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I’m a long time necron player. When I was learning the game I liked necrons had a phase they didn’t have to worry about (less rules for me to have to keep up with). But now I have to wonder how much damage/buffs do crons, khorne, black Templar’s, Tau and the like give up for not being active in that phase? In the case of Tau they have access to superior long range fire power that may help make up for it , But I have played crons and Khorn armies and I feel like they really don’t have anything special to make up for the loss.

I have a chance to pick up a Psyker heavy army at a great deal......And although I love my crons I wonder if I’m hamstring myself by playing an army that has no options in a whole phase of the game?

While I don't know the answer to your question about if these armies are missing out on not being Physic but buying an army for competitiveness over truly liking them doesn't seem productive. Do you like this faction (lore, playstyle, models, conversion possibilities, etc...) you are thinking of picking up? Is it alright to know which Psyker faction it is?

Generally I'd say no.

The thing about psykers is that they're like anything else in 40k; "everything counts in large amounts". One psyker isn't likely to accomplish a whole lot, it's the armies that spam them by default like 'nids, non-Khorn daemons, eldar, Grey Knights, and TSons where it's worth something.

It’s nids.I like the army as a whole Even though they are not the most competitive army but they are active in every phase of the game and don’t pay extra points per model for an army wide rule like Necrons that don’t even get to use most time (reanimating). But new codex coming may help with this but no psykers isn’t gonna change. AsIo do love their fluff ( but like bug fluff as well)so probably just gonna wait and see but interested to hear what others think about the topic

Grimlineman wrote:
It’s nids.I like the army as a whole Even though they are not the most competitive army but they are active in every phase of the game and don’t pay extra points per model for an army wide rule like Necrons that don’t even get to use most time (reanimating). But new codex coming may help with this but no psykers isn’t gonna change. AsIo do love their fluff ( but like bug fluff as well)so probably just gonna wait and see but interested to hear what others think about the topic

How many wounds does one smite do?

What you may or may not be missing out on is some sort of anti-psyker rule. Dwarves in WHFB didn't have any magic, then only had some sort of quasi magic Runesmith, so they get a more anti-magic rules. Likewise with Bretonnians. Their damsels had a Magic Resistance aura and were taken for that more than their spell casting. Khorne's notorious antipathy towards psykers could be manifested that way and give you some "play" in the psychic phase, if any/every/almost unit gets a Deny type ability.

GW has made a tremendous hash of psykers. The people writing the core rules have yet to remember that GK/Tzeentch exist (Rule of 1 in 8e/9e and the kill-psykers bonus objectives in 9e), powers are frequently terribly balanced, the system is tremendously random and non-interactive, and the practice of making all damage powers do "mortal wounds" makes them incredibly OP in some matchups and incredibly useless in others.

You're not really at a disadvantage just by virtue of having no psykers, simply because ~80% of psykers/powers are pointless and they're in the same boat as you despite having psykers.

At the moment, it's the opposite, due to the stupidity of Abhor the Witch giving people an incentive not to take psykers even if they have them.

yukishiro1 wrote:
At the moment, it's the opposite, due to the stupidity of Abhor the Witch giving people an incentive not to take psykers even if they have them.

That's an oddly bad decision. Anyone taking Abhor the Witch when they're facing one psyker is gutting their ability to get secondary VPs. Even two is limiting your maximum VPs.

Well, Tau never cared about psykers because their signature Systems often were psychic powers that didn't need a roll and didn't risk perils of the Warp . Necrons have C'tan abilities which are basically more reliable offensive psychic powers.
Overall psychic powers are just another way to buff your army, next to Auras, stratagems, apostles (you asked for Khorne) and unit abilities. Some armies are pretty reliant on their psychic powers, but that's in their design, other armies only use them as another tool (SM, IG) and armies without them have different ways. The only army where you're probably weakining yourself is Khorne CSM / World Eaters, because the CSM Codex Features strong psychic powers. I'm sure once a World Eaters Codex / supplement comes around they'll get their thing, like the Blood Tithe for Daemonkin in 7th.

Grimlineman wrote:
I’m a long time necron player. When I was learning the game I liked necrons had a phase they didn’t have to worry about (less rules for me to have to keep up with). But now I have to wonder how much damage/buffs do crons, khorne, black Templar’s, Tau and the like give up for not being active in that phase? In the case of Tau they have access to superior long range fire power that may help make up for it , But I have played crons and Khorn armies and I feel like they really don’t have anything special to make up for the loss.

I have a chance to pick up a Psyker heavy army at a great deal......And although I love my crons I wonder if I’m hamstring myself by playing an army that has no options in a whole phase of the game?

