Units that Choose Psyker Powers & Psychic Focus

[Grand Master Iapetus]

As a member the GK brotherhood, up till now I've pretty much stayed within the codex powers, or just grab the Primaris Power (usually Prescience).  Never really ventured into "rolling up" powers on any of the other disciplines, cause you only had a handful of Psykers - hence, no "multi-rolling" on a table with any guarantee of getting the power you wanted cause you didn't have enough dice to roll up the power.

 

But the more I'm reading, the more I'm convinced this looks to be an huge advantage for us in 7th.  We now have real Psykers in the henchmen warbands with a real roll on the discipline table.  And I think now we can reliably "roll up" an desired power based on the number of Psykers we can bring.

 

Assuming you have 2 HQ with 3-5 WC Points (Coteaz assumed), you take 4 small henchmen warbands with psykers and you're around 7-9 rolls on a table.  Ally in an ][ detachment and throw in 3 Psyker inquisitors and a couple more small psyker warbands for good measure.  You're now looking at 12-15 rolls on the discipline table.  Not to mention the rediculously high amount of Warp Charge (and DTW) dice you're going to be throwing EVERY turn.

 

Case in point:  Invisibility.  Invisibility is really fascinating.  Everybody who shoots at you does so with snap shots and you only get hit on 6s in combat.  Shooty warband blobs are actually now pretty survivable.  Put it on GKGM / GKBC / Draigo / Paladins / Purifiers...OR!!!   Dreadknights, Land Raiders...Holy Promethium batman, that's freaking amazing.

 

And with Psychic Focus, you now get *2* powers even if you are a Mastery Level (1) Psyker - because every Psyker always gets the Primaris power from the discipline.  In the case of rolling for "Invisibility", even with a small 3 man squad I would get whatever I roll PLUS the Primaris, which in this case is Psychic Shreik - not a bad shooty power that is only 1 WC and makes it a semi-viable unit.  Got off your main Psychic powers this phase ?  Got a couple WC dice left over ?  Why not try the roll...

 

Play that one out as you are generating your powers.  If you have 12+ rolls on the disciplines table, you will be able to get the power you want, stand a good chance of rolling up everything you want on another 1 (maybe 2) Discipline tables.  Vortex of Doom sounds pretty freaking good too.  Don't want to invest in more than one discipline ?  Load up the inquisitors with Prescience and stick them in a squad of Purifiers or GKTs.

 

Are there other disciplines that make sense to try and roll up ?  Other powers (like Prescience) that could buff our standard unit's Hammerhand...or Banishment or Sanctuary or Cleansing Flame ?

 

I realize this is roughly fleshed out, and there are drawbacks with it...but can our Psychic phase be honed to make us an even stronger Uber-army than we ever were before...

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I was gonna write an article about this very topic, our new psychic armoury. Might get round to doing that now haha. 

 

Some of my initial thoughts, having tried out the new FAQ'd codex;

 

Henchmen Psykers are absurd. I mean really,18pts for a min squad with one is a joke. I'd generally roll either 'Divination' (for another 'Prescience' source and one of the cool utility powers from it, its probably the only lore with zero useless powers) or roll on 'Telepathy' (the primaris is a decent shooty power, and Telepathy has some crazy powers). Do not rely on rolling 'Invis' though, you only get one roll so its very chancy. Also, Henchmen still die like flies in melee, which 'Invis' can't help with. I'd rather 'Invis' on Terminators or Purifiers, they get way more mileage out of it (they're scary good in melee). 

 

Coteaz is...I mean I was his biggest fanboy before. Now I will call you clinically insane to not take him in every list. Mastery 2 Divination, with all his freebies thrown in, plus 2+ armour and a nemesis hammer...holy Throne. So good. There is a reason tourneys ban him as an Ally for Inquisition lol. 

 

The new Knight powers are fine. 'Warp Quake' I almost never used TBH, the improved 'Hammerhand' is scary just in psychological terms (no one charges my Purifiers now), and 'Banishment' is fine as a cornercase that really helps when you're in that corner. 'Telepathy' is definitely the lore of choice on a Librarian, with Mastery 3 he has good odds for 'Invis' or the ultimate (the one that makes people go insane haha). 

 

You really have to pick and choose your options when casting. I was flat-out getting off 'Prescience' when and where I need it, WC2 is hella hard to get going (even WC1 can be blocked by a hail mary 6-dice from your opponent). Conserve your dice for critical spells, don't waste them on maybe powers. 

[jeffersonian000]

Functionally, we can only cast about 1/3 of the powers we have, where before we could potentially cast all of our powers. In compensation, our powers got a pretty huge buff (but not huge enough to make up for the 2/3 nerfing in casting). At the moment, we have to fish for the awesome powers and pick-n-chose when to attempt to use what we have. Thankfully, everyone else is in a worse position.

 

SJ