Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers in Kill Team for WH40K VII

[Brother Tyler]

Anyone that has Kill Team (and a fair few of you that don't) is aware of the following rule from the official Kill Team rules:

 

Psychic Solitude: The Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers special rule has no effect in games of Kill Team

With the release of 7th edition and the creation of a psychic phase and the Warp Charge pool, however, units with the Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers aren't nearly as potent as they were previously.

 

If the Psychic Solitude rule didn't apply during 6th edition, for example, each Pink Horror and the Iridescent Horror in a Pink Horrors of Tzeentch Kill team would be able to use a power each turn. That's potentially 20 psychic powers per turn.

 

With a Warp Charge pool, however, that same unit can use a maximum of 7 psychic powers per turn. If any of the Horrors expend more than 1 Warp Charge in using their powers (Flickering Fire of Tzeentch, for example, can use up to 3 Warp Charge points), that's even fewer.

 

So the Warp Charge pool curtails the potency of psykers significantly in Kill Team.

 

So the Psychic Solitude rule can be changed. It can't be removed entirely. So here's my proposed rule change:

 

Psychic Solitude: When generating the Warp Charge pool, each unit with the Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers special rule adds the unit's Mastery Level to the pool. For example, a Kill Team composed of a Grey Knights Purifier Squad would add only one dice to the Warp Charge pool for the squad's Mastery Level of 1. Due to the Every Man for Himself rule, each model uses psychic powers independently, using the model's Ld for the Psychic Test.

 

(That might have to be cleaned up a little.)

 

For most Kill Teams, the Warp Charge pool will max out at 7, averaging 4 Warp Charge points per turn. Additionally, since the individual models would be using their own Ld value instead of using that of the leader, the psychic powers are slightly less effective. Overall, this allows units of psykers to be taken without unbalancing the game (and enabling players to make full use of the units and the points they're paying for them).

[Dam13n]

It makes sense to me.  It doesn't hamstring those lists as much as the current 6th edition ruling, but does create a degree of internal balance that stops those same lists from becoming too overpowered.

 

It might be wise to add in an amendment that in games of Kill Team, conjuration powers are not permitted and any such powers that are generated must be re-rolled until a non-conjuration power is generated.  This also means that the primaris power "Summoning" is not permitted either, if the psyker is unable to take an alternate primaris power (via Chaos Psychic Focus for example) then their primaris power is lost.

 - Alternatively, the malefic table could be simplified to a D3, removing the conjuration powers.  With Psychic Focus granting an additional role on the table rather than unlocking the primaris.

[Brother Tyler]

This is generally covered in the Kill-Team rules already (by intent, anyways):

 

You’re on Your Own: Extra models cannot be generated during the course of the game by any means. Furthermore, the Reserves rule is not used unless as a result of the Outflank special rule. Models cannot enter Ongoing Reserve by any means. If any models in your Kill Team can normally only be deployed via Deep Strike, simply deploy them along with the rest of your army.

However, a slight amendment may be in order to ensure that psychic units don't get juiced. So perhaps adding the following to the You're on Your Own rule would be in order:

 

Re-roll all results for conjuration psychic powers.

 

What are the cases that would make this amendment/addition necessary?

[Teetengee]

considering you can only re-roll once, I would change it to say roll again until you get a non conjuration power. However, that would make malefic very reliable, so you might just want a different malefic table for kill team.

[Brother Tyler]

You can only re-roll once during the game. When generating psychic powers, however, you can re-roll until you get an appropriate result per page 23 of the rulebook.

[Teetengee]

You can only re-roll once during the game. When generating psychic powers, however, you can re-roll until you get an appropriate result per page 23 of the rulebook.

ah, nice. then that wording works fine then

still somewhat worried by the consistency that allows for in the malefic discipline, but that is a much smaller concern

[Brother Tyler]

I'm not sure what you mean there.

 

Within the Malefic powers there are four, including the primaris power, that are conjuration. By the Kill Team rules, additional models cannot be summoned/created in any way, so the conjuration powers are forbidden. The intent of the proposed wording is that any time a conjuration result is rolled, the power is rolled again until a conjuration power isn't rolled. This ensures that the Kill Team with a malefic power gets a psychic power that they can actually use in the game (i.e., one of the three other powers). Basically, this allows them to use something that they "pay" for in their points (rather than getting juiced by rolling a psychic power that they can't use, essentially wasting the points).

 

The intent is specifically for the Malefic powers.

[Teetengee]

I'm not sure what you mean there.

 

Within the Malefic powers there are four, including the primaris power, that are conjuration. By the Kill Team rules, additional models cannot be summoned/created in any way, so the conjuration powers are forbidden. The intent of the proposed wording is that any time a conjuration result is rolled, the power is rolled again until a conjuration power isn't rolled. This ensures that the Kill Team with a malefic power gets a psychic power that they can actually use in the game (i.e., one of the three other powers). Basically, this allows them to use something that they "pay" for in their points (rather than getting juiced by rolling a psychic power that they can't use, essentially wasting the points).

 

The intent is specifically for the Malefic powers.

yes but this means that they only have 3 possible powers to randomize among, rather than the 6 of most disciplines, it means that they are more likely to get the power they want