My issue with psykers is they replaced the phase with special abilities, which honestly I like. BUT they then gave EVERYONE a special ability, removing what makes them special
The Broodlord is a Psyker, and man do they not feel like Psykers at all. Hypnotic Gaze is cool and all but there's nothing that feels like you're using a power. Plus Paroxysm only on Flyrants and Onslaught only on Walkrants, feels bad.
@@calthepal312 yeah depends on the unit, most eldar powers have a roll, I think some marines too. I don't play other armies so not sure. But my biggest problem is lack of choice.. I preferred spell lists. I don't miss smite spam in 9th but I miss the rest
Agreeing with another comment. This edition they decided to make Heroes simpler, and so everyone got this small little "My unit gets this bonus" ability. And Psykers basically just became another Lieutenant in an endless row of identical Lieutenants. Removing the Psychic phase basically removed any feeling of psychic abilities. Because what bonus does the Psykers get that is meaningfully different from other Hero units? Looking at the whole of my Grey Knights index I can say this: They play no differently from my Black Templars. They are literally the same army only that one teleports around, and the other charges into the enemy.
i feel they could have gotten around this simply by giving psychers more abilities than non psychers get, mby some beefier ones too. I like my ahriman making one "spell" free ontop of what else they do so add more of that. But the grey knights got shafted compared to the thousand sons.
And further than that, you got the psychic keyword on your entire unit so it also paint target on them. Lieutenants don’t have a special anti-Lieutenant ability that they have to worry about by adding them to the unit
Yeah they really did Heroes dirty this edition. Some Heroes are NEVER taken because they are just not good for either their point totals, OR the fact they just do not do anything. Why take a single model for 75 points when I could just take a full squad of Space Marines for 85 points. Which is a huge shame because one of the biggest reasons i got into Warhammer 40k was the Heroes. Herohammer was probably one of the most fun things in 40k. Was it a little busted? Yeah a bit but that's what made it fun, just this singular model that costed 95 points and if it touched something you knew some crazy shit was about to go down. I miss being able to take a Captain and turn them into a Chapter Master in normal gameplay, or stacking Warlord traits with Relics to empower a Hero. It was, genuinely, the best for me.
Is it just me, or does the CSM Dark Pacts feel more like a psycher attack than an actual psycher now? Even basic Legionaries can roll for bonus damage at a risk of losing units, which often feels better than a dedicated psycher units…where a sorcerer lord in terminator armor - a dedicated psycher - gets its psychic damage potential outsourced to allies via marking targets. Feel like there is a monumental identity issue for Psychers in 10th, especially considering non-psychers often can match if not outperform them with similar mechanics.
Personally I'm of the opinion that 30k and AoS do the balancing act of magic powers a lot better. Just give people some options on powers then have them be used in the phases they're most relevant in. Even if it's not the most creative solution it's certainly better than what 10th is doing
Psykers definitely should have their own mechanics, distinct from just Shooting, Moving, Assault, etc to make psychic powers feel distinct from other weapons and wargear, but having another phase of the game just adds additional layers of process which don't deepen the simulation. In MESBG, magic-users typically have access to several different spells and can pick and choose on which of them they spend their Will points and when. There's no "buying" spells, which only leads to min-maxing for efficiency, and the more situational powers never being played. I think GW should be designing Psychic Disciplines as a complete toolkit, which presents players with interesting choices, rather than having to figure outs one or two powers that are the best in the widest possible set of situations, which will always be direct-damage and self-buffs.
If you stripped out manifestations or changed them up quite a lot for AoS then I'd agree 100%. Nothing wrong with the magic system for AoS imo, but the manifestations feel like a big part of it (since its basically just additional spellcasting) but they really make the magic feel like garbage. I hate filling the board with non-thematic models just because I'm at an objective disadvantage if I don't do it.
To my knowledge there's no advantage to having it the anti psyker stuff would feel less bad if the psyker stuff gave you some reason to use it over something elts in the first place
As a grey knights player it sucks cause they stripped the psychic phase and didn’t give anything to replace it so we lost identity and psi weapons basically being the same there is no difference between a force sword and a glaive
Dont forget we lost anti daemon as well... Grey Knights are so shite in 10th if you remove the psyker keyword from their data sheets they just get BETTER since there is more anti psyker and feel no pain against psychic powers than any benefit you get for being a psyker...
