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Hi all! I'm a greybeard who has, in short, played a good number of games on the even numbered editions. Just got up on the new edition and I like where 8th is going but the new psychic phase just seems... so *lame*. Not too editorialize too much but it seems like they fell in love with Stratagems and kinda forgot about the space wizard magic and just tacked it on at the end. Don't get me wrong, Stratagems are great, but can't both be good? Anyway, I pulled my old copy of Dark Millennium and took a good long walk with Andy down memory lane when the psychic phase was a gnarly little *card* game that got played every turn. Man, I wish it were so again. So many memories of epic space-wizards facing off and changing the course of the battle.

Anyway, just coming to grips with the rules and not having played a single game against anyone, I've been batting around some thoughts about making the space wizard phase ... meatier? More impactful?

With some goals:
- make psychic power a 'resource' that can be allocated. (ie a strong psyker overwhelms weaker, many weaker can overwhelm stronger, a trade-off between casting and denying)
- a severe denial can *make* your head explode, rather than a flat 5.5% (though with a small chance this still happens on its own).
- make buffs 'stickier' and more reliable (when not denied).
- make the psychic phase pretty much the same during either player's turn.
- have it be 'bolt-on' to the current rules - something like a single page that could simply sub in for the current basic rules psychic phase page, with no weird carve-outs.

And some caveats:
- This is a significant bump for casters overall. I'm open to some across-the board point bump per caster level suggestion; but in general, more space wizards in my space wizard fight game is no bad thing imo.
- Slowing the phase down is no bad thing imo. Everything in this edition seems to be written with a 'fast as possible' mentality and overall I think it's great, but psychic seems to be no more than a glorified hit roll now. Regardless, I think the proposed below will run fast when there are few psykers, or they are far away, and slow down when they start engaging with one another and facing off, as it should be.
- This is all opt-in, for friendly house-rules games where people expect epic space wizard battles. I'm obviously not proposing GW take anything like this on.

Here goes:
Every psyker on the battlefield plays a certain number of counters each psychic phase from their counter pool. This pool is 1 counter representing each Power they would normally have, plus an infinite number of 'support' and 'deny' counters. (In theory the counters can be worked out with pen-and-paper, but I like the idea of a tactile representation of slinging powers around.) The number of counters they can play in a phase is the number of powers they would be able to manifest plus the number they would be able to deny plus one. - Any listed duration (ie buffs/debuffs) is cut in half (since everything psychic happens twice a turn), but any power in play at the beginning of the Psychic phase gets an automatic +1 support counter that applies only to that power if it is re-cast. Every psychic phase (either player's turn) proceeds as follows: 1. Both players place their chosen counters face-down next to their psykers. 2. Beginning with the player whose turn it is, players alternate nominating a psyker to send counters (which may not be Power counters) to another psyker within 24". A psyker may not both send and receive counters. 3. Players take turns (starting with the player whose turn it is) nominating a psyker to resolve a power (from either army). The psykers owner selects and reveals the power to be cast. If the nominated psyker does not have a power to cast, selection passes to the other player. The psyker casting the power then secretly assigns any number of their 'support' counters, and any number of enemy psykers within 24" may secretly assign any of their 'deny' counters. 5. The player casting the power makes a hidden roll of 1+support counters d6. The denying player makes a hidden roll of 1d6 per deny counter. Any re-rolls must be taken here, 1 're-roll'=1 die. 6. The casting player reveals the 2 dice (or 1 die if they would only roll a single d6 or have no more counters) they would like to use as their manifestation roll. The denying player can then discard 1 of these dice and replace it with one of their own, though if they choose not to, they may replace no more dice for this power. The casting player can then do the same, and the 2 alternate until all dice are spent. Activation with any modifiers then works as normal, perils works as normal. The used counters are discarded back into the pool and another power is chosen proceeding from step 4 until all powers that can be used, are. Notes: -Any given duration-based power cannot affect the same unit more than once at a time. -Smite goes up by 1 each time per Matched rules. NB any given psyker can only hit it once because it only gets 1 counter.

