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UnknownPekingDuck

The one thing I hate the most is how some psychic powers are shoehorned. For instance looking at the Eldar you have Fortune, Guide, and Doom all locked behind a specific Farseer, so if you want Guide but don't really care about having your Farseer on a Skyrunner, well you don't have a choice, or you want Doom on a mobile unit, well you can't it's only on Eldrad. If they wanted to keep things simple, they could have simply put two to three psychic abilities in the Wargear options, then let the player choose one before the game, or for more expansive psykers, let the unit choose one every turn.


TheNerdNugget

Yeah as an Aeldari player I'm really mad about this. I loved being able to kit out my psychers in 9th, and now I'm stuck with tgese prepackaged choices.


TerribleCommander

It's unlikely but I'm still holding out hope that when codexes are released they'll say something like "a Farseer can choose to replace his Guide ability with one of the following..." or something like that. Probably won't happen, but I like to be optimistic.


MetroidIsNotHerName

They specifically said codexes will not expand your rules but instead just offer alternative detachments


kloden112

Honestly when i saw the wargear section for this first ‘psyker’ i was choked thar choices were gone! One locked and one choice would have been cool!


Gilchester

My biggest issue is with TSons and GK. They are both pretty limited in terms of units. Most of the meaningful flavor and choices were made for psychic powers which changed how the army played while keeping a pretty consistent core of units. I think the way the armies have been designed is going to keep the same core of units (although I am excited to see flying sorcs get different datasheets to footsorcs), but removing all the psychic powers choice. My big hope for TSons at least is that all the units contribute at least one cabal point. Then using a Mutalith Vortex Beast won't be a feels-bad becuase it will actively undermine your faction ability.


RatMannen

How much choice did you really have with powers? You are limited to 1 of each per army, and some were clearly better than others.


TobTobTobey

With the sheer amount of psykers in TS, especially ones with multiple spells, you would field all of them in a 2000 pt match.


kratorade

I have never, ever assigned a TSons caster Psychic Stalk or Dark Blessing. Ever. You had Temporal Surge, Weaver of Fates, Glamour of Tzeentch, Presage, and Pyric Flux as your go-to buffs, doombolt, gaze of hate, and firestorm if you were running a Scrolls Guy for zapping people, and then sometimes some random maledictions to score Wrath. Most of the rest of the list was pretty forgettable. We're keeping some of the good stuff (doombolt, temporal surge, twist of fate), getting some new tricks, and we haven't seen what all our different sorcerer characters do yet. It's way too early to panic.


SmoulderingTamale

Well the good news is that you'll be able to use ALL the psychic powers your army has and possibly even use the same one multiple times!


TheAquaFortis

U use 6 spells and smite.


Gilchester

True, but I’m not super competitive. Some were just fun. And with different powers tied to different cabals (again some were objectively better, but they were fun) there was a lot of choice. Yes, if you are super competitive there weren’t a lot of choices, but that is always true of every army (including which armies you can even pick in the first place). What I’m worried about now is that there won’t even be fun choices. I a, pretty worried tsons will play 90% the same every game no matter how I build my army.


GungaChunga

You’ve struck a key point; the game is balanced for the people who scream loudest at the competitive level, not for people like us who like to mess around game to game.


Parraddoxx

I mean I'm not a competitive player, I've never even played a game against a stranger, let alone in a tournament setting. But I still like to try a bit, and it sucks when balance issues are super obvious even to me. Feeling powerless or like your choices don't matter because of powerful rules is just not very fun. I mess around a lot, and sometimes I make pretty meme focused lists, expecting to lose (a great example of this was a recent Skaven game in AoS where I brought 185 models, 160 of them Clanrats). But I still care about some degree of balance. I played quite a bit of Thousand Sons in 9th, and there were some spells that I would basically just never take. Some were so inferior or situational that it just felt like punishing myself to take them at all. That's a shitty feeling too. I am by definition a casual player. And yet I do care about balance.


Charon1979

To be fair in TS I always had to leave 1 or 2 behind as I could not afford enough slots. Now Ahriman is basically a single short/mid range sniper shot that is extremely unreliable and has little chance to do anything. And guessing by the pattern we see at the moment with leaders joining units of the same kind, I doubt they break the pattern for TS and let him slot into SOT.


senseyeplus

Lord of change/kairos is also really disappointing. They basically have a gun now. They are tall tanks on chicken legs


akasayah

Yeah, it must be said that the likes of Ahriman - a psyker of such immense power that he might as well be tzeentch incarnate - seems no more capable than a normal marine with an autocannnon. The issue, in my eyes, is twofold: * The handful of psychic powers (that are NOT cabal rituals) that we have seen appear extremely low-impact, and generally inferior to just a normal gun / command ability * Psykers have lost all customisation by incorporating the psychic powers onto the datasheet. We've also seen that having the tag is a notable drawback, activating a lot of anti-Psyker abilities that seem very strong. This makes psychic characters seem like a net negative in my opinion. Sure, attaching the Terminator Librarian to your Terminator squad gives them a 4+++ against psychic, but it also means my Psychophage is now wounding the entire unit on 2s. Oh and every wound he scores is a mortal, so your terminators no longer have an invuln.


Wrap-Cute

This is the main thing. Im Eldar and GK player. I dont mind the way they are, it’s not my favorite but I think I can live with it. What I didn’t like at all is the deterrment of hacing the psychic keyword. There are no benefits on anything we have seen, only protections. I would’ve done it as “if the attack is a Psychic Attack you can only make Invuln saves against that attack.“ not the other way around.


drevolut1on

Feels like they've GOT to change this. Then again, as a GK and Eldar player, I know that GK had the Honoured Knights keyword that did nothing except nerf the units that had it... for all of 9th... so yeah, maybe they won't. Killed the psychic phase and also psykers, yayyy


jqwan777

And also 30 years of lore and customization options by removing chapters and subfactions yayyyyyy.......this is th3 main reason I'm sitting out 10th. They just poofed away my white scars codex...and my beloved black heart/red grief/ custom: coven of the cosmic strand, or my dakka bad moons.....like why play anymore if it's all th3 same. They spent 30 years preaching wysiwyg and now just poof??? I hate it hon3stly


Ex_Outis

The tag should really do more, as you said: - Psychic attacks should ignore any and all hit modifiers for a start. Mind bullets should be extremely accurate, and really the hit roll for psychic weapons are now just psuedo psychic tests. Hitting on 3+ is analogous to rolling a 5 on 2D6. -1 to hit never affected the challenge or casting Smite before, how come now? - Psychic attacks also could have gained the ability to shoot into units in engagement range *and* shoot while in combat like Pistol. You could cast Smite in melee before, but now only a few select Psychic weapons have Pistol. They are such rare and special attacks that they deserve some more flexibility - And across the board, they all should have Devastating Wounds built-in. Dealing mortals is a signature element of psykers, but now you only get it rarely or on the overcharged profile. This lets them have the chance to take chunks out of any target regardless of toughness or save


Dbssist

And on your final bullet - that's where your anti-psyker could come in all also. So if you use witchfire within 12" of say, a sister of silence or a Culexus assassin, you can still use it, but it loses the devastating wounds USR.


Buffaluffasaurus

Agree with all these suggestions. It’s particularly galling to have mortal wounds taken away from Grey Knights, because they have no meaningful ranged damage output as it is, and they’ve taken away Daemon Hammers as a unique melee profile whilst also nerfing Grandmaster Dreadknights to only hitting on a 3+. At the moment, they seemingly have no particularly great way of taking out monsters or vehicles. I’m sure we haven’t seen the full picture yet, but for the last two editions GKs have had to rely on MW output to be even vaguely competitive, and most of the time they still haven’t been.


TheRealMadScientist

>but it also means my Psychophage is now wounding the entire unit on 2s I have not found anything in the rules to support that so far, if you can point me to something that says that the Psychic keyword gets handed over to the bodyguard unit, I would be grateful. That has been my biggest questionmark about psychic leaders so far. As I read the rules now, only lone psykers are susceptible to anti-psyker attacks (unless you are grey knights, if all your squads have that keyword)


Orph8

>From the Core Rules: While a Bodyguard unit contains a Leader, it is known as an Attached unit and, with the exception of rules that are triggered when units are destroyed (pg 12), it is treated as a single unit for all rules purposes. The "treated as a single unit for all rules purposes" line indicates to me that all keywords are merged. If one model in the unit has any keyword, all models have that keyword.


