Our time to shine?

[Dammeron]

I was a little concerned initially that Ahirman had become automatically useless what with the ability of all psykers to manifest multiple witchfire powers now.

 

However, take a little read of the specific wording in the Black Staff description: it specifically states that it allows Ahriman to manifest three Witchfire powers in the shooting phase. This is highly significant, if you want to get technical and litigious about it, as, due to the restructuring of the game, psychic powers will generally be cast in the psychic phase exclusively. Owing to the wording of the Black Staff rules, I think there's a very good case to make that Ahriman could be used to cast his full quota of psychic powers in the psychic phase, then also cast three witchfire powers in the shooting phase, if there are sufficient warp charge dice available.

[Excessus]

I was a little concerned initially that Ahirman had become automatically useless what with the ability of all psykers to manifest multiple witchfire powers now.

 

However, take a little read of the specific wording in the Black Staff description: it specifically states that it allows Ahriman to manifest three Witchfire powers in the shooting phase. This is highly significant, if you want to get technical and litigious about it, as, due to the restructuring of the game, psychic powers will generally be cast in the psychic phase exclusively. Owing to the wording of the Black Staff rules, I think there's a very good case to make that Ahriman could be used to cast his full quota of psychic powers in the psychic phase, then also cast three witchfire powers in the shooting phase, if there are sufficient warp charge dice available.

I'm guessing the staff will be FAQ:ed though, as will many other things in the codexes.

[Shuggnuggath]

Well I haven't seen anything that indicates that a normal psyker can fire more than one witchfire a phase (2 if MC) so the Black Staff may not need much alteration.

[carnosaur93]

i had not thought about the sudden boost in viability for tzeentch from all of this... however it seems mainly a boost for thousand-sons builds, and unfortunately not tzeentch in general (still for some reason have the worst powers in the game it seems. what the hell.)

[Spacefrisian]

Dont get why all get so exited about the Greater Daemon thing, you still need to roll a 6 to get that power, it uses 3 warpcharges and the Greater Daemon you get is Random, eg hey why do we have a great Unclean one in our midst when we are fighting for Tzeentch.

[Ethrion]

Dont get why all get so exited about the Greater Daemon thing, you still need to roll a 6 to get that power, it uses 3 warpcharges and the Greater Daemon you get is Random, eg hey why do we have a great Unclean one in our midst when we are fighting for Tzeentch.

Umm, I've not read anywhere that it's 6s required. For all psychic powers you always need 4s so in this case a cost of 3 warp charges will require 3 4+s. Plus it's not a random greater daemon it specifically says "your choice" so we can choose a Lord of Secrets...

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/t31.0-8/p843x403/10333547_10152489684194954_3873038486156362195_o.jpg

[Excessus]

 

Dont get why all get so exited about the Greater Daemon thing, you still need to roll a 6 to get that power, it uses 3 warpcharges and the Greater Daemon you get is Random, eg hey why do we have a great Unclean one in our midst when we are fighting for Tzeentch.

Umm, I've not read anywhere that it's 6s required. For all psychic powers you always need 4s so in this case a cost of 3 warp charges will require 3 4+s. Plus it's not a random greater daemon it specifically says "your choice" so we can choose a Lord of Secrets...

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/t31.0-8/p843x403/10333547_10152489684194954_3873038486156362195_o.jpg

He speaks about actually rolling the power in the first place...I think...

 

I'm more excited about the primaris though, more scoring or fast attack power is always nice on demand! :)

[Ethrion]

Dont get why all get so exited about the Greater Daemon thing, you still need to roll a 6 to get that power, it uses 3 warpcharges and the Greater Daemon you get is Random, eg hey why do we have a great Unclean one in our midst when we are fighting for Tzeentch.

Umm, I've not read anywhere that it's 6s required. For all psychic powers you always need 4s so in this case a cost of 3 warp charges will require 3 4+s. Plus it's not a random greater daemon it specifically says "your choice" so we can choose a Lord of Secrets...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/t31.0-8/p843x403/10333547_10152489684194954_3873038486156362195_o.jpg

He speaks about actually rolling the power in the first place...I think...

I'm more excited about the primaris though, more scoring or fast attack power is always nice on demand!

Ohhh! Quite right yes. But lets be fair, Ahriman rolls 3 times on that table, odds are good for a 6

[EricBasser]

Still need and wait for rules of a conjuration. They may throw something in there about not being able to score, or probably not the objective secured ability. I think 6th had rules for conjurations and nonscoring was one.

[Xenith]

So:

 

Ahriman, 2 units of TS net you D6+6 Warp charges, on average 9.5

 

Assuming it you use 2 dice per warp cost 1 power, that gets you 4-5 powers per turn.

 

However Doombolt, or any of the other interesting WC2 powers require 4 dice to have an evens chance of casting, which sees you only get to cast 2 of these powers/turn.

 

Kind of lame.

 

On the plus side, CSM now get Divination.

 

I can only hope prescience stays as the Primaris and WC1.

[Aasfresser]

So:

 

Ahriman, 2 units of TS net you D6+6 Warp charges, on average 9.5

 

Assuming it you use 2 dice per warp cost 1 power, that gets you 4-5 powers per turn.

 

However Doombolt, or any of the other interesting WC2 powers require 4 dice to have an evens chance of casting, which sees you only get to cast 2 of these powers/turn.

 

Kind of lame.

 

On the plus side, CSM now get Divination.

 

I can only hope prescience stays as the Primaris and WC1.

 

Prescienence is still a primaris but it's WC2.

 

I really frear for Ahriman. He's ML4, so that's fine. But he can't buy anything that gives him re-rolls for psychic-tests. With the new perills chart he will kill himself quite fast. Maybe faster than in 6ed.

