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How would people feel if GW, sometime in the future, implimented a system like the endless spells in AoS for 40k? And if yes what ideas would you have for possible endless psychic powers?

No freaking way.

I think they're silly in AoS. They're one of the key reasons I dropped the game.

They have no place in W40K.

In AoS, everyone has wizards or a substitute for wizards.

In 40k, many armies don't have psykers or anything really resembling them.

AoS is a lot more magical than 40k, so Endless Spells make more sense. In 40k, one mistake with psyker powers and somebody's head explodes. And Chaos has Endless Spells - it's called Daemonic Summoning.

Endless spells don't make any sense in 40k. Psykers aren't wizards. Psykers are heavily distrusted already. A physical object that appeared as a result of a psychic power in 40k would be immediately shot to gak, along with whoever summoned it.

ERJAK wrote:Endless spells don't make any sense in 40k. Psykers aren't wizards. Psykers are heavily distrusted already. A physical object that appeared as a result of a psychic power in 40k would be immediately shot to gak, along with whoever summoned it.

Well they are not physical objects they would be psychic manifestations so you wouldn't be able to shoot it anymore then an archer in AoS can shoot an endless spell. As for shooting those that summon them; first thats a very imperial view of things, I don't think the eldar would shoot a farseer that summoned something to attack there enemies. Second lets take a look at two imperial armies psychic powers: from imperial guard there is psychic maelstrom that summons a psychic storm to thrown enemies around, that could work as an endless psychic power. Also from the space marines there is fury of the ancients were the liberian summons a creature of psychic energy to attack the enemy, I could totally see the space wolves being able to summon a psychic wolf to attack.

John Prins wrote:In AoS, everyone has wizards or a substitute for wizards.

In 40k, many armies don't have psykers or anything really resembling them.

AoS is a lot more magical than 40k, so Endless Spells make more sense. In 40k, one mistake with psyker powers and somebody's head explodes. And Chaos has Endless Spells - it's called Daemonic Summoning.

This is the big issue. To be fair though right now of the six that do not have psykers only three; Tau, necrons and knights have no way to deal with psychic powers and for using endless psychic powers as a substitute I could see maybe Tau using advanced tech, necrons using c'tan crap, dark eldar using homunculus stuff and ad mech using dark age tech. If they did this I would think they might need to add a stratagem to deal with them usable by every army.

I could get down on that.

Like the old Vortex psychic power.

Could be an interesting addition, and on the plus side psychic powers will have to be rebalanced for physical models, so it might be a good for very lackluster damage powers (gaze of the Emperor being one) being worse than smite in every notion.

Sure, why not. So long as they're reasonably balanced, I don't necessarily see a problem with some factions not getting them.

All depends on the implementation of course!

I wouldn't be opposed to it provided it was done well, but at the same time I don't think it would fit as well with the theme and style that 40K has. Also 40K already has a lot of models on the table and an identity of its own. Plus its nice to give AoS something different to separate it from 40K in more than just visuals - especially in todays market where the two games basically share a very similar rules system.

On that score I think its important that each has its own mechanics - 40K might not have endless spells but it has air units and knights and lots of other things AoS hasn't got.

Wow, endless smites from tsons, d3 MW on a 5. YAY !

BIG NONO. The psychic powers right now arent balanced. Tsons can just smite tau and necrons from the table. GW is incapable of balancing. This wont change in the future.

The Psychic phase in 40k is badly implemented as it is. We don't need more rubbish piled on top of it and we don't need yet more sources of Mortal Wounds in 40k either. I'd rather they looked at fixing the Psychic phase first, or at least making it more interesting.

A no for me if only because an enhanced psychic phase pushes the HtH phase even further down the food chain.
Its already pretty poor as it is.
We dont need a lethal shooting and then psychic phase proceeding it.
Otherwise why even bother with HtH rules at all? :(

Kind of a depend how obligatory they would be. I don't think that adding an obligatory faction building and multiple spells that are now models, to a rule book, CA, two or three faction books is a good way to start an army.

But if they would be something like the vigilus stuff, where you don't have to buy them to have a working list, why not. If it adds diversity to armies, it can only be good.

I don't know enough how those spells work in AoS to rate them as useful for 40K.
I think the psychic phase in 8th edition is really well implemented compared to prior editions and I don't see the necessity to add more to it. It'd also mean you'd have to buy more stuff to make your army playable.
Many of the damage spells just need some balancing as most of them are just inferior versions of smite.

Endless spells are a mechanic used in AoS to counterbalance the advantages of going first in that round, since in AoS the first and second acting players can switch each round.

In 40K the player going first will go first in all the rounds of that game, so endless spells lose the main role they have.

 Overread wrote:
I wouldn't be opposed to it provided it was done well, but at the same time I don't think it would fit as well with the theme and style that 40K has.

Funny you mention that, because it can be argued 40K did ES first. From various powers such as vortex moving small blast circle, through eldar portals (that even got models), on 5th edition Space Wolf book ending - that one was full of ES-like effects, like summoning spirits of Primarch's wolves to attack enemies, living storms, or hell, entire special rules of Njall Stormcaller who was effectively endless spell in model form...

 John Prins wrote:
In AoS, everyone has wizards or a substitute for wizards.

In 40k, many armies don't have psykers or anything really resembling them.

This is technically wrong, we already got Khorne (who has no wizards) get endless spell equivalent, as well as technological race (equivalent of 40K necrons/tau) get something similar. If 40K gets something akin to ES, they might well go that route (remember 5th edition necron not-psykers)?

Absolutely yes!

