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Maleficarum in HH


Honda

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Prelude: I just wanted to state upfront that my current involvement with HH is centered around reading the books, a little modeling, a little story writing, and a lot of ogling of things I'd like to have. I have not gotten any of the books yet. I will, but I'm most interested in Prospero and the Siege of Terra, so we're not there yet.

 

I just finished reading Thousand Sons/Prospero Burns again (primarily interested in the invasion and battle of Prospero), which caused me to wonder about current 30K mechanics.

 

My general impression of 30K games at this point, and I am fully laying out my ignorance on the subject of how 30K games play, is that there isn't a lot of, for lack of a better term maleficarum, associated at this point. That games are modeled after the martial capabilities of a Legion, i.e. it's about the boots and treads that people show up with.

 

Is that assumption correct?

 

If yes, does that mean new capabilities will be needed to accurately portray how the TS fight? Same for the Wolves, though I see that as less of an issue.

 

So, I'm just curious what people are thinking on this, or if they have even given it a consideration.

 

Cheers,

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The Word Bearers' special rules & Rite of War let them make all

their Praetors & Centurions into psykers and ally in Chaos Daemons

as Battle Brothers.

 

Very interesting. So do the WB get the Val Gorbhak (i.e. Possessed) as a unit choice?

 

 

 

The Word Bearers' special rules & Rite of War let them make all

their Praetors & Centurions into psykers and ally in Chaos Daemons

as Battle Brothers.

Very interesting. So do the WB get the Val Gorbhak (i.e. Possessed) as a unit choice?
Yep.

 

Also, and I dont know if this really relavent, but there are rules for legion librarians. So psykers are an option but are mostly overshadowed by all the other cool unit options.

 

Did the XV Legion have psykers leading their units prior to the Rubric?

 

In a manner of speaking, yes.

 

You sort of have to read between the lines of McNeill's description of the battles, but it's very clear that there are, for sake of argument let's call them adepts, very powerful psykers with different types of powers. The TS are very strong in that regard. I think the rest of the TS, for the most part, would use Legion rules, but it's also very clear that the leaders are able to use powerful magicks.

 

Of course, they are a two edged sword, because those magicks can also turn them into a spawn or a small nuclear explosion.

 

It will be very interesting to see what FW comes up with.

I'd imagine there will be a rite of war to account for the Thousand Sons' general level of psychic protection and such, generally a passive, always on power, representing the low level psionics and protection from more powerful psykers.

 

Then there may be specific units that have aggressive, active powers.

 

Does HH use rulebook powers? I'd imagine TS would get their own lore.

 

Does anyone think the Wolves will have some kind of anti-psyker weapon

upgrade or special rule? Thinking of when Bjorn carves a maleficarum

rune on Daemon-Amon's armour and it flips out.

 

At the same time, the Wolves were devastated by the TS once their lines closed on each other and it wasn't until the intervention of the Silent Sisters that the wolves regained the initiative.

 

So despite the inclusion of Rune Priests in their forces, I don't see that as a competitive advantage for the wolves. Wyrdmake and Helwinter got spanked pretty bad by the TS, though admittedly, Helwinter was hosed by Horus who we don't normally think of as a psyker...at least early in the HH engagement.

Does anyone think the Wolves will have some kind of anti-psyker weapon

upgrade or special rule? Thinking of when Bjorn carves a maleficarum

rune on Daemon-Amon's armour and it flips out.

At the same time, the Wolves were devastated by the TS once their lines closed on each other and it wasn't until the intervention of the Silent Sisters that the wolves regained the initiative.

So despite the inclusion of Rune Priests in their forces, I don't see that as a competitive advantage for the wolves. Wyrdmake and Helwinter got spanked pretty bad by the TS, though admittedly, Helwinter was hosed by Horus who we don't normally think of as a psyker...at least early in the HH engagement.

That was a shape-shifting daemon though, not the actual Horus.

True, but they could have some kind of rune special rule? Different runes that can be taken with each squad to give different perks, would allow for much more customisability.

Or a weapons upgrade, something like re-roll when hitting/wounding psykers in cc. I'm not that up-to-date with table top rules so this might make no sense sweat.gif

 

That was a shape-shifting daemon though, not the actual Horus.

 

Interesting. In fact I just read that bit last night and I had not come to that conclusion. I'm not disagreeing with your observation, but that had not occurred to me.

 

I had assumed that since time was all messed up in that scene anyway, that we were just seeing an aspect of a future Horus.

 

Now I'm going to go back and read that again. ;)

 

Does anyone think the Wolves will have some kind of anti-psyker weapon

upgrade or special rule? Thinking of when Bjorn carves a maleficarum

rune on Daemon-Amon's armour and it flips out.

At the same time, the Wolves were devastated by the TS once their lines closed on each other and it wasn't until the intervention of the Silent Sisters that the wolves regained the initiative.

 

So despite the inclusion of Rune Priests in their forces, I don't see that as a competitive advantage for the wolves. Wyrdmake and Helwinter got spanked pretty bad by the TS, though admittedly, Helwinter was hosed by Horus who we don't normally think of as a psyker...at least early in the HH engagement.

