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My Grey Knights are limited to 6 powers a turn max? That's totally unfair since we're balanced around each unit having a psychic power from Sanctic.

Maybe if we could use other disciplines, but we're stuck with Sanctic and thats it.

Psychic Focus needs to just get errata'd into non-existence.

OR!!!1
Get smart and know how and when to use your powers. and you still got smite brah

Smite from almost every unit in the codex is deadly. Even a small force can easilly manage 5+ smites and a couple powers per turn.

Honestly, without it gray knight (and tzeentch) could easily get broken.
Not being able to spam the single best all-purpose spell for every psyker keeps things in check.

I mean, pre-codex my 1ksons were limited to 3 spells, so naturally I didn't bother putting many psykers.
And then I saw just how much a psyker can do, and boy I wished I could play more of them. because if I could precience multiple rubric/SOT teams, it would be brutal.
If I could warptime several heavy hitter, it would be brutal.
Heck, even gaze could be brutal if spammed as a second mortal wound source with smites.

Yep. I'm not a fan. Grey Knights and Thousand Sons are supposed to be psychic heavy armies, but Psychic Focus gimps that. At least there are now 6 spells instead of 3..

IMHO GKs and 1K sons should have two psykic schools. if GJs had sanatic AND Librarius they'dhave a pretty big tool bag.

 koooaei wrote:
Smite from almost every unit in the codex is deadly. Even a small force can easilly manage 5+ smites and a couple powers per turn.

Except our Smite is worse than everybody elses, except against Daemons. We can only do 1 Mortal Wound instead of D3.

I get that maybe being able to cast Sanctuary multiple times on the same unit would be broken, but you could simply say you can't target a friendly unit multiple times with the same power. It would be perfectly fair to cast sanctuary on multiple units, just not on the same unit.

Otherwise, GKs just suck. We're paying for all these powers we can't use.


Just gonna have to ask all my opponents if we house rule it to where you can cast the same power multiple times, but can't target the same friendly unit more than once with the same power.

So no 2+ Invuln paladins, but you can have 4+ invuln on all the terminators.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Except our Smite is worse than everybody elses,

Warlocks and Horrors disagree.

Judging by my last game, even them "mini smites" stack up rather quickly...

All I hear from this is "I wanna spam and get 2++ saves waaaaaa!"

The only change I would make to the rule is changing it to manifest rather than attempt. That way if you accidentally blow your brains out on the first attempt another guy can try again.

How dare they make your entire army not be as powerful in the psychic phase as everyone else's best spell casters.

Getting to smite with every unit on a 4+ is MASSIVE when you consider you also do d3 damage with your melee attack and have double the range damage output of a normal tactical marine. You also add +1 to deny the witch.

You psychic toolbox is massive, and your soldiers are very capable. If you don't want to deal with psychic focus, then play narrative or open play.

No reason to come in a cry about something that doesn't have to affect you at all, and honestly isn't that big a deal to begin with.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
All I hear from this is "I wanna spam and get 2++ saves waaaaaa!"

The only change I would make to the rule is changing it to manifest rather than attempt. That way if you accidentally blow your brains out on the first attempt another guy can try again.

Agreed. Psychic Focus in necessary for balance, but it should not be attempts that count, only if the power actually goes through.

Can't every single unit in the GK codex pick one of those six spells and smite? Alongside being able to deny with every single unit in the army? While getting a +1 to both Manifesting and denying?

Giving units additional Inv saves, +1 Wound in melee, ability to fire beyond hard cover without penalty and ignoring cover save, ability to LD war, vortex of doom..

Some of those would be a bit much if you could cast it from every single strike squad per turn.

Plays worlds smallest violin.

Yeah, it's annoying. The main consequence of this is that it's kind of silly to run a Grey Knights army -- instead you just want a single detachment. I've had some success with a small battalion attached to a Sisters list. The GM in NDK gets his invuln save improved and a big Strike Squad gets Astral Aim and Hammerhand, and each can use an ammunition stratagems. I'd be looking at severely diminishing returns with a bigger force, so instead I just bring much cheaper bolters from another army. I guess GW just doesn't really intend for GKs to be a standalone thing.

Wait, wait, wait... this ISN'T a joke post? Really?

Look, if you don't like Psychic Focus, ask your opponents if they want to play a Narrative or Open game, and make note to mention that you want to not worry about Psychic Focus. I'd be totally down for doing that myself!

Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue each Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

I think for the psychic driven armies. Tzeetch and Greyknights - they should have stratagems that allows a spell to be duplicated. That's something I was really hoping for and was disappointed wasn't in the codex. However - we did get Grandmaster Dreadknights - and I think I am happier with this.

The main problem is - no terminators unit will live without sanctuary so with sanctuary going on your GMDK every turn - terminators cant even be considered. That's my biggest problem. Obviously it would be stupid if all my units could cast vortex of doom but being able to cast it twice would be totally fair. It's not like armies are limited to the number of las cannons they can bring.

 Grey Templar wrote:
My Grey Knights are limited to 6 powers a turn max? That's totally unfair since we're balanced around each unit having a psychic power from Sanctic.

