The need of Psyker

[Brother Bahram]

With 7th edition it is a loot of focus on the psychic phase.

The question: how big is the loss of benefits NOT fielding a psyker?
Does it depends on the army you are facing, the total mastery levels?

Or do we need to always field one psyker?

[Larhendiel]

It depens, if I want ravenwing I field Sammael, if I want Deathwing I field Belial, if I want greenwing I save myself points by fielding librarian. He is WS5, which is decent, can have terminator armour for 2+ Sv and displacer field or PFG for inva save.

Why libby not chaplain or company master?

First its cheaper than those and secondly it gives much more boost. Re-roll for whole unit for shooting and melee for chosen by me unit? Yes please, it is maybe slightly less reliable an chaplain but gives more versality. Also company master although tougher and more formidable in shooting as well as in melee, gives much less to our army and suprisingly can't take bike.

 

For me very often libby is a no brainer

[Maraech]

I don't think they are as mandatory as most think.  If you have a roll for one to fill then thats great, take one.  I wouldn't take one just because its 7th edition or to deny the witch since all anyone ever uses are blessing and conjuration and you have a very small chance to stop those anyway.  DA are looking at what 5 warp dice if you take Ezekiel and a level 2 librarian.  After that you have to do another detachment or ally so I think it would start hurting the lists more.  So my personal opinion is it can be good to have 1 just to do a spell or 2 but I wouldn't build a list around it as we can't do what Eldar, Daemons, or Grey Knights can do with all the extra dice.  Then again if you are fighting Eldar, Daemons, or Grey Knights they have a good chance to stop anything you do, so it would almost just be a waste to have a psycher.

[SnakeChisler]

Every dice on the deny front is a blessing I'd take a level 2 with any army as a 2nd HQ

 

Also the 10 points spent on the death wing knights watcher is well worth it for the deny buff

 

If you want to get in close and personal then your going to have to confront the warp, in the games I've had so far in 7th the knights have been heavily targeted with psychic attacks

 

Everything you do to force your opponent to throw more dice at his power is another chance they'll miscast

[Maraech]

In my games all they cast are blessing and things I don't get bonus to deny the witch on.  Invisibility is pretty broken and that is the main one I run into.  I save all my dice for it but even throwing 7 or 8 dice I never denied it.  He periled and rolled a 1 once but then just made his LD test.  That chart should be more harsh.  Just take out he LD test and keep the rest for the 1 result.  If you perils and roll a 1 your just dead, just like mishap from deep strike.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

We don't need psykers per se, but other than Belial and Sammael, they're the best HQ we can field, IMHO.