Dark angels and the psychic phase

[Darkangeldentist]

7th edition has brought back the psychic phase as a separate individual part of the turn sequence and the changes bring ominous portents regarding psychic heavy lists featuring huge quantities of warp charge and the question arises whether a single Dark angel librarian is still worth it? This thread will I hope allow people to discuss experiences and ideas about how best to utilise, defend against and exploit psychic powers in this new edition.

 

As a starting point I'd like to go over some of the basic changes and the impact of the changes to pyschic powers.

 

 

Warp charge:

 

Firstly warp charge is still in place but it has changed a lot. Generating warp charge still depends directly on how many psykers you bring and their mastery level but now you pool all the warp charge in addition to this there will also be 1D6 extra warp charge to help. Both players generate warp charge each turn but only the active player can cast any powers.

 

The warp charge cost for pyschic powers remains largely the same as well but now casting powers is much more random and requires you to roll the relevent number of four pluses to cast powers. Deny the witch also still exists and this is how you spend warp charge when the opponent is casting powers. More on that later.

 

The change from simply passing a leadership test to now rolling dice and hoping for enough 4+ rolls makes casting powers a lot less reliable at first glance, particularly high cost powers. Some now cost 3 warp charge and judging how many dice you ought to roll is much trickier than you might presume. Although you can start out with a lot of warp charge it's still quite easy to fail to cast even a single power.

 

 

Mastery levels:

 

Mastery levels still determine directly how much warp charge your psyker generates himself and also how many powers they know. The biggest difference from the last edition though is that the cost of certain powers no longer prohibits low level psykers from attempting them. A level 1 psyker can now attempt to cast a 2 or 3 warp charge cost power. This is a big change and impacts the game in several potentially significant ways. You can cast multiple powers from the same psyker whose warp charge cost would normally be far beyond what they could in the previous edition. This means potentially you could see a level 2 psyker cast both his warp charge 2 powers and activate his force weapon in the same turn, which would have been impossible previously.

 

 

Deny the witch:

 

Still very much the same as before except now you can stop blessings and other powers that do not target your units. Now the to deny the witch you must equal the number of successful rolls made by the opponent casting the power. Just as before only rolls of a 6 count as successes, however when your own units are targeted by a witchfire or malediction power there are bonuses that can make denial easier. Being a psyker or having adamantium will both add 1 to your rolls and if you are a higher level psyker then you'll receive an addition +1. If you can stack all of these bonuses it's actually possible to have an easier time denying the witch than the opponent has casting powers in the fist place. You can roll any number of dice from your warp charge pool to deny the witch.

 

Overall it means that deny the witch is still unlikely but you can now potentially stop blessings and aggressive powers are still a gamble but since they must equal the number of successful rolls you made it is possible to make this aspect of the psychic phase quite tactical and although you will still generally see the person with the most warp charge with the advantage both sides are likely to get at least a single power off each turn.

 

Psychic hoods:

 

Quick note about psychic hoods, they still work in the same way as before but now the range has doubled to 12" that your psyker can help friendly units deny the witch.

 

 

Perils of the warp:

 

Perils of the warp still exists and when trying to cast a power should you roll two or more sixes, you will suffer perils of the warp. This will happen regardless of whether the power is successful or not! Double ones no longer trigger perils. When suffering perils you roll on a new chart with an interesting range of outcomes but generally your psyker is going to lose a wound, although not always...This is the one part of the psychic phase that still cares about the psykers leadership.

 

Needless to say, high cost powers are much more likely to see you suffer perils.

 

 

Psychic disciplines:

 

There are two new disciplines, Santic and Malefic the disciplines of daemonology. They have some very potent powers and most from malefic are conjurations that can see your army suddenly supported by daemonic allies but the most relevent facet for us is that it is much easier to suffer perils using these powers. Any double will cause perils regardless of whether the power was successful or not.

 

Another new addition is psychic focus, a nice little reward for sticking to only one discipline. If all your rolled for powers come from the same psychic discipline then you will know the primaris power in addition to the others. This means even a level one psyker can know multiple powers and thus take better advantage of the psychic phase. If you wish to roll on different disciplines you can still substitute the power rolled for the primaris power.

 

Lastly anyone wielding a force weapon knows the force psychic power. Activating your force weapon is now a psychic power and requires you to cast it just like any other. This has two pertinent consequences, first is that you must decide whether you believe you will need the force benefit during the psychic phase and the second is that the wording of the power means every model in the caster's unit with a force weapon gets the benefit. So if you take multiple psykers and have them in the same unit all of them will benefit from the one successful casting of the force psychic power. Beware grey knights and other brotherhood of pyskers with lots of force weapons.