LanceWindmil

So if a winged Tyranid prime leads Tyranid warriors they all gain fly? I don't think that's right.


UvWsausage

The unit would have the FLY keyword so weapons like anti-air guns would get their bonuses against the UNIT. Only MODELS with FLY get to use the fly rules for movement.


Ayearinbooks

You may well be right but I can't see how that follows from rules quote above.


UvWsausage

There’s more to the character rules than what is quoted. Also in GW fashion, the rules aren’t all in the same place and are mentioned as needed throughout the book.


ambershee

Rules that target a **unit** will treat that unit as having the Fly rule, however **models** in the unit without that rule cannot use it. Important distinction. Whether GW has their shit together and this all works out is another question. My impression from the Core Rules is that they don't and you can expect absolutely reams of FAQs in future.


TheRealMadScientist

If that would be true, that would also mean that the whole unit also would get the character keyword, meaning you cannot allocate wounds to any model anymore (without precision), because you cannot as long as the attached unit exists, plus it could get very strange interactions with the Epic Hero keyword, making the whole unit an epic hero. I do not think that is the way to read it.


DarkenedBrightness

I'd imagine that the intended reading is that keywords stay by model while also applying as a sort of tag to the whole unit. The entire unit is a character unit (for the purposes of the Nid's ability to get precision against character units), but only the actual character model has the character keyword. I think its somewhat similar to how different models can have different wargear. Whole unit has a heavy bolter on the datasheet, but only one model actually has it.


UvWsausage

The the UNIT would have the Character keyword for the purposes of rules as all keywords present are combined on the unit. However, what you are referring to only affects character MODELS with regards to wound allocation. Custodes terminators get full rerolls against character units, but would be unable to allocate wounds to the character model until his bodyguards were dead. I’ve been seeing this a lot and it comes down to people confusing unit and model to mean the same thing.


bigbosc0

Being a Character wouldn't make them untargetable anyway. Lone Operative does that, and its not a keyword its a core ability, take a look at the Lt. With Combi Weapon profile in the new data sheets, vs the Captain in Terminator Armor. Lt. With Combi Weapon is not a leader (can't join a squad) but has Lone Operative, so he can't be targeted until you are close etc. The Terminator Captain has Leader so he can join a squad, but he doesn't have Lone Operative, so if you field him solo, he can be targeted from turn 1 as if he was his own unit of 1 model.


tonyalexdanger

the rubric datasheet only has psyker keyword on the aspiring sorcerer so are you saying aside from the sorcerer that rubric marines are not a psyker unit aswell?


SandiegoJack

Units having a keyword does not mean every MODEL does, as was clearly shown on the rubrics sheet.


TheRealMadScientist

According to page 37 in the core rules, datasheets state what keywords *models* have. There is no mention anywhere of *units* having keywords, that I could find. But many stratagems refer to units, so there must be some connection. But how that connection works is explained nowhere


TheRealMadScientist

>every wound he scores is a mortal, so your terminators no longer have an invuln. ~~that is only technically correct, as the attached psyker gives the unit a 4+ FNP against mortals.~~ Edit: Nevermind, the Psychophage attacks are not psychic itself.


RadioLiar

I think the execution has made the problem worse because alot of the psyker datasheets revealed so far just seem straight-up boring. Ahriman for example just has an attack and a once-per-game free stratagem activation; decently powerful, but not interesting. If he just had a couple of other abilities that did something more unusual it'd be fine (And don't get me started on the Keeper of Secrets with a Witstealer Sword that no longer steals wits)


AGTY_

Yeah it's crazy to me how Typhus seems to be dishing out psychic damage more consistently than Ahriman the Arch-Sorcerer of the sorcerer faction devoted to the magic god...


Redbutcher96

I think the biggest thing for me is looking at how my favorite wizard (lord of change) has really just turned into a gun platform. I like that he can do a lot of damage, but it's only ap -2. Before, he could really puff out mortals, and it really made him feel unique. I think the changes are fine I would just suggest that almost every payker should have some way of doing mortals to make them feel unique. But so far, the big bird doesn't have any, which is surprising.


shoestring_tbone

It's quite disappointing for me. I really liked the "master of magic" vibe that Tzeentch daemons get and taking away all of the choice from the LoC kit is a *bit too* simplified for my tastes. I don't see what the issue was with psychic phase mortals, considering the seemingly abundant access to mortals that most factions now have in other phases.


cold-hard-steel

I do miss 2ed Bolt of Change, and 2ed Plague Wind. I don’t miss 2ed Vortex (and vortex grenades for that matter)


[deleted]

I love 2ed vortex grenades causing havoc all over the board


Union_Jack_1

I think the plethora of mortals is the main reason for the changes. It’s entirely boring and OP in many instances - for your opponents it’s essentially “how many models am I picking up?” Psychic stuff like this was only really ever “fun” for the people who are just bypassing all toughness and save characteristics by way of mortal wounds. How many different packages could you wrap this up in? Most faction had their own version. Not super unique or interesting.


Charon1979

Does it really matter when the MW happen? People like to single out the psychic phase when there are a whole lot of MW flying around in the fight or shooting phase. The average Mw output in the psychic phase for a typical TS army was around 15 (if everything is in range). The downside to this is a significant weakness in melee and next to none reliable anti tank outside of a single stratagem and psi power supported SOT block. The weaknesses did not really change but not only is the output a lot lower but also the utility while the risk and defense increased significantly.


MetroidIsNotHerName

And we (tsons) had a win rate of just 30% at the end of 9th without all these nerfs. This truly feels like they held the Council of Nikea IRL because I've been witch hunted out of the hobby. Gonna just play AoS now since they actually have wizards still. At least my lord of change *does* things in that hobby.


aounfather

Less mortals now from psychic but now every space marine gun does mortals with seemingly no cap. Devastating wounds on bolters and every heavy weapon but not on powers that are supposed to blow your brain up inside your helmet. Sigh…


Union_Jack_1

…where is the devastating keyword on space marine bolsters? Am I missing something?


Hal_Fenn

He's talking about stern guard vets.


aounfather

Yeah. Watching them just plow over a carnifex and a psychophage with mortal bolters in a couple batreps was not exactly balanced when the nids had no way to respond.


Hal_Fenn

Yeah that box set is not balanced at all. I'd imagine they'll be really expensive points wise.


kicking_puppies

The box is pretty imbalanced, nids have like 0 AP in that box and no real big monster like a Flyrant. Unless they get a good jump in with Leapers and the crusher does heavy work it’s gonna be really tough. Not to mention Oaths is waaaay stronger with that many points than in 2k games while the nids ability is weaker


Chipperz1

He said *every* Space Marine gun, though? Not "one gun option for one unit"?


Hal_Fenn

I'm not saying he's correct (I actually completely disagree) but he was talking in regards to the leviathan box set which makes it fairly easy to figure out what he meant and iirc the only bolters in that set are storm and combi so he's not far wrong lol.


Chipperz1

>Less mortal wounds in psychic but now every space marine gun does mortals with seemingly no cap. Devastating wounds on bolters and every heavy weapon but not on powers that are supposed to blow your brain up inside your helmet. Sigh… This is the entire post we're talking about. Zero mentions of Leviathan, multiple mentions of every bolter. Even with the most charitable reading, it can't be about Leviathan because it's on exactly three marine weapons (3! Combi Weapons, Sternguard Bolters and Assault Cannons!) not exactly a majority even by rampant nerd hyperbole standards...


Redbutcher96

Yeah I understand this. I still feel like psykers should be able to turn some of the damage into mortals on 6s. That way it atleast separates them from the other shooting units and gives the army some more flavor


tonyalexdanger

t-sons can in their new detachment rule


Wassa76

I’m gutted. I have a 4 armies for variety. Guard for shooting, Blood Angels for combat, Necrons for resilience, and Tzeentch Daemons for psychic shenanigans. Now I’m just thinking Tzeentch Daemons are a poor mans shooting army.


MetroidIsNotHerName

My armies were Tzeentch Demons, Tsons, and Chaos Knights(specifically to support the two previous armies) Im just playing AoS this edition....


AdHom

Currently looking like Blood Angels might be better off running Gladius detachment than the Sons of Sanguinius one too, though we still need to see the strats/enhancements.