Thoughts? I'd love to do something with cards, but I think that's more than I want to handle. Counters I can do. I'm just looking for a way for opposing space wizards to get 'sneaky' with how the phase is played out again. I'd also love suggestions for bespoke stratagems that could be applied to this.

So I don't interact with the Pyschic phase much myself, being a mainly Tau player, but the system does seem cool, my only worry being a significant buff to casters may hurt armies like Tau or Admech

 Sir Heckington wrote:
So I don't interact with the Pyschic phase much myself, being a mainly Tau player, but the system does seem cool, my only worry being a significant buff to casters may hurt armies like Tau or Admech

Huh. Interesting. Never really played vs. Tau so I haven't really been up on them. In general I'm pretty OK with some off the wall stuff. How do you feel about making etherials pskyers, increasing the effects of invocations and making them actual powers? What do you think their stats would be? I honestly don't understand why they aren't.

T´au are per fluff a strict non-psyker army. They don´t even know what the warp is. While it is hinted that the ethereals have some knowledge about it, their "powers" stem only from how much the other T´au adore them (which may or may not be aided by some form of real-space manipulation eg. pheromones or something). Basically the ethereal says "Don't die!" and the T'au will try so hard to follow his order that they actually go a little past their usual limits. Please don't give T'au psykers.

Your system seems a bit like you focussed on "make cool space-wizard duels" so much, that you forgot that there are 3 more primary phases in the game (move, shoot, melee). As a rule of thumb, I´d recommend to keep these four (four, when including psychic) on equal terms regarding complexity and potential time-consumption.

In my opinion, time consumption must be taken seriously, because large time-consumption practically "prevents" people from playing armies with many models (just moving 100+ models each turn is a pain, don´t make it harder), which is a bit unfair and sad for those armies. They are pretty cool too, after all.

OKorVesah wrote:
T´au are per fluff a strict non-psyker army...

Figured this would come up. Couple thoughts, this being my opinion, but the above being an entirely optional suggestion, you are not obligated to respond if you don't have anything constructive to add:
- The fluff exists to support the game, not the other way around.
- An army that cannot use an explicit part of the game is simply bad game design. It's better to fix that than make a once-crucial mechanic boring.

I don't really want this to devolve into an editorial on Tau because nobody I know plays them, so it doesn't really matter to me. I like the concept, in all honesty, from both a backstory and tactical perspective. But from first principles, 40k is a game that was mashed together to use 1/64 WW1 tanks with medieval wargame/DnD figures on the same table, with a Heinlein-Herbert-Tolkein mashup backstory tacked on to justify it. No more complicated than that. I LOVE that people want to bring their gundams to the table, but "our space wizards are different" doesn't really fly with me. The fluff is there so GW can sell more novels off their IP. Good for them, I hope it keeps the lights on, but I don't care about the IP, I want to play a BETTER GAME. Come up with a better game mechanism first, and you can justify it by re-imagining the fluff however you like.

That said, it sounds like you tend to play much larger, more competitive, games than me, so the suggested expansion may not make sense for those. That's ok. GW has naturally always been expanding its idea of how many models an 'army' constitutes. A single brigade seems like the most I would ever want to play with, and that's a stretch. Most games I would play would probably be a battalion at most, maybe with a small side detachment. Any more than that and people end up getting drunk before the game finishes, tbh.

Did you have a constructive suggestion for the above (specifically, maybe ways of making it faster as you say?) or does "our space wizards are different" sum it up?

Or you could cut the Gordian Knot that is the Tau lore by giving them Kroot Shamans.

(With the rest of the no-psykers armies (Battle Sisters, Custodians, Black Templars, Necrons...) you give them some way of interacting with the Deny mechanism via Gloom Prisms, the Spark of Divinity, Faith, etc. without giving them the ability to cast any powers themselves.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Or you could cut the Gordian Knot that is the Tau lore by giving them Kroot Shamans.

