Friday 16 May 2014

Age of the Psyker

I'm aware that a few of you may be waiting for the third part of my Helbrute series (which I will finish soon I promise) but I have to report my thoughts on the new Psychic Phase that has been confirmed as an addition to the game we love. I'm aware this is probably old news to most of you but I guess you could call this an editorial on the subject.


So as you may know if you've seen my list building posts my play style tends to favour the Witch; I lead with my Horrors, sorcerers and Greater Daemons who are supported by guns and swords. I've also taken a liking to the Thousand Sons in my armies. Yes I'm aware that they're expensive points wise but they come with a Psyker and it turns out they're really hard to kill which is a bonus. I think my greatest achievement so far has been a fully playable and legal (under 6th) list that contained no less than 11 Psykers. Under the upcoming rules I'd have a Warp Charge Pool to put Fantasy to shame (one dice per mastery level if I understand the rules correctly). Another thing that will help my love of Psykers is the new Unbound concept where an army list can be made up of absolutely anything and everything which will allow me to make an army purely out of Psykers!! If the Unbound army does work as we think it does then my Greater Daemons will see a lot more action than they do already, beefed up as much as they can be and let loose on an unsuspecting army but I digress. 

It seems that 40K is starting to widen in terms of how we can play; there will be whole armies that can't really do anything in the Psychic phase (I'm looking at you, Tau) but then there will be forces that can in theory dominate the whole board each turn (aka pretty much any army I can think of). The new Deny the Witch mechanic will work in my favour too as there won't be all that many others who rely so heavily on Psykers so their dice pool will be relatively small compared to my ocean of dice. This will have the duel effect of making it harder for my powers to be denied and will make it that much easier to deny others. Add in the fact that Psykers can now use as many Witchfire powers as they have enough dice for, can still shoot their normal weapons and split their fire (so they don't have to target one unit with everything they've got if they want to snipe particular enemies in different units) which suddenly makes that 60pt CSM sorcerer a lot more deadly than he already was. 

While we're on the subject of sorcerers, my build last time I used one was the 60point cost for a ML1, gave him the burning brand of skalanthrax, an Aura of Dark Glory, kept his force weapon and power armour and gave him Pyromancy discipline (can't remember which one it was but it wasn't the Primaris). With the new rules a ML1 Psyker will automatically get the Primaris power of whatever discipline they choose from as well as the power they select because of the new rule that grants the Primaris power if a Psyker takes all of his powers from one discipline. It's entirely possible that there may be a rule that limits it to ML2 and above or something like that but so far I've seen nothing like that. So two powers, a massively powerful torrent flamer and an invuln (which for Tzeentch sorcerers can be made better with the +1 invuln that the mark of Tzeentch gives). 

The Tyranids get a boost with this one as well as Flyrants can use Witchfire powers and still run/zoom/whatever they do. This makes CC Psykers in the Tyranid forces much more viable but it also will make them even higher priority targets than they already were... Zoanthropes are also rejuvenated with this phase as they can provide back field synapse and pretty long range (about the same as a Bolter as I recall) fire power if needed but if not then they can still contribute to the warp pool to help the other Psykers to get their powers off without a hitch. 

I have to say that I'm very excited about the new changes coming (next week :D) and I can't wait to get my hands on the new book so I can really get to grips with the new rules before I can get in a match of 7th with a certain Astra Militarum player who should probably be very afraid right about now... Oh I'm also excited about the new Daemonology discipline but I think I'll leave that for another day. Stay hungry.

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