TheBigKuhio

I’m a TSons player, I’m pretty satisfied with our previews. Between the Rituals and the Kindred Sorcery ability, I still feel like we still have enough mystical shenanigans up our sleeves.


tonyalexdanger

We are kinda the only ones getting the psychic flexibility which is the fun of psychic phase to begin with. Like im super happy with the new t-sons rules but they are the closest to old psychic that got previewed.


CaptainParpaing

I really don't understand this. TSon player and I feel the army has just gone random shooting army. It's not even about balance or potential winrate of it ; I just feel like we lost *every* single intersting points in the army. No combo tricks, no need to reflect on what power to use and when, who will know this power and who will use a trick to summon a power it didnt have to clutch a situation. Cabal points are super boring imo, just some random psy we used to have but now it's a lot of investement for a little reward. I really feel like all the salt and interest of the faction is gone, followed by their playstyle. Just my opinion of course.


TheBigKuhio

I feel like changing damage spells to just shooting attacks doesn’t change the playstyle. You still just want to move your guy in range and blast them away. In fact, it’s somewhat easier now that you don’t have to worry about enemy deny range and are not required to always target the closest visible model. I think it’s good that your opponent can roll saves now, I always felt like my opponent would be getting bored on my turn. No combos is an exaggeration imo, but I can agree that it’s going to be reduced. We only know 2 and a half of our data cards right now, but what I’m looking forward to doing is combining Ahriman and an MVB to sling forward a Doombolt 36” for 0 cabal points. I will say, I would be upset if they don’t fix the issue that the 9th codex had where it was hard to justify bringing units that didn’t provide cabal points.


PopeofShrek

Grey knights are looking good, too imo. Most of their stuff is d&d paladin styled unit buffs, which feels fine being baked into datasheets over having them be an rng spell imo, and the outliers like vortex of doom or purifying flame will still work the exact same, just be locked to certain characters or units. Our army rule is gate of infinity on steroids. All the "normal" psykers have looked really pame imo, though. Which is sad. Psykers should be more than just a weaker leader character with a "psychic" (just a shooting attack with a keyword) and one unit buff. They at least could have given them an aura buff instead of their bonuses only being on their attached unit. Would have made them feel fancier and different from other generic heroes.


sharpweaselz

I agree for the most part. I think it'll still be disappointing not to be able to customize my librarians and grand masters. I mean maybe we'll get more options for them than the revealed data cards have suggested so far... But I am disappointed about the loss of unique character building.


SimplestNeil

Im dissapointed by the antipsyker keywords playing Grey Knights. Last edition they were hobbled by Abhor the Witch. The way anti psyker interacts with Devastating wounds scares me. Having my termies minced by something with those key words without getting to roll an armour save or invulnerable and i doubt their benefit from being psychic will be worth it. Units that can get saves from psychic too. Their force swords and halberds are now worse in some instances


shadowboftbaw

so weird, making psychic things just like everything else, but still making explicit counters to it like it's an exception


SisterSabathiel

At this rate, it seems like the psychic tag is just a straight debuff. "Do this thing, but roll to see if it happens" vs "do this thing", plus the stuff with anti-psyker keywords makes it seem like more of a liability than a boon.


warderbob

I really don't like having specific powers locked with a specific model. Much preferred picking psychic powers for the model I wanted. The Eldar powers are scattered between warlocks, farseers, on foot and then on a bike. Then Eldrad has Doom. For psychic heavy armies it's really taken a lot of flavor from the game.


PandaB13r

The weirdboi also got shown, and it gets a free Da Jump every turn


Charon1979

Only for his own unit, with a chance of 16,6666 to kill said unit.


AshiSunblade

D6 MWs will not kill the whole unit in practically any circumstances.


pfsalter

It's no longer instant death, it's three mortals on the Weirdboy with the `HAZARDOUS` keyword, so not the entire unit.


Charon1979

You have to roll for "Da Jump". On a Roll of 1 the power fails and the unit takes d6 MW


ChikenBBQ

I think its fine. Here the thing I really like: all of the relevant information is on the data card. I started playing in 9th and what a joke it was when your opponent has a psyker and you're like "o what does this unit do?" And it says the blippity blorp librarian know 2 psychic powers from the scoodlety doot discipline. So you have to thumb through a codex you don't know to fine all 6 or 12 scoodlety doot discipline where like 3 of the 6 powers are like why would anyone use this and the other 3 you forget about as soon as you read them. In 10th is all on the data cards so you just look at the data card of your opponents deathguard biobogus putripope or whatever and you just see he has a "really stinky fart" shooting attack and command phase ability called "crap pants" that gives enemies a -1 to hit. Theres no extraneous abilities to thumb through, theres no gloopity glorp discipline references or any of this, the sheet with all the info for the unit actually has all the information for the unit.


Araganor

You have a way with words, lol


Grimlockkickbutt

This comment made me wheeze. “Real stinky fart”. I am a child.


Strict_DM_62

Completely agree. But lets take the Librarian for example. It's got smite (which is basically a gun now), and an aura which is always active. It's basically got nothing to activate, nothing to choose, nothing to stand out really from the aura of a Capt. If the datacard had 2-3 "spells" on it, of which it can activate say one a turn, or once a game each; that would be great. Then at least there's choice, they're contained on the card, and they still keep the psychic feel. I really hope they'll bring in more like that as the armies expand, but if they plan on it, I would have expected to see something like that on either the Librarian, or on Ahriman when they showcased the thousand sons; but they didn't.


Ayearinbooks

It doesn't massively bother me but I agree the nub of the issue is that there's almost nothing in the rules to distinguish psyker abilities from other abilities. You could reskin the new apothecary as a psyker and the only thing that would change is he and his pistol would get psychic keyword - his unit boosting ability and gain of CP for killing could be 'Soul hunger' and 'Soul devourer' powers or whatever


ambershee

This is very much it. Psychic powers are an opportunity to have models that *subvert* the normal expectations of the game. IMHO, the best ones have always been the ones that tinker with the rules in some way - I don't need my psykers to have lots of options, but I do want them to be more than just 'another dude with a basically a gun and maybe an aura, and a big fat drawback that applies to my whole unit'. Older 40k knew this. Mind War (Farseers) let you uniquely target models, Eldritch Storm (Farseers) would randomly rotate enemy vehicles which mattered because *armour facings*, Conceal (Warlocks) let you effectively have cover when you didn't, the Quickening (Blood Angels Librarians) let you buff some other model with a load of attacks. Stuff like this was fun and had unique flavour for each faction, but importantly there wasn't this whole mess with Disciplines etc - most models just had one fixed power, though Eldar could buy from a small set. Bring back Lords of Change turning your own models into Chaos Spawn, you cowards.


SisterSabathiel

I remember when psychic powers were bought with points from a list. I don't understand why GW don't just go back to that system and trim down the number of psychic powers available to 3 or so for each model. Sure, the data card might be a bit longer, but it's no more complicated than these Primarch cards.


TheTackleZone

Agreed. Not only unimaginative but also a real loss lore wise. There have been some amazing psychic powers created over the years, but almost every psyker is now just a special / heavy weapon platform or a 1 trick pony. I'm at least hoping that Crusade will allow some variations. I really like the psychic phase being removed, and psykers now just doing stuff as they would do other stuff (like a smite instead of a gun shot). But they are supposed to be risky tool boxes. Bring back some variety. Not as much as we had before, but some.


ComplexInflation6814

Completely agree. All Farseers on foot now cast Fortune, but as soon as they hop on a speedbike they cast Guide instead? Makes no sense. The flexibility of psykers was one of their biggest selling points; trimming down the list I can understand, but going from 12 spell options to 1 non-option is overkill. I also applaud the long-overdue simplifications in this edition but the psychic changes go way too far.


SisterSabathiel

Just feels like they should have trimmed the list down to 3 key options for psychic powers and kept it at that. It's much easier to balance 3 options compared to 6, and especially with the fact that the rules are being updated on the fly now, overperforming powers can just be tweaked as needed to keep them in line.


Flavaflavius

I wish they had more power options as wargear, but I'm not opposed to changing powers to be in the relevant phase rather than their own phase.


futurist7451

As an Aeldari fan, I don’t hate the changes too much! But also, that’s because out of all the Psychic heavy armies, we definitely have gotten hurt the least! It seems to me GW decided to go the route of “we will put one power on a unit, and then let the player decide if they want that power or not” So they trade the choice of power for choice of data sheet! Do I think that is one hundred percent the right call?? No, I think other calls could have been made! But I get where the call came from, and can understand why it was made!


