[venomlust]

Just figured we should centralize all the coming strategery, bitching, and cheering in one place.

In case you haven't seen the new psychic powers, here they are: http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showpost.php?p=1734898&postcount=492.

Because nobody asked for it, I'm going to give a review of each new power and what I think. Feel free to ignore and/or add your own thoughts.

 

[Straken's_Fist]

How this affects me: Prescience now requires a level 2 psyker...Probably means bye bye to Inquisitiors leading blob guard, except for Coteaz (the only level 2 Inquisitor). Though this is probably a good thing, because the Inquisitor+Prescience+Priest in a blob made it ridiculously powerful, and that's not even taking into account things like rad grenades...I'll probably still take Inqusiitors though, if not for rads and the liber heresius alone. Prescience was probably overkill anyway with orders doing the job just fine...And bdesides, there is always primaris pyskers.
Heralds of Tzeentch must now upgrade to level 2 to use it. Tzeentch Sorceres (if it's true they now get access to divination) need level 3 (due to the compulsory tzeentch power).
But all in all I think this is good, as Prescience is such a good power it really should take 2 warp charge points. Much more balanced, good.

 

[venomlust]

Pyromancy:

Primaris: Same as before. A heavy flamer. I think S6, AP3, or Torrent would have been a little cooler than a stock heavy flamer. At any rate, I guess it wouldn't be terrible if you needed to erase a tightly packed horde of peons.

Fiery Form: Lost the +2 strength and gained re-roll wounds from other Pyromancy powers. A decent effect, since the strength of the other powers is 4-5. Re-rolling wounds on Molten Beam could be pretty sweet, too. I just question how successful one has to be at rolling the dice to make 2 powers go off and not have them get denied by the opponent's psykers.

Fire Shield: Well, using it on a unit with shrouded could be cool. I liked the old version's attacks on charging units. Dangerous terrain is a pretty lame substitute if it works as it does in 6th.

Spontaneous Combustion: I like it, but it's not that good.

Sunburst: I'm glad the range got increased, but why did blind get removed?

Molten Beam: Increased range to 18" would have been better, but it didn't get nerfed. Situationally I've always thought this could be a badass power but I never rolled a 6 the one game I actually tried Pyromancy.

 

[venomlust]

Daemonology - Sanctic:

Primaris: As a Chaos player, I think it's a fair debuff. 3 warp charges, though? Dunno if it's worth it.

Gate of Infinity: Cool! I love the sound of teleporting around the board.

Hammerhand: Sounds great. I'd love to buff a unit of berzerkers and double out an entire squad of guardsmen.

Sanctuary: A reliable +1 to invuln saves sounds good for non-Daemon psykers. Not sure how often Grey Knights chuck huge squads of terminators around, but Hammerhand + Sanctuary together would probably make one helluva murder squad.

Purge Soul: Eh, I really don't like psychic powers that inflict a single wound. I'd rather have a chance for more lower probability wounds. No effect on vehicles, not even a glance? :cray:

Cleansing Flame: A heavy flamer explosion. This is what the pyromancy power should have been.

Vortex of Doom: Pretty cool, but a lot of stuff can go wrong. At least it gives you a chance to insta-kill something really powerful if they fail their invuln.

 

[venomlust]

Divination:

Primaris: I agree with @Straken's_Fist, this is more balanced now. I don't mind putting an extra mastery level on my Herald of Tzeentch.

Foreboding: So much for the rumor of a swap to the primaris slot. I like this power. Could make a large unit of Chaos marines a bitch to charge. Orks, guardsmen, cultists, and other weaklings vulnerable to AP5 will get turned into swiss cheese.

Forewarning: Ok, cool. What's not to like about unit wide 4+ invuln?

Perfect Timing: Also still awesome. Ignores Cover sounds like it isn't what it used to be, but it's still nice.

Precognition: Cool but I wouldn't be using Divination on a combat psyker. Rerolling saves is nice. Force weapons sound like they aren't as reliable as they used to be, but nonetheless making it easier to inflict Instant Death can only be a good thing.

Misfortune: Yes! Me likey. If you're using a unit that pumps out a shit-load of attacks like a Cultist horde, then using this on their target before they charge sounds great.

Scrier's Gaze: Yeah, ok... I'd rather kill things than use a power like this, personally.

