Why the new psychic phase is a good thing!

[Weidekuh]

Now that i have your attention hear me out. I play Eldar only and I really like how the psychic phase is turning out. But I hear many players scream and shout as they fear that an all psychic army will be the new deathstar. It won't and here is the reason why:

What we already know about the psychic phase:
It's between movement and shooting.
The acting player rolls a D6. Both players get the D6+mastery levels in their armies as power dice.
To cast a power you need as many 4+ as the power has warpcharges.
You can deny the witch on any power, even blessings. DtW is a 6+ and can be modified to a better roll.
You can use as many dice as you want to cast or deny.
Perils of the Warp is on any double 6 you roll. Malefic powers suffer a peril on any doubles. DtW can't peril.
Peril result is a D6 table with potentially devastating results.

Chances to succesfully cast a warpcharge 1 power:
1 dice: 50%
2 dice: 75%
3 dice: 87.5 %
4 dice: 93.75%

Chances to succesfully cast a warpcharge 2 power:
2 dice: 25%
3 dice: 50%
4 dice: 68%
5 dice: 81.25%

Examples:
1 masterylevel: D6+1 power dice. Average of 4.5 dice.
4.5 dice per warpcharge.
-> good chance to cast the one power.

3 masterylevels: D6+3 power dice. Average of 6.5 dice.
2.167 dice per warpcharge.
-> above average chance to cast powers.

5 masterylevels: D6+5 power dice. Average of 8.5 dice.
= 1.7 dice per warpcharge
-> You won’t be able to cast several powers.

10 masterylevels: D6+10 dice. Average of 13.5 dice.
= 1.35 dice per power.
-> You may successfully cast just over half your powers.

The more psykers you have, the less chance you'll have to cast all the powers. More psykers gives you a dimnishing return on dice per power. You will have more dice to throw at some few powers, but you will only cast a fraction of what you could before. And with more dice used, there’s a very high chance of perils too.

In 6th if you are able to succesfully cast most powers, even with 10 psykers in your army.

I really like the change. It means balanced armies with one or two psykers have a good chance to cast their powers. Psychic heavy armies won't be able to spam their powers, but have a high chance to succeed those they choose to cast. Very nicely done.
Deny the witch seems to be stronger too. You can throw all your dice at the one power you really want to stop and have a reasonably good chance to do it.

We still don't know everything yet. Things like shadows of the warp, runes of warding, ghosthelm, spell familiar and more are still unknown. But so long the new 7th shapes up to be a very fun edition!

[Cutter]

You lost me at


I play Eldar...

but get down with your bad self.

:-)

[Weidekuh]

You lost me at



but get down with your bad self.

:-)

There are people who played Eldar before the new dex. And some of them might not even play Jetseer or Beaststar at all you know. ;)

[Al Shut]

If it all works the way you gathered won't the few powers the balanced list can cast be denied pretty easily?

All I know is I never had the feeling my armies were unreasonably psyker heavy and will now be able to do far less (All my psykers previously used Ld10 to cast their powers, that's a lot of dice I need to reach that level of proficiency).

I still have hopes for the rumor the neede dice roll can be lowered to 3+ but I haven't done the math what it would mean if that would be true.

[Cutter]

There are people who played Eldar before the new dex. And some of them might not even play Jetseer or Beaststar at all you know. ;)

I haven't played them in decades but recently did a renovation and recovery job on a box of random metal and plastic that will yield me 30 odd old metal guardians, some swooping hawks, and ickle squads of dire avengers and fire dragons. There were also two blokes with swords and a dood with a long wavey stick, so I'm guessing I'll have to get a handle on how this new psyker phase works (if I can find anyone to play 7th that is...).

[John Bower]

I haven't played them in decades but recently did a renovation and recovery job on a box of random metal and plastic that will yield me 30 odd old metal guardians, some swooping hawks, and ickle squads of dire avengers and fire dragons. There were also two blokes with swords and a dood with a long wavey stick, so I'm guessing I'll have to get a handle on how this new psyker phase works (if I can find anyone to play 7th that is...).

Dude for all the whining about 'it's broken to hell' people will still play it, then word will get out it's actually probably better than 6th (which I preferred to 5th incidentally) and all will be well; the sky won't fall anymore than it did before, people will play it and enjoy except for the WAAC players who perhaps suddenly find that any DS list they come up with can be countered. :)

[Lord-Boofhead]

In Fantasy you get 2 dice worth and the other guy gets the highest dice worth to dispel. so depending on the armies this system will be either less or more powerful.