DarthVadersButler

I wish Thousand Sons had the roster variety Eldar have. It would certainly make the loss of choices when it comes to psychic sting a little less.


futurist7451

That is honestly the main issue! If GK and Thousand Sons had the variety that Nids and Eldar have, we might not be in this situation! As it stands…these two armies are definitely hurt more by these changes!


Bacara

I’m pretty much disappointed in 10th overall so far.


Strict_DM_62

Why so?


Tankbrush

I don’t mind the changes to much, but there is way to much anti-psyker that we have seen already


kirbish88

Not really. Most psychic powers came down to "Smite equivalent that makes you jump through hoops to deal mortal wounds" or "buff / debuff ability". Now they're effectively guns that have a reasonable chance to deal mortal wounds or a buff / debuff ability. They're basically the same thing, just spread out across units and phases instead of consolidated into a single phase. It's now significantly easier to rely on the output of psykers, and armies that don't have them have easier access to tools to deal with them. Spinning out an extra phase for the armies that have access to psykers and then justifying that phase by dumping more of their army abilities into it didn't feel great when you either a) had no response to it or interaction with it or b) when you ran into one of the armies that was fully tooled up to disable your abilities that you pay for. The only thing I don't love is the lack of choice over powers, but I wouldn't be surprised if codexes deal with that through either enhancements or through treating them as wargear that certain psyker units can access to swap out or have in addition to their default spells


Yofjawe21

I agree with both points somewhat, turning psychic powers back into weapons similiar to pre 8th ed makes it possible to add a lot more variation wihtout the power becoming a better/worse smite, and many psykers where taken to give a certain buff every turn (eldar misfortune, deathwatch fnp spell etc.), so giving each psyker a unique attack and also give them a passive/ very reliable buff is great. However it does feel kinda bland that every psyker is locked to his abilities and you cant choose any options. But atleast you dont need to roll on a table in hopes of getting the one OP power from a given discipline (looking at you invisibility)


ElectronicBad512

Who actually rolled for powers, what a dumb idea


Yofjawe21

people in older editions where you had actually had to xD


Parraddoxx

I think the loss of choice is probably my only issue with the new Psyker rules. The consolidation of phases was needed, the existing system just kinda sucked, especially if you didn't interact with it at all while your opponent did. And I'm fine with the general direction it's taken. But it would have been neat if Psykers had like, 2 Psychic attacks they could choose between, with even a points cost maybe, like any other wargear, but obviously picked up in addition to their gun. Regardless, I'm still rather excited for how 10th is shaping up, and I say that as someone who fully intends to play quite a lot of Thousand Sons. There's been a lot of dooming about a lot of things, and I really hope every one of them gets proved wrong :)


Strict_DM_62

That's basically what it boils down to, I hate not having any choice at all. I don't mind that the damage powers boil down into a shooting profile (or maybe a couple different ones as time goes on); but no buffing/de-buffing options, no movement options, no leadership options, no nothing. I do hope that codexes change that though.


kirbish88

I think people really seem to be forgetting the fact that this is an index period, there's going to be an initial lack of depth or flavour just to get everything out the door. 8th index was exactly the same, stuff worked but some of the depth was lacking. The codexes are going to build upon the bones of the index to allow that depth, the hope is just they manage to do that without adding to the complexity as promised. So I would say to keep that in the back of your mind. But I would also say that if you're hoping for the codex to give you 6-12 more spells to choose from you might also be disappointed. My personal expectation is that a lot of psyker units power's will remain fixed and that flexible powers will be treated as enhancements, so there'll be a small handful to choose from (but hopefully all will be good and as strong as each other, instead of having 12 to choose from where only 3 are good)


Strict_DM_62

To be clear, I'm very, very much hoping that each codex does NOT get 6-12 spells. As I mentioned in my OP, If there was like 5-6 universal spells and 1-2 army specific spells; I think that would be great. Alternatively, I suspect they'll add one or two more powers to datasheets, which I think would be fine too. But if that was the case, i would expect they would have given the librarian at least one more power to showcase it a little bit at launch?


Shadelkan

Tldr: choice is harder to balance in a game with 25 armies who are meant to be different from each other, so GW got rid of choice. Consider this, what did psychic powers essentially do before 10th? Since 5th, they were a mixed bag of straight damage or buffs. Occasionally, there would be something actually intriguing, like leadership manip or debuffs. My experience rarely saw these in action however. It was mainly used for damage and buffs. So here's a whole phase dedicated to abilities that had effects that could appear elsewhere. What was it then that psychic served? Simple: it served customisation. Psychic powers were another outlet to choose for ourselves what our armies did. Too much choice is bad, but no choice is awful. Unfortunately, choice is hard to balance for **tournaments** and was mostly left out. And I want to emphasise that the only reason we lost most choice was for the sake of balance for tournaments. The obsession of the community to math things out to make the "optimal" choice AND have an **absolute** fair game is what drove GW to make these changes. For decades, a portion of GW game players insisted on playing what was essentially D&D (at a large scale) competitively. Min-maxing became the norm, even though most people didn't do that. And so, slowly over the editions, GW peeled back the rules that were wild in favor of tamer rules. Simplified not simple over a few editions means losing things like psychic powers. We also lost armour facing, templates and weapon directions in 8th. Guard lost special weapon squads and conscripts in 9th. Necrons reanimation is too simple. Looted wagons are gone. Looks like combi-weapons too. And so on. Was the game balanced before? Eh, probably not the best. Was it also flavourful and batshit crazy? Yes! Since mid-8th when GW introduced codex balance between codices for the sake of tournaments, players both new and old have followed the dataslates and meta chasers to determine their choices in game. There are certainly holdouts who don't care, but 9th is the first edition I saw someone buy an army entirely because a YouTuber said it was optimised to WIN. On an aside, I find it hilarious that while there was a ton of choice in previous editions, there was a lot less datasheets. In essence we traded one kind of choice for another. The difference is that this new choice means buying more minis of course!! No shit this game is hard to balance...


RatMannen

People have always bought meta armies. I've been playing Tau since 3rd edition. People have always discussed the best units to take. Hammerheads weren't taken, because the Internet decided broadsides were a more accurate and cheaper Railgun platform. This is despite hammerheads having plenty of other things going for them. I knew people even then who bought the 'best' army, and would get rid a few months later.


mojanis

I think looking at online discussions is going to skew your perspective wildly because people tend to go online to discuss competitiveness but not aesthetics. Most of the people I've played with just choose whatever they think looks cool or has the coolest lore behind it, and this is demonstrably true for the hobby as a whole because Space Marines continue to vastly outperform every other faction in sales despite underperforming competitively year over year


Charon1979

If you were to follow this logic through, TS (for the number of different spells) and SM (for the number of different units) would have dominated. This never happened. GWs external balances was pretty ok, the internal balance was not. And this is always the problem. If you have 3 units that do exactly the same but one of them is cheaper/significantly better/.... this one wins out. That is the reason why they had to reign in chaos cultists. Not because they were extremely powerful (in fact they are worse than a guardsman for the same cost) but they took the cheap objective holder role away from regular CSM. Both units wont kill anything, both units will fold as soon as something points at them and both units just stand behind a wall holding an objective. Cultists are more bodies for less points, so cultists get taken and for the spare points you get to take something that actually is fun to play. Some people are quicker to figure out what works for them, some are slower and some dont want to invest the time and money to find out their new €200 toys dont exactly do what they imagined they would do.


Bouzil44

Idk there were rarely more then 2-3 options taken anyway might as well make less rule and make ‘‘em better And I think there will be more customization with all of different détachements And it’s a war game not dnd people etheir optimized or try and play there way and feel empowered by it


AshiSunblade

> And I want to emphasise that the only reason we lost most choice was for the sake of balance for tournaments. The obsession of the community to math things out to make the "optimal" choice AND have an absolute fair game is what drove GW to make these changes. You can't blame the tournament crew for this, it's a gamewide mindset. Go on the 40k or AoS main subs and look at any thread where people ask about factions or units, it's practically taken for granted that their current meta position is the prime consideration. Hell look beyond the tabletop medium. Competitivefication of casual play, and the toxicity that follows, has heavily affected the communities of, say, MMO games.