(With the rest of the no-psykers armies (Battle Sisters, Custodians, Black Templars, Necrons...) you give them some way of interacting with the Deny mechanism via Gloom Prisms, the Spark of Divinity, Faith, etc. without giving them the ability to cast any powers themselves.)

Also T'au could feasibly have Human Pyskers, even if they might be sanctioned and highly watched over, it's certainly a possibility for the Ethereals to want to utilize this power. I do want a more indepth Pysker phase though, because it does feel rather boring atm. Although that might also be because my pysker phase is asking what models do I remove, what buff do they gain or what debuff do I gain, with no actual interaction.

voskom wrote:
Thoughts? I'd love to do something with cards, but I think that's more than I want to handle. Counters I can do. I'm just looking for a way for opposing space wizards to get 'sneaky' with how the phase is played out again. I'd also love suggestions for bespoke stratagems that could be applied to this.

I think games of WH40K are long enough without dedicating this much time and effort to Psychic Powers. They are not the core of the game and shouldn't need more rules that Shooting and Close Combat. This suggestion has basically everything that was wrong with the 7th Edition Psychic Phase in a different manner.

I feel like the current psychic phase flows well with the core rules this edition. It's not stop playing a wargame and do a mini game that some armies aren't interested in.

There aren't that many psychic units and they have a decently big impact. The deny mechanic is present and streamlined so the game keeps on going. Admittedly it isn't interesting, but I doubt that getting denied - like missing stuff a multi melta- is much fun.

Non psy armies could change their buffs to be in the phase which i am ok with. But having most abilities get a fail chance is going to hurt. Co commander shouts an order, gsc DJ plays funky music too loud and it fails. Funny but yay nothing happened.

I dont think its bad game design to diversify the armies by having tau, necrons, and others have no or less psykers.

I think the issue is that the psychic phase needs to be integrated into the rest of the game better instead of being this tacked on additional element that only comes up based on army and unit mix.

Something in the opposite direction I would like to see is a hero phase at the start of each battle round instead of individual psychic phrases so that defensive abilities can go off before you are mauled by alpha strike.

Short duration powers then go in the spring phase

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Or you could cut the Gordian Knot that is the Tau lore by giving them Kroot Shamans.

This guy gets it. I'm completely fine with off the wall stuff. Eldrad with the serials filed off in a sisters army? sure, why the hell not, let's see how it goes.

 alextroy wrote:
think games of WH40K are long enough without dedicating this much time and effort to Psychic Powers. They are not the core of the game ...

It seems like this is a lot of responses. Psychic isn't core to the game for you. As prefaced, it is for us. That's totally fine, we get different things out of the game but this probably isn't the thread for you and I'm not sure why you clicked a thread that said "MORE engaging psychic phase house rules" if you didn't want that. I'm sure there are better things you can be doing with your time.


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 Lance845 wrote:
I dont think its bad game design to diversify the armies by having tau, necrons, and others have no or less psykers.

I think the issue is that the psychic phase needs to be integrated into the rest of the game better instead of being this tacked on additional element that only comes up based on army and unit mix.

Certainly with dark millennium it was pretty crucial, and there weren't any armies that couldn't include at least one psyker. I mean, if the space bug tentacle monster is a psyker, there's no reason every army can't have one.

But I do agree all sides should get denial - the DM card thing had both side getting dealt cards, regardless of whether they had psykers, so there was always a chance to nullify if you got one of those cards. Maybe reduce counters over-all but both sides get d6 they can allocate to any character? Is that too close to 7th? Keeping in mind I never played 7th - not by design, but I only ever learned the rules for the even-numbered editions.

If there is no denial, I don't think this will take any longer than a standard psychic phase, really, it's just plonk down your powers, roll however many dice and pick the highest. I see it as more of a breather, really - you go grab a beer while your opponent moves, and then instead of being on the receiving end of both psychic and shooting with no input besides saving throws, you're both doing essentially the same thing at the same time. Just shooting and then melee you're back to both being involved.

It doesn't have to be a buff, necessarily, either. We could say, one counter only for each denial stat and it would end up being a pretty severe restriction. There is some kind of balance in there somewhere I think.

