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My first question is has anyone found anything that says a Psyker can't cast Smite more than once? This is the only text I can find about casting multiple spells.

MANIFESTING PSYCHIC POWERS
(When you select a Psyker unit to manifest psychic powers, you
select one psychic power that unit knows and attempt to manifest
it. With the exception of Smite, you cannot attempt to manifest the
same psychic power more than once in the same battle round, even
with different Psyker units.......................

So long as the Psychic test was successful and the psychic power was
not denied by a successful Deny the Witch test, the psychic power
is successfully manifested and its effects, which will be described in
the power itself, are then resolved. If the Psyker unit can attempt to
manifest more than one psychic power in its Psychic phase, you can
then attempt to manifest those, one at a time, as described above. The
number of psychic powers each Psyker unit can attempt to manifest in
its Psychic phase is listed on its datasheet.)

SMITE
Smite has a warp charge value of 5. Add 1 to the warp charge
value of this psychic power for each other attempt that has
been made to manifest this power by a unit from your army
in this phase, whether that attempt was successful or not. If
manifested, the closest enemy unit within 18" of and visible
to the psyker suffers D3 mortal wounds (pg 19). If the result
of the Psychic test was 11 or more, that unit suffers D6 mortal
wounds instead.


My second question is a 2 part question about blast weapons. How does the rule about the minimum of 3 attacks work with (a) d3 blast weapons (b) multiple d6 shot weapons e.g. 3d6
Example (a) a Shock grenades is a Grenade D3 weapon. Does that always shoot maximum attacks at a unit with 6+ models?
Example (b) does a Baneblade Cannon doing 3d6 shots still shoot a unit of 6-10 models at a minimum of 3 attacks?

Rule:
BLAST WEAPONS
Some weapons have ‘Blast’ listed in their profile’s abilities. These are
referred to as Blast weapons. In addition to the normal rules, the
following rules apply to Blast weapons:

1. If a Blast weapon targets a unit that has between 6 and 10 models, it
always makes a minimum of 3 attacks. So if, when determining how
many attacks are made with that weapon, the dice rolled results in
less than 3 attacks being made, make 3 attacks instead. For example,
if a Grenade D6 weapon with the Blast rule targets a unit that has 6
or more models, and you roll a 2 to determine how many attacks are
made, that roll is counted as being a 3 and that weapon makes three
attacks against that unit.

I fell the wording with this is very clunky when shooting at models 6-10 models it was intended to be maximum shots halved, and 11+ models is meant to be full shots. (edited to be more clear)

The psychic focus rule, which limits smite to one per Psyker, is a matched play rule and is found the BRB. You can expect this to be same in the 9th BRB.

When a blast weapon has a random number of shots, 2D6, 3D6, 2D3, or whatever number of dice, it makes at least 3 attacks against a unit with 6-10 models, unless you roll more than 3. It's one attack where the dice are added together, if there is more than one. The intention is not half the number of shots, it's a minimum of 3 attacks.
It's different if a blast weapon has 4*1D6 shots. In that case it would have 12 minimum attacks, 3 for each dice. Unless you roll higher on each dice.

p5freak I edited my post because the last line wasn't worded correctly. But I 100% agree that that was the intended ruling. But reading the rule it never says minimum 3 per dice.

"If a Blast weapon targets a unit that has between 6 and 10 models, it
always makes a minimum of 3 attacks."

A d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A d3 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A 4d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.

For a 4d6 blast weapon to do 12 attacks minimum it would have to count as 4 blast weapons.

I agree with the above interpretations:

Smite can be used multiple times by the same psyker as per the core rules. Matched play rules/FAQ could change this.

Blast weapons targetting 6-10 model units score a minimum of 3 hits, so:

A d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A d3 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A 4d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.

is correct.

