Yeah, psykers help a lot but not necessary to DtW. But against psyker-heavy builds, you are absolutely screwed if you don't have lots of psykers on your own.

I hadn't have a chance to read 7E myself yet, but I just heard that the number of Deny the Witch rolls you are allowed to make now depends on how many psykers you bring with your army...

I'm sure all Black Templars and Sisters of Battle players will be absolutely thrilled to hear that

Yes and no. Both players get a chunk of Warp Charge, +1 extra point for each Psyker mastery level they brought.

Theoretically, therefore, an army with no psykers will have less warp charge, hence can either make less Deny The Witch attempts or else throws less charge at them.

However, Adamantium Will (like Black Templars have as standard, and I think Sororitas might now too) doubles the chance of each die you throw actually contributing something, so whilst they get less attempts, those attempts are more likely per die to stop an incoming power - the equivalent of having a mastery 1 psyker standing guard in each unit.

Essentially it's changed from having a one-in-three chance of stopping any hostile powers (but not knowing which ones) to more a case of pick one - but just one - power per turn and stomp it flat. Which requires a bit more forethought to use right but I wouldn't say is explicitely worse or better.

Yeah, psykers help a lot but not necessary to DtW. But against psyker-heavy builds, you are absolutely screwed if you don't have lots of psykers on your own.

Not really. There is a case of diminishing returns - realistically, you need 2-3 warp charge to have confidence of manifesting a warp charge 1 power. Which means that each mastery level uses up their own power plus one from the 'pool' - meaning that once you've got 3-4 psykers (or equivalent higher mastery psykers), any surplus are mostly just stood around having a crafty smoke and a coffee, with only half their number, if that, getting to do anything.

Yeah, psykers help a lot but not necessary to DtW. But against psyker-heavy builds, you are absolutely screwed if you don't have lots of psykers on your own.

Not really. There is a case of diminishing returns - realistically, you need 2-3 warp charge to have confidence of manifesting a warp charge 1 power. Which means that each mastery level uses up their own power plus one from the 'pool' - meaning that once you've got 3-4 psykers (or equivalent higher mastery psykers), any surplus are mostly just stood around having a crafty smoke and a coffee, with only half their number, if that, getting to do anything.

That's why I said that the problem is only with psyker-heavy builds. When you can gather as much as 30+ Warp Charges per turn, the "diminishing returns" will quickly materialize into awkward things like 600+ points of free Daemons/turn or invincible deathstars buffed into oblivion by psychic powers. And no, you can't stop these things with only 6 dices, and Adamantium Will don't help against conjurations and blessings.

armies without psykers don't get as many dice to resist powers with, but widespread Adamantium Will helps them get the most out of those dice. It's probably better to save the dice for one or two big powers, though.

Both players get a chunk of Warp Charge, +1 extra point for each Psyker mastery level they brought.

Theoretically, therefore, an army with no psykers will have less warp charge, hence can either make less Deny The Witch attempts or else throws less charge at them.

What I heard is that every army gets a single "Warp die" to resist psychic powers, whereas armies with psykers get an additional die for every psyker they bring.

If this is true, armies without psykers of their own are entirely defenseless against a second psychic power launched by the opponent with two psykers - or could be goaded into never even attempting to defend against the first psychic power just because the 2nd could be worse. Needless to say, such a concept would neuter the "anti-psyker" theme of BT and SoB in particular, punishing them for something that should actually be a bonus in fights against psyker armies.

If this is wrong - mind you, I'm relying on hearsay here - how does it actually work in detail? I've never read of "Warp charges" before.

All I can say is that it sounds like Adamantium Will is essentially turned "unfluffy" with this change of mechanics; what it should do is allow every unit in the army a chance to resist psychic powers, rather than giving a limited number of units a better chance. After all, Adamantium Will is an army-wide thing explained by the army's characteristics, right? Why doesn't every unit in the army benefit from it, then?

armies without psykers don't get as many dice to resist powers with, but widespread Adamantium Will helps them get the most out of those dice. It's probably better to save the dice for one or two big powers, though.

Both players get a chunk of Warp Charge, +1 extra point for each Psyker mastery level they brought.

Theoretically, therefore, an army with no psykers will have less warp charge, hence can either make less Deny The Witch attempts or else throws less charge at them.

What I heard is that every army gets a single "Warp die" to resist psychic powers, whereas armies with psykers get an additional die for every psyker they bring.

Isn't this straight out of WHFB's magic phase?

Isn't this straight out of WHFB's magic phase?

I've never played WHFB - but I did hear the comparison being made in talks about 7E!

Just that "Magic Phase" = "Warp Phase"

Does anyone remember that 40K had a Psionics Phase before? And it was awful - but only because the Psy Powers were terribly, terribly imba. With balanced powers, it could be good...