My two main collections are necrons and admech so it didn’t affect me at all but I can imagine how awful it must be for someone who plays a psychic army
GW: But we gave you Uppie-downie! You guys are unique! Also GW 5 Mintues later: Lets give uppie_downie, superior shooting, melee, and support to functionally every other faction in the game.
The pskyer tag is nothing but a weakness. I mean it doesn't do anything to counter other space mages. My Tyranids don't feel like they are even psychic anymore either.
I started Tyranids cause I thought the swarmlord was the coolest. A melee monster that casted spells sounded awesome. Now I have an ok melee monster with a heavy flamethrower with a heavy bolter range. Cool
Yeah Swarmy doesn't really feel like a close combat blender anymore. Reminds me of that spin on the Beatles joke, "Is the Swarmlord the greatest melee unit in the universe? The Swarmlord isn't even the greatest melee unit in the Tyranids"
@@bonitabromeliads Good luck finding games. "Just play X edition" doesn't work if you don't have a dedicated group that wants to play said older edition. The overwhelming majority don't and won't.
@@TheAtomicSpoonyeah I know the Problem I have the luck to have a friend who plays with joy every edition with me we wanted from 1th-10th but that’s one out of a near 200head strong Community For games in 8th-9th you have about 5-6 six people (and there I count the next City Community too
Don’t really understand why they dropped psyker phase… For every army that didn’t have psykers absolutely nothing changed. For every army that utilizes psykers, they’ve become a huge liability. You basically have a series of cons for your special shootah, that isn’t really better than the other guys not so special shootah. They just need to take the psyker keyword off their dataslates if they are going to keep this up.
I don’t miss the psychic phase at all but Psykers need to feel reality warping in their abilities. Weirdboy handing out Da’Jump works great. Librarians giving you a FNP feels like it could be the ability of any random leader.
Psychic phase always felt lopsided. I don't think it needs its own phase, but something to set it apart from basic shooting. Higher risk/reward with Perils, more support options, etc.
Having "Psychic" keyword atm is absolutely a negative. It means almost nothing except providing buffs against them. I'm not sure it needs it's own phase, but it could be split between Command phase and other phases. The way I see it being used is like another version of "CP". Every model has a "Psychic Gain" stat line and that adds to your total ability reserve for that turn. Each unit has a "Psychic ability" set and in Command you can choose which one is in effect that battle round. You can use the ability once per turn but you can have more than one of each ability. Each ability uses a specific amount of ability reserve.
I think that's a great idea. I DISLIKE the idea of having a whole phase of the game that some armies (and their players) can't even really take part in, and I really LIKE keywords. Tags and keywords let you follow the tenants of Mechanically Simplify, Optionally Diversify: Don't make the players memorize 100 different ways of doing 100 things, make 10 different ways of doing 1000 things. Honestly I think its one of the strengths of Magic: The Gathering, love it or hate it. However... If you are building something with tag mechanics, you need to use them properly. Although consolidating Psychic mechanics with other abilities achieves the tenant of Mechanically Simplify, the options we're expecting aren't really there. The rule of using tags is to only create a separate tag or category if something is different enough to warrant it, and I don't think they've met that rule. If they wanted to keep the game's mechanics consolidated but add extra context for Psykers, they could do something as simple as adding Stratagems that can only be used on/with a living Psyker in your army; that would be mechanically simple. But, I think there's plenty of room to do what you're suggesting, and have a separate "CP" counter. Having Command Points and Psyker Points would not be that much harder to keep track of, and would also allow Warhammer developers to consider different ways of adding psychic powers without having them overtake the focus of the game. Having a generalized list of powers, plus detachment-specific powers would be very consistent with what our brains are already doing in 10th--it's how Stratagems are already organized, so it's Mechanically Simple! And yet, it would provide Diverse Options.
@nurrodenthyme1671 yeah, I agree. That's what was in my head. I don't like a whole phase because it slows the game down more. But this way it allows the keyword to be used more effectively. I also like the idea that the more "psychers" you have, the more powerful it becomes. It compounds. Which makes having a faction of Psychers actually worth something (maybe I'm biased on this one as I'm a Grey Knights collector, but I'm also fed up of it being a hindrance/net-negative to me also).
