Reaction to the new Space Marine Psychic Powers

So Space Marines finally have their own psychic powers... I have discussed these new psychic powers including an introduction and provided some tips on how to best use them. Some people are really upset about them but after having finally read them my conclusion is the really good ones are spread across the four new lores - Librarius, Fulmination, Technomancy and Geokinesis so even with three Librarians in a conclave you might at best only roll up one of the really good ones, some of which are very situational. I would never take more than three because after this amount you lose efficiency and start wasting points. The main purpose of the conclave is to enhance other units in your army, not to be your army's lynchpin unit.

The best new psychic powers let you move a piece of terrain up to 24", switch positions between two squads (including a squad locked in close combat), shoot while ignoring line of sight, and re roll saves. These psychic powers will definitely shake up the current meta bringing back the assault phase back which is a problem for Tau and eldar players whom like to play the shoot and hide game - and that's a good thing in my opinion if these new psychic powers are given a chance and not immediately nerfed automatically by tournament organizers. My gauge on the overall reaction across the Internet is close to mine... No the sky is not falling.

Eldar have their own psychic lore which includes Fortune that lets them re roll saves - nothing new there and it's been a staple for jetseer council for a long long time. Tau have units which can shoot at a high rate of fire power while ignoring line of sight without having to use any psychic powers so nothing new there either. Maybe they don't like it when another army has access to the same abilities but this kind of thing happens all the time. If they don't have any qualms using these abilities why should anyone else ? Think about it.

Chaos Space Marines used to have Lash of Submission which was similar to the new Geokinesis psychic power that lets you move terrain. Sure it was very popular but there was never a movement to ban it's use - back then players learned how to deal with it. So while I'm not going to deny some of the new psychic powers are really good I just don't see them as game breaking like some say and I'll even go so far as to say it could actually be a good thing since it'll help deal with those annoying units like Warp Spiders and Windrider jetbikes.

In conclusion my opinion is Telepathy and Santic Daemonology are still your go to psychic powers for Death Stars closely followed by Biomancy and Divination. I will add Geokinesis to the list now but like I said above its all random and some of the new psychic powers are very situational such as Null Zone which is a malediction that debuffs the targeted enemy unit's invulnerable saves. You can bet that opposing players will save their warp charge to dispel this one too which is not all that hard to do with a conclave and Admantium Will.

Using the new Space Marine Psychic Powers for your Death Star

My last article covered the most powerful new psychic powers and which lores from which best to select them. This article demonstrates how to optimally use them for your Death Stars. My advice is don't rely upon them to buff sub optimal units such as terminators as they are still sub tier even with the new super buffs.

Libarius Conclave is your go to formation since you'll be able to roll for the most psychic powers and very reliably cast them too. The good news is Super Friends are even better now. I know there is still some hate out there but seriously with Tau and the very OP eldar it's not a big deal at all. 40k has never been more broke and that's the name of the game... Always has been. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. There's lots of cry babies that play 40k... You always have options and nobody is forcing you to play the game.

BUFFING WULFEN
The new Wulfen can greatly benefit from these new psychic powers since you can cast them on friendly units. Put them in a big piece of gnarly terrain then launch it 24" right up into your opponent's grill... And yes they can assault out from the terrain the same turn - of course that's the best part. This is absolute proof GW is really bringing back the assault phase in a big way. If you can combo this with Endurance and Invisibility it's even better.

Remember how at first when the new Centurions were released nobody really knew how to fully utilize them then Khaldor Draigo came along... Same thing here with Wulfen - they just got a lot better now. It's never been easier to make a unit more unkillable while simultaneously juicing up its killability.

BUFFING SUPER FRIENDS
I'm very excited to test the new psychic powers on my Super Friends army for the extra über buffage. The army already is fast enough as is and the ability to re roll all saves for your Death Star will take them right over the very top. I see this as being a major problem for Tau - they have been relegated to sitting duck status... Heh ! Remember you can move line of sight blocking terrain to shut the dirty xenos down too. It's like I said above - completely unkillable with even more killability. The correct combination of old school Biomancy and Telepathy lores with the new ones will yield the best overall results. Ravenwing will greatly benefit since you can give them re rollable invulnerable saves... Yeah Tau are not going to like this at all.

You'll want to start with your conclave first roll on either Endurance or Telepathy... I personally prefer Telepathy since I don't run a lot of multi wound models in my units. I would next roll on Santic for Hammerhand and Sanctuary. Your last lore is from the new ones... I'd go for the re roll saves since my army is way fast. Basically you'll have to figure out yourself what's the best combination for your own army.

CONCLUSION
The new psychic powers will help some armies more than others. A lot of people are already overreacting. Eldar have had their own psychic powers for a long long time - it's not a big deal. Units that were already good will get even better now.

