BOLS article on the Psychic Phase

And I'm in agreement.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/06/40k-psychic-phase-by-numbers.html

After having played it 3 times, it's really quite... tough.  The mini-game requires a lot of thought.   Tossing 4-dice at invis is roughly equivalent to rolling a 3+ on one dice.  Now, I've got a spell familiar on that guy, so... my odds are better, but my odds of Perils goes up too, and that guy's perils'd every game, and died to perils one out of 3 games.

If I'm losing a dude to perils 1/3 games, it's not a tournament winning strategy.

Like Larry said, even if you "break" it with daemons, their not doing *anything else at all* nothing, nadda, zip.  having your whole army stand around so you can get 300pts of free dudes (10 guys + icon x 3) is not going to win you games.  Why?  Because your other stuff is going to crumple to everything else on the board.  DP's got nerfed, Fatey's got no bonuses to actually cast his powers (- his single die re-roll...), and pink horrors will melt to every single kind of attack in the game (except, maybe, other witchfires, due to DtW).

So, ya, psychic phase is fine.   Invis and Endurance are dumb, but you know what?  Both games I had both those powers.... I lost.

The trusty Necrons beat the Grey Knights... and denied a few things along the way!

They only went up to 7 dice..... but the perils risk goes up as well.

They are dead on with Deny the Witch.

As far as 7th my complaints are more what they DIDN'T do, than what they did (nothing to make AV10-12 a bit more surviveable (like a 3+ armor save), nothing to make flyers easier to deal with (-2BS rather than snap shot), nothing to deal with the absurdity of running 7" to punch a speeder than just moved 30" with a Power Fist). Overall these are minor.

7th is better than 6th, no doubt about it.

I think AV 10-12 vehicles are better than they were but still not the best. I think trukks could possibly be good to run a ton of.

Yup, this article pretty much nails what I mostly figured out on release day when reading the book. I'm totally not sold on the daemonbomb summoning army until I see it in a game. I played an EXTREMELY psychic heavy tyranid list against John's CSM with mastery 3 sorcerer and Huron the other day to test what the phase is like, and I really dig it. So far, what I'm seeing in 7th is that you now need to apply some THOUGHT to what you are doing! What a concept!

Here's a really fun example: Say you have an unstoppable jetbike Eldar Deathstar of doom. Since psychic phase occurs after movement, you can no longer be assured of getting off conceal or whatever silliness gives them the rerollable save prior to getting into position. You need to commit first. And obviously, should you pass your check the other guy is gonna dump all of his dice into deny. Also, large packs of warlocks are now less effective, as the whole unit can only test on a power once.

I feel vehicles are about in the right place. I don't have much issue with light armour being glanced down or losing all its HP from a few salvos of guns. Let's look at an example:

A rhino takes 5 hits from an autocannon, and suffers a glance and 2 pens. Not enough to explode it, but will destroy it from HP loss. We don't really care about the damage results here. Maybe it would explode but we would likely get the same result in 6th ed as well, a trashed rhino.

Now let's go way back to pre hullpoint 5th (I'm a little hazy now, correct me if I blatantly mess up)

The same glance and 2 pens is done to the rhino. a roll of 3,4 for pen and a roll of 4 for the glance, going down to 3. So we had 2x weapon destroyed and immobilized. Buuuut, the rhino would still be destroyed at this point, because if you can't apply a result you go down the list. Even if this didn't happen and was only turned into an armored box, the rhino is sill good as dead to you, as it is no longer serving a battlefield role.

Any sort of thing applied to light armour to make it tougher would need to be applied to heavy armour to be fair. That is where their speed and lower cost tends to come in. The best protection for a light tank is more light tanks on the field. And the heavy stuff is REALLY hard to kill now. Venerable DA Land Raider anybody? IG tank walls?

Interesting observation I had, we might just see a resurgance of walkers in the game. Now that vehicles are even harder to kill, and MC's are not assured a one turn kill by any stretch (It took swarmlord 4 turns to kill a defiler) they may have a special niche to fill now. More testing is yet required.

So far, I'm really liking the direction 7th seems to have taken. I feel we all need to get some real games before making too many more wild theories and ideas to improve things. Cautious optimisim!

Roland wrote:As far as 7th my complaints are more what they DIDN'T do, than what they did (nothing to make AV10-12 a bit more surviveable (like a 3+ armor save)

i was thinking on this today at work. since Extra Armour doesnt really amount to sweet bugger all anymore, since it still just treats crew stunned as crew shaken, what about a league rule change that Extra Armour will give the vehicle a 4+ or 5+ to ignore Glances? that way, you pay 10pts per model to make them more survivable, and its more logical that, you know, adding more armour onto your tank actually DOES something to make it more durable.

or instead of ignoring a Glance, negate the removal of the HP. that way if the tank is glanced, you can roll a 4+ and it keeps the HP. if it's penetrated, you can roll a 5+ and keep the HP. as a 10 point tax per model, that would be a fair change to make the vehicles more rugged. and it happens to be a pre-existing wargear option on most of the units that we find a bit frail. most of the zenos races that use vehicles already have some form of similar roll, usually built into the model. (the shields on DE, and necron vehicles/walkers for example).

I actually think vehicles are fine right now. In our second game I scored two objectives with DT razorbacks. Oh and 10 points to ignore HP loss, here comes my dual land raider list!   

