Is Malefic Too Potent?

[Prot]

I'm just going over some rules, and psychic abilities and trying to figure out the best way to run my  Crimson Slaughter and I keep coming back to Malefic.

 

It's a no brainer to me because obviously I can take a regular psyker and throw on Slave to voices (Daemon) and then add a flying DP (who may not land until good and ready), now add Malefic.

 

For about 400 points I have 6 warp charges (plus perhaps a spell familiar) and I have two guys with great force multiplier abilities without fearing perils.

 

I know this is -nothing- compared to what Daemons can do but I strongly believe GW will FAQ what Daemons are capable of right now.

 

But even taking Daemons out of the equation I don't know how many people are going to want to play against such a list. I'm not saying it's easy to pull off. Some considerations are:

 

- Not playing against Grey Knights (they may shut a lot of this down I imagine).

- While the DP can be flying, the standard Sorc will have to be out of  a vehicle to summon and it's all baslcally a foot around him. However, in a squad of peons (cultists?) he will be hard to pick out, and have lots of fodder to sacrifice to the gods.

 

The good is that even when not summoning daemons, Malefic can lend itself pretty nicely to my Possessed troops. Not making them 'uber' by any means but definitely boosting them. (I normally run 2 squads, and am thinking that should be enough in scoring rhinos.)

 

Admittedly I won't be playing a game until tomorrow, but I'm wondering if GW went too far with Malefic/Sanctic?

 

Both are super potent in their own rights, but Malefic is a tremendous force multiplier. Both powers heavily favour Daemons and/or Grey Knights, but Crimson Slaughter can actually take great advantage of Malefic and it's hard to NOT use it.

 

Is Malefic O.P.? (In the hands of Chaos/CS, obviously it is overkill for Daemons)

 

I have some friends already saying if they saw a daemon army at their next tourney they simply will concede and not bother with the game. I don't want to be one of 'those' guys.

 

Thoughts?

[daboarder]

Not for us.

 

and for daemons its only really a problem when you get to a critical volume of warp charges.

 

outside of the ability to throw dice at the spells like candy its good but nowhere near broken

[Clone]

I used malefic last night and I can say that I certainly felt bad when I summoned a plague bearer and flamer of tzeentch squad, my opponent had spent a lot of firepower trying to remove my infantry only for me to summon 13 new models!

 

One thing to say about psychic powers this edition is that they are far far from given now. I had a total of 8 mastery levels in my army and tended to have between 12 and 14 dice in my pool per phase but I found it difficult trying to cast a warp charge 3 power like summoning. I got perils twice on my malefic greater daemon and luckily I didn't get a terrible result on the perils table, it could've been much worse for me.

 

Malefic is something that seems really powerful on paper but in practice it's much harder to do.

[Tenebris]

Everything if abused is broken but I do not see the Malefic discipline as especially broken. 

 

I predict that the future will see the Chaos armies with a detachment of 1x Herald of Tzeentch and 11 Horrors for a total of 5 warp charges per turn and a Sorcerer or two in Cultists bunkers to boost the warp dice a bit more. 

 

In an average CSM/CD army list or even as standalone armies we are looking to one, maximum two summons per turn which can or cannot amount to 500+ points of extra Daemons. But this is all fun and good (we had the Portalglyph, Fantasy Undead can summon even more units on the board or even transform in dragons) but I would not rank it as especially powerful. 

 

It will give team Chaos a boost in numbers but we still speak of small units, usually it will be Daemon troops but also Flamers and Screamers will be an option. Yet we speak of single wound models who can easily be blasted to pieces by the heavy guns of the other factions (big guns we severely lack) and are still subject to dispel by the opposing player. Unless you build an army completely around this mechanic the Daemonology acts as a boost but it is not so powerful to allow you dominate the meta.

 

Sure Chaos can put out some ridiculous amounts of warp dice but the more we abuse this mechanic the more our psykers will suffer and we will be seeing many Daemon Princes and Heralds die to Perils in the near future. Also keep in mind that the unit which is summoned acts as a Deep Strike unit so unless it can shoot, and Daemons cannot shoot (at least most of the army entries) this means that they are exposed out in the open to a turn of enemy fire. What was a squad of 10 Daemonettes when you summoned them, by the time you will use them if your adversary is smart you will be looking at an average of 6 or less Daemonettes.

 

Indeed, the summoning mechanic can lead to some serious abuse but the other psychic powers from the different lores are nothing to sneeze about, the other Librarians can kill us dead quite quickly and they come with the standard psychic hood and are point by point better alternatives to our Sorcerers, since a loyalist or xeno psyker has a better synergy with their book.

