Ultramarines Psychic Tree vs Standard

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

How are y’all faring with the new psychic powers for Ultramarines? I do like Scryer Gaze but have found telepathic assault to be a bit of a let down even with Tigirius casting... often inflicting more mortal wounds with Smite.

[Kallas]

NB: Haven't gotten around to playing with the new Codex/Supplement yet - busy with sorting out a new house.

 

A lot of the Librarius and Indomitus powers are pretty situational. The Stormspeaking Discipline is great, with basically everything being reasonable. For Indomitus, there are three stand-out powers, as I see it:

 

1. Psychic Shackles: Slowing down key enemy units is a huge capability in 40k, and this one has the fewest restrictions on targeting, albeit with the least punishing penalties. Still, halving Movement is huge and -1 on Advance/Charge rolls is still a solid debuff. But its real power is when it's combined with Thunderfire Tremor Shells (and, indirectly, the Obscuration Discipline's Tenebrous Curse) to slow down two units immensely. I think if you're going with this power at all, it's well worth packing in the Phobos Librarian and Thunderfire Cannon to make it as potent as possible - want two big units of Genestealers crawling forward at a measly 4"/5" of movement? Or Ork Boys who can only charge 2d6/2 / 2d6-1 /2? Because that kind of shut down potential is incredibly potent.
2. Scryer's Gaze: 1CP per round doesn't sound great...wait, no, it does. It's great. WC7 is a little bit unsatisfying, but it's a damn fine power. Big benefit from it: you can drop down to 0CP and then claw your CP back up for the late game where Stratagems can really make a huge impact. The reroll portion of the power is useful, but unless you're also running Adept of the Codex (IMO, not necessary with this power available) and/or Mind Raid it'll be generally better to just grab that CP.
3. Empyric Channelling: Not a game breaker, but if you're running a couple of Librarians (personally, I think a trio, utilising Obscuration, Librarius and Indomitus will be great; I'll feedback once I get some table time!) then this power is quids in. Need that Null Zone to go off? Bam, it's now functionally WC5. Want to fish for a Super Smite? Bam, that only needs a 9+ to trigger. Best part is that it's for all of the target's powers for the phase, so the Null Zone-caster can also get off Might of Heroes/Psychic Fortress more reliably, or can cast Tenebrous Curse and Hallucination better. And a +2 to Manifest isn't just making it easy to cast; it's making it harder to Deny, which is important.

The other powers I don't rate highly.

1. Storm of the Emperor's Wrath: Too swingy. Things that work on 6s only work if you have a bunch of bonuses (either in the form of multiple triggering effects, of modifiers that can affect them) and/or if you are rolling a boatload of dice (eg, Imperial Fists' Chapter Tactic with stationary Boltstorm Aggressors). SotEW is only ever going to be rolling enough dice to see decent results against big blobs of Ork Boyz and the like...and they're cheap enough to not really care. Generally, this one should be avoided 98% of the time: if the opponent has massive units that are of high enough value (maybe a big blob of Guardians or Wyches?) then it might be useful. Against most armies out there, it'll do sweet FA.
2. Telepathic Assault: Basically Smite, but only really viable against chaff as most decent targets have reasonable enough Ld to make it dicey. It is useful for having the potential to be dangerous: an Imperial Guard Command Squad is only Ld6, and they are often geared up for killing, so it has a good chance of just wiping them out, or a Company Commander who's only Ld8 - you could roll high and just kill them outright. If you get lucky (and that's the important part) you can do some good damage and that might scare the opponent; the problem is that it requires a significant amount of luck just to be useful.
3. Precognition: Urgh. Just no. Chapter Master 454 had a nice idea for this down in the Tactica forum, stacking it with the Stealth Adept Vanguard Warlord Trait and the Ghostweave Cloak Relic for -2 to hit, and -1 to wound. The problem is, that this is a Librarian we're talking about. At absolute, absolute best they're at 8A at 6/-3/d3. While that isn't awful, that's with MoH, Imperium's Sword WLT and the Standard of Macragge Inviolate, which is just too much to really consider, when those various buffs could be put on someone with a much better starting point - ie, a Captain. Librarians are pretty damn anaemic; they shouldn't be jumping into combat unless there are supporting units around them who are more likely to take incoming attacks (by being more threatening); and a -1tH/5++ doesn't really change the equation enough to make risking their mortal wound/utility. If the enemy has a bunch of snipers it might be worthwhile? But the opportunity cost alone is huge: you're taking it over PS or SG, or MoH/NZ. Simply, there are better choices - except maybe for Tigurius to have in his back pocket in case of numerous enemy snipers, that seems like probably the best place to use it.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I forgot about Shackles... it’s a good one too. Used it last night versus SW and it came in quite handy indeed. Great analysis, thanks !