Not after 7th edition, character abilities work essentially the same as psychic powers and they're everywhere. Could an aura of letting your allies shoot an extra shot in RF range be a psychic power? Yes, but it's a Tau character ability. Necron C'tan are also incredibly close to being psykers with their powers of the C'tan, the only thing missing is deny, which Necrons can get with their bigger Canoptek gripplies, the only problem there is that those gripplies have been overcosted for the longest while and so have not been effective psyker-counters.

Even before 8th edition there was no great benefit for psyker armies across the board, it's all a question of how undercosted or overcosted units are, it doesn't help to have psykers if they're universally overcosted and Necrons were pretty much universally undercosted in 7th and a good chunk of Necron units were undercosted in 6th, I would say they weren't missing out on much. Now in late 6th edition Necrons became worse as more anti-air was introduced into the game and the Cron flying circus became beatable and in late 7th even more overpowered formations were released and Necrons became more mid-tier because of power creep, but psychic powers was not something they were missing at the start. Some psykers were very OP in 8th, like Farseers with their DOOOM and Yvraine with her double-tap power, but they were overpowered because they brought a higher value than the pts cost players had to pay for them, not because there is some inherent benefit in having psykers, as is evident by the many-many competitive lists that can but don't include a psyker.

yukishiro1 wrote:
At the moment, it's the opposite, due to the stupidity of Abhor the Witch giving people an incentive not to take psykers even if they have them.

Nah, always include reliable psykers instead. Chances to face 1K sons and GK are extremely low while buffs from 1-2 psykers are tipycally very useful, if not game changing. The current most competitive ork build is the boyz horde with ghaz and buffing characters and it really gains a lot with Da Jump since that power provides the only thing the army lacks, mobility. I don't even remember last time I played against an eldar with no psykers, etc... I actually think that I'd still strongly consider taking weirdboyz in a footslogging oriented orks army even if I knew for a fact that I'm going to face one of those psyker based armies.

And both 1K sons and GK are doing very well even with the "stupidity" of Abhor the Witch. In conclusion psykers could be mediocre, good, invaluable or mandatory; it entirely depends on the specific powers they could cast and the synergy with the rest of the army.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
GW has made a tremendous hash of psykers. The people writing the core rules have yet to remember that GK/Tzeentch exist (Rule of 1 in 8e/9e and the kill-psykers bonus objectives in 9e), powers are frequently terribly balanced, the system is tremendously random and non-interactive, and the practice of making all damage powers do "mortal wounds" makes them incredibly OP in some matchups and incredibly useless in others.

You're not really at a disadvantage just by virtue of having no psykers, simply because ~80% of psykers/powers are pointless and they're in the same boat as you despite having psykers.

Rule of 1 is and should be the mandatory baseline, I don't even see how you could argue otherwise. It allows a greater design space for powerful casts while also giving you the option to create weaker abilities that can still be useful once your big WHAM spell gets cast. If a power can be cast multiple times, then it needs to be explicitly designed to do so. Just letting an army do 8 warptimes or 11 presciences doesn't fly.

It heavily depends upon the army and the setup.
Psykers in general are often a moving part to buff specific units debuff others.

For CSM (cue WE) psykers are so integral with stacking buffs, because that is all the CSM dex does, it is a severe disadvantage for WE players.
Other factions can get away with no psyker at all, somewhat evently, further the psyker itself needs to be decent, and a lot are not, either because their rules are too bad overall, clash with the design allocated to the Faction or are just plainly overpriced.

Basically moreso then other units psykers rely upon the design built into the faction, and the targets' be they friend or foe.

I think some factions definitely notice the absence of psykers. For example, DE has a notoriously bad HQ section, with very few HQs to begin with, and those only able to provide meagre support. Until the nerf to Doom, the Farseer was better at supporting DE than any of the actual DE HQs.

However, even before the new releases, Necrons had a pretty good range of buffs in their HQ section. You've got +1M combined with +1 to hit, you've got various rerolls, you've got a 5++ aura, you've got a +1RP aura, you've got a RP reroll, you've got vehicle mending, you've got fall back and shoot/charge. And with the Plasmancer, you've even got Smite.

Plus, if you include warlord traits and artefacts, you can add in teleportation, exploding attacks, overwatch denial and -1 to hit for an enemy unit, more Mortal Wounds etc.