Obviously do what you want. But as it stands now with out you modifying specific units, createing whole psychic power tables for armies that dont have them, and rebalancing those armies for the new way you want the game with a more robust psychic phase, none of these ideas you have have any legs to be remotely playable by anyone.

Easier is to scrap the psychic phase because its dumb to have an entire phase that MIGHT get used for 1-2 units in a single army maybe 5 in a psychic heavy army, and none in several armies (even those with access to it because the player just didnt take those units). And integrate psychic power activation and denial into some other part of the game.

As it stands the psychic phase is mostly a waste that i have seen even players with psykers forget to do.

voskom wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
think games of WH40K are long enough without dedicating this much time and effort to Psychic Powers. They are not the core of the game ...

It seems like this is a lot of responses. Psychic isn't core to the game for you. As prefaced, it is for us. That's totally fine, we get different things out of the game but this probably isn't the thread for you and I'm not sure why you clicked a thread that said "MORE engaging psychic phase house rules" if you didn't want that. I'm sure there are better things you can be doing with your time.

Maybe because you cut the really useful part of my response? Or I read your suggestion and could barely understand it without reading it multiple times?

Not that you shouldn't try and make the phase more engaging if that is what you want, but this suggestion is rather hard to understand. I don't see the benefit in dedicating that much effort and additional rules to resolving Psychic Powers.

As a Necron player, this change would ruin the game for me. As it is, I have virtually no way to interact with the Psychic Phase, a single Warlord Trait, and Tomb Spyders that due to a breeze with Gloom Prisims, for denials, if take them.

 Lance845 wrote:

As it stands the psychic phase is mostly a waste that i have seen even players with psykers forget to do.

Exactly, doesn't that smell like bad game design to you? And if there is no space magic at all... well, most of the people I know got into the game based on the description "Tolkien, but IN SPACE." That still carries weight, and Space Tolkein with no Space Wizards ain't no space Tolkein. The whole setting is batguano insane with space catholics and fungus monsters already, and it's much more fun to say "why not..." than "that sucks".

 Blndmage wrote:
As a Necron player, this change would ruin the game for me. As it is, I have virtually no way to interact with the Psychic Phase, a single Warlord Trait, and Tomb Spyders that due to a breeze with Gloom Prisims, for denials, if take them.

That's fine, don't use em. Not sure why you clicked the thread, but if you DO want to contribute something constructive though, if there WERE a psychic phase worth playing and you DID have a psychic unit, what would you imagine it to be?


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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Kroot Shamans...

I should add, feel free to throw a statline at me, that sounds awesome and I do have a random box of kroot that got left here years ago. Maybe I'll do a kitbash.

voskom wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

As it stands the psychic phase is mostly a waste that i have seen even players with psykers forget to do.

Exactly, doesn't that smell like bad game design to you? And if there is no space magic at all... well, most of the people I know got into the game based on the description "Tolkien, but IN SPACE." That still carries weight, and Space Tolkein with no Space Wizards ain't no space Tolkein. The whole setting is batguano insane with space catholics and fungus monsters already, and it's much more fun to say "why not..." than "that sucks".

Yes. But again, not for the reasons you are coming up with. The Psychic phase doesn't need to be expanded, it needs to be reduced and folded into other phases. Casting powers can work in the shooting phase. And should. Psykers get an extra "gun" in the form of casting powers. Now instead of forgetting to do an entire phase, you can pick the unit and just do their things like you would any other unit. Could it be more engaging for both players? Yes. So could the entire game. But as long as the game is IGOUGO it never will be.

 Lance845 wrote:
The Psychic phase doesn't need to be expanded, it needs to be reduced and folded into other phases.

OK. I'm putting you on ignore also. It's pretty clear that if your opinion is "there doesn't need to be a psychic phase at all," that is a completely valid opinion but this probably is not the thread for you.

voskom wrote:
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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Kroot Shamans...

I should add, feel free to throw a statline at me, that sounds awesome and I do have a random box of kroot that got left here years ago. Maybe I'll do a kitbash.