The "pysker problem" is the exact same than the "vehicle problem", when you wipe out a part of the game to turn it into generic stuff, OBVIOUSLY you totally destroy the whole point of that thing. When vehicle became just "big infantry model with lots of HP and toughness" it totally destroyed the whole rock paper scissor aspect of the game where vehicles demanded you to bring anti vehicle weapons, weapons that were specifically made for that. After removing the psychic phase, psykers are now just "guys with heavy laser in the brain" and... that's it, since now every character in the game also give aura effect when leading units.
I think this is a fantastic point. People talk about streamlining the game, but at what point are we just playing chess with extra steps. The complex rules make these games tabletop wargames instead of just boardgames.
@@MistaGuido-nk3iz Yup. What makes a wargame is a certain degree of realism capable of roughly simulate real battle. Things like templates that reproduce the effect of explosion had a direct impact on how you would position your troops (ie avoid grouping them together tightly). The more you shave off elements that contribute to the simulation, the more your wargame devolve into a gamey boargame where the strategy becomes more generic and detached from the actual battlefield. 10th is the peak of that, its not a wargame, it just an overgrown boardgame and dice roll simulator.
@@Pers0n97 Yeah, 10th edition feels more gamey because it is very barebone with regards to mechanics and variety and thus appears quite sterile. I strongly disagree with realism though, especially in terms of templates (at least the way they were used). Scatter mechanic is completely unrealistic over short distances, finding one spot where the unit is slightly packed and then drop all the templates there killing the other spread out parts of the unit as well is weird. barrage character sniping is the worst offender and of course the good old lash/plasma combo is extremely gamey and has nothing to do with a wargame either. I also don't miss the clunky vehicle mechanics especially when the distinction between monstrous creature and vehicle are unclear and sometimes arbitrary. If we want to make 40k into a wargame (which it isn't), we need to work on turn structure and scenarios, the game should be longer than just a few turns, we need to define the scale properly (tactical level, operational level etc.) and remove all the elements that don't fit. Then we can start talking about detail mechanics (and the first thing, I would do is introduce range modifiers...). Back in the day, 40k was just more gimmicky, more flavourful in that sense but also more bloated and extreme. It never was more realistic. Maybe the intention was more realistic, but the results weren't. Characters are much more reasonable now than before in terms of individual killing power. They still provide support value which should be their job. I agree though, now we are at a stage where it is too bland (and maybe they should take a step back in terms of lethality so that we don't see the weird gamey tables and can return to real terrain...
@@Nazdreg1The big problem and disconnect is that it sounds like we agree what 40k should be. An immersive sci fi war simulation game, a “war game”. But GW is pushing for a “competitive” game and all of the balance as well as rules development is focused on the tournament scene. A few dozen players change win rates by 5-20% every other weekend and our armies face the consequences of people playing a completely different game than us. I really want there to be a *wargame* for us, with all its complexity, and a competitive boardgame for the people that only care about the tabletop scene. I don’t even necessarily play the game to win. I like to win but I would be happier ignoring objectives and points and just going at it with an opposing force for control of the field or eradication.
The irony is that you are describing exactly what 10th did to fix the problem. The only thing that will reliably kill medium to heavy tanks bodies in 40k are dedicated Anti-Tank Profiles (IE: Lascannon or Equivalents) because of their high toughness and 2+ or 3+ saves. In fact tanks are so tough right now the game actually has problem where traditionally anti-tank profiles now struggle to actually deal with them like plasma and melta because they typically only wound on 5+ and some factions don't even get access to good anti-tank weapons. Horus Heresy 2nd Edition, probably the most balanced of the "old" edition rules so long as you only play space marines and don't spam terminators and dreadnoughts (maybe its because they don't have a chance to just instantly blow up and get a ridiculous 2+/5++ save?) has the problem where most vehicles are at best glass cannons that can shatter to a lucky autocannon hit. Land Raiders and Spartans pretty much make up the list of tanks worth using for marines purely because they serve as a bus for your terminators and are reasonably tough barring a pre-mature explodes result from a lascannon shot.