Review: New Psychic Powers for Space Marines

I finally had a chance to read the new psychic powers in the Angels of Death supplement today. I've also read or watched some batreps featuring these powers. There's been a lot of talk about these new psychic powers and how they are very over powered. Just like any other psychic lore there are some good ones and some duds. My favorite go to lores are still Divination, Santic and Telepathy.

There is one really good psychic power from the new Fulmination lore called Veil of Time which is a blessing and allows the target unit to re roll failed saves... Obviously this is really a great thing for Death Stars. The other new power (Shifting Worldscape) that really stands out is from the Geokinesis lore which allows you to move a piece of terrain up to 24"... Again really good for Death Stars since you can use the terrain as an open topped transport to launch assaults... Should work very well with the new Wulfen.

The other new powers didn't really grab me to be honest and even with a Libarius Conclave you're fishing for these two super powers with no guarantee you'll get them. There is one other new psychic power called Null Zone I should mention that's a malediction and subtracts 2 from the invulnerable save for the targeted enemy unit... I don't rank it as high as the other two since it's quite situational only being of value versus certain armies. Finally there's another new power Electrodisplacement from the Fulminations lore that lets you swap the position of two friendly units, one unit being the one with the casting psyker... This is a great way to get a soft unit out of combat and insert your Death Star into the melee in their place which is definitely a viable deterrent.

Seeing that the good psychic powers are spread over three lores (Techmomancy is not all that much to be honest) it's like I said above - you're fishing for them and probably won't get all the ones you really want. So I think due to the randomness alone you're at a potential risk rolling on these new lores. Have fun with them and hopefully you'll get some of the ones you really need.

Optimizing your Warp Charge • Part 2 • Librarius Conclave

The psychic phase is new to 7th edition and is a direct carry over from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Seeing it is so new and how GW writes their rules the psychic phase can be very powerful - it can literally win games by buffing your army and debuffing your opponent's army. A new formation - Librarius Conclave - from the new Space Marine codex has thrown in a huge monkey wrench providing Space Marines with arguably the best psychic unit in the game. Space Marines also now have access to all the best psychic lores as well now.

Here is a list of what I consider to be the best of the psychic lores in no particular order (other than alphabetical):

Daemonology (Santic) *
Divination
Telepathy

* There's a caveat to choosing Daemonology (Santic) since you automatically peril anytime you cast any doubles if the psyker is not a Grey Knight... However the Librarius Conclave can successfully cast on a 2+ if there are three Librarians in the formation all within 12" of each other. So you can cast two dice for a spell requiring one warp charge and three dice for a spell requiring two warp charges thereby greatly mitigating the chance to peril for this lore.

If you read my first article I stated I typically cast six dice for a spell requiring two warp charges so you can see how much this formation helps you to conserve your warp charge so you can cast more psychic powers each turn plus greatly lessen the risk of suffering a peril.

Daemonology (Santic)
I'll delve into Daemonology (Santic) at a latter point in time - for now I'll just say it's very powerful with Hammerhand, Gate of Infinity, Sanctuary and Vortex of Doom. I'm not covering Malefic since I don't currently play any armies that can make use of this particular lore. Personally I'm glad to know eldar and Space Marines no longer have access to it.

Divination
The best spells are as follows - Foreboding, Misfortune (2), Perfect Timing, Precognition and Prescience (2).

Foreboding allows the psyker and unit to which he is attached shoot at full ballistic skill on Overwatch plus they gain Counter Attack. This is really good for my White Scars biker command squad since they have four grav guns... Which is a huge deterrent to any enemy unit that wants to assault them. As a side note remember grav guns are Concussive so if you should inflict any wounds those enemy models are dropped to an initiative of 1. Basically it makes the Death Star even more unkillable.

Misfortune requires two warp charges and is a malediction. It's really good for my White Scars as all those twin linked bolters are now rending versus the maledicted enemy unit. This is really good versus enemy fliers and FMC as my White Scars have no anti air. If nothing else it will force them to jink for a turn rendering their shooting next to worthless - which is really good versus Flyrants.

Perfect Timing allows the psyker and unit to which he is attached to ignore cover when shooting. This is another really good one combined with the White Scars command squad's grav guns - it kills thing dead !

Precognition allows the psyker to basically re roll everything and is really good for using him to tank wounds with a 3+ jink save or a 2+ armor save if you kit your Rune Priest with runic armor. Position the psyker such that the Chapter Master can Look Out Sir any wounds that aren't inflicting instant death to the precogged psyker. This is yet another psychic power that makes the Death Stsr even more unkillable.

Everybody knows what Presciencd does - the psyker and unit to which he is attached re roll to hit while both shooting and assaulting.