You'd probably do a -1 version of the Shaper statline (4W/2A?), same equipment, and then drop both special rules in favour of being a Psyker (if you wanted another special rule you might give Mark of the Favored Child for 6++ or 5++). Been digging through old fandexes for power ideas but balancing them for use in a general Tau list may be strange (you don't want to stack to -3 to hit on a Ghostkeel). Ideas are:
-Reclaimed by Nature: Improve cover for models in target area terrain/improve cover for target unit
-Jungle Mist: Impose to-hit penalty as per Conceal/Glamour of Tzeentch
-Psychic Stampede: Mortal wounds to everything under a line as per Fury of the Ancients
-Tangleroot: Move penalty to target enemy unit

voskom wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
As a Necron player, this change would ruin the game for me. As it is, I have virtually no way to interact with the Psychic Phase, a single Warlord Trait, and Tomb Spyders that due to a breeze with Gloom Prisims, for denials, if take them.

That's fine, don't use em. Not sure why you clicked the thread, but if you DO want to contribute something constructive though, if there WERE a psychic phase worth playing and you DID have a psychic unit, what would you imagine it to be?

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voskom wrote:

OKorVesah wrote:
T´au are per fluff a strict non-psyker army...

Figured this would come up. Couple thoughts, this being my opinion, but the above being an entirely optional suggestion, you are not obligated to respond if you don't have anything constructive to add:
- The fluff exists to support the game, not the other way around.
- An army that cannot use an explicit part of the game is simply bad game design. It's better to fix that than make a once-crucial mechanic boring.

I don't really want this to devolve into an editorial on Tau because nobody I know plays them, so it doesn't really matter to me. I like the concept, in all honesty, from both a backstory and tactical perspective. But from first principles, 40k is a game that was mashed together to use 1/64 WW1 tanks with medieval wargame/DnD figures on the same table, with a Heinlein-Herbert-Tolkein mashup backstory tacked on to justify it. No more complicated than that. I LOVE that people want to bring their gundams to the table, but "our space wizards are different" doesn't really fly with me. The fluff is there so GW can sell more novels off their IP. Good for them, I hope it keeps the lights on, but I don't care about the IP, I want to play a BETTER GAME. Come up with a better game mechanism first, and you can justify it by re-imagining the fluff however you like.

That said, it sounds like you tend to play much larger, more competitive, games than me, so the suggested expansion may not make sense for those. That's ok. GW has naturally always been expanding its idea of how many models an 'army' constitutes. A single brigade seems like the most I would ever want to play with, and that's a stretch. Most games I would play would probably be a battalion at most, maybe with a small side detachment. Any more than that and people end up getting drunk before the game finishes, tbh.

Did you have a constructive suggestion for the above (specifically, maybe ways of making it faster as you say?) or does "our space wizards are different" sum it up?

Respectfully, voskom, I feel you may be sniping at your fellow forum-goers for poking holes in your idea. Kroot shaman and anti-psyker necron units are cool concepts that can absolutely be discussed. However, I think it's fair criticism to point out that expecting people to change their fluff, find room for homebrewed new units in their armies, or make their psychic phases more drawn out and complex might present some turn-offs for your would-be opponents.

Sometimes, questioning the usefulness of a proposed rule's core premise is useful feedback in its own right.

Now, for some actual feedback on your rules. As others have pointed out, you might consider looking at the 7th edition psychic rules. Several of the things you seem to be trying to accomplish are accomplished in said psychic system. For instance, all psykers on both sides can end up contributing to the likelihood of a power being cast or denied, and the number of powers a model can cast (basically Mastery Level) contributes to how many dice (instead of counters) you have in your pool. The 7th edition rules, though slower than 8th edition rules, would also probably be a lot faster to resolve than what you've proposed, so that could help with the slowdown problems others have pointed out.