Maybe if we could use other disciplines, but we're stuck with Sanctic and thats it.

Psychic Focus needs to just get errata'd into non-existence.

Did you consider maybe you're balanced around not being able to have every unit cast those powers and mostly just casting weaker smite? It seems reasonable to me that this is the case especially because your smite is not full strength. Play testing obviously showed that casting multiples of the same spell was too powerful. So I think it is reasonable to think that you are balanced around having the ability to use those powers but not balanced around using them every single turn.

The only change I could see making is changing it to each power can only be manifested 1 time instead of attempted. But if you get rid of psychic focus get ready for things like entire ork armies charging turn 1 with Da Jump spam, or CSM spamming warptime to charge turn 1 etc.

Even your suggestion of each unit getting targeted once is broken. Lets you gate your entire army every turn.

You are also not really paying for it.

Regular marine = 13 points
Strike Squad = 19 points
Nemesis Force sword = free
Force Sword = 12 points

If a regular marine could take a force sword he would be 6 points more than a GK. So lets chalk that up to a discount due to having fewer attacks than things that can take Force swords in most marine factions (though your characters benefit from that same discount)

On top of that you get a weak version of smite, re-roll wounds against daemons, the ability to deny psychic powers, and teleport strike vs Chapter tactics. So lets call that a wash for this purpose.

So you are paying 6 points for a force sword, seems to me that maybe you were balanced around not having every squad cast any power every turn.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay.

The guardsmen stare at the body of their fallen officer.
"Did he get his vox-relay wet?"
"He didn't even have a vox-relay!"

I said it before il say it again. House rule it so psychic powers don't stack with themselves. As long as you cannot pile the same debuff/buff onto a single unit it's all pretty fair.

 Lance845 wrote:
I said it before il say it again. House rule it so psychic powers don't stack with themselves. As long as you cannot pile the same debuff/buff onto a single unit it's all pretty fair.

Wait thats no part of the rules already? I figured it was lol

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

For 5k points why wouldn't you use open/narrative play are you really playing competitive 5k point games? The rule is meant for balance at levels of competitive play.

 Lance845 wrote:
I said it before il say it again. House rule it so psychic powers don't stack with themselves. As long as you cannot pile the same debuff/buff onto a single unit it's all pretty fair.

Ah yes, the ability to cast Vortex of Doom with every strike squad is going to be very fair, not counting the shenanigans you can pull with Gift of Chaos.

Wait thats no part of the rules already? I figured it was lol

It is technically because you can only cast the same spell once per phase.

 Lance845 wrote:
I said it before il say it again. House rule it so psychic powers don't stack with themselves. As long as you cannot pile the same debuff/buff onto a single unit it's all pretty fair.

Doesn't really work for all powers though, things like gate are super powerful if you can use them on every unit every turn.

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

For 5k points why wouldn't you use open/narrative play are you really playing competitive 5k point games? The rule is meant for balance at levels of competitive play.

I suppose it is designed for 2000 point games. My group likes to play by the same rules all the time but switch up the point levels so we can use more of our models. It's a bunch of power gamers though so - not playing by competitive rules is a no go. Which is why i really don't like this psychic focus rule.

Yep, Psychic focus does suck.

It was implemented as a way of balancing out the psychic phase for psychic heavy armies.

But what they should really have done was actually create good rules for the psychic phase instead of porting over this AoS garbage.

There needs to be a system of dice/spell management coupled with a system that scales with the game size.

As it stands right now it's just a random roll. Sometimes it goes off, sometimes it doesn't. There's not even a way to increase odds of getting off that major game altering power, or conversely increasing odds of stopping that game winning power.

The psychic phase seriously sucks.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

For 5k points why wouldn't you use open/narrative play are you really playing competitive 5k point games? The rule is meant for balance at levels of competitive play.

I suppose it is designed for 2000 point games. My group likes to play by the same rules all the time but switch up the point levels so we can use more of our models. It's a bunch of power gamers though so - not playing by competitive rules is a no go. Which is why i really don't like this psychic focus rule.

That is a group problem not a rules problem. Competitive APOC level games have always been terrible, I wouldn't want to play an apoc game in this edition unless it was power level.

Or GW could attempt to rebalance the powers. But sure "may only cast once" is way better.

It also does not totally incentivize taking the best possible Psyker foe getting critical powers (Magnus is to Chaos what Eldrad was to 4e Eldar), and it totally does not incentivize saving such powers for the best possible unit. Why bother casting Gate on a Strike Squad when you can cast it on Paladins? And yes, this is an exaggerated vacum example, but the principle applies. Invisibility was an insanely dangerous power, but there was a dramatic difference between using it on a Tactical Squad versus using it on Grav-Cents.

What GW *should* have done IMO was refine the 7e psyker system, so there were more WC per caster, but no "pooling." Rather than casting and denial being all-or-nothing success thresholds, casting would be by "Degrees of Success", and Denial would simply subtract successes from casting, rather than the 7e system of "you needed 5 sixes to deny but only rolled 4", or needing to roll higher than the caster to deny. "Try rolling a 13."