Quite frankly, Necrons have access to approximations of most of the psychic powers in the game. Not always exactly the same, but given that more are always on and can't be denied, it seems like a pretty good trade-off.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Well, Tau never cared about psykers because their signature Systems often were psychic powers that didn't need a roll and didn't risk perils of the Warp . Necrons have C'tan abilities which are basically more reliable offensive psychic powers.
Overall psychic powers are just another way to buff your army, next to Auras, stratagems, apostles (you asked for Khorne) and unit abilities. Some armies are pretty reliant on their psychic powers, but that's in their design, other armies only use them as another tool (SM, IG) and armies without them have different ways. The only army where you're probably weakining yourself is Khorne CSM / World Eaters, because the CSM Codex Features strong psychic powers. I'm sure once a World Eaters Codex / supplement comes around they'll get their thing, like the Blood Tithe for Daemonkin in 7th.

This. All non-psychic factions have tons of unique abilities and buffs which are very similar to what psykers of other factions can do.

Voss wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
At the moment, it's the opposite, due to the stupidity of Abhor the Witch giving people an incentive not to take psykers even if they have them.

That's an oddly bad decision. Anyone taking Abhor the Witch when they're facing one psyker is gutting their ability to get secondary VPs. Even two is limiting your maximum VPs.

I think you may have missed the meaning here. The issue is that taking even a single psyker stops you from going for Abhor the Witch points... meaning, you couldn't take it as an option against juicier opponents like Grey Knights or Thousand Sons. Hence, players may opt to purposely not take any psykers so that they have the option open to them.

I don't think that's a real concern outside of those factions who didn't have good psykers to begin with. Orks, Nids, daemons or CSM are not going to leave their psykers at home to gain a slight bonus in two match-ups that weren't causing them huge troubles anyways.

 Jidmah wrote:
I don't think that's a real concern outside of those factions who didn't have good psykers to begin with. Orks, Nids, daemons or CSM are not going to leave their psykers at home to gain a slight bonus in two match-ups that weren't causing them huge troubles anyways.

unsure on nids, but CSM certainly will not leave their biggest helper in the arsenal at home, no way, for that the heretik psy discipline is just too good and versatile.

The flipside of it is that, unless you're bringing Khorne, Templars, Sisters or some other kind of psyker nullification - not taking a psyker means leaving your psychic defence behind too. Not that Deny The Witch is ever close to a guaranteed thing, mind.

If you want to ditch 'Abhor the Witch', you'd have to ditch psychic actions otherwise it's just free VP for armies with them.

Even a mediocre Psyker will give an important swing in the average game and no army I know that can take one wouldn't on the hope that they could get the free VPs against TS or GK

I agree with Vipoid.

From a Drukahri perspective, psychic phases are a source of frustration; nothing to do on ours, and no significant ability to affect the opponent's one.

I don't really think that we are 'compensated' in other respects, as our aura abilities hardly ever apply, Power From Pain is very uneven in it's benefits, and the Combat Drug rules are gak.

 Super Ready wrote:
The flipside of it is that, unless you're bringing Khorne, Templars, Sisters or some other kind of psyker nullification - not taking a psyker means leaving your psychic defence behind too. Not that Deny The Witch is ever close to a guaranteed thing, mind.

Without re-rolls or flat bonuses to deny rolls, the difference between having them and not having them is pretty marginal. 24" range and being tacked on a high priority target paired with bad dice means that I rarely, if ever, deny a power with my ork or DG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lammia wrote:
If you want to ditch 'Abhor the Witch', you'd have to ditch psychic actions otherwise it's just free VP for armies with them.

Even a mediocre Psyker will give an important swing in the average game and no army I know that can take one wouldn't on the hope that they could get the free VPs against TS or GK

I suggest trying any of those in a real game, and make sure to play them exactly as they are worded (so no two psykers doing the same action during one turn). While fluffy and fun, all the psychic action are absolutely terrible from a competitive point of view.

ERJAK wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
GW has made a tremendous hash of psykers. The people writing the core rules have yet to remember that GK/Tzeentch exist (Rule of 1 in 8e/9e and the kill-psykers bonus objectives in 9e), powers are frequently terribly balanced, the system is tremendously random and non-interactive, and the practice of making all damage powers do "mortal wounds" makes them incredibly OP in some matchups and incredibly useless in others.

You're not really at a disadvantage just by virtue of having no psykers, simply because ~80% of psykers/powers are pointless and they're in the same boat as you despite having psykers.

Rule of 1 is and should be the mandatory baseline, I don't even see how you could argue otherwise. It allows a greater design space for powerful casts while also giving you the option to create weaker abilities that can still be useful once your big WHAM spell gets cast. If a power can be cast multiple times, then it needs to be explicitly designed to do so. Just letting an army do 8 warptimes or 11 presciences doesn't fly.

I know. I say "GW has forgotten GK/Tzeentch exist" because the Rule of 1 exists to balance large powerful powers that you get off of HQ choices, where it's necessary because they may powerful things like Warptime/Prescience, but they then forgot to design any powers to be cast by the armies who are required to pay points for every single unit to be psykers that then don't get to cast any powers. When your army could cast fifteen powers but you're only allowed to attempt six, and the rest are D1 Smites it really borks the idea of having an army of psykers.