I'd love to see 11th take inspiration from the Old World magic system. You have a pool of 10 to 15 generic spells any faction can take, each spell can only be used in one phase, so Smite in the Shooting Phase, and then a handful of factions get 4 unique spells only them can use, on top of that you also have a few datasheets with a unique spell. A character can only cast one spell per phase, and you cannot cast if battle shocked. The Psyker keyword would have a number next to it, from 1 to 3, determining how many spell you can equip (including any spells bond to the datasheet). The number would also be used for denies, any Psyker within X inches of another can attempt a deny, if so both players roll a dice and add the number next to the Psyker keyword to the roll, whoever has the highest roll wins, the looser then passes an hazardous test, if the caster looses the spell doesn't go of. Hazardous is fine to represent peril of the warp, and most spells would be hazardous. On top of that you could potentially overcast spells to make their effect stronger but the hazardous test would be harder to pass. At last they should be flavorful mechanics for each faction like Eldar having a better time passing hazardous tests, chaos being able to sacrifice nearby cultists to auto-pass hazardous tests, some units slightly breaking the rules, like Kairos Fateweaver being Psyker 4 or the Lord of Change being able to cast multiple spells per phase, so on and so forth.
I feel this. I bought the T-sons 9th Edition Codex shortly before 10th was announced (I was still very new, didn't have much of the army ready). I remember reading all of the very cool psychic disciplines T-sons had access to, and I was looking forward to an onslaught of smite damage. Now, I like a lot of the abilities The different Sorcerers have in tenth, some of them are really cool. But, just like the video says, there is NO. ANTI. TANK. None that's effective anyways. The only Psyker with Anti-vehicle and Anti-Monster is the Terminator Sorcerer. And what does the profile look like? Three attacks that deal 2 damage apiece, with dev wounds on a 4+. Even if all three attacks wound, Heavier tanks, Knights, and big scare monsters chuckle at losing 6 wounds. Chances are the Sorcerer will not get another chance to shoot the same target. The Aspiring sorcerers who lead the Rubrics aren't that impressive. I get they're the leader of a battleline unit but their warp smite is just boring and frankly shameful for a psychic attack. They basically made them an equivalent to SM combi weapons. (Salty they changed those too). I'm being forced to bring tanks to deal with other tanks, which is alright, but I bought into T-sons to run cool space wizards, not tanks. T-sons also have NO vehicle support. Give me a tech sorcerer, dammit!
I really miss the psychic phase. I think psyker tag is mostly detrimental, units have fnp against it or special weapons. It would make sense if psykers were that much stronger than normal units, but on average is not the case. What I miss the most is variety, there was a lot of use from librarians, farseers, warlocks etc. Now it feels bit dull to me. I loved choosing powers and synergies.. back in 8th/9th That being said smite spam was really bad in 9th glad that it's gone XD
@peters6345 You know it's just a Space Marine Chapter with Death Guard's FNP ability, T'au Overwatch, Necron vehicle rules, and their regular GW Space Marine lineup. ... how could it be unbalanced!?
I don't miss the Psychic Phase; it was an extra stage of "gotcha" that slowed matches down. But 10th's handling of psychic characters is abysmal. Part of the issue is the lack of auras, and the other part is the lack of Wargear. In past editions, before the Psychic Phase, you could outfit your army with different psychic powers, weapons and benefits. These could be damaging attacks, powers akin to weapons, or abilities that buffed and debuffed units. But now the data sheet is limited. Units are restrained. And it all makes for a horribly restricted unit type in an extraordinarily limited and bland game.
Having 6 powers in at least one "lore" for each army is probably the best way to make sure you don'y just get screwed by a random lemon power and have a few generic powers in the core rules and "heavily psychic" armies can have 2 or 3 tables limited by unit or datasheet perhaps i.e. Farseers and warlocks and the harlequin psykers do different things. Plenty of choice no need to make any horribly complex but variety is the spice of life.
Yeah I miss being able to choose powers for psykers, and being able to choose litanies for chaplains. Added a nice little layer of flavor to the list-building process.
It doesn't need its own phase, it's just a pacing suck. The powers do need cool effects and a roll system with the 2d6 thing, perils ect. The counter system could maybe be like if you counter a spell, you can't cast on your next turn. Tau and Templars could have some kind of devices that can counter, but they cant cast.