 

[venomlust]

Telekinesis:

Question #1: Why the hell do CSM not have Telekinesis, exactly? Yup, I'm gonna ask it like a stereotypical little whiny heretic: Just couldn't let us have as many powers as the fucking loyalists, eh GW?! :grin:

Primaris: If Monstrous Creatures weren't immune to Strikedown, this would be a pretty cool power.

Crush: Either decent or shitty, depending how you roll.

Objuration Mechanicum: I'd love to use this against a blob of something. Has some utility, for sure.

Shockwave: Not that impressive, but I really like the idea of novas.

Levitation: Useful on turn 1 for moving infantry, as far as I can see it. Cool for moving terminators?

Telekine Dome: A well-placed psyker could provide a pretty good bubble of cover.

Psychic Maelstrom: Powerful but short-ranged.

 

[venomlust]

Daemonology - Malefic:

Hell yeah, here we go:

Primaris: Obviously awesome, given the huge range of units that can be summoned. Whatever you're short on, you can make more. Of course, it isn't easy to pull this power off at ML3. I still can't shake the feeling that ML3 powers aren't going to be pulled off successfully very often. I think that's the idea, and I guess I can appreciate it when it comes to conjuring an entirely new unit you didn't "pay" for. At any rate, this power is purely for the greater daemons, daemon princes, and sorcerers upgraded to max warp charges.

Cursed Earth: Fucking awesome, especially because it's ML1. This will allow a unit of Horrors to buff the entire back field, freeing up the Grimoire for more mobile units. Only need to have 1 model from the unit within 12". Flying Daemon Princes could potentially facilitate a nasty deep strike that also protects the units who arrive. Unfortunately, ML1 is a blessing and a curse in terms of being able to pull it off and also dispel the power successfully. At any rate, the power itself is still good and very useful if you pull it off.

Dark Flame: Great, I love it. This is what the primaris power from Pyromancy should have been. Why is this power not in Pyromancy?

Infernal Gaze: At first glance this sounds good, and I guess for 1 charge on a flying nukeprince it wouldn't be bad. But it's a beam at strength 3, so you're hitting 3 units max. I think fleshbane is far more useful than armourbane on this ability. Practically guaranteed 3 wounds; on a unit of monstrous creatures with bad saves that could be very nice. 18" is great range, too.

Sacrifice: Sounds pretty amazing. "Options" says to me that loci or rewards are both fair game. Grimoire, Portal Glyph, loci... awesome! 1 warp charge and a pawn for a herald? Truly evil.

Incursion: Not sure I'd ever use this power over the primaris/possession but it's still awesome.

Possession: Whaaaa! This is the one they're gonna deny. As others have been saying, saving this for when you have a single wound left sounds like a decent way of using it. However, the likelihood of perils is pretty high, so you might just lose that wound and get nothing out of it. That's the way it goes, randomness and dice and all that.

What I like most about Daemonology is that you can run it as a nuke/buff discipline. If i'm correct, you can't get a 3 warp charge power unless you're ML3. At least that's the way it would have worked in 6th. Therefore, spamming ML2 psykers would allow you re-roll the powers that you can't cast. That means witchfires/cursed ground/sacrifice are guaranteed over the powers you can't use. Again, that's assuming this works the same way it did in 6th, which it probably doesn't.

 

[The Irish Commissar]

I know it's still early days but I'm not sure if I like the new way of casting psychic powers. If I'm reading correctly for my farseer if I roll a 6 that means i have 9 points. That means if i want cast prescience i have to roll 5 dices to have better then 50/50 odds or less of casting the power, which if i roll a double 6 using 5 dice I perils. That sounds pretty shitty to me. ( that's if I'm reading it correctly)

 

[jams]

no more puppet master makes jams a sad panda. gone are the days i can use my opponent's leman russes to do my dirty work for me :*(

 

[venomlust]

I also wonder how exactly we'll be choosing our powers. Since the Codex specifically limits what disciplines a sorcerer can use, yet all the powers are checked for CSM other than Telekinesis... that has to add up somehow.

 

[Double Heretic]

Looks like until the new errata, any CSM players wanting to play around in the psychic phase will be taking a spell familiar for the now-understandable point cost. :so_happy:

 

[venomlust]

Haha, being the dork that I am, I buy one every single time. I've failed maybe 3 or 4 tests in all the games I've played. Definitely worth 15 points!

