the Codex, but right now it’s a bit pants.

If it could focus its burst on a single unit, it could be useful in its way...

It's just one of those multi-purpose units that tries to do a couple of things, and ends up sacrificing too much from each. In this case it's trying to be a zoanthrope glued to a carnifex.

It has close combat attacks with D6 damage, which is on the high end for a TMC. But it's let down by a degrading 4+ WS, and only 3 attacks.

The brain explodey aura is kinda neat, but the damage is very low, and you're never going to get it into a position where it can affect very many units. The biggest issue with it is you can't use it in the same turn you cast a power. I get that it's meant to represent a power unique to this unit. But it just doesn't do enough.

Adding 1 to psychic tests isn't bad, but isn't enough to save the unit.


Sounds like the codex may make it a bit better. Haven't seen it myself yet though, so can't comment on it.

While its cost is rumored to be going down, per the Index it is actually a fairly durable synaptic TMC for its point bracket thanks to that invulnerable save and wound count while having fairly reasonable offensive capabilities between Smite and its talons. I ran mine a couple weeks ago at our gaming group and it tore up an Imperial Knight before getting focus fired down in retaliation (still took a concerted effort to get rid of it). The +1 to cast in and of itself doesn't seem especially impressive at first glance, but it is really nice with Smite since it lowers the threshold to get the power off to a 4+ and the "charged" version to a 9+. Psychic Overload is a bit "meh" as a damage dealer for now (supposedly is having its damage conditionally increased in the codex), but it does have the rather nice ability of being able to target characters hiding amongst troops. I imagine en-mass it could be nasty but I doubt anyone has enough Malceptors to try it...

 Sim-Life wrote:

Azuza001 wrote:
It's an elite psycher unit that's also kinda big and scary. It hits hard and it's able to get its psychic power's Off more reliable.

Except none of that is true. Its psychic abilties are as good as any others, if it uses its (pretty lame) aura it can use any other powers and it doesn't hit as hard as other cheaper monsters.

How is it not true? The +1 makes it more reliable at getting powers off, it has an invuln save and a lot of wounds to help keep it alive, and its definatly a lot bigger and stronger than say a Librarian with 3 S7 attacks at -AP3 and reroll 1's doing D6 wounds. Granted its a lot more expensive than a Lib, but Libs can get almost to that cost if you put them on a bike or give them Term Armor and some upgrades.

Interesting point about Mortal Wounding characters with it.

Again, somewhat situational I’d imagine, but worth considering,

Maybe I’ve underestimated it.

I think you're underestimating the importance of +1 to psychic tests. That's actually quite a big deal when you want to get off a clutch power like onslaught in matched play, when you can only have one try at it each turn.

I think it remains to be seen whether this will be a great unit, but I wouldn't describe it as useless. I think that the overcharge thing is a bit of a distraction compared to casting two powers (typically smite and one other) with +1 on the roll.

The codex lets it cast two powers a turn and makes its invulnerable a 4++, I believe.

 Strat_N8 wrote:
While its cost is rumored to be going down, per the Index it is actually a fairly durable synaptic TMC for its point bracket thanks to that invulnerable save and wound count while having fairly reasonable offensive capabilities between Smite and its talons. I ran mine a couple weeks ago at our gaming group and it tore up an Imperial Knight before getting focus fired down in retaliation (still took a concerted effort to get rid of it). The +1 to cast in and of itself doesn't seem especially impressive at first glance, but it is really nice with Smite since it lowers the threshold to get the power off to a 4+ and the "charged" version to a 9+. Psychic Overload is a bit "meh" as a damage dealer for now (supposedly is having its damage conditionally increased in the codex), but it does have the rather nice ability of being able to target characters hiding amongst troops. I imagine en-mass it could be nasty but I doubt anyone has enough Malceptors to try it...

One important comment: Smite is just doing D6 Mortal Wounds, if you are rolling more than 10. This means that you still need a roll of 10 for D6 mW and not a 9+.
This increases the chances from 18% to 27% roughly.