Also lets assume the perils table is at least as deadly as the miscast table, i've played games where my Wizard did more damage to himself and his mates than the other side did...

[Cutter]

Dude for all the whining about 'it's broken to hell' people will still play it, then word will get out it's actually probably better than 6th (which I preferred to 5th incidentally) and all will be well; the sky won't fall anymore than it did before, people will play it and enjoy except for the WAAC players who perhaps suddenly find that any DS list they come up with can be countered. :)

'People' probably will have a blast with it, my gaming audience is two other similarly old crotchety doods who have plenty of other things to keep themselves entertained like Dreadball, Deadzone, Kings of War, Flames of War, Bolt Action and, on occasion, Warhammer 2522.

One of them has already been very vocal about how he won't be changing up, decorum prevents me from using his actual words, but he's had just about enough of formations, dataslates and sell-at-all-costs game design.

I could go looking for new people to play with, but I don't want to get tabled by some hipster half my age :rolleyes:

[Lord-Boofhead]

One of them has already been very vocal about how he won't be changing up, decorum prevents me from using his actual words, but he's had just about enough of formations, dataslates and sell-at-all-costs game design.

I could go looking for new people to play with, but I don't want to get tabled by some hipster half my age :rolleyes:

Emperor forbid that GW give us new toys to play with.

[Cutter]

Emperor forbid that GW give us new toys to play with.

Did he? I guess someone's in trouble then.

[ElectricPaladin]

As an ambibaser, I have another important reason for you roundbasers to be happy about the coming psychic phase.

It's ******* ****ing awesome.

The White Dwarf wasn't exaggerating. It plays like an awesome mini-game of bluff and counter-bluff. It's fun, and it's tactical. From a narrative standpoint, it really creates the sense of two potent entities striving do dominate the battlefield with their invisible powers while the soldiers duke it out. Canceling your opponent's powers is more than just an important tactical choice - it's fun. And the same is true of outplaying your opponent and getting an important power off.

[Cutter]

As an ambibaser, I have another important reason for you roundbasers to be happy about the coming psychic phase.

It's ******* ****ing awesome.

The White Dwarf wasn't exaggerating. It plays like an awesome mini-game of bluff and counter-bluff. It's fun, and it's tactical. From a narrative standpoint, it really creates the sense of two potent entities striving do dominate the battlefield with their invisible powers while the soldiers duke it out. Canceling your opponent's powers is more than just an important tactical choice - it's fun. And the same is true of outplaying your opponent and getting an important power off.

A duel amidst the battle, you do make it sound like fun.

[Eldar_Atog]

The White Dwarf wasn't exaggerating. It plays like an awesome mini-game of bluff and counter-bluff. It's fun, and it's tactical. From a narrative standpoint, it really creates the sense of two potent entities striving do dominate the battlefield with their invisible powers while the soldiers duke it out. Canceling your opponent's powers is more than just an important tactical choice - it's fun. And the same is true of outplaying your opponent and getting an important power off.

Sorry, I see nothing awesome about this. All I see when I read about the psyker phase is how much of a tedious cluster**** it's going to be to cast a simple Guide spell. First I have to roll a number of successes equal to the warp charge while hoping to avoid multiple 6's. Then I have watch my opponent deny my spell because he has no reason to not try. He doesn't have to worry about a perils result himself so he'll have no problem using most of his dice to cancel my spell.

Perhaps I wouldn't be so down on it if my opponent had to risk a perils test to deny my spell. Since there's not equal risk, it just turns the psyker phase into some glorified version of "Mother, may I?".

[Mr Mystery]

Nah.

It's easy. Cunning come in order of casting.

And it's no different to shooting up a unit. Casting is rolling to hit/wound. DTW is rolling to save.

Not what I would call a tightlypackedgroupfornication.

[Caitsidhe]

In this I have to agree with Mr. Mystery. The new rules as presented aren't particularly difficult, and I tend to trust in Electric Paladin's firsthand account. I am not so much worried that it will be broken as I am interested in hearing if it sped up or slowed down the game? All things considered, we are rolling more and more dice and each toss of a cubical it a tick on the clock. The time it is taking to resolve an average game has been growing. Even after people got used to 6th Edition, the average time for a match was longer than in 5th. I'm for anything and everything to get the time required back down.