 

 

 

Ok time to take a little break from the run down and have a look at what all this means for the Unforgiven.

 

A lot of things have changed but the core mechanics still feel quite familiar. The way warp charge is generated and used might lead you to believe that there will be a surge in armies stuffed to the gills with psykers to get as much warp charge as possible and this might be true but the new system doesn't reward this skew as much as you migth first imagine. Low cost powers can potentially be cast using only a single D6 but in practice you are rarely going to roll less than two dice for even a warp charge 1 power. If you really want the power to succeed then you are going to chuck as many dice as you think you can afford, just to stop deny the witch attempts.

 

Since the bonuses to deny the witch only apply when the targeted unit fulfills the requirements it's often very difficult to stop psychic powers that are cast with an excess number of warp charge points, unless your opponent is very lucky they are unlikely to stop anything with 2 or more successfully harnessed warp charge.

 

My initial experiences of 7th have in some ways backed up the above, although I have not encountered the extreme end of it I have seen games where one side took excessive warp charge generating options and all have produced the same rough outcome. Each player will get 1 or 2 powers off a turn if they are fortunate enough to succeed their casting rolls. Deny the witch may stop one power but will only become able to stop multiple powers when the active player is trying hard to maximise the casting of aggressive powers that target units that receive bonuses to deny the witch. Most of the time you will be fine taking whatever number of psykers you wish to compliment your force, only when the opponent has the most extreme advantage in warp charge will they be able to regularly block your powers.

 

 

Types of pyschic powers:

 

The types of psychic powers have been tweaked slightly and overall the changes seem to make them all easier to use. Blessings and Maledictions are still very similar to before but since they now occur after the movement phase your psyker can arrive from reserve and not have to wait a turn before helping out. Conjurations now exist as before I can't think of a single power from 6th ed that summoned anything to the table. (Feel free to correct me here.)

 

Witchfire powers are now greatly improved and far more useful. You can now cast these against any valid target without interferring with your shooting or assaults, in fact you are free to use any number of different witchfire powers each turn so long as you have warp charge to cast them and each can be at a different unit. They still work much the same as shooting attacks but don't suffer from some of the targeting limitations.

 

Focused witchfire powers are also improved, in fact they now are much more likely to work as you wish, sniping out models than before. So long as you succeed in casting the power by more than the required number of harnessed warp charge you get to pick the model hit rather than the closest. So for Ezekiel's mind worm you will pick out the model so long as you roll two or more 4+ results when casting the power. Look out sir still applies alas but it's a definite bonus.

 

Beam powers still work in much the same manner but no longer lose strength as they pass through models. So the molten beam power from pyromancy for example can now quite happily burn through a line of models with ease when before it might struggle towards the end of the line.

 

Lastly nova powers now work slightly more like witchfire powers since you cannot cast them whilst in combat but they also received a buff since most of them now have a slightly greater range so will effect more units.

 

Discipline Powers:

 

Ok, time for the powers themselves. As mentioned there are the new daemonology powers of Santic and Malefic available alongside the familiar Divination, Pyromancy, Teleknesis and Telepathy. If you really want to use Biomancy then the new rules make it easier than ever to include allies and be it guard, marine, blood angel or other there are ways to get the benefits from those powers. Each discipline has had some reworking with most becoming more balanced overall making the choice more thought provoking than before. I will go through each in turn so this will take up quite a bit of space.

 

Divination

 

Primaris power, Prescience: Now a warp charge 2 power but still the same effect. Rerolls are always welcome and this remains one of the best general powers.

 

Foreboding: Identical to before and still a nice blessing to put on the psyker and his unit. Warp charge 1 makes it quite easy to cast but it is situational being dependent on what you opponent chooses to attack you with and how. Very tasty for a biker librarian and black knights though.

 

Forewarning: Same as before, low cost blessing to put a 4+ invulnerable save on a nearby unit. Straight-forward but no less useful because of it.

 

Perfect timing: Same again but with cover-saves being what they are still a very good power.

 

Precognition: The wording is slightly different but the power is the same. Terminator librarians are tanks when this power is in effect.