To be extremely pedantic, a 4d6 weapon makes a minimum of 4 attacks

 Stux wrote:
To be extremely pedantic, a 4d6 weapon makes a minimum of 4 attacks

Haha! very true! To be even more pedantic, the rules say the minimum number of attacks a 4d6 blast weapon makes against a unit with 6-10 models is 3 attacks, but the reality of rolling 4d6 means you are unable to reach this rule-mandated minimum!!

Aash wrote:
I agree with the above interpretations:

Smite can be used multiple times by the same psyker as per the core rules. Matched play rules/FAQ could change this.

Blast weapons targetting 6-10 model units score a minimum of 3 hits, so:

A d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A d3 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A 4d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.

is correct.

Agreed on both counts. The minimum is for the total, not per dice. And Smite can now be cast multiple times by the same Psyker (by default)

Everyone should probably wait for the whole Rulebook before proclaiming “you can now do X”. As some have mentioned we’re missing Matched Play Rules that one the current edition added such restrictions.

Honestly, if you’ve a 9th question? Give it until the book is out before posting, eh? Too many threads that are impossible to answer without context of the full rules.

Aash wrote:

 Stux wrote:
To be extremely pedantic, a 4d6 weapon makes a minimum of 4 attacks

Haha! very true! To be even more pedantic, the rules say the minimum number of attacks a 4d6 blast weapon makes against a unit with 6-10 models is 3 attacks, but the reality of rolling 4d6 means you are unable to reach this rule-mandated minimum!!

You have that backwards.

A 4d6 can never possibly fall below the rule-mandated 3 shot minimum. neither can a 3d6/3d3. A minimum simply means that it will never go lower than those numbers; 3dx, 4dx, or better simply gain no actual benefit from the rule. This is the same as a d3 weapon attacking any unit of 6+ models: it will always make max shots, negating the benefit of firing at a unit of 11+ models.

Mattyt84 wrote:
My first question is has anyone found anything that says a Psyker can't cast Smite more than once? This is the only text I can find about casting multiple spells.

MANIFESTING PSYCHIC POWERS
(When you select a Psyker unit to manifest psychic powers, you
select one psychic power that unit knows and attempt to manifest
it. With the exception of Smite, you cannot attempt to manifest the
same psychic power more than once in the same battle round, even
with different Psyker units.......................

So long as the Psychic test was successful and the psychic power was
not denied by a successful Deny the Witch test, the psychic power
is successfully manifested and its effects, which will be described in
the power itself, are then resolved. If the Psyker unit can attempt to
manifest more than one psychic power in its Psychic phase, you can
then attempt to manifest those, one at a time, as described above. The
number of psychic powers each Psyker unit can attempt to manifest in
its Psychic phase is listed on its datasheet.)

I expect GW will FAQ it that when they say a unit can manifest X powers, it means X different powers. No use of the same power multiple times by the same unit.

While i agree that the current wording for Blast is by weapon, not individual D6, it's worth noting that GW's fabled, elite, crack, thoroughly tournament-tested, mournival-team of playtesters disagrees.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Aash wrote:
I agree with the above interpretations:

Smite can be used multiple times by the same psyker as per the core rules. Matched play rules/FAQ could change this.

Blast weapons targetting 6-10 model units score a minimum of 3 hits, so:

A d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A d3 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.
A 4d6 blast weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.

is correct.

Agreed on both counts. The minimum is for the total, not per dice. And Smite can now be cast multiple times by the same Psyker (by default)

I agree that the minimum is the total per RAW, no argument there.

Where I get salty is the fact that weapons like the exorcist missile launcher are going to be exorbitantly costly for the crime of being a blast weapon when the only thing that rule actually says for those weapons is 'cannot shoot into combat'.

ERJAK wrote:
Where I get salty is the fact that weapons like the exorcist missile launcher are going to be exorbitantly costly for the crime of being a blast weapon when the only thing that rule actually says for those weapons is 'cannot shoot into combat'.