Go to the "all-wizards" armies in Sigmar, and you'll find that the Sacrosanct aren't actually all wizards (the characters and the expensive elite dudes are, the basic dudes aren't) and the Evocators have a different spell lore than the one available to the characters, and for Tzeentch the characters have the powerful powers and the Horrors only know one power unique to them that gives them a shooting buff and isn't subject to the Rule of 1.

The Newman wrote:
Generally I'd say no.

The thing about psykers is that they're like anything else in 40k; "everything counts in large amounts". One psyker isn't likely to accomplish a whole lot, it's the armies that spam them by default like 'nids, non-Khorn daemons, eldar, Grey Knights, and TSons where it's worth something.

And that something is 15 secondary points to your opponent

 Jidmah wrote:

 Super Ready wrote:
The flipside of it is that, unless you're bringing Khorne, Templars, Sisters or some other kind of psyker nullification - not taking a psyker means leaving your psychic defence behind too. Not that Deny The Witch is ever close to a guaranteed thing, mind.

Without re-rolls or flat bonuses to deny rolls, the difference between having them and not having them is pretty marginal. 24" range and being tacked on a high priority target paired with bad dice means that I rarely, if ever, deny a power with my ork or DG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lammia wrote:
If you want to ditch 'Abhor the Witch', you'd have to ditch psychic actions otherwise it's just free VP for armies with them.

Even a mediocre Psyker will give an important swing in the average game and no army I know that can take one wouldn't on the hope that they could get the free VPs against TS or GK

I suggest trying any of those in a real game, and make sure to play them exactly as they are worded (so no two psykers doing the same action during one turn). While fluffy and fun, all the psychic action are absolutely terrible from a competitive point of view.

If you are a notably psyker heavy army, interrogation is actually fairly easy secondary points. And for armies with access to really cheap, low impact psykers, which, again, is mostly already psyker heavy armies.

 Golem2God wrote:
While I don't know the answer to your question about if these armies are missing out on not being Physic but buying an army for competitiveness over truly liking them doesn't seem productive. Do you like this faction (lore, playstyle, models, conversion possibilities, etc...) you are thinking of picking up? Is it alright to know which Psyker faction it is?

40k is so poorly balanced you can't rely on that. You can play a faction that seems fun and GW doesn't give them broken rules like their pet factions and it's about as productive as punching yourself in the nuts.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
GW has made a tremendous hash of psykers. The people writing the core rules have yet to remember that GK/Tzeentch exist (Rule of 1 in 8e/9e and the kill-psykers bonus objectives in 9e), powers are frequently terribly balanced, the system is tremendously random and non-interactive, and the practice of making all damage powers do "mortal wounds" makes them incredibly OP in some matchups and incredibly useless in others.

You're not really at a disadvantage just by virtue of having no psykers, simply because ~80% of psykers/powers are pointless and they're in the same boat as you despite having psykers.

Rule of 1 is and should be the mandatory baseline, I don't even see how you could argue otherwise. It allows a greater design space for powerful casts while also giving you the option to create weaker abilities that can still be useful once your big WHAM spell gets cast. If a power can be cast multiple times, then it needs to be explicitly designed to do so. Just letting an army do 8 warptimes or 11 presciences doesn't fly.

I know. I say "GW has forgotten GK/Tzeentch exist" because the Rule of 1 exists to balance large powerful powers that you get off of HQ choices, where it's necessary because they may powerful things like Warptime/Prescience, but they then forgot to design any powers to be cast by the armies who are required to pay points for every single unit to be psykers that then don't get to cast any powers. When your army could cast fifteen powers but you're only allowed to attempt six, and the rest are D1 Smites it really borks the idea of having an army of psykers.

Go to the "all-wizards" armies in Sigmar, and you'll find that the Sacrosanct aren't actually all wizards (the characters and the expensive elite dudes are, the basic dudes aren't) and the Evocators have a different spell lore than the one available to the characters, and for Tzeentch the characters have the powerful powers and the Horrors only know one power unique to them that gives them a shooting buff and isn't subject to the Rule of 1.

That's why they fixed GK and made TS even better...

stratigo wrote:
If you are a notably psyker heavy army, interrogation is actually fairly easy secondary points. And for armies with access to really cheap, low impact psykers, which, again, is mostly already psyker heavy armies.

It's only 18" range so it's super-easy to deny T1, so maxing it out is quite hard, especially if your opponent only has two or three characters and you can't score the objective at all if those are dead.