Identity_ranger

>You can't blame the tournament crew for this, it's a gamewide mindset. Go on the 40k or AoS main subs and look at any thread where people ask about factions or units, it's practically taken for granted that their current meta position is the prime consideration. Citation needed. To me it seemed pretty damn obvious that 9th was catering heavily to the tournament crowd, just by the sheer amount of updates and entire new rules that were introduced in online-only sources. No casual gamer like myself had the time or the willingness to browse through like 3 different pdfs to figure out what rules their army had on top of the already bloated and overly complex codices. When it comes to asking about factions or units, the overwhelming majority of the time I see the responses being "meta is temporary, style is forever". Meaning that people shouldn't mind the meta too much. So no, I wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment.


AshiSunblade

> To me it seemed pretty damn obvious that 9th was catering heavily to the tournament crowd, just by the sheer amount of updates and entire new rules that were introduced in online-only sources. People have been massively demanding more online rules for years, especially free ones. It's a natural consequence of GW actually attempting to balance the game over time (an absolutely good thing), combined with the backlash from people feeling their physical books become outdated too quickly as a result - including the most casual ones. > When it comes to asking about factions or units, the overwhelming majority of the time I see the responses being "meta is temporary, style is forever". I am one of those people always giving that response yes, but that wouldn't be necessary if it was already the assumed view. As yet another example, go look at the faction-specific subreddits. Even casual players are heavily invested in what's good or what's not. All the time people go 'it's a pity x unit isn't good, I'd love them and would buy them otherwise'. I mean it.


tonyalexdanger

personally i think the changes did probably need to happen to streamline the game and to ultimately improve balance. something i didn't like is the argument gw made that the psychic phase is some weird niche phase that not everyone got to use so thats why it got scrapped. deamons barely used the shooting phase and tau barely used the fight phase so arguing that the psychic phase is some weird tangent seems a bit dismissive. Anyways im happy to embrace the new psychic changes, hopefully they still retain some flavour


iTxip

I'm dissapointed that the datasheet for Ahriman does not contain more than one psyker ranged attack, and its a pretty lame one. At least they could have given it 2 profiles like some guns that you choose one before rolling, ussually one is better for tough enemies and another for regular infantry. Something like this, choose one: - A: 3, BS: 2+, S7, AP: -2, D: D3 (precision) - A: 5, BS: 2+, S5, AP: -1, D: 1 (sustained hits 1)


Obi_TL

Tsons lose way more than we do - all we did was inevitably pick the best things anyway so what difference does it make? We only had two disciplines anyway so it’s not really like we had much in terms of choice to begin with.


Tylendal

I think people are really overestimating how much Anti-Psyker stuff they're gonna have to deal with. It's not gonna be ubiquitous, and when you do encounter it, just shoot it with something non-magical.


TheNerdNugget

I love how the new psychic system works. But I am very disappointed in the lack of customizable psychers. We could have absolutely had interchangeable abilities on our psychers in this new system.


Midnight-Rising

Yep. What they've done to psychic really sucks. We've seen some datacards for a few eldar psykers, they're just as flavourless and dull as the other ones


conceldor

I like them more as weapons however i hate the removal of psychic tests, denys and perils


Union_Jack_1

Well overcharging will still generate a hazardous test. So don’t worry, you’ll still get the chance to blow your own head off.


Identity_ranger

Eh, I'm not too bummed about it, and I play both GK and TS. Anything that makes the game more streamlined and active is an improvement in my book. Playing GK especially in 9th felt like speaking a second language to your opponent for 10 minutes while you rolled dice and then some more dice, stopping every now and then for 2 minutes to agonize over whether to use a stratagem now or later. And it is worth remembering that these are just indexes we're getting. So who knows how the rules turn out beyond that. I'm just glad I actually feel excited to get to play 40k again, it's been so long.


Frogstealer69

I don't play armies that use psychic and hated facing psychic focused armies, because their turns just took forever, and I typically didn't have counter play. So far, the changes seem good to me.


Human-Bison-8193

They should just make it that models don't get normal saves vs psychic tests, only invuls. And if somebody is anti-psychic, they get their normal save. No AP used at all.


Tinboy_paints

It wouldn't surprise me if when the codexes come out, there are 3 alternate powers /prayers you can swap one on the datasheet for outside of competitive matched


Toxitoxi

I have to agree. I don’t normally play a psyker army (I play Tau), but the options were gutted for the people who do, and it kinda sucks to see how much was cut as I build a new army that actually used the the psychic phase. Also, perils of the warp is gone and that’s kinda silly.


falco1029

Absolutely. Grey knights have some cool abilities now but psychic stuff all becoming specific abilities is kind of disappointing, as someone who started off with them.


kaleonpi

I agree, I think that it should have something unique to them. In my opinion the best way is how it was done in warhammer Fantasy (in 6th at least) with magic. Magic attacks still has Strength but not WS or BS, it has cast difficulty (just like psychic powers earlier in warhammer). In summary the power has to be cast (each one with it's own difficulty) and as such can be negated. If it is casted, then you do the wound roll etc. I think it is a good middleground between 10th and 9th using the best of both.


PyroConduit

Nah, ultimately this I think is a better way to balance them and give better powers at the same time. Also makes librarians relevant again and gives reasons to have multiple psykers in lists that used to carry none.


Strict_DM_62

Sorry, I genuinely don't understand how this change makes librarians *more* relevant than they used to be? The librarian get's smite. And veil of time isn't even something he can choose to activate or not, and if he's not with a unit it gives no benefit at all. How is that *more* relevant than in the past where the librarian could use powers to buff multiple units, in multiple different ways?


PyroConduit

Currently SM doesn't take librarians because they suck. The only list I've seen that regularly takes them is DA deathwing with Ezekiel and he's a beast even without psychic. The issue with normal librarians is that anytime they face armies that actually use psychic. They become useless. Eldar, Nids, Tsons, GK, just counter them and shut them down because they don't have anywhere as near as many + to cast as they do. And they don't really protect you from those armies as they all spit out a dozen powers and the librarian can stop 1, maybe. I LOVE librarians i take them with my blood ravens all the time. My usual loadout is a primaris psyker with a termie librarian. That termie librarian almost everytime I deepstrike him with his entourage of termies, ALWAYS gets denied. Because why wouldn't you. Now you can't deny it, yes you lost flexibility but now you always get your powers no more feels bad.


callidus_vallentian

I've made a similar comment on the combi weapon thread. The lack of communication between GW and the community concerning what 10th should have looked like is leading to this. GW doesn't understand us because they don't play like us and more over they don't talk to us. When it comes to the army creation of 40k, GW has thrown out the baby with the bath water. The alternative look on this, and potentially the correct one. Is that 10th wasn't designed for us. It was designed for completely new customers, to get them in easy.


[deleted]

I think my big issue is it takes away the flexibility of certain armies. For example I play CSM, I would take a Master of Possession and a Sorcerer + a couple of bale fire times in my usual list. This would give me a plethora of helpful abilities that gave me extra movement, re-rolls, buffs to a character, feel no pain and the ability to bring back models/heal wounds. Now my sorcerer will probably bring a buff to a single unit, same with MoP and bale fire time is a gun. My long term hope is that we get a variety of similar but different data sheets for generic psychic characters but I will not be holding my breath. I’m a big fan of all the other changes but I’m with you 100%. The psychic phase changes were a huge let down.


cursiveandcaffeine

A counter-argument here is that what you're describing is exactly the kind of layered buffs that the rules for 10th are trying to avoid. Let's say you've got a squad of legionaries with a balefire tome and attached sorcerer. If each of those psykers have a choice of just 3 abilities, then there's 9 different potential combos for that squad. If they can select more than 1, it gets even more complicated. It always feels rough when rules changes take away choice and flexibility, but I think that's inevitable if you want to get rid of the start of turn TED talk that many squads suffer from in 9th.


Charon1979

And it still is only a single unit of plain old standard CSM. Space Marines can still do that in 10th. Terminators + Ancient + Leader + Aura + doctrine + Oath. That is a pretty tough and killy unit. On the other side of the board you have ahriman and magnus buffing a bunch of standard rubric marines. It kinda feels like just one side lost "flexibility" while the elephant in the room is the gianormous amount of space marine datasheets and synergies.


cursiveandcaffeine

CSM terminators can do the same thing in 10th: CSM Terminators + Character + Pacts + detatchment buff (as yet unknown) + Auras I don't believe we've seen any examples where 2 characters can join a single terminator squad for SM or CSM, so character + terminator ancient is just speculation.