 

At best the summons will help us to stay a bit longer on the board, eating precious enemy fire which would be otherwise heading our way so my advice is to be very aggressive with conjuration and use it as ablative wounds or potential lure targets for the enemy guns. The heavy lifting will be still done by our army entries and at best some blessing would benefit Daemon or Daemon like builds but remember the other armies have the tools to shut us down and even them have the access to Daemonology, we just do it better then them.   

[Prot]

Your Malefic Greater Daemon is a 'Daemon' is it not?  I thought this meant no perils. Just like Grey Knights can't peril on Sanctic.

 

That's why as Crimson Slaughter I think it's even more potent. I was honestly close to giving up on my  Crimson Slaughter, but Malefic is a game changer.  You are the first person I know though to actually -use it- , so I appreciate your feedback.

 

Game changer is one thing, just hopefully not... broken.

[Lord Xcapobl]

Greater daemons just manifest these powers as normal, including a normal Perils chance.

All other psykers without the Daemon rule suffer Perils on any double, not just on a double 6.

[RolandTHTG]

@ Prot - if you give the sorcerer Voices, he can only join Posessed, so no cultist blanket for him. 

[Kilofix]

4 Heralds - not broken.

 

30 Heralds - broken.

[Clone]

Your Malefic Greater Daemon is a 'Daemon' is it not? I thought this meant no perils. Just like Grey Knights can't peril on Sanctic.

 

That's why as Crimson Slaughter I think it's even more potent. I was honestly close to giving up on my Crimson Slaughter, but Malefic is a game changer. You are the first person I know though to actually -use it- , so I appreciate your feedback.

 

Game changer is one thing, just hopefully not... broken.

Daemons still suffer perils but just with a double 6 like other disciplines. The more dice you roll, however, the more chance those 6's will pop up. Like I say, I was lucky that my psyker only took 2 wounds from both perils but I could've just as easily seen my psyker kill himself and then that's a 200+ point model down the drain.

 

All psychic powers are a gamble now. My opponent didn't get divination off once!

[Prot]

@ Prot - if you give the sorcerer Voices, he can only join Posessed, so no cultist blanket for him. 

 

Ah right. Good point. I'm used to running Kranon with Voices, so he's always with Possessed.

 

I guess the sorc will be flying down field with a bunch of wild possessed (probably running behind a rhino), summoning as he goes...

 

On the perils thing, the way I see it they really wrote Malefic for Chaos SM and Daemons. If we're saying Malefic is a bit of a gamble to get off with the 'daemon' rule in effect, then it should be suicidal for anyone else to try it.  (I guess same goes for Sanctic and Grey Knights).

[totgeboren]

I played a game today, 1750 pts vs Nids. I had a pretty weird army, but I played as CS with a balestar Slaanesh Sorcerer with Divination and a Tzeentch flying Daemon Prince with Malific.

 

I have to say, I think we (CSM) have the best Malefic casters in the game, since we can give our Daemon Princes Spell Familiars. Sure, we only get two rolls on the Malefic table (I think, I know it's up for debate).

 

My Prince vector struck an enemy Flyrant, then he just flew around in enemy lines and cast Summoning using 5 dice, pooping out daemons in the Nid backfield, dropping down after a while to go and kill some monsters in close combat. Our Daemon Summoners can cast with 5 dice and still have a 75% chance of success every turn, so we sort of get a 1 dice discount compared to everyone else. My prince Periled twice, lost a wound the first time thanks to Shadow in the Warp then got the super-buff instead (managed a Ld test of 6! Damn Shadow). Casting Summoning within 12" of Nid Synapse it a pretty bad idea, since you get a -3 Ld debuff if you Peril!

 

So yeah, CSM with the Daemon rule are pretty imba, definitely good enough to compensate for the Heldrake nerf I would say.

[Sception]

If you've got more than 1 malefic caster per 1k points (rounded up, so 2 in a 2k game), then you're probably pushing it for friendly games.

 

If, on an average d6 roll for number of power dice, you end up with more power dice than the points value of he game divided by 100 (ie, more than 10 average in a 1k point game, more than 15 average in a 1500 point game, etc), then you are definitely pushing it for a friendly game, especially if you have enough malefic casters to spend most of those dice on conjurations.