What I heard is that every army gets a single "Warp die" to resist psychic powers, whereas armies with psykers get an additional die for every psyker they bring.

I have heard from multiple sources that every army gets 1d6 + cumulative Mastery Levels each turn. What really bothers me though is the liberal use of Daemonology?

"Hey, Chief Librarian Tomasu, look! I have summoned a daemon to fight on our beha"

BLAM!

"Purge Lexicanium Juan's name from the records of our chapter, Brother Enrike."

Alex

If this is wrong - mind you, I'm relying on hearsay here - how does it actually work in detail? I've never read of "Warp charges" before.

Okay, so it works like this: at the beginning of a dedicated Psychic phase, you gain D6 Warp Charges + an amount of warp charges equal to your psyker's psy rating (called mastery level). You can use these dices to manifest psychic powers by spending X Warp Charges then rolling X x D6 - every roll of 4 or better results in a successfully harnessed Warp Charge. Every psychic power requires a specific amount of successfully harnessed Warp Charges to go off (between 1 and 3). If you hit this limit or more then the psychic power is successful.

Your opponent gains the same amount of Warp Charges to try and dispel you powers. He too must spend these Warp Charges and roll dices but it only works on 6+ rather than 4+. If he has more successes on the dispel roll than you on the manifest roll, then the power is dispelled. Adamantium Will increases this dispel roll to 5+ if the unit with the special rule is the target of the power (no bonus if they are not).

Note that in the same Psychic Phase, both players have these finite pools to manifest/dispel. So if you run out of dispelling Warp Charges then no more dispelling for you!

Oh, and only one D6 is rolled to determine both players' Warp Charges. And the Warp Charge pool resets in each Psychic Phase.

Example: Player A with 2 Mastery Level 2 SM Librarians will generate D6+4 Warp Charges while Player B with no psykers in his army will generate D6+0 Warp Charges. Say, Player A rolls 5 in his Psychic Phase, netting him 9 WCs to manifest powers while Player B will have 5 Warp Charges to dispel. Player A casts Iron Arm (needs 1 successful WC roll) and spends 4 WCs, rolling 4xD6. The results are 4,5,2 and 3, two successes so the power is out. Player B tries to dispel the power, using up all 5 WCs to do so, rolling 5xD6 for 1,5,5,4,6. One success for dispel, negating one manifest success but Player A still has one success, so the power kicks in. Player A then decides to cast Smite too, using up the remaining 4 WCs and this time Player B cannot do anything to stop him (as he has 0 WCs to dispel).

Warhammer Fantasy magic and 40k psychic powers are essentially the same thing, conceptually, and the last edition of 40k to have a distinct psychic phase modelled it on the WFB magic phase of the time.

All that aside, the basic number of warp charge points an army gets is d6, plus an extra point per mastery level. The d6 roll is used by both sides each turn - the player whose turn it is rolls 1d6, and both sides get that many warp charge points, plus whatever mastery levels they individually have.

Each power has a cost in Warp charge - this is the number of warp charge points you need to harness to cast the power, and harnessing a Warp charge takes a 4+ for each point you spend. So, you take points from the pool available, roll a d6 for each, and every 4+ is a success against the cost of the power.

Deny the Witch works the same way - you pull points from the pool, and roll d6 for each. On a 6, you negate one of the the enemy psyker's successes, and you have to negate all of them to stop the power. If the power is targeted at a unit, having a psyker or a model with Adamantium Will in there adds to the individual dice rolls - sso a Black Templars or Sisters of Battle unit negates a psyker's successes on a 5+.

For a reasonable chance of success, either casting or resisting, you'll need multiple dice - you can't reliably cast a charge 3 power with 3 or 4 dice - so psykers will be using fewer powers.

Thanks for the more detailed explanation. I suppose the difference between "warp charges" and "warp dice" got lost somewhere in the usual internet hearsay, probably because of the "1d6" which was erroneously interpreted as referring to a single d6 die for defense, rather than d6 as a number of dice .

It still sounds pretty horrible, though. From a mechanical point of view, I'd agree that it makes the game somewhat more tactical - but I don't like how it goes against the background of anti-psyker armies by forcing the player to basically "distribute" psychic resistance rather than making it something that every unit in the army has by default.

Even worse, a psyker player facing such an army can just pool all their warp charges into fueling psychic powers, knowing that they don't have to hold back anything for defense. So they get more dice to trigger psychic powers than the defender gets to resist them, and the psychic power has a higher chance of being activated (50%) than being "dispelled" (18%, or 33% with Adamantium Will) - resulting in the target probably having a very difficult time to resist the effect if they need to counter every successful 4+ roll of the attacker with a 6+/5+ roll of their own. For which they get fewer dice to begin with. Domino effect.