 

Misfortune: More expensive and quite different, now you treat all attacks against the target unit as having the rending special rule. This power is now very different from before where it was great at ensuring the death of the target from attack you knew could kill it. Now it's a fixer to ensure that no matter what the target, you have some chance of dealing damage. Even krak grenades can scare a misfortuned land raider and bolters take down a wraithknight. A very different power and in some ways much more powerful.

 

Scrier's gaze: Still expensive at warp charge 2 and still very limited benefit on first glance but it now allows you to discard a tactical objective and generate a new one in addition to re-rolling the dice for reserves, outflank and mysterious objectives. (No longer terrain though.) For maelstrom missions this power now has some definite appeal.

 

 

Pyromancy:

 

Primaris power, Flame breath: Still the same as before, it's a heavy flamer with the soul blaze rule, solid witchfire power.

 

Fiery form: Similar to before it still only costs 1 warp charge and grants the psyker a 4+ invulnerable save and soul blaze in combat but now you get to re-roll to-wound rolls with any further pyromancy powers manifested that turn. A nice little power that becomes a lot better if you can sneak multiple powers through. Ultimately a bit of a throw-away power to start the psychic phase but not something to plan around.

 

Fire shield: Low cost stays but now you grant a flat 4+ cover save to the chosen unit. In addition all enemy units within 6" of the target act as if in dangerous terrain. Some fun possibilities against horde armies there.

 

Spontaneous combustion: Warp charge 1 and a focused witchfire power still. Easier to pick out the target but not as reliable to kill, the model now suffers a S6 AP3 hit so will get a cover save if available or armour save (if they have a 2+ save). If this kills the target place a 3" blast over them and everything touched by the template suffers S5 AP4 hit which now ignores cover. Also these attacks have the soul blaze rule. Different, interesting and in some respects better but overall just different.

 

Sunburst: Very similar to before but now has a range of 9" but no longer causes blind. Not a bad power and very potent against guard. Still warp charge 1.

 

Inferno: Now warp charge 2 with the large blast template but otherwise very similar to before. Ignores cover and soul blaze are nice when on a 5" blast. The bump in cost seems appropriate when you also consider that you can cast more than one witchfire power from the same psyker.

 

Molten Beam: Identical to before but the bump in power to beam weapons really ups the value on this power and a biker or terminator librarian could get it into some very painful places.

 

 

Telekinesis

 

Primaris power, Assail: Identical to the previous version but like molten beam the change to beam powers makes it a lot more attractive.

 

Crush: Stays exactly the same as previously, low cost and good potential with a reliably decent chance of wounding this is a good focused witchfire power.

 

Objuration Mechanicum: This power has been altered slightly so now the targets ranged weapons all have the get's hot special rule, vehicles also suffer a haywire hit same as before. This malediction has gone from a dice manipulator to an indirect damage power. Potentially very nasty against units with high volumes of fire.

 

Shockwave: The range on this nova power went down but strength and number of hits went up so overall this is a lot more attractive. Staying at warp charge one also makes it quite easy to keep for a throw-away power.

 

Levitation: A completely new power this gives you an extra 12" move for the psyker and his unit. You cannot charge after using this power and will count as moving but considering how much mobility counts in maelstrom of war missions this is a nice power. Deathwing zipping about 18" on foot just seems...dastardly.

 

Telekine dome: Now grants a 5+ invulnerable save to everything within 12" of the pysker from ranged attacks. (Interesting to note that this will not work against witchfire powers.) Cost has gone up to 2 warp charge but since you will now cover a large area with this bubble it seems justified.

 

Psychic maelstrom: A new power and warp charge 3 for the cost. Like obital bombardments? Here's one with a 12" range! Best strength and AP possible on a large blast with the barrage rule. Expensive and highly dangeous but also quite impressively spectacular.

 

 

Telepathy:

 

Primaris power, Psychic shriek: Range got a bump up to 18" but otherwise unchanged. Still a great power even against high leadership.

 

Dominate: Very much the same as before but with clarifications noting psychic phase and overwatch. The number of leadership tests this can force means it is worth using even on high leadership models/units, although it's still unreliable.

 

Mental fortitude: Same as before, not a power Dark angels are likely to need or use but it's there if you want it.

 

Terrify: No longer removes the fearless rule but does impose a -1 modifier to their Ld and the target suffers fear from enemy (i.e. your) units plus they must take a morale check. Not an amazing power but the -1 does help with some of the other powers in the discipline so can be a useful one to take a chance on.

