Ramifications for Mechanicus from new chaos terrain

[Battybattybats]

The new piece of chaos terrain revealed today is the Noctilith Crown. Warhamner community says that amongst it’s abilities is a boost to psychic powers.

 

As a big part of the Forgebane addition to Mechanicus lore and narrative is the Mechanicus striving to accrue large quantities of Blackstone (aka noctilith) this might be a que for a future opposite-polarity Mechanicus terrain piece...

 

With possibly anti-psyker rules.

[Subtle Discord]

Interesting conjecture. They're going to have to come up with some form of interaction that the AdMech can have the Psychic phase at some point. I was kinda' hoping for something like electrokinetic and/or technokinesis abilities, but anti-psychic would also be a less common niche that would fit in nicely.

[Charlo]

Cool theory!

 

However it seems "Blackstone" can be used for 1,000,001 things in-universe and the Ad Mech will probably find something a little more synergistic when it comes around to it.

 

My guess would be improving the armour save or something on units.

[KhorneHunter57x]

However it seems "Blackstone" can be used for 1,000,001 things in-universe and the Ad Mech will probably find something a little more synergistic when it comes around to it.

Yet it seems that the unique properties of Blackstone revolve around influencing the Warp - after all, it is what the Cadian Pylons (and those on other worlds) were made of.

[DanPesci]

Interesting conjecture. They're going to have to come up with some form of interaction that the AdMech can have the Psychic phase at some point. I was kinda' hoping for something like electrokinetic and/or technokinesis abilities, but anti-psychic would also be a less common niche that would fit in nicely.

 

Do admech in the fluff ever have psykers though? I cant think of any examples off the top of my head but happy to be proved wrong :)

 

I can maybe see us maybe getting some sort of wargear for allowing better deny the witch at some point....but apart from that...we already get canticles instead of psychic phase, which for me is much more thematic to an admech force. 

[Quantum]

In the lore there is (as far as I know) not a single mention of Mechanicus psykers, but there are references to tech-priests who study the warp in one way or another, like the Magos Etherna/Aethernus/however-it-is-written.

 

So a mechanicus device/unit that does something in the Psychic phase is lore-wise certainly a possibility.

 

Personally, I envisioned a dual kit that builds either a blackstone contraption to block enemy psychic powers, or a wired in (and dismemebered) psyker for offensive powers. Both driven around on Kataphron-like tracks.  

[Battybattybats]

Remember the 7th ed Skitarii Codex timeline ends with rumours of a cache of STCs of Psychic related Tech. And someone makes all those psychic hoods and force weapons for the Adeptas Telepathica, Militarum, and Astartes.

 

At this point I suspect we’ll get 2 or maybe 3 more Blackstone terrain pieces. We now know of the Chaos one, we know there’s two other factions scrambling for the material so of course there should be a Mechanicus Blackstone piece and a Necron one.

 

I also wonder if there might be a 4th piece for ancient Blackstone ruins to fight over or if they’ll keep using the old fantasy set they used in the Forgebane pics for that?

[Subtle Discord]

 

Interesting conjecture. They're going to have to come up with some form of interaction that the AdMech can have the Psychic phase at some point. I was kinda' hoping for something like electrokinetic and/or technokinesis abilities, but anti-psychic would also be a less common niche that would fit in nicely.

 

Do admech in the fluff ever have psykers though? I cant think of any examples off the top of my head but happy to be proved wrong

 

I can maybe see us maybe getting some sort of wargear for allowing better deny the witch at some point....but apart from that...we already get canticles instead of psychic phase, which for me is much more thematic to an admech force. 

 

Others have already touched on how it's not completely outside the realm of possible, given some of the scraps of fiction that are about. I specifically said electrokinetic because that's the psychic manipulation of electricity and technokinesis which is the psychic manipulation of technology. I envision something that's psychic-like, but maybe not expressly psychic; as mentioned, think lobotomized sanctioned psychic strapped into some contraption to power it and/or that focuses the psychic abilities, or perhaps a techno-savant who can boost friendly units or jinx enemy units with specialized binaric cants.

 

I agree completely that Canticles are a more fitting way to represent such powers in an AdMech force and I personally like the mechanic; Canticles are nice, but given some of the limitations they have, are they really on par with some of the shenanigans that a player with some psychic units can pull? They're expressly outside of the Psychic phase and AdMech has nothing that directly interacts with that entire phase barring the one sub-faction that can 'Deny the Witch' if they spend a CP to activate the stratagem. Not being able to take part in an entire phase of a tabletop game like this is weak design and something that could be easily remedied, and GW as of late has shown that they appear to recognize this and have been filling in such gaps. I'm not saying Admech should have top-tier psychic units but it is a 'young' faction that has several gaps in its range and something that lets them take part in the Psychic phase would be a positive addition (... along with a transport and some flyers).

[Magos Takatus]

I'm sure there's been machine curse psychic powers since at least Dark Millennium from 2nd edition and I can't think of a faction it would fit in better than Adeptus Mechanicus. A psycher that provokes and disrupts the machine spirits of hostile factions and reinforces the machine spirits of friendly units sounds like a good fit to me. I wouldn't be surprised if there were an obscure branch of psychic tech priests. I like the mechanics of the Canticles of the Omnissiah but I don't think they should hold back other interesting avenues of exploration for the faction.

[synthaside]

There does exist in the lore many psychic weapons in fact the mechanicum developed the culexus the psy titan  and utilise psy servitors for Astropath and navigatory services.


I for one would welcome some kind of psy interactions , hell i'd pay 1 CP to throw blackstone at my opponent  watching while your opponent casts power after power is not fun.  This comes off the back of 3 serious beating  at the  whw Finals , Grey knights who managed a 3 d6 cast of vortex which did 16 mortal wounds ( hammer and anvil deployment)  the new GSC power that can basically do infinite wounds to a model  and finally  to 90 basically unkillable plaguebearers with a totally untargetable tree . 

