Changes to psychic powers and Mephiston

[ianj253]

Hey guys, don't know if you all have read up on the changes to the psychic phase, but the information is out there. Well it seems Mephiston might be taking a hit. Don't know how wings will work with the changes but the fact your oppenet can shut it down hurts. However, he does seem handy for his bonuses to deny others powers. Guess we will have to wait and see how everything shakes out though.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Brother_Angelus]

There is a new codex due within weeks that will synchronise with the new psychic rules. Its probably best to wait and see what it says.

[knife&fork]

Hey guys, don't know if you all have read up on the changes to the psychic phase, but the information is out there. Well it seems Mephiston might be taking a hit. Don't know how wings will work with the changes but the fact your oppenet can shut it down hurts. However, he does seem handy for his bonuses to deny others powers. Guess we will have to wait and see how everything shakes out though.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

From the looks of it we will take a huge hit in the psychic department until we get our new book sometimes this fall.

 

All our psykers are expensive, and now that ML seem more important than ever things might be rough. Mephiston is entirely dependant on Psychic buffs to survive and kill things. We will need to wait and see the details on how they work, how they FAQ our old powers and what new buffs become available before saying for sure. 

 

EDIT: Psychic powers is shaping up to be a very 'all or nothing' affair.

[Cronhour]

from what I've seen meph will likly be reduced in power as a beatstick  until a new codex is out, especially with less liklyhood of powers going off and him not being IC, but he will still be a very good defensive model, shutting down powers with his ML3, and hood  with his statline in the backfield would put a few builds off. I think from the rumors deny the power is 6+, 5+ if you have a psyker, +1(to 4+) if you have a hood and +1 if you a higher mastery level( possible 3+) so as a defensive threat he's pretty beastlyas youy can use him to shut down everything including blessings now.

[Ushtarador]

If wings can be shut down reliably, it will be a huge hit for him indeed.. he certainly would need other modes of transportation, preferably inside a stormraven.

[Valerian]

There is a new codex due within weeks that will synchronise with the new psychic rules. Its probably best to wait and see what it says.

The only codex coming "within weeks" is the Ork codex; at the earliest, I wouldn't expect a Blood Angels codex until October.

[Morticon]

Or just use more dice depending on whether you need it. 

 

Either way, the times of his rampages may be over!!

[Cronhour]

Or just use more dice depending on whether you need it.

 

Either way, the times of his rampages may be over!!

although to think about it they have to decide what dice to "spend" on denying powers, so maybe you can just run him all biomancy in a raven and you should be able to get something Killy off at least before charging in, preferably iron arm, warp speed and endurance. One or two of those are enough to make most people pretty nervous in cc

[The Milkman Of Baal]

Sounds like the magic phase in fantasy.

[Valerian]

Or just use more dice depending on whether you need it. 

 

Either way, the times of his rampages may be over!!

 

Folks that have been using him exclusively might just need to rearrange their army lists, at least until the new BA codex is finally released.  That's a pretty common result of edition changes anyway.

 

Sounds like the magic phase in fantasy.

 

That's no accident, brother; a mirror of WHFB's magic phase is exactly what they're going for.

 

V

[ElectricPaladin]

I actually think the new psychic phase is going to be very good to us for two reasons:

 

Reason One: Furioso.

 

Reason Two: Librarian.

 

Think about it this way, on any given turn, you are not going to have enough Warp Charges for every psyker to do every thing you want him to do with any reliability. Sure, you might luck out once in a while and roll a 6 on the MLs + d6 roll and have a ton of warp charges flying around, but on most turns, most of your psykers are going to be back-up dancers for whichever psyker has the power you need, in the place where you need it.

 

Most psykers in the game are going to be fairly useless on those turns. A typical Space Marine librarian is just an assault sergeant with +1 WS and +1 Wound. An eldar Farseer might be marginally more useful if he has a jetbike or a singing spear. I don't know much about Orks or Tyranids, but I'm pretty sure that many of their psykers are in the same boat.

 

A furioso librarian, however, is still a dreadnought. On any turn that he is providing one (or two? I can't remember - eh, it doesn't matter because for all we know the Mastery Levels scale will change) mastery level on a stick, he's still a Strength 6 monstrosity could be hitting on Strength 7 AP 2 (with a force axe) or even Strength 8 if there's a priest nearby (and if there isn't a priest nearby, what did you do wrong?). And he has a heavy flamer and a meltagun and, potentially, a Strength 8 AP 2 magna-grapple.