How so? 3D3 means that while it won't get a "benefit" firing at units of 6-10, it will still get a flat 9 shots firing at units of 11+. Granted, not the best use of the weapon, but it still technically benefits from the Blast Rule.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Where I get salty is the fact that weapons like the exorcist missile launcher are going to be exorbitantly costly for the crime of being a blast weapon when the only thing that rule actually says for those weapons is 'cannot shoot into combat'.

How so? 3D3 means that while it won't get a "benefit" firing at units of 6-10, it will still get a flat 9 shots firing at units of 11+. Granted, not the best use of the weapon, but it still technically benefits from the Blast Rule.

The implication is that because of the MASSIVE swing weapons, especially multiple D6 weapons specifically intended to be taken to kill hordes, get when going from 10 models to 11+ models is that almost no one will bring 11+ model units. (for example, the exorcist's conflagration rockets go from 3 guaranteed shots to 18 if you happen to bring that 11th genestealer).

And any time an Exorcist hits the table with no units of greater than 11 models, the blast rule is changed to read "You don't get to shoot into combat but still had to pay extra for this crap rule, neener neener, neener'.

The issue is if they have been playtested as doing minim 3 per dice or as one of the playtesters let slip (what might have been the original wording they were given to playtesters) "does a minimum of half shots, rounding up" & "does full shots" which unfortunately has been entirely lost when GW tried to do some technical writing, like seriously would it have been hard to give a 2d6 & 2D3 example instead of their useless D6 example.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
While i agree that the current wording for Blast is by weapon, not individual D6, it's worth noting that GW's fabled, elite, crack, thoroughly tournament-tested, mournival-team of playtesters disagrees.

Spoiler:

I hope that's not the case with the final rules. That would make Thunderfire Cannons and the likes super OP

 Vector Strike wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
While i agree that the current wording for Blast is by weapon, not individual D6, it's worth noting that GW's fabled, elite, crack, thoroughly tournament-tested, mournival-team of playtesters disagrees.

Spoiler:

I hope that's not the case with the final rules. That would make Thunderfire Cannons and the likes super OP

The whole blast things is already ridiculously OP, both vs. 11+ model-units obviously and for single-dice stuff (Plasma Cannons and Neutron lasers and what not getting max shots vs. any 6-man unit of Bikes or Terminators or whatnot).

Bringing the Wyvern in line with the madness doesn't really change the issue. If anything, they hopefully realise sooner who they've completely invalidated multiple armies and drive the whole blast-idiocy back a bit with CA 2020.

Or give blast weapons an actual meaningful penalty for shooting at small or single-model units, so it's not a straight upgrade to many already excellent weapons without a balancing drawback.

I still contend that blast weapons should instead be Heavy/Assault/Pistol/Rapid Fire Blast X (X is a fixed number, not a random number): A Blast weapon can inflict at most 1 wound per model in the target unit.

So if you fire a Blast 6 weapon at a single model unit, you roll 6 attacks to hit. You hit with 4, you make 4 rolls to wound and pass 3 of them. Since it's only 1 model in the target unit, you cause only 1 wound that is allocated and saved.

So you fire at full effectiveness at large units, but are more likely to wound small model count units but won't do as much damage to them.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
While i agree that the current wording for Blast is by weapon, not individual D6, it's worth noting that GW's fabled, elite, crack, thoroughly tournament-tested, mournival-team of playtesters disagrees.

Spoiler:

I hope that's not the case with the final rules. That would make Thunderfire Cannons and the likes super OP

The whole blast things is already ridiculously OP, both vs. 11+ model-units obviously and for single-dice stuff (Plasma Cannons and Neutron lasers and what not getting max shots vs. any 6-man unit of Bikes or Terminators or whatnot).

A plasma cannon getting max shots (3) when shooting 6 Terminators is hardly ridiculously OP. At the moment I think it's a clumsy rule but mainly because, yet again, GW shifted approach mid-edition so we have some weapons that are very swingy with D6 shots, others that are 2D3 for more consitency and some that are now stupid, like the Wyvern. I hope that we'll eventually see new Codices come in line with the new rules and curtailing things like 4D6 Blast weapons.