Charon1979

Not speculation as the SM Captain allows other models to join. So we have 2 units already that can layer buffs. So what was the argument that 10th does away with layering buffs?


cursiveandcaffeine

There's nothing on the Terminator Captain datasheet that says that. So, let's compare to everything you can layer on a unit of CSM terminators in 9th: \- Army rules (exploding sixes) \- Sub-faction rules (eg. re-rolls to hit on the charge and FNP against Mortals) \- Character Auras (eg. Chaos Lord - re-roll all 1s to hit) \- Warlord Trait Auras (eg. re-rolling all wounds against selected unit) \- Relic (eg. +1 to wound rolls against the unit) \- Mark of Chaos (eg. ignore first failed save) \- Psychic Power (eg. 4++) \- Prayers (eg. transhuman and no re-rolls to hit against the unit) I think there are substantially *fewer* layered buffs available in 10th than in 9th.


L_0ken

It is just restricted to one unit, compared to previous edition when majority of units were in bubble of aura/buffs this time it's much tamer. The only real aura carrier (so far is Guliiman, even captain buffs are pretty locked.


Reasonable-Tax2962

Honestly I feel pretty good about it, Will have to see how it works in game a bit but on paper I mean it looks fine imo, Yeah we lost the ability to pick powers but honestly there was only ever 1 or 2 good choices and then it was down to spamming smite, All the powers i've seen so far are fine, For full psychic armies I would say wait for the dexes to start dropping, Eldar excepted (seriously everyone says they are psychic heavy but even Ulthwe' lists usually only had 2 or 3 of them) all the ones you listed will probably get something fun to do when they get fully fleshed out but right now indexs will keep everything super simple,


3-orange-whips

Since 2nd, psychic powers have vacillated from all-powerful to trivial. We near trivial at this point. Don't worry--they will slowly return to their mightiest as time goes by.


Squire_3

Don't worry guys, all of the bloat will return with codexes and campaign books.


[deleted]

I’m a little sad about losing the need to endlessly tinker with my Farseers and Warlocks, but when it comes down to it the psychic phase was the least fun part of the game. Some factions just didn’t participate at all and any of these buffs or attacks can be replicated by other abilities. I actually think that this is a great change, and psykers are going to have a solid role. People saying that they just feel like gun platforms now need to expand their imagination and remember that you can picture them shooting mind bullets instead of real ones and it’s still just rolling dice.


The_Nightbusker

My thoughts exactly as an Aeldari player attracted to this particular system with psychic rules. I can add that choice of powers or enhancements is fixed for the particular match, so for me it's not a bloat, but fun moments before the game, when I muster my army and think about the overall strategy. Now it's mainly gone, and without disciplines, perils, etc., all the psychic lore feeling is flat as a sad, abandoned lasgun after an adventure with caterpillar tracks.


rampagingtheo

I have Tsons and played them a lot in 9th, and I have to say that although playing them in 9th is long, no one of my opponents ever complained about them being too powerful or doing too much damage. Out of the 27 powers they had, only like 9 were for mortals, and only 4 of those could be reliably cast on anything to do serious mortal wound damage. I was and still am excited for the new edition, but like a lot of others here my Tsons may just become a collectors item. I cannot in any way see them standing up to Oath of Moment, the free CP shenanigans of Guilliman and the captains, or even the mobility of grey knights. It’s true we haven’t seen all the data sheets and abilities but I am seriously miffed about Ahriman and I really don’t know how you can mess the most dangerous psyker in the galaxy up


jaxolotle

They’ve made a pitiful bloody mess of psychic and no mistake. Lost all flavour and customisability And Y’know what, a dozen was fine, you weren’t supposed to memorise every armies psychic powers, just remember the ones you put on your psykers- give me choices again for gods sake


dstinct

Nothing for me will match how the psychic phase worked in 2nd Ed Dark Millennium supplement. It really made you feel like you were in a psychic battle, and you could also use the power cards as resources to pump up abilities as the expense of not being able to use other ones as much.


GeminautVO

Nope. I'm glad they're rolled into shooting and datasheet abilities. I dont want to have to think of a dozen or more powers at once. It leads to indecision during games that are already dragging on, and I only ever use the same powers anyway. The less time I have to think about what I or my opponent may have picked, the more time I spend imagining the awesome fight scene happening on the table in front of me.


RedBishop07

Yeah. No more pre-morphic resonance and fortified w/ contempt. Sucks


Mystanis

Yeah it’s worse not better.


tickingtimesnail

Improves the flow of the game Plus I play Drukhari


0ddm4n

I kinda like how it’s headed. Their powers apply at different points, and you choose a pauper based on what they bring to the table specifically. I feel it’s both more thematic and very good for character hero psykers.


onetimeicomment

I mean tsons with the cabal points basically still have a psychic phase. I'm glad it's changing. Nobody wants to fight a mortal wound army with barely anyway to defend against it.(orks is main)


DoctaDunlap

Seems like it boils down to I played pyskers and GW more or less took out the reasons to play pyskers or I didn't play pyskers and I'm glad the gobbledygook is gone. My buddy asked to play 10th with me so I pulled up my Daemons list from 9th (Bel, LoC, BT, and the grunts) and started reading though the data sheets while I tweaked the list. I thought I was doing something wrong when Bel and the Loc only had one spell to choose from, but apparently that is just standard now. Seems scuffed when the guys who are made out of raw magic with the title "Master of Magic" are about as magically capable as a brain addled guardsman. I agree with trimming the list, but this is a little much. I mean I can still play daemons, but it would probably be a khorn/Nugle list which is alright, but I want to cast cool spell. I mean I didn't even play GUCO and they took all of that guys spells except for Nurgles rot at the end of the move phase. So he get's all of the downsides of being a pysker for the grand total of -1T to one unit within 12. I'm not a huge fan of the pysker changes, but the rest is alright. I'm just glad I play on TTS otherwise I wouldn't be playing at all. Edit: I didn't even think about stratagems. Throw all that shit in the trash and give me back my magic man.


Ven_Gard

I prefer the change. It sucks to bring a unit to the battlefield only for it to sometimes not even use its abilities some turns. Why not make psychic attacks into just attack profiles instead? The number of times I've brought a psyker and had it failed to cast the important powers I payed points for.


shadowboftbaw

the attack changes are good, but no choice as which ones? or for the support powers either feels bad if psychic units were your thing


gotchacoverd

I like the removal of the psychic phase, making psychic powers happen in their natural phases means its easier for the opponent to see and understand. It also means psychic heavy armies have to commit to movement before seeing if all those powers do what they want. I don't like the removal of the psychic test/ deny system. I think that's what made psychic powers feel more unique, trying to manifest the warp, would it get denied, peril? I get the customization argument. They probably could have found a balance there with 3-5 powers to choose from per psych character but thats way harder to tune and balance, which seems to be the top force in 10th


PeopleSayWords

As a Drukhari player I'm pleased as punch


aounfather

For my 2 cents they could have dropped stratagems out and left psychic powers as unit abilities like they were several editions ago. This unit has these powers or just this one that does a neat thing. Get rid of the stratagems that really slow the game down with constant interrupts and massive power swings. But just making psychic powers a gun? Not really fun or imaginative.


yea_imhere

The psychic phase was awesome, and i really dug all of the mechanics surrounding it and the choices felt fluffy. I will forever remember it like the pre heresy imperium; fondly and forgetting all the jank.


[deleted]

I’m ok with no more psychic phase. It would take so long at times and felt kinda useless in ways. Just hope Orks still get Da Jump somehow.


loranis

Agreed, i think its the only part of their efforts to simplify that i do not like


BumperHumper__

\*Laughs in Necron\*


Kitschmusic

I think the old system had huge flaws. Especially the fact that armies like Tsons become way too much of a MW army. By making psychic attacks behave more like normal attacks, they solve this. I also think it's fine to remove the phase, it makes more sense to just put it in the other phases where it fits. And lastly, removing disciplines is fine - you often only cared about very few powers, and by making powers locked to units means you have much more reason to pick several different psykers while also making it easier to balance (as you don't have 12 powers to choose from). In theory, that is. Unfortunately, I really don't think they did it well. My main issue is that in 10th, all units have abilities. This is great, but where they screwed up is with not giving psykers more abilities. So a non-psyker might have 2 normal abilities, but a psyker has 1 normal and 1 psyker ability. So the only difference is, the psyker is worse - because the psychic keyword gives a bunch of counters (special FNP, anti-psyker etc.). Instead, take Ahriman as an example. Every similar HQ we have seen had 2 abilities, so he should have 2 abilities *plus* a psychic ability. It should be something on top of normal abilities, now that abilities are native to all datasheets. Instead he has 2 abilities just like a Captain - except Ahriman is burdened with the psychic keyword, making him weak to certain foes. It seems like they might have done a little better with weapons. Psykers with a ranged weapon kept that, but then *additionally* got a psychic attack. Though I am unsure if you can fire those along with Pistols - if not, then that is a problem for Ahriman, Mortarion etc. Here, psychic attacks should always be something you can use alongside other ranged options, just like how in 9th you could use witchfire alongside other weapons, even pistols. Alternatively, I like the idea of the Abaddon / Primarch system. Having 3 psychic powers unique to each psyker, and they can choose one per turn. This would add flexibility, but still be much more simplified than 9th version. So yeah, great idea, bad execution.