(on a sidenote, I think by now I've also come around to join the faction of people who believe 40k should be made less complex rather than more, but that is of course a question of personal preferences)

Even worse, a psyker player facing such an army can just pool all their warp charges into fueling psychic powers, knowing that they don't have to hold back anything for defense.

Actually, that's not an issue. You only use psychic powers in your own turn, but new Warp Charge is generated each psychic phase - you may generate warp charge in your opponent's psychic phase, but those are purely for defence anyway.

You mean there are essentially two pools - one for attack and one for defence? Okay, then at least the mechanics are not making a difference between army types there.

A bit weird as I would've expected the game forcing psyker players to decide between an aggressive, defensive or balanced approach. But I'm not complaining about that gifted horse.

The aggression seems to lie in risking perils. Or not. That's also what keeps psyker-heavy armies from nilly-willy throwing around warp charges to overcome Adamantium Will, if I understand it right.

Alex

You mean there are essentially two pools - one for attack and one for defence? Okay, then at least the mechanics are not making a difference between army types there.

there is one pool for both, but it resets for every Psychic phase. So an army with 36 Warp Charges will use 36+D6 Warp Charges to manifest powers in its own Psychic phase and 36+D6 Warp Charges to dispel in the enemy's Psychic phase.

...it sounds like the Tau get entirely screwed by this new system since they have neither psykers or Adamantium Will. First they nerf our Rail Guns and now there is turn in which we can only get owned, Fu'llasso!

...it sounds like the Tau get entirely screwed by this new system since they have neither psykers or Adamantium Will. First they nerf our Rail Guns and now there is turn in which we can only get owned, Fu'llasso!

Weak Xenos! Can't bear their fate with confident stoicism. That way you will never rule the galaxy.

Alex

...it sounds like the Tau get entirely screwed by this new system since they have neither psykers or Adamantium Will. First they nerf our Rail Guns and now there is turn in which we can only get owned, Fu'llasso!

Between the Missilesides, Riptides and Fire Warrior Castles, I can't exactly understand the woes of the Tau players .

Adamantium Will does next to nothing for an army as the best Psyker powers are the ones that aren't cast on the enemy. You can't use any modifiers to making DtW rolls vs blessings or conjurations.

The aggression seems to lie in risking perils. Or not. That's also what keeps psyker-heavy armies from nilly-willy throwing around warp charges to overcome Adamantium Will, if I understand it right.

Alex

Exactly so. Was at WHW this weekend for an event and make the following comments on psychic powers:

• My tyranids can muster 5 mastery levels across the army, so I get D6+5 warp charge. High but not off the charts, plus I only get the tyranid powers, not the new rulebook lores (no tyranids summoning daemons, which is good).
• If I rolled well on the warp charge (both players get the same d6 value), I would usually get 2-3 powers off, but would expect the enemy to stop one about half the time up to about ³ / ₄ of the time, depending on whether they had a psyker on the board, their mastery level and adamantium bloody will, which is more annoying than it sounds on paper when many of your good abilities are witchfires and maledictions.
• Note that with Ld10 psykers, previously I would have been surprised if I didn't get 4-5 powers a turn cast successfully.
• There's been a general balancing of abilitiy costs. Those powers that 'everybody used' have generally become warp charge 2+, such as Prescience, meaning you need to throw 5+ dice at them to feel reasonably confident. Yes, 4 should be enough, but if you're throwing 4 you're generally throwing the majority of your dice, so might as well put in an extra one or two to be sure. To summarise - Unless you're laden with mastery levels, casting prescience more than twice is massively unlikely, whereas before every horror unit (for example) would have a herald twin-linking the squad's shots almost as an afterthought.
• The Worst Case Scenario that I faced was a list with 4 mastery 3 psykers (daemons with daemon princes) getting D6+12 warp charge, and even that wasn't two bad. I had to contend with two 'free' units of daemons appearing during the game, one of which didn't make it to their first turn after appearing (deep striking into a nice bundle, plus being unable to run, plus warp blast equals toasty plaguebearers).
• Yes, stopping a blessing isn't easy. But it was impossible before, so surely that's an improvement?
• Leadership is no longer the defining factor in ability. Therefore, Ld9 and Ld8 psykers (e.g. warlocks) are actually useful. Equally, warlocks and wyrdvane psykers are also useful if not using their powers as they still provide you with extra power dice you can fling at the powers of more important and competent psykers elsewhere. My tervigons mostly sat there in the psychic phase humming Bay City Rollers tunes whilst the one guy with Warp Blast lanced things (or whatever I needed at the time)
• Remember that the rulebook powers are (mostly) unchanged. With a handful of exceptions, there are few 'Dwellers Below' equivalents that can really swing a battle. Yes, I wiped a squad out with Psychic Scream at one point, but it was a five-man space marine unit outside cover. That's not really that hard and it involved a flukey roll.
• Even summoning a greater daemon sounds good in theory, but (a) the odds of getting the power is limited unless you have many, many psykers, (b) the odds of screwing up casting it are fairly high, © it kills the psyker which usually means a kill point and possibly warlord kill to boot.
• Perils of the warp is very, very easy with daemonology powers. The perils of the warp is usually an automatic wound but can be much, much worse and can be much, much better. I had the two extremes for the twice I rolled perils: one caused a wound but would have slain an unwounded 6-wound tervigon outright had I failed the leadership check, the other didn't wound me and - at least for the turn - gave the tervigon sufficient bonuses that it would have had a decent chance of slapping a daemon prince upside the head.
• Yes, the Tau, Necrons and Dark Eldar do nothing in the psychic phase but defend themselves. But, let's be fair, they could do nothing psychic-ly before, either. All they've done is move all the power casting to a single point in the turn and call it a phase.
• The psychic phase being when it is has certain game effects. For example, 'dominion' extends a sypnapse creature's synapse range. You can't cast it before making instinctive behaviour or rally tests now but you'll see who failed before deciding which psyker needs to switch on his long-ranged antennae. Equally, when facing Imperial Knights, they don't get to shift their ion shields around until the start of the shooting phase - so a witchfire can catch them before they can react and interpose their invulnerable save. You get to move your psyker before casting what used to be 'start of turn' powers, potentially increasing their effective reach. Finally, you have to allocate your melee-boosting powers before you get to see the results of your shooting, which may lead to you wasting powers on people who never make it into an assault.