 

Shrouding: New power although a now familiar ability. Psyker and all friendly models within 6" gain the shrouded special rule. Quite a useful power and has a lot of potential for when you want to bunker up in cover or have scouts. Warp charge one is also nice and it makes jinking highly worthwhile for those units that can. (2+ cover saves anyone?)

 

Invisibility: Still a warp charge 2 power and if anything this got even more broken. This blessing now means enemies can only make snap shots against the target unit and in close combat you are only hit on rolls of a 6. Words fail me for how amazing this power is if you can pull it off. It was pretty bonkers before but now it is utterly ridiculous. (Note that because opponents can only make snap shots at you template and blast weapons cannot target you at all! Those D-scythes/flamestorm cannons aren't so scary any more!) Bonkers, just bonkers.

 

Hallucination: Similar to it's previous form but strictly worse. The effects are still random and generally debilitating but not on the scale previously. The target will either have to take a pinning test, suffer a -1 modifier to WS, BS, I and Attacks or a random character in the unit suffers a number of S3 hits equal to the number of models in the unit bar the character in question. Overall this was a significant downgrade to the power but now can sometimes work like a focused witchfire power sniping out sergeants and support characters as the rest of their squad smack them around a bit. Still warp charge 2 and still a useful power.

 

 

Daemonology:

 

Santic:

 

Primaris power, Banishment: This is a very expensive power at 3 warp charge but has a fairly potent effect. It reduces a daemon unit's invulnerable save by 1 but can never be worse than 6+.

 

Gate of infinity: Nabbed from telekinesis the distance restriction has been removed but otherwise the power is unchanged. Seems very tempting for Deathwing.

 

Hammerhand: The classic grey knight power can now be used by nearly anyone and it's better too! +2 strength makes power weapons of all kinds a heck of a lot scarier. The bonus applies to the psyker and his unit. Warp charge 1 also makes it an easy power to cast.

 

Sanctuary: Warp charge 1 again and another blessing that targets the psyker. The opposite of banishment, the psyker and his unit get +1 to their invulnerable saves...Deathwing knights and storm shields did no need this buff! In addition all Daemons within 12" treat all terrain as dangerous. I'm not sure what they were thinking.

 

Purge soul: Similar to the old version of mind war, this is a focused witchfire power that can cause a single wound with no armour or covers saves if your Ld +1D6 is higher than theirs. Neat simple power for warp charge 1 but not that impressive.

 

Cleansing flame: Warp charge 2 seems about right for a S5 AP4 nova power that ignores cover with the soul blaze rule as well. Range of 9" matches all the other nova powers and whilst these more expensive santic powers are much more dangerous for our psykers this is a nice power.

 

Vortex of Doom!: Warp charge 3 makes this a very dangerous power to attempt, particularly since a failed psychic test will result in perils of the warp anyway! However it's probably worth it. A short range strength D weapon with the blast and vortex rules makes this a truly terrifying power.

 

 

Malefic:

 

Primaris power, Summoning: Warp charge 3 is expensive but it nets you a unit of daemons to order around, the range of daemonic units available is quite broad and are essentially free models but since you will suffer perils if you roll any doubles it's not without cost!

 

Cursed earth: Counter to banishment this power improves the save of all daemonic units within 12", also acts a 12" ranged teleport homer, for warp charge one this is a very powerful psychic power for some armies but is a bit indiscriminate, enemy models with the daemon special rule will also benefit. Not very useful for us.

 

Dark flame: A cheap witchfire power that is basically a flamer with the torrent special rule, not bad although not amazing.

 

Infernal gaze: A low strength beam weapon with AP4, it has quite a long range for a beam (equal to assail) and the strength value isn't that important since it has both fleshbane and armourbane. It's not going to scare tanks particularly but can hurt anything with a toughness value. Warp charge one makes it quite a good power.

 

Sacrifice: Summon a daemon herald with gifts for the cost of a wound from a friendly model? Appropriately named and disturbingly easy to cast at warp charge one. Must be the blood sacrifice helping there...

 

Incursion: Another warp charge 3 power and rightly so since this one summons a trio from the most deadly daemon units out there.

 

Possession: Apt name, again warp charge 3 but for this one you pay the ultimate price. Success summons a greater daemon to the table to fight for your cause, however this is at the cost of the psyker's life! Failure to pass the psychic test also results in a peril of the warp result so this power always comes with a high cost and penalty.

 

The observant will note that I have skipped biomancy but that is because Dark angels cannot use those powers! Mind worm is also missing from my list of psychic powers but I will come around to that in at a later point when discussing Ezekiel specifically.