I can provide several quotes from A Thousand Sons to the contrary. But it should be noted that Magnus himself said that the Wolves did not bring enough Sisters to take Tisca.

 

 

 

Does anyone think the Wolves will have some kind of anti-psyker weapon

upgrade or special rule? Thinking of when Bjorn carves a maleficarum

rune on Daemon-Amon's armour and it flips out.

At the same time, the Wolves were devastated by the TS once their lines closed on each other and it wasn't until the intervention of the Silent Sisters that the wolves regained the initiative.

 

So despite the inclusion of Rune Priests in their forces, I don't see that as a competitive advantage for the wolves. Wyrdmake and Helwinter got spanked pretty bad by the TS, though admittedly, Helwinter was hosed by Horus who we don't normally think of as a psyker...at least early in the HH engagement.

I can provide several quotes from A Thousand Sons to the contrary. But it should be noted that Magnus himself said that the Wolves did not bring enough Sisters to take Tisca.
And I can make a few quotes from A Thousand Sons where Wyrdmake's soul was fed to the warp and a KSon duo used the blank areas created by the Sisters for target practice.

 

No, I do not believe the Wolves will have anti-psyker capabilities. They don't have any true justification for it beyond the usual "Psykers make great defenses against psykers" as the true anti-psyker weapons were the Sisters of Silence, who are not Space Wolves.

That seemed unlikely, though perhaps the many fetishes hanging from his armour were shielding him. The protection offered by such talismans was largely illusory, but belief in such things could be a potent force.

How about a quote from the very Thousand Son who enginered Wyrdmake's death addressing the very thing you "do not believe the Wolves will have" and have rules wise in 40K.

The true anti-psyker weapons were the Sisters of Silence, who are not Space Wolves.

This is however irrelevant to what I was saying. Yes the Sister of Silence are a potent anti-psyker weapon. But they are not what turned the tide on Prospero. If anything that was the Thousand Sons themselves. Pushing themselves to the point that they lost control.

 

To repeat myself I would not expect to see any extra anti-psyker abilities beyond what we see in the 40K Wolves.

And somewhere I feel there was a failure to communicate.

 

 

 This,

And I can make a few quotes from A Thousand Sons where Wyrdmake's soul was fed to the warp and a KSon duo used the blank areas created by the Sisters for target practice.

Goes to this:

 

 

 

 

 

Does anyone think the Wolves will have some kind of anti-psyker weapon

upgrade or special rule? Thinking of when Bjorn carves a maleficarum

rune on Daemon-Amon's armour and it flips out.

At the same time, the Wolves were devastated by the TS once their lines closed on each other and it wasn't until the intervention of the Silent Sisters that the wolves regained the initiative.

 

So despite the inclusion of Rune Priests in their forces, I don't see that as a competitive advantage for the wolves. Wyrdmake and Helwinter got spanked pretty bad by the TS, though admittedly, Helwinter was hosed by Horus who we don't normally think of as a psyker...at least early in the HH engagement.

 

 

I can provide several quotes from A Thousand Sons to the contrary. But it should be noted that Magnus himself said that the Wolves did not bring enough Sisters to take Tisca.

 

 

And this:

No, I do not believe the Wolves will have anti-psyker capabilities. They don't have any true justification for it beyond the usual "Psykers make great defenses against psykers" as the true anti-psyker weapons were the Sisters of Silence, who are not Space Wolves.

Goes to this:

Does anyone think the Wolves will have some kind of anti-psyker weapon

upgrade or special rule? Thinking of when Bjorn carves a maleficarum

rune on Daemon-Amon's armour and it flips out.

Considering how all psychic defenses have become much more limited, I fully expect runic weapons to get hit once SW get an updated codex. And I'd be quite sad to see them worm their way into 30k with their current effect.

 

Psychic powers, beside benedictions and maledictions, already suffer plenty from GW's lolrandom effect that they don't need yet another auto-cancel mechanic thrown into the mix.

I don't believe the Wolves deserve any peculiar trait to combat psykers; them using runes to combat daemons is equivalent to the alpha legion using some gadget or the world eaters using their... axes.

 

Now the word bearers do have a potent anti psyker ability within their Massacre rite, a well balanced addition I might add given its fluff backing and equal imposition on both sides.

 

As for the thousand sons I stand by my speculation of squad-level powers to maintain the flow of the game (ten men = LD ten, perils = lose a man), but on the subject of counters of probably say in this instance it wouldn't be asking too much for TS librarians to be able laugh at anything the other legions can conjure.

Well, the way I see it about the runes is that they aren't really "anti-psyker", just part of the usual "Psykers are the best defense against psykers" schpiel there has been. So I wouldn't have a problem against Runes, but they'd have to be more about protecting the Wolves than attacking psykers, IMHO.
I take it I'm missing some crunch regarding runes outside of Heresy novels? I struggle to remember anything concerning runes the few times I played against wolves, is it in line with eldar farseer stones, something which would be more familiar to me given my gamin history?

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