I have a new special hatred for psykers and scenery  ..... I would rescind this if the item was offensive and could be used to disrupt the nonsense that's going on right now ;-) makes an guy wanna soup and i swore i'd never do that.

[Battybattybats]

I'm sure there's been machine curse psychic powers since at least Dark Millennium from 2nd edition and I can't think of a faction it would fit in better than Adeptus Mechanicus. A psycher that provokes and disrupts the machine spirits of hostile factions and reinforces the machine spirits of friendly units sounds like a good fit to me. I wouldn't be surprised if there were an obscure branch of psychic tech priests. I like the mechanics of the Canticles of the Omnissiah but I don't think they should hold back other interesting avenues of exploration for the faction.

Oh yes! Jinx was a psychic power in 1st ed, I had a Grey Knight Terminator use it on my Bomb Bot with Organic Camouflage in my Genestealer army.

[Quantum]

I completely agree that psykers have their place in the AdMech, but not as stave-bearing, long robes wearing scifi-wizards that the psykers of other armies are usually portrayed as. This is the Adeptus Mechanicus we are talking about, so they their psykers should be altered, upgraded, changed, fitted with tubes and cables, having unnecessary flesh cut away, and be completely dehumanized.

 

A good example would by the psy-hound for Necromunda; though I loath the model, it does give an accurate idea what I think would happen when the AdMech experiments with psykers.

 

Also, I would think it is fitting that the logical minded Tech-Priests would dislike the intrinsically chaotic powers of psykers, so they would probably focus on harnessing the powers of the psyker to power or boost some extravagant (archeo)tech, instead of letting the psyker simply unleash its powers. So I would imagine a mechanicus psyker to look more like a Kataphron battle servitor than a AM Primaris Psyker, but firing its weapons in the psychic phase instead of the shooting phase. 

[Stray]

Personally, I don't think anything is needed beyond perhaps a Deny the Witch mechanic.

 

I'm of the opinion that canticles are essentially the psychic power equivalent for Ad Mech.

 

Are they as powerful? Well, that depends on the power you're comparing them to. In some cases the bonus/debuff/effect isn't numerically as potent, but they do typically effect your entire army - and can't be countered by a deny roll, don't come with the risk of perils, and the other negatives psionics do.

 

Thematically, they work. They could be tweaked in a few ways, perhaps add some additional ones that affect opposing vehicles negatively  - something along those lines? But I'm not sure much more is needed. Right now, Ad Mech is in a reasonably decent place. (they're performing pretty impressively on the competitive scene post Vigillus, and now there's assassin shenanigans also). The future is looking yet brighter when the 30k options finally come down the pipe.

 

Plus, if you ever want a Psyker, you have the option of just souping one in. I believe the Imperium has one or two options in this regard ;)

[DanPesci]

Personally, I don't think anything is needed beyond perhaps a Deny the Witch mechanic.

 

I'm of the opinion that canticles are essentially the psychic power equivalent for Ad Mech.

 

Are they as powerful? Well, that depends on the power you're comparing them to. In some cases the bonus/debuff/effect isn't numerically as potent, but they do typically effect your entire army - and can't be countered by a deny roll, don't come with the risk of perils, and the other negatives psionics do.

 

Thematically, they work. They could be tweaked in a few ways, perhaps add some additional ones that affect opposing vehicles negatively  - something along those lines? But I'm not sure much more is needed. Right now, Ad Mech is in a reasonably decent place. (they're performing pretty impressively on the competitive scene post Vigillus, and now there's assassin shenanigans also). The future is looking yet brighter when the 30k options finally come down the pipe.

 

Plus, if you ever want a Psyker, you have the option of just souping one in. I believe the Imperium has one or two options in this regard

 

Glad im not the only one thinking this

 

ie Id rather have shroudsalm (which can be used twice with a strategem) than a psychic power that MAY grant 1 unit cover

 

 

So rather than us having our own psychic phase...id maybe like to see a couple of things

 

1. Give us some sort of wargear to allow us to deny the witch.

 

E.g. one breacher in a squad can swap out its weapons to instead carry a 'null field generator', granting any unit within 6" deny the witch. Any pskyers within 18" suffer -1 on their rolls. However I do not see this happening any time soon as GW are unlikely to update the current kits.

 

So maybe a new unit that allows this?? Similar to the manipulus release?

 

 

2. Change one canticle to army wide deny the witch 

 

I love our canticles, I've actually found that most CAN be useful, the +1S one is ok/has its uses, shroudsalm is our best one, reroll leadership is useful on certain turns etc

 

However the 'mortal wound' if in combat one is garbage replace that with a army wide 'this turn all your units get deny the witch' and I think that would resolve a lot of problems (granting some protection against smite spam etc)

 

If this were the case what would other peoples choice of 'the canticle to lose' be?

[Midlight]

I could very much get behind swapping Litany of the Electromancer for a deny the witch canticle. Don't think I've every had that work.

[Battybattybats]

There’s lore and gameplay arguments on a variety of sides regarding psykers and Mechanicus, but the Blackstone plot line is there nonetheless, with Cawl, with Forgebane, so it’s tied to our faction. It can be polarised anti-warp or warp-enhancing. Chaos got a Blackstone terrain piece so I would be shocked if we didn’t. If not some deny the witch or shadow of the warp style effect from it how else do you see this going?

[synthaside]

it's easy enough to give us some interaction , " litany of the electromancer " ,  In addition to the never going off mortal wounds ,  you can deny the witch on 1 d6 for each unit within 18 of the caster ...  stealing the sisters gimmick but why not .