 

Dark angels have access to all of the above powers and there is now more cause to experiment and try out as many different disciplnes as possible to see what works. Previously divination was a clear winner for our psykers with potent support powers, this is still the case but now the offensive potential of psychic powers has been raised and no longer interferes with our shooting making pyromancy and telekinesis much more appealing. Telepathy is possibly one of weaker disciplines now but invisibility and psychic shriek are still very strong powers. The new daemonology powers I have reservations about, the increased risk of perils is worrying but the idea of santuary buffed storm shields is just bonkers. (Command squad with special weapons just got a lot more tempting, as did veterans.)

 

I am currently giving pyromancy a go and it's been fun, the powers are much better now that I am not forced to choose only one witchfire power to cast a turn with my lone psyker and even when outmatched by multiple high level enemy pyskers I have not suffered unduly because of it.

 

Please add to this start with your own thoughts and comments about the new psychic phase and what it means for dark angels and the game in general.

[FerociousBeast]

Enjoying the read so far, but the colored fonts are playing havoc on my white background smartphone screen. I'm guessing that long blank patch is the divination section...

[Darkangeldentist]

Apologies, I thought it would help break up the wall of text. Would you like me to change it all back to the standard colour setting?

[HJL]

very nice. which school do you think would best compliment ezekiel?

[Isiah]

Great read. I too use the board standard white background so for me Divination and Daenonology are impossible to read.

 

That aside, overall would you recommend a DA player take a psyker? And if so who or how many?

 

~ I

[Cactus]

Great post dentist. I agree that divination is less obviously the best choice now.

 

If we assume that our foes will also want to take advantage of a more aggressive psychic phase then psychic defence becomes more important than it was. In this we have a slight advantage with watchers giving the adamantium will rule. A librarian in the same unit will deny the witch on a 4+.

 

A couple of things that occurred to me as I was reading:

 

I read it that psychic hoods can also boost your chance to deny the enemy's blessings too. "Each time a unit (or model) is targeted by an enemy psychic power and is within 12" of a friendly model with a psychic hood..." Note where "enemy " is and is not specified.

 

In the rulebook banishment is warp charge 1. I believe the cost of 3 on the card is a misprint.

[Darkangeldentist]

Ok, text should now all be reset to the default automatic colour setting apart from the one side-track in green.

 

HJL, It's still too early for me to tell which if any of the disciplines is a clear best option for Ezekiel, as I mentioned I am currently trying out pyromancy which is quite fun and useful but I will be giving the others a go and will come back to this once I'm happy I've got enough data to determine an informed opinion.

 

Cactus, I don't think psychic hoods give any benefit to stopping blessings. The last paragraph (just above the cut-out about psychic hoods) seems quite clear that you apply no modifiers when trying to stop blessings. Thank you for the correction about banishment, I will take a look at the FAQs and see if it's mentioned there to be sure.

 

Isiah, I definitely think it's still worth taking a psyker and we have some better reasons than some to do so in fact. Access to adamantium will from either deathwing knights or company masters (interesting that they essentially get a bump in desirability) makes stopping aggressive powers a lot easier and with the increase in range of the psychic hood's protective bubble we can prevent opponents from targeting our units quite effectively. In fact Ezekiel can sometimes have an easier time stopping powers than casting them. (Higher level psyker and adamantium will would get him to 3+ for successful rolls against any level 2 or lower psyker targeting him or any friendly units within 12".)

 

I am currently not finding any need to change from my 6th edition attitude of taking one psyker in my lists 1-2 extra warp charge and a few more options for powers isn't going to see many more psychic powers being cast perhaps one at best so a sole librarian appeals most. Ezekiel is our most potent single psyker and is in some ways a better investment than before but the relevent detail is that we can't spam warp charge like some other armies so there isn't really any point in trying unless you want daemon or grey knight allies, in which case I'd suggest a visit to the chaplains and room 42. However even a single psyker will generally successfully cast at least a single power each turn and your opponent will struggle to stop it so long as you are careful about what you target or use primarily blessings.

[Darkangeldentist]

Reading a few more battle reports that others have posted it seems that others are finding the advantage other factions have for generating warp charge is putting them off taking a librarian themselves. I don't feel this should be the case and perhaps part of it comes down to how casting and stopping psychic power has changed. It has changed a lot and requires a very different approach from the last edition.