Are people really so opposed to a powerful Psyker ability that can only be cast if there isn't one on the board? That costs points on top of the Psyker that casts it?

I think it would be a great way to do stuff like the Temporal Zone spells or the like. A telekine dome, etc.

Tau and Necrons could benefit from getting tech support units--things like the DX Medical Drones, Stealth Drones, Command Drones. Necrons could get Nanobot Repair Swarms.

There's a lot of room for stuff like this to exist.

I just wish you could cast any psychic power at least twice per turn during matched play in 8th, what were they thinking limiting it to 1 and knowing you would see a million smites being thrown around? ugh.

 Crusaderobr wrote:
I just wish you could cast any psychic power at least twice per turn during matched play in 8th, what were they thinking limiting it to 1 and knowing you would see a million smites being thrown around? ugh.

I dunno, some spells I'm glad are limited to one cast. Warp Time for instance.

But a lot of them would have been fine with higher or even no limits. Could be done on a power by power basic I suppose!

In the sense that there'll be physical models similar to AoS endless spells with certain effects (dealing damage, transporting units across the table, providing buffs/debuffs, etc..), sure.


I don't think they even have to be magic/psychic based for the concept to work. They could just be ancient artefacts or dark age technology. They could be warp manifestations that appear during battles if GW does something with the chaos/warp story. They could even have individual justifications tailored to each faction.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Absolutely yes!

Are people really so opposed to a powerful Psyker ability that can only be cast if there isn't one on the board? That costs points on top of the Psyker that casts it?

If GW suddenly decided that they not only want to keep GK units, bad, but now to use their psychic spells a GK players has to buy a separate book and models to be able to cast Heed or Gate, I don't think many GK players would be happy.

I just wish you could cast any psychic power at least twice per turn during matched play in 8th, what were they thinking limiting it to 1 and knowing you would see a million smites being thrown around? ugh.

Same. What is the sense in having to pay for psychic abilities on every unit, when you can only cast it one time per turn, and the only thing else you can cast is a shorter range smite that does 1 MW. In the end the psychic phase makes no sense to me anyway. The power should be abilities should be something a model can use automaticly, and then other units could have a "psychic" power Vect as a rule on units or stratagem.

Karol wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Absolutely yes!

Are people really so opposed to a powerful Psyker ability that can only be cast if there isn't one on the board? That costs points on top of the Psyker that casts it?

If GW suddenly decided that they not only want to keep GK units, bad, but now to use their psychic spells a GK players has to buy a separate book and models to be able to cast Heed or Gate, I don't think many GK players would be happy.

Do you not know how this stuff works?


First: Endless Spells aren't "your spells". They're specifically purchased so anyone in the army that can cast, will be able to do so. The limitation is that only one instance of a specific Endless Spell can be up at a time. I can't huck around three Purple Suns, Everblaze Comets, whatever. I cast it, it goes off--and then each successive turn you can attempt to remove it. If you do? Then I can attempt to recast it.
Second: There's two different Endless Spell "sets" that are generic. One is Malign Sorcery(these are all Realm Specific, available to anyone who chooses to buy the set) and the other is the Forbidden Power bit going up for preorder today. FP is nothing but Realm of Death spells, but they can be used elsewhere--the generic set have "Empowered by <Realm Name Here>" that bolster the effects in those specific Realms.
Third: You have army specific ones. That would be where GK players would get Heed or Gate, assuming it's in your actual GK specific Lore. And I doubt either of those Powers would get the Endless treatment, it would be new ones entirely.

I think they're dumb. It's like making us pay for model bullets whenever we want to shoot at another unit.

 Irbis wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
In AoS, everyone has wizards or a substitute for wizards.

In 40k, many armies don't have psykers or anything really resembling them.

This is technically wrong, we already got Khorne (who has no wizards) get endless spell equivalent, as well as technological race (equivalent of 40K necrons/tau) get something similar. If 40K gets something akin to ES, they might well go that route (remember 5th edition necron not-psykers)?

Explain to me how Slaughterpriests and Aether-Navigators are NOT wizard equivalents. They both can unbind spells and dispel spells, and can produce effects a lot like spells.

They're wizard substitutes.

So WFB has been 40kfied to make AOS. Now 40k is to be AOSified?

Tbfh I dont see the point in bringing the two games closer together rules wise on any level. I susepct both will end up merging into a generic dummed down versons of themselves to the lowest common denominator as more overlap happens. I like how demons were the only thing that was transferable between the two games and that made sense and was a novelty even if they had square bases..

Tygre wrote:Like the old Vortex psychic power.

Hell yeah. I loved everything vortex in RT. there needs to be more stuff that's random & not faction specific on the tabletop.

It might be cool if instead of spells they could do environmental hazards or NPC interactions. In open war there is the orbital debris card something similar could be used for the "spells", like an Ambull popping up or a gas leak, or unknown interference.

Imagine you're in turn 3 and moving in for the kill but an Ambull is now rampaging across the board would really add tactical uncertainty and have to adapt on the fly(but it effects both players).

What is endless spell ?

Hmmm I am not sure, the problem for me is the fundamental flaws with the "magic" phase in 40k, it sucks, it's boring and the "spells" are dull and samey, endless spells would just build upon a bad system so as it stands I would say no, if the psychic phase gets a radical overhaul then sure, let's bring in endless spells.

No, I don’t think endless spells should be in 40K. GW can’t even balance the game’s points, much less the psychic powers that exist now.

Anyways, the only race I could imagine having endless spells/psychic powers anyways would be Orks - something like the ol’ Foot of Mork (or was it Gork?), and maybe Chaos. Which would give GK players even more things to bitch about.