Force
I'll mention this one now since it seems most players seem to forget about it. You cast Force once then the psyker and unit to which he is attached are all affected - so you don't have to cast it individually for each psyker with a force weapon anymore. This obviously came from the Grey Knights 5th edition codex and is awesome... It works really well with the Librarius Conclave ! My preferred force weapon is the force axe for +1S and AP2. Force inflicts instant death thereby denying Feel No Pain. It's very powerful and only requires one warp charge... Really good versus any multi wound enemy model including monstrous creatures and gargantuan creatures as well - gargantuan creatures d3 wounds instead of instant death which can finish off Wraithknights.

Telepathy
Some people claim Telepathy ruined the game but I see it as a balancing factor versus ranged D weapons. Sure Invisibility is yet another thing that makes the Death Star nigh unkillable and with the Libarius Conclave it's going to be very hard to deny now. We all know just how good it is too. There are some other really good spells here as well such as Dominate, Psychic Shriek and Terrify. Terrify has excellent synergy with both Dominate and Psychic Shriek since all three work on enemy leadership and bypass Fearless. Dominate is great versus armies with low leadership such as Orks and Tyranids... It can literally shut down an enemy unit since if maledicted they must pass separate leadership tests to do anything. A nasty trick versus Tyranids is to dominate a Flyrant for the chance to prevent it from swooping. Psychic Shriek is great for removing a pesky objective secured enemy unit camped on an objective marker... One of the great things about witchfire in general is you can assault a different enemy unit - like I said in the opening the psychic phase is really off the hooks now so take full advantage of it.

The next article in this series will cover how to optimize denying the witch. If you're following along you've probably noticed these articles are geared towards armies I play but the basic strategy and tactical acumen can be applied to most other armies as well.

Optimizing your Warp Charge

Here are some tips to help you when casting your psychic powers. As an example my current list I'm running has two level 2 psykers:

Rune Priest - Divination (psychic hood & ward)
Librarian - Telepathy (psychic hood)

This is a total of four warp charges. Doesn't sound like a lot but even against armies with a lot more such as Daemons, Grey Knights and Tyranids which can all have 10 or more warp charges I can often successfully cast my psychic powers. It's important to note that statistically for a blessing your opponent must roll six dice for each 4+ you roll... So often if you can manage to cast three or more 4+ on a blessing your opponent needs 18 warp charges on average to deny it. Sure sometimes the opponent gets lucky - it happens but it's not commonly occurring. I think of this as optimizing my psychic phase... While I've only got 4 warp charges plus the d6 at the beginning of my psychic phase if I roll well I can succeed.

Casting
It's important to rank your psychic powers knowing which are most important to cast. A trick is to cast a malediction requiring one successful warp charge first to draw off some of your opponent's warp pool so they have less to deny with when you attempt to cast a blessing such as the Much hated Invisibility. So for example I attempt to cast Psychic Shriek first which only requires one warp charge then I roll for Invisibility having drawn off some of their warp pool.

I will typically roll 6 dice to cast a level 2 psychic power, again such as Invisibility... It's a game changer and well worth the risk. If you roll 6 times you should on average succeed three times thus requiring your opponent needing 18 dice on average to successfully deny it - most armies won't have 18 dice, especially if you can draw some off on a lesser spell first. Rolling 5 or less dice greatly diminishes the odds in your favor. In my opinion it's better to be bold and risk a perils for the best odds.

Denying
Each of my psykers have level 2 mastery plus the Rune Priest has Ward which is equivalent to Admantium Will. My Chapter Master has the Shield Eternal which also confers Admantium Will for backup. My two psykers are both joined to the same unit as the Chapter Master which means I'm denying on a 4+ versus 6+ against any malediction cast against the unit. Most often I'm able to successfully deny these maledictions which can also be quite a game changer versus powerful psychic maledictions such as Paroxsym or Shriek. I also have the psychic hoods so my psykers can deny for other friendly units up to 12" away. I like having two hoods for backup in case I lose of my psykers.

Combinations
The psychic powers you get are random. That's said you'll want to find combinations for the synergy. By using two spells in tandem the overall affect can be much more powerful. For example during a game versus Salamanders with an Imperial Knight I had Foreboding and Prescience amongst some other psychic powers. I was able to successfully cast both anticipating a charge from the enemy Knight targeting my super friends unit including the two attached psykers. Foreboding lets you fire Overwatch on your full ballistic skill plus counter attack and Prescience lets you re roll missed hits. Turns out I was able to strip two hull points and concuss the enemy Knight. I then destroyed the Knight in one turn of melee.

Prescience and Misfortune are a great combo versus enemy flyers. I play a biker army and had a recent game versus an army with three Stormravens loaded with assault cannons, hurricane bolters, missiles and multi-meltas. Misfortune is a malediction that cause all attacks to be rending. This combined with twin linked bolters is a great way to force flyers to jink and even destroy them.

Terrify combined with Psychic Shriek is another great combination. Look for the synergies.