 

 

Casting psychic powers:

 

First things first, casting powers is now much less reliable than before. When all we had to do was pass a Ld check it was easy to cast powers but now it's all about how many dice roll 4+. This makes the cost of pyschic powers vastly more influential than previously because of how it changes to odds of a successful psychic test. Probability math isn't always very clear and I admit now that I don't really like to crunch the numbers myself nor do I really think that handing out the percentages always communicates way small changes effect the odds. So this is going to be a bit rough around the edges on detail but hopefully will explain things in an easily understood manner. (If not then please say so.) For the sake of simplicity lets think of that 4+ as a coin flip with 50/50 odds.

 

The most important part of planning your psychic phase is determining how reliably you can cast your powers to the opponent has to decide which, if any he will try and stop. This makes it of paramount importance that you succeed in making that psychic test.

 

Warp charge 1 powers are really good since since you start with a 50/50 chance of successfully casting the power with just a single dice. If successful then the opponent must still roll to stop it and just as with more expensive powers the successfully harnessed warp charge, the more difficult the power will be to deny the witch. Each additionall dice ups the odds of successfully casting the power significantly as well since the only result that fails the psychic test is when all rolls are 3 or less. Two dice brings you to around 75% odds for success on the psychic test for example.

 

Warp charge 2 powers start you at much lower odds and for a higher cost in warp charge since you must have at least two 4+ results to succeed the psychic test. Rolling the minimum of 2 dice and hoping for both to come up successful is only about 25%, 1 in 4 odds. Rolling 4 dice still only brings you close to 50/50 odds of a successful casting roll, you have pretty much the same odds of success with a warp charge two power using 4 dice as you did rolling 1 dice for a warp charge 1 power. Each additional dice added to your casting attempt for a cost 2 power raises your chances of success by a smaller amount than for the warp charge 1.

 

Warp charge 3 powers are even worse, odds of reliably casting these powers requires 6 dice before you even get close to 50/50 odds of succeeding.

 

 

The most important thing to recognise from this summary overview is that the higher cost powers are much less reliable even when devoting far more dice to them. It is not as simple as roll 2x cost of the power. For anything above warp charge 1 cost that will only bring to about 50/50 odds of success and if you don't pass the psychic test, the opponent doesn't have to try and stop the power.

 

 

Spending warp charge:

 

So next order of business is deciding how best to spend your warp charge. This is where psychic discipline becomes relevent as even a mastery level 1 psyker will know 2 powers. (This matter more than you might think at first glance.) Let's assume we are being cheap and using only a level 1 psyker. We will get D6+1 warp charge each turn. Meaning a minimum of 2 warp charge and a maximum of 7. Penty to ensure we can at least attempt to successfully cast a power each turn.

 

As mentioned earlier the most important thing to make as many successful psychic tests as possible. So for our psyker it's best to choose a discipline with plenty of warp charge 1 powers and a 1 cost primaris. Even if you only roll a 1 for warp charge you can still go for a reliably cast single power with about a 25% chance of the opponent having to roll two successful deny the witch rolls to stop it or you can attempt two single cost powers with a 50% chance of either of them going off and a similar 25% chance of both being successful and each needing to be denied seperately. The former path is the more reliable one but if you feel the gamble worth it the latter route can bring greater rewards.

 

If you rolled a warp charge 2 power for the discipline then having a 1 warp charge primaris means you always have a cheap power to reliably attempt each phase. This makes divination actually quite a bad choice for a level 1 psyker because the primaris is warp charge 2. Meaning you must roll higher for warp charge if the main power is also warp charge 2 and you wan't a decent chance to cast either of them and will only ever really be able to plan around casting 1 power a turn. Even with 7 dice your odds of reliably casting a 2 cost power means you won't have enough left for the second.

 

Don't forget that the force ability on force weapons is now a cost 1 power as well.

 

So our level 1 librarian goes for pyromancy (as an example) and gets sunburst plus the primaris power flame breath. If he rolls a 3+ for warp charge then he can devote at least 2 dice to each power and expect to pass the psychic test for both of them. That will require his opponent to make 2 successful deny the witch attempts most turns. If he rolls a warp charge two power then he is probably better off focusing all his energies on reliably casting just one power each turn, the lower cost one when rolling low for warp charge and the 2 cost one when rolling high for warp charge. The key is to always give yourself the best odds of successfully casting the powers. This brings us to the part that most convolutes the psychic phase, 'deny the witch'.