 

The only factions that do better than us are Chaos Space Marines and Daemons of Chaos with their beastly Daemon Princes.

 

Anyway, consider an army that includes Mephiston, a backup libararian, and a furioso librarian. That's 5 (or 6?) + 1d6 warp charges every turn, so you can get full use out of whichever psyker you chose to exploit fully. And on any given turn that they're singing backup, one of your psykers is a marine with the statline of a daemon prince and the other is a dreadnought.

[The Milkman Of Baal]

 

Or just use more dice depending on whether you need it. 

 

Either way, the times of his rampages may be over!!

 

Folks that have been using him exclusively might just need to rearrange their army lists, at least until the new BA codex is finally released.  That's a pretty common result of edition changes anyway.

 

>Sounds like the magic phase in fantasy.

 

That's no accident, brother; a mirror of WHFB's magic phase is exactly what they're going for.

 

V

 

Thats no bad thing, brother.

[ChapelXIII]

I'm interested to see how the psyker powers are going to work, and am most interested in Wings of Sanguinius. I think that our codex powers will probably be nulled at the beginning of the new addition or something to that effect, as old powers from books simply will not work well with the new setup. 

 

However, if we get our own set of psyker powers it might be cool to get a power like the Lizarmen have in fantasy that essentially allows you to teleport 10 inches in a direction.

[JamesI]

I'm really interesting in the new Psychic rules, of course I tend to be psyker heavy with my other army being a Thousand Sons/Demons of Tzeentch teamup and rarely do my Blood Angels run without at least 1 psyker.

 

I love the idea of using Furioso Librarians as a way to have useful psykers who don't need to cast often.

[Jolemai]

Reason One: Furioso.

 

Reason Two: Librarian.

 

 

A furioso librarian, however, is still a dreadnought. On any turn that he is providing one (or two? I can't remember - eh, it doesn't matter because for all we know the Mastery Levels scale will change) mastery level on a stick, he's still a Strength 6 monstrosity could be hitting on Strength 7 AP 2 (with a force axe) or even Strength 8 if there's a priest nearby (and if there isn't a priest nearby, what did you do wrong?). And he has a heavy flamer and a meltagun and, potentially, a Strength 8 AP 2 magna-grapple.

 

Furioso Librarians are currently Mastery Level one, come equipped with a Force Axe in one hand and a Blood Fist with built in Storm Bolter on the other arm. They are not eligible for purchasing upgrades as there are no upgrade options for a Furioso Librarian Dreadnought.

 

As for these changes, the rulebook will alter what we think White Dwarf says and the FAQs will alter what we think the rulebook says...

[ElectricPaladin]

 

Reason One: Furioso.

 

Reason Two: Librarian.

 

 

A furioso librarian, however, is still a dreadnought. On any turn that he is providing one (or two? I can't remember - eh, it doesn't matter because for all we know the Mastery Levels scale will change) mastery level on a stick, he's still a Strength 6 monstrosity could be hitting on Strength 7 AP 2 (with a force axe) or even Strength 8 if there's a priest nearby (and if there isn't a priest nearby, what did you do wrong?). And he has a heavy flamer and a meltagun and, potentially, a Strength 8 AP 2 magna-grapple.

 

Furioso Librarians are currently Mastery Level one, come equipped with a Force Axe in one hand and a Blood Fist with built in Storm Bolter on the other arm. They are not eligible for purchasing upgrades as there are no upgrade options for a Furioso Librarian Dreadnought.

 

As for these changes, the rulebook will alter what we think White Dwarf says and the FAQs will alter what we think the rulebook says...

 

Thanks for clearing up some of my mistakes. I still think that my point stands.

[Calnus]

Mephiston and Furioso Librarians are still going to be very useful psykers in the new edition, at least until the new codex drops.  Simply because, like Paladin says, the model itself is useful as a beatstick.

 

Meph is still going to be a T6, S6, I7 marine eater, even if he gets no powers off.  And using him defensively will probably help, as how many other armies bring tough ML3 psykers?  Mostly you're looking at opponents who will either be Greater Daemons, or T3/T4 with some ablative wounds for their main psyker.