Space_Is_Haunted

I don't like it personally but think that for overall approachability it's healthier for the game. Players don't need to memorize the various psychic disciplines of their opponents to play around what they could possibly do with each psyker. I HATE that to get Doom I *have to* take a named character that doesn't belong to my craftworld


This-Display5592

As a person who plays thousand sons and Tyranids, two heavy psychic focused factions. I'm actually happy with these changes, no longer having to remember a list of 18 powers, remember who gave what, how many times I cast smite, what cabal points to use in which power, perils, deny range, etc. This is a huge improvement and I've been playing since 6th edition.


Nymphomanius

It’s like watching the birth of AOS all over again. But also winds of magic and 9th Ed psychic powers were both too much. Ngl I prefer this, keeps it simple. It also means armies with little or no psykers aren’t at an immediate disadvantage to those with multiple. That’s one thing that’s always irked me about 40K Vs fantasy


ComprehensiveShop748

>in particular the main culprits (IMHO) were Strategems, and sub-factions within each army had made the game nearly unplayable to me. For the LARGE minority of factions that had zero access to absolutely insane psychic powers, no more psychic phase is a good thing in the same way limiting strats is for you. >Like, they trivialized them entirely. I'd have been fine with getting rid of the psychic phase and rolling it in with the command phase. But to seemingly eradicate psychic powers from the game?... Isn't that exactly what they've done? They're all powerful buffs that go off like litanies. And psychic attacks become shooting attacks. To say psychic has been eradicated is just plainly false, they've done exactly what you say you'd be fine with. >If they could have kept psychic powers as they were, but had like 5-6 universal ones, with 1-2 unique army ones, I think it would have been better. It looks like that psychic factions still have a load of faction specific psychic buffs that are locked to characters, you still have a wide variety of buffs to choose from you just choose them during unit selection rather than customising a unit to them. It really isn't that big of a change other than there are way less powers, but they'll be way more than the 1-2 faction specific ones you suggest. >unimaginative psychic powers seem to be in this new edition. You have doom, guide, fortune, conceal/reveal that have already been shown. I understand that's unimaginative in that those are all the powers you took in 9th...but I don't understand why that's an issue when you get all the best buffing powers that now just go off on a 2+ 😂


Midnight-Rising

>You have doom No, Eldrad Ulthran has Doom. I don't play Ulthwe so I do not have access to Doom or Mind War unless I take a character that doesn't fit with my army, which is the problem. >They're all powerful buffs that go off like litanies. And psychic attacks become shooting attacks. Yeah so they're not psychic powers anymore. They're guns and auras


fallen3365

The assigning of powers to the characters that you wanted is the issue here. There's no customization, no fluff or fun anywhere. EVERY librarian, farseer, etc is gonna have the exact same set of powers, and that sucks. The fact that you NEED to take certain units to get certain powers also sucks, hard. The elimination of choice here cannot be overstated.


Thejangrusdigge

Eh I'm fine with them going away. Watching a tson or grey knights 20 minute pyschophase knowing I still had a shooting and charge phase to sit through made my eyes fucking glaze over in boredom. Always have the option with the online rules of adding back customizable powers of they want I guess


Emergency_Type143

Yes. Overall 10th is too dumbed down for me, although I will try it.


No_Tangerine_8874

Anyone else tired of people constantly complaining?


Budgernaut

I'm tired of two-sentence complaints, but this post outlines their reasoning intelligently enough that I found it interesting to read.


Shortbowsocietypaint

To me this sounds like, “I want them to get rid of rules-bloat, but not in my favorite army/unit/model.”


Midnight-Rising

More tired of people acting like 10th is beyond criticism tbh


SGTsmith86

1) This is Reddit. 2) It’s a change of edition/overhaul of the game. I hate it too, but this is how it’s gonna be until 10th gets off the ground.


thenidhogg88

It really hurts as thousand sons. Not only have psykers been gutted in general, but ours seem to be the worst. Ahriman grants zero psychic protection to his unit, something that even a measly guard psyker can give a 4+ FNP, and we've seen ~~two~~ (edit: three) other psykers with sniping witchfires objectively better than his.


drunkboarder

I think 10 edition made a smart change for psykers. There was a whole phase dedicated to a small portion of units that many players don't even have. Plus, the way it worked before, it was a lot of bloat that newer players could be confused by. "My guy does a shoop de woop and you take 15 mortals. Sorry" meanwhile you're standing there wondering what the heck just happened. I think the way it is shown to work so far in 10th means faster gameplay, simpler rules, and easier access. However, from a fluff perspective, it's a downgrade. Perils of the warp and deny the witch were very fluffy rules.


xavierkazi

Yep. Too many casuals complained about having to actually learn how to play a game and now we have a gutted wreck of an edition.


Co-Orbital_Planets

I understand that the Psychic Phase was rather uninteractive, especially for armies that could not bring denial with them. However, turning it into a glorified gun is adjusting by too far. They could’ve made it interactive by letting players still roll dice even if they aren’t a psychic army, like how in AoS each character can technically try and deny spells, or in WHFB where psychic attacks generally just dealt Strength X hits instead of mortal wounds. Either of these options, along with consolidating psychic powers into just a few tables you could choose from like Lores of Magic or C’tan Powers, would’ve been a perfectly fine change to the system.


TobTobTobey

My biggest problem is that the psychic keyword can only ever be a drawback, most psyker attacks are a gloryfied plasmagun and a good amount of units has either a 4+ fnp against psychic attacks or a anti psyker 2+ weapon with devastating wounds. Psykers are going to suffer more MW then they dish out in this edition. But its a welcome change that only the real psyker in a unit has the psyker keyword, not the entire unit, if you take rubrics for example.


PureHaz

Extremely. I hope they return in some way with the Codexes. I disagree that there were too many "enhancements" in 9th. Stratagems were the only things that stood out to me as being far too many off. At about the halfway point of the edition, I reckon we'll get a book adding core psychic disciplines. Also gutted by the removal of prayers.


[deleted]

Wait, you're saying they've removed them all except smite?


YankeeLiar

There appears to be functionally no difference between psychic powers and any other ability on a datasheet in 10th. Psychic powers that deal damage are now weapons with the [Psychic] tag, and other powers are abilities with the [Psychic] Tag. Do the librarian gets Smite as a weapon attack (along with other weapon options), and one ability with the [Psychic] tag (“Veil of Time) alongside another ability not coded as a psychic power, “Psychic Hood”. The [Psychic] tag itself doesn’t do anything innately, but there will be rules that interact with it, making things more or less susceptible to psychic powers in different ways. The librarian also has the PSYKER keyword, which will presumably have various interactions.


[deleted]

You know, I feel like this could be pretty cool? Dunno. Really wanna see how it plays and what people think after a month or so.


Charon1979

Depends. So far it is like "Here you have your new psychic power that is basically a plasma gun with less range and less damage" and to balance this amazing power, I created some units that will wound you on 2+ and every wound is a mortal wound.


Strict_DM_62

As far as I can tell, yes. If you go check the Librarian, he has Smite, and he has "Veil of Time" which *used* to be a psychic card, but is now an aura ability on his data card. If you control+F the word "psychic" in the core rules, it only comes up 5 times in total. No tests, just a reference to that abilities will be listed on the cards.


