Epistolary Librarian and Force Weapon

[DuncanSpence]

Quick question,

 

Could my Epistolary Librarian use both of his powers on force weapon attacks?

 

So, uses no powers during the movement or shooting phases, charges in, gets an unsaved wound on a single opponent, fails his first Psychic test, but gets to roll again using his second power?

 

Would it need 2 unsaved wounds?

 

Could he direct one force weapon attempt against each of 2 opponents if he was lucky enough to score an unsaved wound on both?

 

Can't believe this hasn't been asked, but can't find a reference to it.

 

Cheers,

 

Duncan

[werewolf_nr]

My off the cuff answer would be yes, but I don't have any rulebook easily accessible ATM.

 

 

EDIT

As an addendum, I would say that he does need at least two unsaved wounds to do this, which isn't an improbable occurance for a power weapon.

[Praeger]

no.

 

He cant use any other psychic power at all, and a second use of the same power is still another power.

 

Use once and once only sorry.

[eyescrossed]

Why can't he, Praeger? An Epistolary can use 2 Psychic powers a turn.

[Bran Scalphunter]

Because the BBB says you can't use the same Psychic twice in one turn unless the unit's rules say you can specifically. So I think the only person who can use their force weapon twice in one turn is Ahriman.

[Cedric]

I just read the Psykers section of the BRB.

You can use the same power over and over, unless it couts as shooting a weapon (a weapon only fires once/turn).

However, if he is allowed to fire more than one ranged

weapon per turn, he can replace the firing of any of

the weapons he is allowed to fire with a psychic

shooting attack (but still cannot use the same power

twice in a turn).

P. 50 BRB

This is the only paragraph concerning how many times a power may be used, and it is only mentioned in the context of shooting. (Unless I've overlooked something)

A monstrous creature can't fire the same weapon twice, although it can fire 2 weapons in th shooting phase. The same goes with psychic powers. You can't use Bolt of Tzeench twice with the KoS, but using 2 powers to activate Force Weapon is entirely legal.

[rat of vengence]

...but still cannot use the same power twice...

 

Don't have time now, but the word 'still' suggests that it may be somewhere in the book. Could be wrong though... ;)

 

RoV

[Cedric]

I have checked the BRB in front of me.

Nowhere but on p. 50 (Psykers in general) and p. 66 (using psychic attacks from fire points) are any rules concerning psychic powers explained. Instead, the BRB refers to the individual Codexes for further rules.

 

However, take note of the following quote from p. 50 regarding Force Weapons.

 

The normal rules for using

psychic powers apply (remember that a psyker

may normally use only one power per turn).

 

Yes, indeed. Normally a psyker can only use a single power/turn. Normally.

An Epistolary can use 2, however, and Tigurius 3, as per CSM. There's no support in the rules agains using 2 psychic powers to activate the Force Weapon, if your psyker can handle 2 powers/turn.

[Isiah]

I see nothing disallowing it either. Epistolaries can use two powers per turn, the force weapon isn't a shooting weapon so isn't restricted to one power only. However reading the Force Weapon rules we get this:

 

"... to use the weapon's power against any one opponent that suffered an unsaved wound ...' Note the singular. Significant – or refering to the fact that normally only one psychic power can be used per player turn?

 

Reading too much into it? Maybe.

[nighthawks]

a singular number term in RAW tends to translate as a singular effect - in this case one use of the FW. good find.

[Blitzkrieg861]

I'm with Praegor on this one. It says you can't use the same power twice for shooting or even two different ones to shoot unless the model would be able to do so otherwise... But I dont have my book on me so I don't know. Does it say specificly this only applies for shooting? Or just "if you're doing a shooting attack, you cant use two psychic powers" kinda thing? I would imagine you cant do any power more than once unless clearly noted in your army's codex. GW is pretty good about that sort of thing...

[eyescrossed]

It only says you can't use the same shooting attack.

At least I think so...

[DuncanSpence]

Thanks for concentrating my mind.

 

Rereading the relevant bits again, my opinion is: -

• One opponent only
  
• One attempt only (irrespective of the number of wounds caused)
  

Both being limitations of the Force Weapon.

 

Better make sure I use that other Power early ^_^

 

Cheers,

 

Duncan (OP)

[firesight]

The only psyker that I know of that can use more than one shooting power is Ahriman. You can use two psychic powers (except for multiple shooting attacks) in the list at the times described, but that's it. No duplicates.

 

So, if you were really looking to lay down some pain with your Epistolary, and he's going into combat, unless he's got Terminator Armour on, you want to go with either Force Dome or the Quickening. One gives you the 5++ that you so desperately need in CC, the other gives you I10 and fleet.

[Cedric]

I see nothing disallowing it either. Epistolaries can use two powers per turn, the force weapon isn't a shooting weapon so isn't restricted to one power only. However reading the Force Weapon rules we get this:

 

"... to use the weapon's power against any one opponent that suffered an unsaved wound ...' Note the singular. Significant – or refering to the fact that normally only one psychic power can be used per player turn?

 

Reading too much into it? Maybe.

 

 

What if the victim suffers 2 unsaved wounds and lives?

Could you roll Force Weapon for each, if your psyker can handle it?

[Oldenhaller]

"...use the power of the weapon against a single opponent that suffered an unsaved wound..." would suggest that each single use of the weapon's power (normally restricted to one unless specified by the codex) may be used against any opponent who has not saved a wound.

 

I'd say you'd specifically have to state where your uses of the power were being used. Yes you can use it twice against the same target - they've suffered an unsaved wound and that is all that is required for the use of the power. Each use of the power would be a single use of a power and thus not a reroll which it could be liberally construed as - and thus why you'd need to specify where each power is targeted before hand.

 

So...

 

Libby charges, doesn't die and then assigns his attacks to two separate targets.

 

Each target is hit and wounded once and as they both only have regular armour, they auto-fail their armour saves.

 

Both targets have multiple wounds and thus don't die from these attacks.

 

The librarian then has the following options

 

1) target the both wounded models each with 1 force weapon attack (attacks 1&2 both target a model which has suffered an unsaved wound and each constitute a separate psychic attack)

 

2) target either the first or the second wounded model with 2 psychic attacks -this is declared before rolling (the target model has suffered an unsaved wound and each individual force weapon attack is targetting 1 model which has suffered 1 unsaved wound)

 

3) not bother and get eaten by the fex's he was dumb enough to charge

 

~O