 

The thing to take away from this part is that when only taking a single psyker, higher warp cost powers prevent you casting multiple powers almost completely whilst also being less reliable at the same time. As discussed early, a warp charge 2 power requires 4 dice before you even get to 50% odds of successfully passing the psychic test. Since every mastery level only nets you the 1 extra warp charge these expensive powers suck up your whole psychic phase even when you roll well for warp charge.

 

 

Deny the witch:

 

Time for the spanner part of things. Your opponent quite obviously is going to try and stop your warp powered shenanigans and depending on the type of powers involved the difficulty they have will very. If they brought psykers then blessings will be the most reliable powers to cast but even then careful targeting can still see the others cause the opponent problems.

 

Deny the witch attempts only succeed on rolls of a 6 (before modifiers if they apply) so the starting odds of success are pretty low. You need to be rolling 3 dice before you even get approximately a 50% chance of even 1 result of 6 and even six dice won't guarantee it. If the power was cast with 2 or more successfully harnessed warp charge the odds get much longer. So gauging how many dice to roll is very difficult and frequently will require just chucking dice at it and hoping a lot of the time. This is where the importance of reliably casting powers lies because only successful psychic tests require a deny the witch roll.

 

It also makes the value of higher level psykers much greater in stopping aggressive power and particularly space marine librarians due to their pyschic hoods projecting their benefits across a quite large area. If the 'deny the witch' roll can be lowered to 5 or even 3+ then reliability in stopping powers becomes far easier to predict.

 

However the focus is currently is on getting powers through so for now lets just look at the odds for an opponent stopping two successfully cast powers. Lets leave out any modifiers for now. Even aggressive powers don't have to target units that have an easier time denying them and blessing will always be denied only with rolls of a 6. Keeping with the level 1 psyker in the earlier example they rolled a 3 for warp charge and cast two cost 1 powers with two dice on each. If each power were cast with only a single warp charge harnessed the opponent would still have to roll at least 3 dice against each power to have even a 50% chance of stopping them. There's a lot more randomness involved hoping for 6s than 4s or more. So the opponent needs 6 warp charge for only even odds at stopping each power or good odds at stopping 1. To even have 6 dice they need at least 3 mastery levels of psyker(s) on the table. To get to the more reliable stage of 6 dice against each would require 9 mastery levels of psyker on the table.

 

This does not take into account the chance that either or both powers were cast harnessing more than 1 warp charge. When this happens the odds become much longer and will require a lot more dice. Denial against higher cost powers is no different but casting those powers is harder. (As covered earlier.)

 

In most cases 'deny the witch, unless the opponent can modify the roll needed for success, will be a case of chuck as many dice as possible and hope. Even when your opponent has vastly more dice than you it will still be much harder for them stop multiple powers being thrown around than if everything revolves around just one.

 

 

Deny the witch is the most random element and probably the part that most supports the 'spam' approach to the psychic phase. However even then it still comes down to luck a lot of the time when mulitple successes are required and against more than one power. Odds are that even when the opponent has more than double the number of warp charge if 2 or more powers are cast successfully they will struggle to stop them all. 

 

Ok, that's all I can think of for now on casting psychic powers. I will add a section on deny the witch from a defensive perspective later. Please add your own thoughts and opinions or correct me if you spot anything wrong.

[FerociousBeast]

Sticky! Just needs a section very specifically on DA tactics.

[march10k]

~shrug~  One divination caster with a PFG babysitting lascannon devastators, same as before.  Only now, prescience is free, and you get 1-2 shots at perfect timing FTMFW!  Jink that, beeyotch!

[SvenONE]

~shrug~  One divination caster with a PFG babysitting lascannon devastators, same as before.  Only now, prescience is free, and you get 1-2 shots at perfect timing FTMFW!  Jink that, beeyotch!

 

I've been running 2x librarian lists (Ezekiel/ML2 Librarian) and it's been hard enough with all those warp charges to cast a successful power.  Hitting those is a lot harder than you think.

 

In the old game, Ezekiel would basically have 75%+ chance of casting both of those, to get that kind of success now for Prescience/Perfect timing you basically need at least 7 dice, 5D6 for Prescience, 2D6 for Perfect Timing (to get the same odds).  That's hardly a reliable tactic.  If you run a single ML1 psyker you have to hope you roll a 6 and then you're hoping you can even get one of them off.

 

I don't really like this new phase, I think it's really punished low/mid level psykers.  ML2 is far too much now for how unreliable psyker powers are, especially in a codex where every point counts.  I'm honestly debating sidelining my Librarians for Int-Chaps and the Big 3.