[Shuggnuggath]

I like that smite and psychic shriek are now 18 inch range.

[Prodigal Son of Magnus]

I am optimistic but I would wait for an FAQ before getting excited.

[Miyu]

Uuuh Chaos get divination as a psychic domain? I must have missed this. Is it in the new rulebook?

[Hellrender]

Its on the new overview with who gets what powers. But as said before, the 6th edition codeci still trump the new rulebook, with specificly saying who gets to roll on what.

 

Just waiting for a faq now.

[Miyu]

Ah I see. I completely missed that part, but thanks for telling me Hellrender! :)

 

[incinerator950]

Wow, well then hopefully we get a nice juicy faq to help us.  Along with changing VotLW to all of the armies of the Imperium, but I guess we need baby steps before we're cool.

[Ethrion]

I think the quick reference card is a bit over simplified - it states that chaos space marines have access to divination but that is a generalized 'tick' in the column, the tick is there because via the Crimson Slaughter supplement a sorcerer can take that discipline. The same goes for loyalist librarians - they have the divination box ticked as well but that is simply because Tigurius has access to it. The options for what a sorcerer or a librarian can take are still clearly listed in their entries and have not been retconned. Only the likes of those filthy space wolves have had their psychic powers utterly erased and are told via FAQ now what they can take.

 

(Jaws of the World Wolf, the bane of my tyranid existence has finally been snuffed out!)

[incinerator950]

So who got shafted the hardest?

[Tenebris]

Well technically speaking with the recent FAQ:

 

A Thousand Sons army allied with Daemons of Tzeentch has some potential as a summon bot. Not on par with Daemons primary but still solid. The free Primaris (though still an underwhelming one) from the Lore of Change is a nice bonus and if nothing else allows for some flexibility should and Aspiring Sorcerer roll something else on the table, so instead of one power the Thousand Sons Aspiring Sorcerers have two. 

 

Ahriman can shoot three Witchfire powers of the same type so with the boost to Psychic Shriek and Smite this has some solid potential to inflict quite some damage.

 

Overall not bad for the Thousand Sons, the main problem I see now is the increase in causalities from Perils of the Warp which will account for more sorcerers dead then the enemy guns. 

 

 

Our time to shine, no... not in the least. The Thousand Sons are still mediocre as an unit and Ahriman is still too expensive for what he does. But between Daemons of Tzeentch and Thousand Sons some nasty Daemonology, Biomancy and Telepathy nastiness can be unleashed with all those warp dice per turn. 

[Hellios]

Do you know what would be nice? Allowing marked sorcerers to count as being Daemon in regards to summoning stuff as long as they are aligned to the same god as the daemon.... Hell, I'd even allow marks of Khorne to be taken on sorcerers, just restrict them to the summoning magic, and call them Blood Priests, or Skull Summoners.... or something like that.

[DoomulusPrime]

So, just read the Daemons FAQ, and no changed at all to the Daemons of Tzeentch special rule...

 

So now, the avatars of the God of Sorcery no longer have an advantage when casting said spells, and have to make do with a 1/6 chance to reroll a failed invuln save.  

 

One would have thought GW would have tossed us some small bone with a buff to Tzeentch casting...

[Ethrion]

Overall not bad for the Thousand Sons, the main problem I see now is the increase in causalities from Perils of the Warp which will account for more sorcerers dead then the enemy guns. 

 

 

Our time to shine, no... not in the least. The Thousand Sons are still mediocre as an unit and Ahriman is still too expensive for what he does. But between Daemons of Tzeentch and Thousand Sons some nasty Daemonology, Biomancy and Telepathy nastiness can be unleashed with all those warp dice per turn. 

To be honest the way manifesting psychic powers works now I don't think it's going to see an increase in self inflicted casualties. Aspiring sorcerers were always at risk with the old way of a Ld test - those 1,1 and 6,6 came up a fair bit. Now an aspiring sorcerer is probably going to throw 2 to 3 dice max at a spell...hardly a serious threat of 6,6 there. And anyway, the aspiring sorcerers might not use any of the psychic pool dice, they are there to add to the pool for their sorcerer lord to use.

 

Ahriman will face the same thing, for example he'll throw about 2,3 dice at biomancy or telepathy primaris three times, again doesn't seem like an increased risk of 6,6 if you do it like that. Of course as with any sorcerer if you start taking warp charge 3 spells and start throwing a ton of dice at something to "guarentee" it going off you are definitely raising the risk but that is as it should be IMO.

 

I'll leave the debate of rubrics mediocre or not for the other topic but as for Ahriman's cost, I'd argue that he has now gone up in value and is even more worth those points. Now we have a ML4 sorcerer that can quite possibly be S/T7, have FnP and eternal warrior and regain wounds lost earlier via leech. Or a sorcerer that can blast the same witchfire 3 times be that psychic shriek, smite or even 3 heavy flamers if you so chose pyromancy ;) .That's not to mention he can still infiltrate/outflank D3 of the army so keeping the enemy guessing and unsure. And of course he makes the rubrics troops which make them have 'objective secured'.

 

By no means are Thousand Sons now suddenly top tier but I think the psychic phase has given us a boost and also if we take the sorcerer from the CS supplement we can start dabbling in malefic daemonology a lot more safely. Hell, we can still "pay" for actual daemon allies thus bypassing the whole risk of summoning in the first place too.

[daboarder]

Check out the latest FAQ for ahriman

 

He can cast up to 15 witchfires a turn.

[Ethrion]

Check out the latest FAQ for ahriman

 

He can cast up to 15 witchfires a turn.

Well if you cram in as many mastery levels as possible and take only witchfire powers then yeah he can technically cast each of the 5 three times LOL...I might try that tomorrow!