Slipspace wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
While i agree that the current wording for Blast is by weapon, not individual D6, it's worth noting that GW's fabled, elite, crack, thoroughly tournament-tested, mournival-team of playtesters disagrees.

Spoiler:

I hope that's not the case with the final rules. That would make Thunderfire Cannons and the likes super OP

The whole blast things is already ridiculously OP, both vs. 11+ model-units obviously and for single-dice stuff (Plasma Cannons and Neutron lasers and what not getting max shots vs. any 6-man unit of Bikes or Terminators or whatnot).

A plasma cannon getting max shots (3) when shooting 6 Terminators is hardly ridiculously OP. At the moment I think it's a clumsy rule but mainly because, yet again, GW shifted approach mid-edition so we have some weapons that are very swingy with D6 shots, others that are 2D3 for more consitency and some that are now stupid, like the Wyvern. I hope that we'll eventually see new Codices come in line with the new rules and curtailing things like 4D6 Blast weapons.

If they wanted to get rid of the variance, why not just give all random-shot weapons maximum shots all the time?

At least then everyone would be equally affected.

Throwing tournament-menaces like Hormagaunts under the bus while the output vs. Riptides, Leviathans or Tank Commanders doesn't change seems arbitrary, badly thought out and skewed against the already weakest armies of 8th (and even more so 9th).

Sunny Side Up wrote:
While i agree that the current wording for Blast is by weapon, not individual D6, it's worth noting that GW's fabled, elite, crack, thoroughly tournament-tested, mournival-team of playtesters disagrees.

Spoiler:

Maybe they tested a different version of the blast rule. (that does happen with playtesting). If they tested the book version, they simply got it utterly wrong.

The version in the book is very straightforward and clear.
Minimum 3, no matter how many dice are involved.

If a Blast weapon targets a unit that has between 6 and 10 models, it
always makes a minimum of 3 attacks. So if, when determining how
many attacks are made with that weapon, the dice rolled results in
less than 3 attacks being made, make 3 attacks instead

There isn't anyway to contort that to get minimum 12 on a 4d6 weapon. 'The weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks.'

Sunny Side Up wrote:


If they wanted to get rid of the variance, why not just give all random-shot weapons maximum shots all the time?

So that it doesn't always get maximum shots against a single model unit (characters primarily, though also against vehicles). They don't want a 4d6 weapon always getting 24 shots against a Primaris Lieutenant.

 doctortom wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:


If they wanted to get rid of the variance, why not just give all random-shot weapons maximum shots all the time?

So that it doesn't always get maximum shots against a single model unit (characters primarily, though also against vehicles). They don't want a 4d6 weapon always getting 24 shots against a Primaris Lieutenant.

Blast could have easily been something like Blast X, where it would go X, 2X, 3X from the different size brackets. 1/2/3, 2/4/6, 3/6/9, 4/8/12. Not a great solution as it would make them overall weaker against minimum units then they already are,

FWIW TT said they had contacted GW and received 100% confirmation that multi-smite from the same character is not intended. So that will presumably be fixed in a Day-1 FAQ.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I still contend that blast weapons should instead be Heavy/Assault/Pistol/Rapid Fire Blast X (X is a fixed number, not a random number): A Blast weapon can inflict at most 1 wound per model in the target unit.

So if you fire a Blast 6 weapon at a single model unit, you roll 6 attacks to hit. You hit with 4, you make 4 rolls to wound and pass 3 of them. Since it's only 1 model in the target unit, you cause only 1 wound that is allocated and saved.

So you fire at full effectiveness at large units, but are more likely to wound small model count units but won't do as much damage to them.

Until you shoot at a max size unit of Arco Flagellents with a TFC and do 1 wound because the model didn't die and you can't allocate the rest of the wounds because you can't allocate any more wounds to that model and you can't allocate wounds to any other model in the unit. Or did you mean 'can inflict wounds up to the number of # of models in the unit' which is a completely different rule.