[Prot]

Svenone -  I'm kinda thinking of it the same way you are. It's been about 6+ games so far with Ezekeil and the only thing I can truly say that works? Defense against Psykers. It's incredible how many single charge powers I simply can't get off or are canceled. 

[march10k]

 

~shrug~  One divination caster with a PFG babysitting lascannon devastators, same as before.  Only now, prescience is free, and you get 1-2 shots at perfect timing FTMFW!  Jink that, beeyotch!

 

I've been running 2x librarian lists (Ezekiel/ML2 Librarian) and it's been hard enough with all those warp charges to cast a successful power.  Hitting those is a lot harder than you think.

 

In the old game, Ezekiel would basically have 75%+ chance of casting both of those, to get that kind of success now for Prescience/Perfect timing you basically need at least 7 dice, 5D6 for Prescience, 2D6 for Perfect Timing (to get the same odds).  That's hardly a reliable tactic.  If you run a single ML1 psyker you have to hope you roll a 6 and then you're hoping you can even get one of them off.

 

I don't really like this new phase, I think it's really punished low/mid level psykers.  ML2 is far too much now for how unreliable psyker powers are, especially in a codex where every point counts.  I'm honestly debating sidelining my Librarians for Int-Chaps and the Big 3.

 

Bah.  I ran a single ML2 against a nurgle list that rocked 17+D6 warp charges.  He denied my prescience once the entire game.  If you are playing against a list with that many warp charges, you are never going to deny more than one or two powers per turn, even if you are also running psycher spam.  There's this perception out there that if you have 15 warp charges, you're going to have an impact on the other guy's 15 warp charges.  You're going to average 2.5 sixes out of that.  You'll be lucky to deny once per turn, and that with all the investment you've made.

 

The D6 is a phenomenal equalizer.  If you roll a 6, you're getting 8 warp charges and the guy with base 15 is getting 22.  Throw all eight at one power, and he's not going to be able to stop you.  If you roll a one, you have three against 16.  He has a better than even chance of denying you in this case...but you spent a tiny amount on a single psycher, and he built his entire list around a psychic choir.  A single ML2 psycher is gonna be better than 50% effective against an army that sells out to the psychic phase.  Based on the points spent, it seems he should have no chance at all.

 

If you spend a ton on psychers and so does your opponent, you're both getting your powers off.  If one of you spends a tiny amount, and the other goes all out, the one who economized is still getting denied far less than half the time.  If both players have 1-5 mastery levels, total, it's just the same as both going all out, neither one is really stopping the other.  If you're not playing Daemons, Inquisition (including GK), or eldar, spamming psychers is foolish, it doesn't increase your chances of denying enemy powers to anything reliable, and since summoning daemons will make your head explode anyway, what do you need to be casting five powers per turn for, anyway?  You cant get 1 (against psycher spam) or 2 (against most armies) power per turn off without screwing yourself out of success in maneuver, shooting, super-scoring, and melee.  

 

The most points-efficient way to play the psychic phase is with 2-3 MLs, and a plan that doesn't auto-fail if you don't get prescience off.

 

/edit/

You think the new psychcic phase has nerfed low-mid level psychers?  It think it's been worse for masters of disaster like Fateweaver.  The chance of a perils is way up, and the consequences are worse.  One guy in my shop has fateweaver in his everyday list (he's a bit of a cheese-mongering turd), and he loses two wounds a game to perils!  Sure, there are some nifty new spells, especially in daemonology, but those are available to everyone, although daemons and GKs have an advantage with them, and EVERYONE can reap the benefits of getting the primaris for free (that's not a nerf to low-level psychers!).  

 

I don't like the changes to psychic powers, I really hate to see a 1850 point daemon army balloon up to 2500 points by turn three, and invisibility is just broken...but making the best of it does not mean selling out and trying to play DA as if they were eldar.

[IanSturrock]

What do you guys think about allying in some Grey Knights for that +1 to Invulnerable Saves (Sanctuary)?

 

I was thinking of a Malleus Inquisitor with Psycannon, servo-skulls (why not...?) and L1 psyker. Troops to taste -- probably just more terminators (regarded as lacklustre in GK lists, but more scoring termies can't hurt in a DW list).

 

Then it's a question of figuring out who deep strikes, whether you want scoring, Sanctuary-casting Psychic Piloted land raiders from the GK codex or scoring venerable LRs from our codex or a mixture, where you put the techmarine and Belial and the Inquisitor...