@@keyanklupacs6333 Fair. It would be harder to remember, but maybe easier to follow.
2 дні тому+6
Can they just fire the 40k team and have the AoS team handle everything, like I genuinely mean this too. This, amongst borderline every issue in 40k, has literally been solved in AoS and the pacing/flow of the game in current ed is absolutely incredible bc of it
@keyanklupacs6333 It wouldn't be easier. Just flow a lot better. Having to sit there for 5-15 mins waiting for your opponent to roll EVERY psychic thing with no interuptions just killed the pacing, especially when you were playing one of the 6 factions with no psykers to counteract. If you break it up, at least after casting smite, your opponent might also shoot you so you can at least roll some dice before they move on to the next psycher.
I think the Farseers are the perfect example of what went wrong. Why does having a bike or not determine what spells this ancient eldar can cast? Why is the one on jetbike casting the spell that overlaps with the jetbikes?
Psyker mechanics in 9th were fun, but psychic phase isnt needed as long as the powers specify what phases they can be used in, or the models specify what phases they could cast in.
@keyanklupacs6333 less spells to choose from so less rules bloat, have to roll for it so brings that back, and putting it in the appropriate phase means things are done at the time that type of action needs to be done which simplifies things.
@@HadrosaurHero Isn't the AoS system that specific casters have specific powers, they don't get to choose from a list? 'Cause that's the old 40k system, the one where you have a list of six powers to choose from and the power level of casters range between 1 and 4, that's the old Fantasy system.
@@HadrosaurHerowierd I didnt day anything about the number of powers? 🤔 Isnt it easier to get swept up in doing the actual mechanics of that phase and forget a power instead of casting 4 powers at once in one phase? It's just a 3 step process. Roll 2d6 is it over the number? If yes opponent attempts to counter via deny the witch or an army power or their own psyker. If your opponent fails to interrupt you resolve the effect. Thats why it was changed from that system in 3rd - 5th ed. It was very easy to forget to trigger a power in the assault phase or movement phase and so they borrowed the magic phase from WFB.
@@MarcinObuchowski I guess I needed to be clearer - any good alternatives that aren't basic dice that I can buy literally anywhere? Thanks for that useless "gotcha" though.
Their downfall was when GW got rid of the Psychic phase and alot of units benefit from Psychic power and the phase. Thousands sons love thier Psychic phase, nids are Psychic power etc. Psychic phase needs to come back
Check out how psychic done in the old world or fantasy battles. Its very diverse and interesting, much more than it is now or even in 8th/9th ed. of 40k.
I don't think we 100% need a psychic phase to use it properly, no reason the psyker stuff couldn't be folded into other phases, TSons still essentially have a Psychic Phase. I think the real problem is for all the other psykers, who mostly just have a special ability (like every other unit in the game), and a psychic gun. Could have powers that get activated in the Command, Movement, Shoot (which we mostly do have), Charge, or Fight phases. It's the losing out on psychic powers that do things like manipulate movement or buff a unit in some way that we've really lost out on the most.
@@Lowlandlordthats how they done in the old world. Differents spells activates in different phases, powerfull mages have buffs to the spell casting or denying. Many magic related artifacts, different miscast resolutions and damaging spells are not just mortal wounds
@@gamingborger yes I totally agree... 9th was a storm of smite and I'm a grey knight player and I didn't agree with that crap and tenth has gone so far the other way it feels like part of the lore has been ripped out to make it easier to play! I play because of the lore!!
I would like to see Psykic returned to a stronger place than it is now, but less so than it was in 9th. I like moving abilities to different phases, buffing to comand phase, damage to shooting/fight phase etc. I do not like armour saves being able to counter psykic damage, 'I channel the power of the warp to turn your brain to mush ... but you rolled a 6 so your flak jacket prevents it'... ??? I would keep the roll to hit and wound parts but all psykic damage should be mortals/devastating. Also tailor the strength of psykic attacks so that they dont pose much of a threat to vehicles (potentially also give non-biologicals a strong resistance to it as well)
If my weapon has the massively huge psychic debuff keyword, it should be stronger than a none psychic option. Why does a greater daemon of the Lord of magic have a d3 damage gun. It’s just shit
The psychic phase had its ups and downs, but sometimes it could be stupidly fun in the most horrible ways: I remember a doubles game where everything was going quite well, right up until my kill rig decided it was time to perils while it had only a couple wounds left. It exploded, taking massive chunks out of two of my other units, killed my teammate's warlord, and left the Tau that were about to be charged... completely unscathed and very, very relieved! XD Bring back impactful psychic abilities and fun moments where they can go chaotically wrong!