• Leadership is no longer the defining factor in ability.

We lost our last Tyranid player because of this change. He is now playing an Abomination (untouchable/pariah tier anti-psyker) named 'Shadow' in one of our RPG groups to went off his rage .

We lost our last Tyranid player because of this change. He is now playing an Abomination (untouchable/pariah tier anti-psyker) named 'Shadow' in one of our RPG groups to went off his rage .

The Shadow In The Warp still helps.

It doesn't prevent psychic powers being cast, but it does mean that if someone does trigger perils of the warp (and bear in mind that's generally going to happen more, because firstly people are flinging 3-6 dice in blobs rather making 2D6 tests and secondly daemonology powers trigger perils far, far more often), then because many of the results require leadership tests, he's going to be taking the worse results more often and the beneficial results far less.

Plus, tyranids tend to do better than most for psychic power available to shut things down. Tervigons generate warp charge as a troops choice, Zoanthropes are cheap and mastery level 2, and hive tyrants push out two warp charge but are far more dangerous than most other psykers (daemon princes/greater deamons aside).

We lost our last Tyranid player because of this change. He is now playing an Abomination (untouchable/pariah tier anti-psyker) named 'Shadow' in one of our RPG groups to went off his rage .

The Shadow In The Warp still helps.

Nah, it is a pile of crap. You have a very small window of opportunity to actually use it because everyone and their kittens will try to kill the synapse/SitW creature to cripple your army and that 12" range is a big favor to the enemy (as most anti-MC weapons are best against targets within 12"). So far, at least you could drop the bomb and screw up important psychic castings - now it only counts if your enemy was nice enough to get Perils and even then, only two results out of the six are really bad the others are pretty 'meh'.

True, but a lot of psychic powers are also that short a range, and you can seek to screw up "important" powers too.

The key thing is that you can only really afford to oppose one or two powers unless you massively outclass someone psychically. But knowing that you can drop all your dice on a key attempt forces them to throw a massive chunk of power to activate it.

Throwing 6 dice doesn't seem that unusual and that gives you a 1-in-4 chance of perils of the warp.

I'm not saying it's not taken a big hit, but it is still useful. A more important effect than the really bad ones was stopping a librarian pulling off the 3++ save/Fleshbane ability after rolling a '6' when empowering his force weapon, which would have been pretty terminal for the tervigon in question.

...it sounds like the Tau get entirely screwed by this new system since they have neither psykers or Adamantium Will. First they nerf our Rail Guns and now there is turn in which we can only get owned, Fu'llasso!

Between the Missilesides, Riptides and Fire Warrior Castles, I can't exactly understand the woes of the Tau players .

I agree. They got frikkin' GUNDAMS! then again the imperials have Knights and chaos has helldrake spam...

How about those unbound armies? Have any of you played against some really bizzare or overpowred armies or made them yourself?

I'd like to try/see the following:

All harlequins (clowns in spaaaaaace! but god they are awesome)

All blood angels death company (it could happen)

all C'tan shards* and transcenant c'tan (* yes i know you can only have 5)

all imperial assassins (whats better than one eversor? more eversors!)

All lords of change and pink horrors (that keep on summoning more pink horrors)