Obviously, I can't speculate which direction the new rules go in speed, so asking Electric Paladin?

[Mr Mystery]

I guess it depends on how much damage a power can do. I mean, if it annihilates an entire enemy unit at a time, you're arguably reducing the number of dice rolled in the game by killing stuff.

From the sound of it, it's more your opponent that might slow you down through indecision over whether to nullify or not (now there's a word I've not used for 40k in a while!). Probably the same sort of person who will agonise over his own movement phase, whilst haranguing you to be as quick as possible in your own.

TFG, in other words.

[ElectricPaladin]

So, the thing to remember is that I haven't actually been a wargamer for that long. I don't actually know how the magic phase changed Fantasy - just what it's like now. In my experience, experienced players can usually make the phase as quick and easy as any other phase.

[Al Shut]

It's easy. Cunning come in order of casting.


If you have to opportunity to cast several powers equally threatening to your opponent

[Mr Mystery]

Indeed.

But as in Warhammer, it seems the victim will have less dice than the caster.

[Caitsidhe]

A lot will depend on how they do Witchfire. If it automatically hits if the spell goes off, the number of things you might have to think about countering goes way up. If they just case for the right to use the power during the Shooting Phase, many such powers can just be ignored as just another shooting attack and you take your chances there. The dominant rumor is that the Witchfire attacks all happen completely during the Psychic Phase and can even be split between different targets without affecting where you shoot in the shooting phase and thus assault.

I still tend to think, given how most Psychic Shooting attacks are less scary than other types of spells, that you can largely save your dice to try and counter key things. My own view is aside from lists built entirely to spam such abilities, that Psychic abilities won't be too big a problem. The only real wildcard are the two new Disciplines and if they totally rewrite the basic ones (which they might). I theory, as a CSM Player I can easily spam Psykers by simply taking some Daemon Allies. Most other armies can find a way to do it, even if it is the "comes the apocalypse" option. While having to be more than 12" from one another might suck, the design of the army might make such considerations moot. A parking lot IG or Tau army blasting from the far side of the board doesn't care a hoot about that with their Daemon Allies deep striking in at point blank on unfortunates.

[Weidekuh]

The defender has the same amount of dice if he has the same amount of mastery levels in his army. The difference here is that it's more difficult to deny a power. As far as we know, casting is a 4+, while denying is on a 6+. I guess both rolls can be modified by... stuff.

It may also be that a 6+ only denies one 4+ roll. Say you rolled 3 times a 4+ for a warpcharge 1 power. The defender now rolls many dice and has two 6+. He cancels two 4+, but since you only need one 4+, you still succesfully cast. But that's just me wishing. :P


EDIT: Witchfire still need to roll to hit. But you can cast as many as you want and you can target different enemy units per cast. And you can still shoot your weapon in the shooting phase.
For example you could cast Mindwar at a MC, Eldritch Storm at a vehicle squadron and Executioner at an infantry squad. Then you can still throw your S9 Runespear at the tank. (There may be some restriction on casting more warpcharges than you have mastery levels.)

[Eldar_Atog]

In this I have to agree with Mr. Mystery. The new rules as presented aren't particularly difficult, and I tend to trust in Electric Paladin's firsthand account.

No, the rules aren't difficult but it will be tedious... especially during team games. If I have one Farseer and my opponents have no psykers, they will have even odds of generating the same amount of dice as me. If we all roll average(3), I'll have 6 dice to cast and they'll have 6 dice to deny. I payed points to be able to cast while they dedicated no resources to deny.


And it's no different to shooting up a unit. Casting is rolling to hit/wound. DTW is rolling to save.

No, Mystery... It's actually a little different. It's more like shooting a plasma weapon that has - AP. You risk the "Gets Hot" result but you never cancel the save. How popular would plasma weapons be if you payed the points for the weapon, risked a "Gets Hot" result, and never canceled a save?

[Defenestratus]

One thing I'm looking forwards to is that my hemlock will no longer have to wait a whole round to try and cast terrify :)

[DarkLink]

One minor correction to the OP; the current deatgstars don't rely on spamming psychic powers. All but the Seer Council only need a single power to go off. The Seer Council only really needs Fortune and Shrouded to go off. So the whole diminishing returns thing really only affects the Seer Council, and it doesn't really hinder them from getting the powers they really need. It does make them slightly less crazy, though, in large part to better access to deny the witch.