Also, I question whether it's a good idea to have powers only last until the following player turn's psychic phase. Consider a defensive power like Fortune (grants a unit 5+ chance of ignoring a wound). In the 8th edition rules, casting this power on my turn means that Fortune can help keep a unit protected on my own turn when it charges an enemy unit AND keep that same unit protected from shooting on my opponent's turn. Under your rules, as I understand them, Fortune would become less useful/reliable because casting it on both players' turns would introduce a second set of failure points (a second psychic phase) for the casting of said power.

voskom wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
As a Necron player, this change would ruin the game for me. As it is, I have virtually no way to interact with the Psychic Phase, a single Warlord Trait, and Tomb Spyders that due to a breeze with Gloom Prisims, for denials, if take them.

That's fine, don't use em. Not sure why you clicked the thread, but if you DO want to contribute something constructive though, if there WERE a psychic phase worth playing and you DID have a psychic unit, what would you imagine it to be?

Any model that can deny a power, can attempt to deny an ongoing effect. Thus you can try to deny when cast, and if it's still active during your own turn.
Drop the 'only one deny per effect' let people stack denies if they want, they still only get a finite amount per turn.
Drop the phase itself and fold psychic powers into the appropriate phase. This would streamline the game, and also make those armies that cannot interact with the psychic phase feel less stopmted on.

Your ideas are interesting, but not every army even has access to that phase. Making the psychic phase more powerful, just makes those of us unable to react feel even more panilized for choosing the factions we have. Even in lore, Psyker s don't curb stomp tau and
Necrons (especially not Necrons, they beat the old ones for feth's sake, they should have the best denial abilities in the game, but have nothing.).

Hardest of passes

Psychic powers are already stupidly strong. They do not need to become any easier, more flexible, or more powerful to use.

Armies without good psykers are already on the back foot in almost all cases.

I don't like it because it adds a lot of extra steps to phase that GW finally managed to clean up compared to the nightmare that was 7th edition. Additionally I don't want armies that traditionally not had pyskers to suddenly get them in a shoe horned way.

Besides my general lack of interest in retcons, not every army should be good or even be able to interact with every rule or phase of the game. Tau in theory should be very good in the movement and shooting phases at the expense of having no psychic and being bad at assault. Flip shooting for assault for say khorne or Black Templar army.

If everyone is equally good at everything, then armies lose identity.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
...not every army should be good or even be able to interact with every rule or phase of the game...

Not sure about this. The game becomes wildly unfun if you can't interact with the things that are killing you; ask any Tau player how much fun they had facing down consolidate-into-new-combat in 4e, or any Khorne player how much fun they had at the height of the leafblower era in 6e.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
...not every army should be good or even be able to interact with every rule or phase of the game...

Not sure about this. The game becomes wildly unfun if you can't interact with the things that are killing you; ask any Tau player how much fun they had facing down consolidate-into-new-combat in 4e, or any Khorne player how much fun they had at the height of the leafblower era in 6e.

Maybe not interact at all was a little strong, rather some units and factions are going to be poor at some things and better at others. There will always be poor match ups and yea sometimes that means your list will meet one that your not going to do well against.

That's not necessarily bad game design, that's whats going to happen when I have a fixed set of options that I took at the start of game and it's not a mirror match. If I ran into something that counters what I took, then that's going to be an uphill battle.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
...not every army should be good or even be able to interact with every rule or phase of the game...

Not sure about this. The game becomes wildly unfun if you can't interact with the things that are killing you; ask any Tau player how much fun they had facing down consolidate-into-new-combat in 4e, or any Khorne player how much fun they had at the height of the leafblower era in 6e.

In the context of the psychic phase, however, I think it's fair to say that not all armies need to have psykers or event access to Deny the Witch. Casting Warp Time or Ancestor's grace doesn't necessarily needed a mechanic denied specifically to shut it down any more than the Swarm Lord bonus movement or a captain's 6" reroll aura do.

Smite spam was a pain when it was still (more of a) thing, but even that had some counterplay in your ability to put expendable units closer to the casters or to invest in FNP options and so forth. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Tau got a piece of experimental tech or a xenos ally that let them Deny the Witch, but nothing inherent in the way psychic powers work should make it mandatory that all armies have access to such things either.