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which army has most and cheapest psykers?

Imperium armies have access to 40 point Primaris Psykers (HQ), which are full-powered psykers that cast 1, deny 1, and know 2. They also have access to 15 point Astropaths (Elite), which are 1/1/1 psykers with an additional ability to deny cover to enemy units. But they cast Smite on 1d6 instead of 2d6, so are not great for Smite spam.

Chaos has 30 point Malefic Lords, which are 1/1/2 psykers that get really scary in CC if they Perils.

Nobody else comes very close to that, I don't think. Eldar have 37 point Warlocks which have fewer wounds than the ones named so far and a terrible version of Smite. Necrons and Tau don't have psykers. Ork Weirdboyz are decent 1/1/1 psykers for 62 points, and can pretty much guarantee a successful psychic test at the cost of a massively increased chance of Perils. I don't believe that Tyranids have anything below 70 points.

Welp, Dionysodorus pretty much shut this thread down. In a good way

The Astropaths are interesting, in that since they only roll 1D6, they don’t face Perils of the Warp. You can’t roll double 1s or 6s on a single dice. Of course, they can only get off a Smite 33% of the time. But at 15pts, you can field a mess of them for not a lot of points.

If you are running Astropaths, you are most likely running them for +1 saving throws on a blob of conscripts in the very back 18" from the closest conscript to avoid Deny the Witch (24" bubble from enemy).

With 5+ smites, if your enemy has any psykers, you are rarely getting them off. A lot of the pretty Primarchs that Daemons are running had 3 Deny's each and makes it pretty hard to hurt them throw Astropath spam. I'd rather have 25pts more invested and get a 50/50 deny against most enemy psykers. But YMMV

In theory, the best psykers should be Eldar, or possibly Daemons.

In practice, if you go by just the official GW codex/index releases, the answer is (as in everything in 8th) Imperial Guard.

They get Primaris Psykers for the same cost as an Eldar Warlock, except that they are full fledged psykers compared to the Warlocks... well, they're just terrible. In order to get the smite potential of a 40 point Primaris, Eldar have to pay around 120 points.

Astropaths are better than Warlocks. Warlocks are one of the worst psykers in the game. Stupid, I know.

I think the best non-imperial psyker is probably the Ork Weirdboy. Still massively overpriced compared to a Primaris, but it's not terrible at around 60 points.

Malefic Lords are also good, from the forgeworld Heretics list. Pretty much chaos primaris psykers, but with a buff if they take a perils wound without dying. May even be better than Primaris, but it means running a Heretics detachment and Heretics are currently awful.

So yeh, best psykers are Imperial Guard.

So, so stupid. smh.

Malefic Lords are the best Smiters, followed by Primaris Psykers and then Astropaths (though the difference between the effective damage output between Primaris and Astropaths is negligible)

You can take 3-5 Malefic Lords in a Supreme Command Detachment alongside your chaos list, no need to run other Heretics.

I've been testing Lords and Primaris. Lords with 3 Daemon Princes, some Dreads, cultists, and Chimeras with Enforcers as an in your face assault list. There, they provide a decent way to take out hard targets when moving to the proper position (Closest target can be a pain, but worked around). The Primaris are usually behind my Infantry squads in my Guard Infantry/Artillery list. In this case, Smite is amazing as a counter charge tool, taking out elite units that T1 charge your screen. I feel that they're a great counter to deep strikers, but have not been able to verify that yet. They are weak to screeners, but since they're fairly hard to remove until your screen is down, they'll have plenty of time to do damage.

Just a quick summary of my math
Malefic Lord Expected Wounds: 1.79, Points/Wound: 16.74
Primaris Psyker Expected Wounds: 1.79, Points/Wound: 22.32
Astropath Expected Wounds: .67, Points/Wound: 22.5

Irdiumstern wrote:


You can take 3-5 Malefic Lords in a Supreme Command Detachment alongside your chaos list, no need to run other Heretics.