[chapter master 454]

Yea, I got a mention here! I would actually say yea, Precog is only good in the combo I presented, otherwise it ain't too hot. Playing around with various librarian set-ups to see what works, going to try and bring another libby along to MoH the phobos PURELY to make him even harder to kill, not even to up the killing power really. The main thing isn't that it becomes a killing machine but more of a distraction carnifex that throws out mortal wounds. Not a back-breaker nor a straight up army murder machine but more of a part of a balanced diet in an army. Not to mention, can be a nasty surprise when your opponent has to be told it does D3 wounds per failed save which can be a shocker. Certainly able to take a flank left under-attended or take out support characters with ease (with little threat to it). Again, not meant to be a smash captain, meant to be something that will annoy and cause issues.

 

However Telepathic Assault is meh, the average roll on it is 9 when successful which against most units in the game that is only 1-2 mortal wounds. Not a good deal when smite is averaging 2 wounds base. However it can target how you like so that is a plus.

 

Scyer's Gaze is quite useful but again, nothing stand out imo. The CP can be very useful but I am still wrestling with how to place it in my current list and normally you want your libby hyucking out smites and other useful powers that do things. Not sure it would be worth 88 points for a CP generator (especially considering CP generation is gimped to once per battle round).

 

Personally, thinking about psychic shackles but I find a lot of what I want to tie up in my area tends to have fly. Just a personal meta problem so cannot say anything on it other than most things that can move fast (and thus you want to gimp) tend to have fly. However I could see a case on my little non-sense librarian, Precog and shackle and basically force the unit to deal with the librarian or be ball and chained all game. However my current experiments with my stealth-boy has him now in a block of 3 librarians and 3 min squads of intercessors. So yea, testing.

 

Overall: I would say the tree is not bad. I mean, nothing is just straight garbage but tends to have a specific use for it which outside of it makes it not so great.

[Prot]

Just my own experiences here, but I’ve always used Tigurius and continue to do so. My first dozen or so games I tried to stick to Indomitus but I think Librarius has better utility all around. A Repulsor with Might of Heroes and new Null Zone are just very decent and don’t require combos. I personally dislike Psychic combos.... they just fail a lot for me.

Shackles is a trap power to me. I used it a lot. The range is too short and if you’re u play on dense tables, line of sight is a big issue too. Often by the time I get off Shackles, the target is in a position have a good assault attempt of which I can only -1 inch from. Since Tigurius is never in front casting it, that usually means the Shackle Target is often not greatly affected.

Against Hordes, I love Emperor’s Wrath. Gaze I really haven’t used I can only imagine it would be good for a domed reroll on a Repulsor lascannon? Otherwise I’m Aura heavy already. I guess a reroll to wound of a ‘2’ on a Repulsor destroyer laser might be the other use?

[Ishagu]

I think it's probably a worse psychic discipline than the generic one. Certainly not as good as what the White Scars received.

 

Scryer's Gaze is a good power, but the rest aren't really worth factoring into any tactics. Psychic Shackles is strictly inferior to the power the Phobos Librarian gets.

[KhorneHunter57x]

It feels like Telepathic Assault would only really be useful in combination with the Leadership debuffs we have access to (Reivers, the Fear Made Manifest Warlord trait, Hallucination from the Phobos psychic powers, and the Fearsome Aspect CT for Successors). It has potential, but it would require effort to make it work.

 

I can see taking a Phobos LT with Reiver gear, Fear Made Manifest, The Vox Espiritum, and (if playing a Successor) Fearsome Aspect alongside a Phobos Librarian with Tome of Malcador to take Hallucination and Telepathic Assault...but that's a decent number of points and relics in something you need to get pretty close to the enemy in order to have it work.

[Kallas]

I think it's probably a worse psychic discipline than the generic one. Certainly not as good as what the White Scars received.

I agree, generally, though the Librarius Discipline is half trash too.

 

Scryer's Gaze is a good power, but the rest aren't really worth factoring into any tactics. Psychic Shackles is strictly inferior to the power the Phobos Librarian gets.

PS has the redeeming feature of being able to affect FLY units. It's not a huge difference, but when you need to lock down a Flyrant to stop it getting away from, say, a TH Intercessor Sergeant or squad of Aggressors looking to punch it out of the sky, it's useful to halve it's movement.

 

Tenebrous Curse is definitely stronger in effect, of course. But that's why I feel like a conclave of three Librarians will actually be good (again, haven't put it on the table yet, but fully intend to - especially as it's quite fluffy for Howling Griffons!) as you get to pick all of the good powers from each Discipline.

[Captain Idaho]

I am finding Telepathic Assault has failed me recently. Even targeting ideal units such as Ork Weirdboyz with a low Ld, as I always fail my rolls. Essentially it's a case of a power that needs a 7 followed by another 8+.

 

I think, although the power can select targets from 24" away, it might be better if was WC6.