 

The above suggested limits aren't just for starting values either - when conjuring units in casual, friendly games, avoid conjuring more mastery levels or malefic casters onto the table if doing so would take you above those rough guidelines. Just conjure something else, instead.

 

In cut throat competitive environments, do what you will, no judgments. In a more casual setting, consider toning it down a bit if you get to that point, either changing your army to include fewer mastery levels, or chosing to take other disciplines than malefic with some of your casters.

[totgeboren]

Me and my friend figured the best house rule is to only have the D6 warp charges be common, so you can't have backfield warp charge batteries or summon horrors to act as batteries. That way only on a high roll (a 5 or 6) will you ever have enough warp charge to attempt more than one summoning, and the ones who have to do the summoning will be your expensive lvl 2-3 psykers, meaning they can't do anything else at all (since they are out of personal warp charge).

It also removes the problem of having a small cheap or free squad like a portalglyph horror squad do the summoning using warp charge generated by more powerful psykers, thereby removing all risk-vs-reward of daemonology and perils from your more expensive psyker. You get all the benefit and none of the drawbacks, because who cares if a squad of 5 wyrdvane psykers or a free squad of Horrors suffer a peril? They are cheap or free anyway.

 

By such a house rule there isn't really much point in spamming psykers, meaning people will probably make more interesting armies.

[TheDevourer]

I played alot of malefic in 1000 points today. Going for 20+ d6 dice to cast with per turn. To be honest I wasn't impressed at all. 5-6 Dice still don't mean you get a unit. Then you also have no output on the table apart from summoning. Played against deldar and daemons with hounds, the hounds managed to outdamage.

 

Note this was a test of going full malefic to see how far one can abuse the summoning spells. I probably still managed aprox 400-500 points of summoning per games, but it still couldn't turn the game damage wise.

[HJL]

I used it in a couple of games yesterday. Unless you have a load of daemons to do it with you will be summoning 1 squad a turn. This will use almost all of your power dice to do and means that in exchange for all of the buffing and damaging that they should be doing they are summoning 1 100point squad that cant charge or do anything really useful on the turn it gets there.

 

Its not OP unless you have a crazy daemon summoning army.

[Prot]

I played alot of malefic in 1000 points today. Going for 20+ d6 dice to cast with per turn. To be honest I wasn't impressed at all. 5-6 Dice still don't mean you get a unit. Then you also have no output on the table apart from summoning. Played against deldar and daemons with hounds, the hounds managed to outdamage.

 

Note this was a test of going full malefic to see how far one can abuse the summoning spells. I probably still managed aprox 400-500 points of summoning per games, but it still couldn't turn the game damage wise.

 

I'm not doubting you but having 1,500 pts to your opponent's 1,000 points seems.... strong. I understand it might not be as potent as I was worried about but in hindsight would you say your summoning was optimal? I mean position wise? What you summoned? What would you do different?

[Clone]

I used it in a couple of games yesterday. Unless you have a load of daemons to do it with you will be summoning 1 squad a turn. This will use almost all of your power dice to do and means that in exchange for all of the buffing and damaging that they should be doing they are summoning 1 100point squad that cant charge or do anything really useful on the turn it gets there.

 

Its not OP unless you have a crazy daemon summoning army.

This. It's probably going to be better to get several level 1 powers off than keep chucking dice at a level 3.

[TheDevourer]

Playing against for example 8 venoms in a dark eldar army i would say summoning is kinda bad to start with unless you can find a large los blob where you can hide most of your army, which is hard to pull off against mobile deldar. 

 

I played 2*11 horrors 4*ml3 tzeentch herolds with a portalglyph and I tested out 3 burning chariots. (The chariots were actually pretty neat). But all my points leaning towards summoning left me wit h no damage output and what I could summon just got blown up a turn later by the 12*8 poison shots. 

The other game was against 20 hounds and a soulgrinder and once again the hounds reached my lines and killed all summoned units aswell as horrors within a turn.

 

I summoned nettes and plague drone to keep the hounds at bay, but like I said offensive capability was lacking. Although I do have to note that i didn't roll a single 6 on malefic so no greater daemons.

[the jeske]

It is rather simple for me . Can an army get more then 13+d6 power dice per turn or more without paying an arm and a leg for it ? if yes and it can take malefic , then malefic in that set up is too strong against anything that isn't also a choir list.

[Gratan]

In my Crimson Slaughter army I have one Sorcerer. Malefic seems perfect for him. I can summon the occasional unit of Bloodletters and remain completely fluffy. I love it.

 

But... the abuse that has already been shown is staggering...