True, this is by far the best way to run Malefics. It does use up one of your detachments though, but that only really matters if you were going to use all 3 detachments anyway. You get a cheap command point out of it too.

Warlocks should be dropped to about 20 points per model, they're really not worth any more than that. Farseers should be dropped to about 80 points at most.

There was a lot of talk about Malefics being nerfed with a points increase, but that hasn't happened as yet.

Irdiumstern wrote:
Malefic Lords are the best Smiters, followed by Primaris Psykers and then Astropaths (though the difference between the effective damage output between Primaris and Astropaths is negligible)

You can take 3-5 Malefic Lords in a Supreme Command Detachment alongside your chaos list, no need to run other Heretics.

I've been testing Lords and Primaris. Lords with 3 Daemon Princes, some Dreads, cultists, and Chimeras with Enforcers as an in your face assault list. There, they provide a decent way to take out hard targets when moving to the proper position (Closest target can be a pain, but worked around). The Primaris are usually behind my Infantry squads in my Guard Infantry/Artillery list. In this case, Smite is amazing as a counter charge tool, taking out elite units that T1 charge your screen. I feel that they're a great counter to deep strikers, but have not been able to verify that yet. They are weak to screeners, but since they're fairly hard to remove until your screen is down, they'll have plenty of time to do damage.

Just a quick summary of my math
Malefic Lord Expected Wounds: 1.79, Points/Wound: 16.74
Primaris Psyker Expected Wounds: 1.79, Points/Wound: 22.32
Astropath Expected Wounds: .67, Points/Wound: 22.5

The main problem with Astropaths is that they're much easier to deny. They only ever manifest Smite on a 5 or 6, so an enemy psyker expects to deny them about 82% of the time. They're going to end up doing about 0.12 mortal wounds on average if denying is possible. Meanwhile a Primaris Psyker is going to average more like 1.2 mortal wounds per attempt near enemy psykers. And you can cover equal points of both with about the same number of denies, since the Astropaths don't expect to succeed very often.

The best psykers are

Malefic Lord
Primaris Psyker
Weirdboy

Lords and Primaris are more points efficient for smite spam, but weirdboyz will reliably deny even Magnus while also being decent in melee. Compared to these three Eldar and Grey Knights has nothing. Which is funny.

Nid psykers are not cheap, but they are plentiful and all of our powers are good. We can fill multiple foc slots with them and bring more than enough that removing our psychic support is near impossible.

pismakron wrote:
The best psykers are
weirdboyz will reliably deny even Magnus while also being decent in melee. Compared to these three Eldar and Grey Knights has nothing. Which is funny.

Not sure WAAAAGH energy works for denies. It says: Add 1 to any Psychic test rolls made for this model for every 10 friendly ORK models within 10"...

Anywayz, wierdboyz are great. There's no downside to running at least 2 in footslogging lists. But they pay for their reliability in casting with much higher peril chances. So, if you're running wierdboyz and want them to live more than a couple turns you'd better get a mad dok. And you need a boss or 2 regardless. And you end up with a horde that has as much points in IC as in the horde itself. A balancing factor. It still works but you got to keep in mind that that's not a win button.

Lets not forget that Inquisiton Psykers come in at 55 pts and can jump into any vehicle - had some good results with a drop pod with some in!

Don't forget GSC Magus is a Solid Psyker for 72 pts and has the "extras" of 4+ Look out sir with GSC units and Cult ambush...also the Cult powers are great.

EDIT: also as a side note can still be taken battleforged with AM detachments/GSC 1/1.......so..

Edit to my Edit: For 815 pts you can add a Supreme command of GSC to a 1185pts AM Battalion/regiment giving you 5 Magus a Paterarch (all Psykers) and a unit of 20 Purestrain Genestealers to complement your gunline you can cult ambush all of them.

As Guard I could easily run 2 brigades and 1 battalion giving me 13 primaris psykers and 22 astropaths. Saying the astropath can be denied easily is correct, but good luck having enough psykers to do that well.