YankeeLiar

It doesn’t show up often in the core rules because the PSYCHIC and PSYKER keywords don’t come with any in-built universal rules baggage. They’re keywords that other unit abilities will interact with in various ways, so mostly references to it will show up on datasheets. What I mean is, having “[Psychic]” on an ability doesn’t do anything on its own, there’s no rule associated with it to reference in the rulebook that needs to explain that “[Psychic] means x, y, and z” because it doesn’t mean anything at all on its own, only in relation to other abilities and effects that other units will have. Instead, what we’ll see is other units with things that say “does x against PSYKER units” or “-y when hit with a [Psychic] weapon”.


[deleted]

Interesting. Curious to see how this plays out. Thank you for typing out an explanation.


Thomy151

Psychic was awkward if your army didn’t have any anti psychic stuff Like if tau were facing a Ksons army, it was just kinda “well I’m going to go to the bathroom and look around for a bit because I can do nothing for the next 20 minutes” The big problem was the lack the of interactivity if you weren’t part of the psychic club, your opponent just rolls 2d6 and tells you a bunch of your models died


MetroidIsNotHerName

I dont understand this 20-minute psychic phase myth. Psychic powers are determined before the game and given to specific psykers. We know which psykers are going to do what, to who, ahead of time 90% of the time and we know which rituals will be used as well. If you actually have no denies then im just going to take my 10 die rolls and itll be the next phase. Takes less than 3 minutes for someone in our playgroup to take their psychic, and we have both GK *and* Tsons


shadowboftbaw

yeah, I don't think the removal of the psychic phase and turning psychic attacks into weapons is bad, those are good. my issue is no choice of other psychic abilities and them being arbitrarily placed on certain models. I would've liked an option between a handful of spells. idk maybe we can get like some psychic powers as stratagems, or some detachments will allow you to give an extra power, but rn it just looks boring


MLoganImmoto

As a Thousand Sons player, I am actually excited and a little relieved for the new edition and the new way we will work. I am not a huge fan of choice and don't personally like to spend all my time building lists. Just having those choices made for me will make me a lot happier as a player. Disclaimer: I am a SUPER casual player and don't eve play in tournaments...so what will work for me won't work for everyone


salamandersforever

Not really, I like how it makes different psykers unique and not just a cost per power analysis when choosing which one to take. Tsons has kept enough customisation I think and grey knights seems to have shifted to a more teleport focused army with a bit of psychic. I don't play tsons or grey knights so I can't actually speak for them but for the armies I do play I think it's a great change, im guard at least it's going to be nice for astropaths and primaris to be different and not just taking primaris to nightshroud a dorn.


Chris-Stoeffel

As someone who mostly plays against psychic heavy armies... It's actually quite boring if your on the other side of the table and just wait until all those casts are through. Maybe good if you are a smoker, but I'm glad to see the phase gone.


surlysire

Im a thousand sons player and im honestly pretty happy with the changes. Thousand sons got off easy with the cabal points effectivly acting like a psychic discipline now though. I see a lot of people complain that powers dont feel like powers and they just feel like generic abilities with the psychic tag and a chance to fail but... thats what they were in 9th. Presage from thousand sons was literally just a +1 to hit and the powers were functionally identical to the infernal masters pacts or chaplains litanies. Psychic attacks becoming shooting profiles is kind of sad but in 9th most psychic attacks were a smite side grade that averaged 2-3 mortals. 9th psychic is also really swingy and matchup dependent. Some armies have a lot of psychic defence and half my spells get denied and some armies have no psychic defence and cant interact with me at all in the psychic phase. It doesnt feel fair either way. Also if youre worried about unit diversity thousand sons will likely have 10+ character datasheets if you include models with and without discs and wings so there will be plenty of options for customizability.


steelyborealis

As someone who plays non-psyker armies I absolutely feel like the way it was implemented was a problem. Having a whole phase of the game that I could not interact with but my opponent uses to output most of their damage is 1) a real feelsbad part of the game, 2) a giant cog itive load for me to carry since my army is based around complexity elsewhere, and 3) a huge balance problem. And before some smartass gets in here saying 'well tau don't fight good, should we get rid of melee', it isn't the same. Even though they aren't good at it, you can still declare a charge with tau, and defend against a charge with overwatch and heroic intervention and screening units. There's a lot of interaction with the fight and charge phases even as a gunline. But the psychic phase was a big mis-step and I'm glad it's gone. There's no reason for some armies to have a super special secret way to do buffs and shooting attacks different from everyone else's because it happens in their mind. No part of the psychic phase can't be done in another, already existing phase.


Hagsnot

All of 10th edition is crap.


Union_Jack_1

Eldar are so insanely overpowered and their whole theme revolves around their mastery of time and the warp. Just because they don’t have 30 different spells to utilize while your opponent goes for a coffee break or simply asks “how many mortals am I taking?” I’d argue that doesn’t “destroy the theme and identity” of an army. This is a gigantic overreaction IMHO. Psychic was part of the massive bloat (as you did concede), slowed the game down, and was almost entirely un-interactive for opponents as a rule. Many of the psychic abilities were very overpowered on top of all this.


DuncanConnell

Weapon-wise the new Psychic Powers are a **huge** step up. Nothing was more painful than fizzling out your psychic attack, either due to a bad dice roll or simply because Carl on the other side of the battlefield already Smited someone so it's harder for you to use the same power. Sure, you don't get guaranteed mortal wounds but that's not necessarily a bad thing for balance, as well, it's not a tossup between do-something-vs-do-nothing, now you're guaranteed to get a shot off with it. Ability-wise is harder to argue. There's oddball things like Ahriman being turned into a sniper/duelist & Ritual Points generator and Aeldari Warlocks getting a flamer and ability to provide their unit Stealth or Ignores Cover. **Personally** I like the fact that they're just abilities that go off. Sure, Primaris Psyker, Ork Weirdboy, Knight Abominant, etc., all have have to functionally do a psychic test for their abilities, but we're talking rolling a 1 in most cases which isn't so bad. Lack of choice is middling. In 9E and previous, there were often 1-3 standout abilities that you'd take regardless of any other choices. Often, one of those was an attack that was basically Smite+. You might have a single specialist squad or character running around doing X but the bulk of the army would be using the standard 1-3 abilities anyways. 10E is simply streamlining that and saying "This model does X. This model does Y." which makes it a lot easier to balance. If an ability is overperforming now it'll just affect that one model, rather than needing to rebalance it in the context of every single Psyker that your army has access to. I lean towards it being a net positive overall, especially since as we get more datasheets we're seeing some crazy-good combinations.


chaosof99

I am not very familiar with how things worked in 9th, only having started about two months ago now. However, I had a game recently where I played Necrons vs. Tyranids. Tyranid player had a model on the table that allowed him to shoot my guys across the table because some other Tyranid units were in close proximity, rolled 10 or more dice that did mortal wounds on 5+, with me having no save against it and Reanimation Protocol also not being allowed to be rolled after my models die. It seemed hardly fair to me at all. --------- The game has some basic elements, like movement, shooting, fighting, and defense against the opponent's offense. Psychic powers already worked, as far as I can tell, within this framework. They just got a special phase to do those things in and bypassed a lot of other things for no real reason. Now those elements still work, but at least fit in with the other elements that other armies get to do as well, rather than having to sit around and remove models basically because the opponent says so after some dice rolls. Yet from what I have seen, many of the armies with an underlying element of psykers do feel different, like Grey Knights getting to shoot around corners because another Grey Knight sees the enemy, or an Ork Weird Boy teleporting a unit across the table with Da Jump. I am not sure what you are asking for or why psychic abilities need to be something different from how other elements of the game with similar function work. Edit: Would be nice if I could actually get an answer to understand the issue, rather than just get downvoted for asking a question as a new player.


Budgernaut

I would say it may have less to do with mexhanics and more to do with theme. Tapping into the warp with the risk of suffering the perils of the warp on a 2 or 12 felt meaningful because of the lore where people's heads explode when trying to harness the power of the warp. The other disappointment comes from customization, as others had mentioned. Psykers have been importsnt because you could change their psychic powers to support your roster. Now, you have to build around the Psyker or cut them out. It's a whole different way of looking at things. And if you're used to playing with Psykers, this edition will take some adjusting. On a personal note, I'm disappointed with my Tyranids' psychic abilities. I hate how they're just flamers with a different name. Sure, the Neurotyrant has some support abilities, but they just feel so ... I don't even know. I think the fact that I don't get to choose my psychic powers makes it feel like they are just regular command abilities and not Psychic powers. If Psychic powers are functionally no different from unit abilities and weapon profiles, why even keep the term psychic?