ERJAK wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I still contend that blast weapons should instead be Heavy/Assault/Pistol/Rapid Fire Blast X (X is a fixed number, not a random number): A Blast weapon can inflict at most 1 wound per model in the target unit.

So if you fire a Blast 6 weapon at a single model unit, you roll 6 attacks to hit. You hit with 4, you make 4 rolls to wound and pass 3 of them. Since it's only 1 model in the target unit, you cause only 1 wound that is allocated and saved.

So you fire at full effectiveness at large units, but are more likely to wound small model count units but won't do as much damage to them.

Until you shoot at a max size unit of Arco Flagellents with a TFC and do 1 wound because the model didn't die and you can't allocate the rest of the wounds because you can't allocate any more wounds to that model and you can't allocate wounds to any other model in the unit. Or did you mean 'can inflict wounds up to the number of # of models in the unit' which is a completely different rule.

And this is the problem with GW overloading the word wound.

If we replace the "To Wound" roll with "To Injure", which causes an Injury, would it be more clear if it said "A Blast weapon can inflict at most 1 injury per model in the target unit."

It's not one *damage* per model in the unit. Nor is it a maximum of 1 wound to *each* model, nor is it 1 save per model, it's one wound for per (defined as "for each") model in the unit.

Would "A Blast weapon can inflict at most 1 wound for every model in the target unit at the time the unit is targeted." be clearer? I mean, if it were up to me I'd use an MTG style wording which says "A Blast weapon can cause at most X wounds to be assigned to models in the unit, where X is the number of models in the unit at the time the unit is targeted." but that doesn't fit the rest of the rules language.

My interpretation on smite is different.

" If the Psyker unit can attempt to
manifest more than one psychic power in its Psychic phase, you can
then attempt to manifest those, one at a time, as described above."


What i get from this is that the psyker can only attempt one of each spell they know per turn.

Note how it says, "you can then attempt to manifest those, one at a time, as described above".

This to me, means you can cast each power, one at a time, and only once each.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
My interpretation on smite is different.

" If the Psyker unit can attempt to
manifest more than one psychic power in its Psychic phase, you can
then attempt to manifest those, one at a time, as described above."


What i get from this is that the psyker can only attempt one of each spell they know per turn.

Note how it says, "you can then attempt to manifest those, one at a time, as described above".

This to me, means you can cast each power, one at a time, and only once each.

I'm pretty sure that's what they wanted to say but the rules don't ever quite manage to say that. Looks like a classic GW oversight where everyone who read the rules already knew what they should say but didn't bother to check that they actually did say the correct thing. It's kind of like what you're doing here: trying to interpret a rule to say something it actually doesn't.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I still contend that blast weapons should instead be Heavy/Assault/Pistol/Rapid Fire Blast X (X is a fixed number, not a random number): A Blast weapon can inflict at most 1 wound per model in the target unit.

So if you fire a Blast 6 weapon at a single model unit, you roll 6 attacks to hit. You hit with 4, you make 4 rolls to wound and pass 3 of them. Since it's only 1 model in the target unit, you cause only 1 wound that is allocated and saved.

So you fire at full effectiveness at large units, but are more likely to wound small model count units but won't do as much damage to them.

I agree with others, your wording seems ambiguous; and I have a slightly better Idea:

Keep the "Heavy/Assault/Rapid fire/Pistol as normal(maybe just make them Heavy/Assault in all cases), but the number that would normally accompany simply "Blast". Blast just changes the number of attacks into the number of models in the unit, with a special case for vehicles/Monsters(and maybe further for Titanic) making 3/6(adding 3 for titanic) attacks against those models/units. This would keep blasts as anti-horde, applied similarly to the old templates/markers, and negate any other issues/shenanigans with wording and what is meant.

but all this is better suited for proposed rules.