Imagine two psykers fighting each other, both having an active Fire Shield. Now if one hits the other with some attack, lets say a Spontaneous Combustion, will this initiate some kind of fiery ping-pong of death, flames shooting back and forth between the two psykers until the first drops dead?

Or is there something in the rules that clearly resolves this situation in a less deadly fashion?

I don't have my rulebook on me, so I can't answer officially... But I really want to say yes just because it sounds hilarious.

As far as RAW is concerned, I'm pretty sure that yes, it'd ping-pong.

I can't remember exactly and I don't have the rules to confirm but doesn't Fire Shield only trigger on a successful attack? If that is the case, Psyker A would attack Psyker B and trigger the Fire Shield damage against Psyker A. The damage in response against Psyker A might not qualify as a trigger for Psyker A's Fire Shield to respond back and ping pong.

That all depends irc on the wording of the Fire Shield's damage. If it is written as a subtype "Attack" action then the other Fire Shield would trigger, if its something like "Concentration" subtypw however then it would not.

Thanks for all the input, guys.

Subtype of Fire Shield itself is Concentration, the damage is described as a psychic bolt ignoring toughness and armour.

The exact wording of the trigger condition for Fire Shield is:

"While this power is in effect, any character in range and line of sight that successfully strikes the psyker with an attack immediately suffers Energy damage equal to the psyker’s psy rating."

A psychic bolt should always have the attack subtype, right? And if not, is it clear that only something with the Attack subtype can be a successful attack?

I'm still unsure about this.

>"While this power is in effect, any character in range and line of sight that successfully strikes the psyker with an attack immediately suffers Energy damage equal to the psyker’s psy rating."

So, considering that Fire Shield is a Concentration subtype action, it would NOT trigger a retaliation from an opposing psyker's Fire Shield as the bolt does not represent a a successful attack.

A similar situation would be if a psyker with a Fire Shield suffered damage from the Flame quality of a flamer. For the original attack the Fire Shield would activate, but if in subsequent turns the psyker took fire damage resulting from said attack and still had his Fire Shield sustained then it would not trigger its ability to the original attacker as the fire damage would not constitute a separate attack.

I see. Thanks for the clarification SCKoNi!

(Although a ping-pong of death would have been fun )