Grey Knights - Great! All our weapons have the psychic keyword....umm... what does it do? Daemons: - Cool, it gives my flesh-hounds a feel no pain... Thousand Sons - well, we can make your psychic weapons hazardous, and we get to choose to make ours sustained/lethal/devastating with some cabal points... can't you? Grey Knights: .........
I think it'd be fun for Psykers to have a system similar to "Secondary" missions. A deck of cards, tasks to complete to score VP, that type of thing. I think of Psykers as a support asset for a battleforce, not as a combat unit. Leave war to the Tactical Squad, while the Librarian forwards them information of their foes or whatever
My first experience with psychic powers was getting my blood angels terminator army tabled turn 1 by a Tzeentch army in a 2v1 match during 7th ed. I’m glad they want to sort of reign in things but the system in 8th worked fine enough to not completely throw it out. It is worth pointing out though that a lot of players just don’t see it as worth including in their armies even when it would strictly benefit them. I had a roommate who would complain all the time about my custodes army but refused to put a single librarian in his space marine army, among other things that would easily counter my guys.
@@SizzleCorndog I mean people have tastes and I get it. Some people aren't here for the magic part of the fantasy. Me personally? I love the wizard shit. I put em in every army I can. Sometimes I try to put em in armies I can't.
@ I mean this was someone who would know exactly what list I’d be bringing a head of time bc only so many models existed for custodes and kept bringing the same 3 squads with hellblasters and aura stack them, only to turn around and complain that I’d delete him in melee even though he didn’t bring anything to screen with. Like I play blood angels and would occasionally bring a psycher but this is someone who when told that psychic is a great way to counter custodes, just refused to do it effectively bc magic is cowardly and lame
@@SizzleCorndog Bro should be playin Khorne and there should be more psyker counter measures for armies without em. Hell add blanks to the game that'd be kinda interesting.
@@MistaGuido-nk3iz blanks are already in the game and at least with custodes in 8th ed on a 6 you could just ignore mortal wounds from psychic powers. idk I like having things that hit hard but I do think that the harder something hits the more glaring its counter needs to be, and a good example would be custodes and psychic stuff
I would be ok if we did away with the psychic phase and it never returned if instead we get extra abilities on psyker models or psyker focused detachments that unlock abilities for psyker models, not army wide abilities based on an arbitrary number of models like cabal points but abilities the models can vast while they are in the dedicated psyker detachment. I play Tyranids as my main army, half the range is a psyker or synapse creature I would benefit immensely if we got cool stuff for a psychic phase but I would rather not have that power if it makes the games a lot longer or skewed against armies with limited psyker units.
'Let's make this commander give devastating wounds' 'What about this psyker?' 'Let's make this psyker give devastating wounds AND ALSO HAVE A BOLTGUN BUT PSYCHIC!'
One simple way they could add some choice would be each army having a few psyker enhancements to represent different powers that can only go on psykers, these could have a points value which would make it easy to balance them
Hey Auspex I noticed you mixed a few things up for 6th and 7th edition, in 6th edition, just like in 7th you had a base tier of mastery level on every psyker and could buy extra depending on the datasheet, based on this tier you would roll randomly on any of the core disciplines or your faction exclusive one as highlighted on the datasheet, where for example space marine librarians did not have access to the malefic daemonology discipline, but did have access to the pyromancy, biomancy, etc. disciplines, the only difference between these two editions was the change to the warp charges system as you described for 7th where 6th continued to use the leadership system. I hope this helps clarify the situation as 7th was not the massive shakeup on all these fronts as you described. If you want I think I can look for my copy of the 6th edition rulebook somewhere if you want proof. For the rest love your videos, this just threw me off as a massive psyker fanatic that started in 6th.