 

I think its important to note that the rumors say nothing about being able to manifest powers beyond your mastery level.  If you go up against a Farseer and 10 Warlocks, for example, the other guy will get 13+d6 dice, and be able to cast whatever he wants.  But if you can snipe out the Farseer, then he would only be getting 10+D6 dice and only be able to cast warp charge 1 powers (removing Fortune, all the Daemonology nastiness, Invisibility, etc.) because his highest living psyker would only be ML1.

 

This means that keeping Meph alive will be really important, as you might be able to use him to keep casting stronger powers than your opponent and generate advantage that way.  While I would never personally condone the practice, the spells that stand out are those 3 previewed Daemonology powers that can summon a squad of daemons on your side.

[John Rainbow]

As a long-time WFB player I have to say I like the idea of the changes to the psychic phase. It is actually a fairly tactical phase in WFB which is great and something that I think will improve 40k. This comes from the fact that you need to choose to split dice to cast or shut down certain powers. For instance going off the latest rumours lets say you choose to cast Wings on Mephy with 3 dice. Your opponent then needs a 6+ to deny. He has to choose how many dice to throw - going on perfect math (never happens in reality though ) he needs to use 6 of his dice to deny wings as his chance of rolling that 6 is 1/6 hence he needs 6 attempts to get it. This then leaves him open to you getting off a bunch of other powers if he no longer has dice to shut them down. This then means you have to prioritise powers and such which makes the phase a bit more tactical than the current incarnation I feel. It also means Mephy is not always guaranteed to get shut down depending on what other powers you have/may be able to use that phase.

[ianj253]

Here's to hoping he gets a jump pack in the new dex!

[Valerian]

Here's to hoping he gets a jump pack in the new dex!

 

Highly unlikely.  With no Jump Pack on the model, they simply won't do it.

 

 

v

[John Rainbow]

As I said, new rumours confirm the psychic phase being more like fantasy:

 

Psychic phase works as follows.....Roll a D6. Both players get this many dice. Then both players add up all their mastery levels and each player adds dice to his or her base pool one a 1 for 1 basis. (so If a 5 is rolled both players get 5. Player A has 4 Mastery levels so he ends up with 9 dice. Player B has 3 Mastery Levels so he has 8 dice.) Warp charges are now the powers difficulty. In order to cast a power you need a number of successes on D6s equal to its warp charges. A success is a 4+ on a D6. (If player A wanted to cast a 2 Warp Charge power he picks any number of dice and rolls them. 2 of them need to be 4+ for him to succeed.) If you fail in casting a power bad things happen to you. To Deny the Witch you choose howerver many dice you want a roll them. You need to score an equal or greater number of successes than the caster to cancel the power. A success on a Deny roll is a 6+. You get a bonus of +1 to each of the dice you roll for being a psyker, being higher mastery level or having Adimantium Will.

[A Son of Sanguinius]

I am probably going to take a verbal pummeling for this but I hope that when the new codex drops it states if you take Mephiston you get his abilities as they are listed in the Codex. My personal view is you should not get to pick other options on named characters.

[ElectricPaladin]

I am probably going to take a verbal pummeling for this but I hope that when the new codex drops it states if you take Mephiston you get his abilities as they are listed in the Codex. My personal view is you should not get to pick other options on named characters.

A number of named characters have several available modes. It's rare, but established.

[A Son of Sanguinius]

I agree, there are some with available options, like Tycho, but this does not apply to Mephiston. I remember in 3rd edition, and I think 4th edition, to play a named character it specifically stated you had to take them with the war gear and abilities as listed and you could not make any changes.

 

I just personally feel it is not the same when you change the abilities or wargear on a named character. Their points are based on how they are presented in the codex as written.

[Valerian]

I agree, there are some with available options, like Tycho, but this does not apply to Mephiston. I remember in 3rd edition, and I think 4th edition, to play a named character it specifically stated you had to take them with the war gear and abilities as listed and you could not make any changes.

 

I just personally feel it is not the same when you change the abilities or wargear on a named character. Their points are based on how they are presented in the codex as written.

 

I'm a little confused here ASOS - are there examples of Special Characters that have variable abilities or wargear?  They are all pretty much stuck with what they've got, other than those that have two modes (like Tycho), or Bjorn the Fellhanded, who is a Dreadnought, and allowed to swap around ranged weapons. 

 

Are you talking about Psychic Powers, then, and not actually Abilities and Wargear?  

 

V