I think light vehicles are just that, light. If you opponent is throwing any serious amount of firepower into them they should die. For how good they are for scoring/moving your troops they don't need to be harder. Sure in a lot of games they might cough up first blood (which is the only serious rule I don't like), but any unit can give up FB. Mark did it to a unit of 5 terminators. Heavy Vehicles are actually pretty hard to actually kill now. I only managed to kill any of Mark's AV13 with a dreadknight. Everything else got a lucky pen from a psyfileman and then glanced to death.

The psychic phase is IMO definitely better now. About the only thing I'm not sold on is the perils chart. In our second game I suffered one perils and Mark suffered three? His first one and my second one were quite harsh (both losing a wound/model) and another effect. The other two allowed Ahriman to go super saiyan.

*shakes fist* I'll get those Necrons next time. Stupid forgetting the psychic phase and forgetting hammerhand. Should have just jumped in the transport.

You hit power drain which took your last three dice away that you were saving for hammer-hand. Ouchies.

Lore Weaver wrote:You hit power drain which took your last three dice away that you were saving for hammer-hand.  Ouchies.

Meh, honestly when I think about it not charging was still probably the better idea. Forcing you to have to target them individually with your oblit-star was the smarter move. I was hoping to toss enough wounds to kill either Psyker, but you proably would have just LoS any wounds on them and then smashed them. Would have free'd you up to move again in your turn. Smarter move was to force your start to keep dealing with MSU. I think MSU is back though. I have a fun list I want to try the next time I'm in!

I'm more mad about forgetting it when I was assaulting your annihilation barge. That lost me the game right there.

6x10 marines combat squad'd in drop pods.

18 scoring things that all need to be killed outright.

honestly. it looks a lot more like the way the game was meant to be played.

the emphasis on "scoring" units made 6th a wierd place where every choice i made with my army centered around wether or not a unit could score objectives. if a unit couldn't score it had to Fantastic for its price.

CSM terminators were a clear loser because of this. as a unit, i LOVE these guys. they are relativly cheap, survivable, and flexible. - but they couldn't score, so yeah, more plague marines it is.
and i would go down my list doing this every time. one off units of marked marines? not scoring, don't make the cut. CSM bikes? fantastic... not scoring... not a heldrake... don't make the cut. Maulerfiend? pretty fricken good... not scoring, not an oblit. don't make the cut. (hollah back for scoring oblits tho...)

Ratlings . amazing dudes for what they cost. lost out just about every time to a platoon command squad with snipers because it would score and the ratlings couldn't.

Objective Secured is a strong ability, don't get me wrong. But that doesn't matter as much on back field objectives. and just being able to at least threaten to take an objective with an elites or fast attack choice makes them more valuable.

So yeah. psychic shenanigans? bring it. more list building flexibility? bring it. (traitor gaurd supplement? ... please bring it?)

Rhaevyn wrote:
So yeah. psychic shenanigans?

Really the only two powers I see being silly are Endurance (4+ FNP and eternal warrior AND relentless, just awesom) and Invis. And really invis you just need to have something to tarpit the unit with it or ignore it. Mark had it up on his T-sons and I just threw a dreadknight into them. Tied them both up for the whole game. Endurance is just crazy on lots of stuff now.

the problem is when you get something you cant tie up. 10 TH/SS termies with invis or 5 hellbrutes or... actually i kinda like the hellbrute idea...

judchic wrote:the problem is when you get something you cant tie up. 10 TH/SS termies with invis or 5 hellbrutes or... actually i kinda like the hellbrute idea...

Both of those units are really slow though. If you didn't see them coming....

chaptermaster + command squad on bike + libby then. that isnt slow at all and can hit like a truck.

judchic wrote:chaptermaster + command squad on bike + libby then. that isnt slow at all and can hit like a truck.

And that is exactly the kind of unit I'd ignore. You are going to kill tops one unit a turn with a very expensive deathstar (you'd have to give every model a power weapon otherwise you're back to getting tarpitted). Until you fail to cast invis on them one round.

Relying on anything without re-rolls or ignores perils to cast invisiibility is poor (see Mark's post above). So that means the only armies that are regularly going to be attempting it is Eldar (ghosthelms) or Chaos Marines (spell familiar).

spell familiar let you reroll Any perils roll, or just individual dice?

TBH, i'll probably jsut keep on keeping on with what i was doing in 6th edition... ignoreing psychic powers and focusing on good units. I hate randomness...which is nutz given that i play chaos. but i hate anything that can change entire games based on single rolls of a die.

Rhaevyn wrote:spell familiar let you reroll Any perils roll, or just individual dice?

reroll all if you fail the test. perils still sucks but it means warp charge 1 powers are a bit more manageable.

judchic wrote:

Rhaevyn wrote:spell familiar let you reroll Any perils roll, or just individual dice?

reroll all if you fail the test. perils still sucks but it means warp charge 1 powers are a bit more manageable.

Or any of those times your roll 4-6 dice and don't get any 4+ dice. Happened to both me and Mark a couple of times. Once even with the re-roll from the stupid familiar!

Aegwymourn wrote:

judchic wrote:

Rhaevyn wrote:spell familiar let you reroll Any perils roll, or just individual dice?

reroll all if you fail the test. perils still sucks but it means warp charge 1 powers are a bit more manageable.

Or any of those times your roll 4-6 dice and don't get any 4+ dice. Happened to both me and Mark a couple of times. Once even with the re-roll from the stupid familiar!

Yep, I failed casting invisibility with 4-dice , 0/4 first roll, 1/4 second roll. Odds are really about the same as failing to hit with a twin-linked BS4 weapon, that happens. Gotta put 5 dice into that one power. 5 Dice is a lot... then you perils a couple of times in a game and your expensive (125pt dude) bites it.