 

[Moonschwine]

I know it's still early days but I'm not sure if I like the new way of casting psychic powers. If I'm reading correctly for my farseer if I roll a 6 that means i have 9 points. That means if i want cast prescience i have to roll 5 dices to have better then 50/50 odds or less of casting the power, which if i roll a double 6 using 5 dice I perils. That sounds pretty shitty to me. ( that's if I'm reading it correctly)

That's the correct interpretation. You have something like a 1 in 4 chance of making it with just two dice and just doubling the number of dice to warp charges doesn't make a direct 50% of the time because of the way probability works. I could be completely wrong about this though because my mathematical skills are absolutely terrible.

I've run the numbers each way that I can and the new psychic phase basically shafts my current army build that uses last memory. This is because the new casting rules makes casting Last Memory at warp charge 2 or 3 so incredibly dangerous you may as well put bets on long-shot horses than even bother with it because your chances to fail and kill yourself are incredibly high. With warp charge 2 using 2 dice, 3/4 of the time your caster dies (75%). With 3 dice at warp charge 3 It's something like a 5/6 chance of killing your caster (83%) if you use just 3 dice. Then to make matters worse you risk dying to perils from wounds or insta gib more and more the more dice you use.

Black Legion are now even worse than the already not so good Chaos Codex it's shocking.

 

[The Irish Commissar]

So bascically anything mastery level 2 or above has a good chance of either killing your psyker or wounding him badly. We also go from reliably casting powers in sixth to barely been able to cast them in 7th. That's pretty shit :angry:

 

[venomlust]

From Zion's review, it appears chaos armies get the primaris of their mark for free, even if you don't specialize in that god's table.

At the very least, now a marked Sorc doesn't have to waste a charge on the mostly lackluster powers.

On the other hand, over all I think it's shittier for us that we can't specialize in a discipline and get the primaris the way other armies can. We can't ever get all the powers in a god's discipline, which is dumb. Maybe that rule will change with the (hopefully) forthcoming errata, but I have a strong feeling it won't.

 

[elmir]

I don't think the cards are 100% accurate. Aparently, the primaris one for Sanctic is WC1, not 3.

Still, I'm happy with some of the changes. Prescience got a well deserved slap on the wrist. It was too good the way it was in 6th.


I'm just curious to see how GKs will be erratta'd/faq'd.

 

[mayegelt]

Gunna need to read these rules when I get the book, from the comments above I assume that Horrors of Tzeentch are messed up as the squad is only ever Mastery Lv 1, though can generate an additional Warp Charge if 11-15 models and 1 more at 16+. But likely chance is gunna continually blow themselves up 1 model at a time for no reward.

 

[Moonschwine]

So bascically anything mastery level 2 or above has a good chance of either killing your psyker or wounding him badly. We also go from reliably casting powers in sixth to barely been able to cast them in 7th. That's pretty shit :angry:

Not all powers. I want to stress my pain is from Last Memory of Yuanthos which has a built in kill function. Most warp charge 1 powers are reliable to get off because you will always have a base 2 psychic dice (ml 1 + d6 roll of 1), and you only need 1 success.

 

[The Irish Commissar]

But I play Eldar so I rely on my psychic powers. Things like prescience and fortune will be extremely hard to cast which will make or break my army.

 

[Xabre]

From Zion's review, it appears chaos armies get the primaris of their mark for free, even if you don't specialize in that god's table.

At the very least, now a marked Sorc doesn't have to waste a charge on the mostly lackluster powers.

On the other hand, over all I think it's shittier for us that we can't specialize in a discipline and get the primaris the way other armies can. We can't ever get all the powers in a god's discipline, which is dumb. Maybe that rule will change with the (hopefully) forthcoming errata, but I have a strong feeling it won't.

It's note QUITE that way, for Chaos. However, you get the primaris for free (from what I've read) if you only roll from one school. Since Chaos sorcerers MUST take at least one spell from their mark's school, then if you stick to that school, you get the primaris. For instance, a level 1 Aspiring Sorcerer in a squad of Thousand Sons will automatically get their Primaris + 1 roll... because they can't have more than one power and they MUST take Tzeentch. Therefore, suddenly they have access to 2 powers as a level 1, guaranteed. I haven't read everything yet, so I don't know whether or not a psyker can cast something with more WC than their level... if that's the case, than in the above example, that same Aspiring Sorcerer still can't take the WC2 power, because they can't go above level 1. So an Aspiring Sorcerer gets 2 powers out of 3 possibilities, with the 4 restricted to HQ.