I would love to seee them bring back the disaplin system. with each psyker chosing a power from the list of disaplins they have acess to, with no duplication. psyick powers could easly be just the 'powers' that we have now but alowing us to custoimise the psykers for there role.
I loved the old psychic powers of previous editions - being able to pick the powers and having it feel meaningful and flavourful. While I appreciate it might have had some balancing issues it seems that it's basically had the same solution to difficult to balance unit types in 10th edition - effectively getting rid of it.
I love the breakdown. Thank you. I think because GW DOES NOT PLAYTEST this stuff, I felt like they took the same stance they did with flyers: They can't get flyers/psychicers right, so let's phase them out without actually phasing them out. If they played with the power balance some, I see no reason why psychers should be game breaking. Or just make the perils more devastating: higher risk for higher reward. You are paying with the Warp after all. They do need to change the Shadow of the Warp rule for my Tyranids I think; -1 to psychic tests I always thought was token if not an out and out a joke.
As an Ad Mech and TSons player, I think 10th Edition does a pretty good job with psykers, could easily tweak it to being a choice of powers like other loadout options. Making another phase that some armies don't interact in was just pretty awful tbh. You already have some armies that don't do shooting or melee, so having another phase on top of that is not ideal. I think the best way to handle "denies" would be a general strategem that requires a keyword to use (like grenade strat does), and it can interfere with [psychic] keyworded abilities, forcing a LD test to use the ability, or giving the target FNP or whatever. Seems a clean way to do it without massive rules bloat.
My suggestion: make psykerbound enhancements for every detachement. Everbody wins: people can make their psykers nasty and powerful, you can balance every "ability" for itself via points cost, no new phase, GW can sell a new, expensive book.
The psyker rules in second edition (Dark Millennium) was most fun. Randomizing spells and draw secret cards, with power, each turn. It was exciting! But I like the opposite too, the 10th edition, with no option and tags. Meaning you need special save against it.
100% agree with Grey knights, they should have given them a normal special ability AND a psychic ability otherwise there is really no difference between them and normal units. I dont mind the psychic phase being absorbed into other phases, but would be nice to have more psychic flavour. I don't miss Deny the witch OR peril's of the warp to be honest, it's nice to have more certainty in what you can do.
Maybe give the psychic keyword a use by having the model do a battleshock test, if they fail they’re battleshocked and take a mortal or three, if they don’t you get the hazardous profile instead of the normal one. That way Denise can come back and it gives psychic a use. Then you put at least 2 psychic guns you have to choose between on a data sheet to equip to the model before the battle. Maybe say a defensive and offensive power if you want to commit to everyone getting two, then you can say a psyker is on offensive power if you want DPS, or defensive if you want support and a worse gun. Or maybe apply these buffs in the shooting phase?
I'd like a optional module with neutral psykic manifestation minis, that are randomly picked at the start of the battle and can be manipulated by your psykers. Kinda like the Malign Sorcery for AoS. I would also add some psyker units to all armies - Tau could have some allied Zoats or other alien race, Imperial Agents could cover any gaps in the imperium.
I played Tau and as stated outside of one talisman which was farsight only we had no protection at all. In 6th and 7th we were a little overtuned with shooting which let us keep up but in 8th/9th a psychic heavy army could run roughshod over us with little recourse. I do admit that my Tyranid army was sad to see the phase leave and it certainly feels like something needs to change to make psychic actually feel worthwhile but if we do expand psychic back towards its former prominence we need to adjust for armies that don’t have it. If that means bringing in more allies for Tau, implementing a prayer system to deny for sisters/templars, or something else then it would need to be addressed.
My playgroup disliked 10th edition so much we wrote our own edition, including some pretty fundamental stuff like implementing alternating activations. Here is how we handle psykers: 1. There is no psychic phase, due to the alternating activations we have two main phases (other than command at the beginning and end at . . . well, the end). The main phases are engage (where a unit can move, activate psychic powers and shoot, with psychic powers resolved at any point) and assault (where a unit can charge and fight in melee). Each phase is resolved with players alternating their activations using a system to balance between low and high value units, which I wont get into here. 2. Psychic manifestation checks still exist as in 8th/9th, as do denies. Perils of the warp are, of course, a (wonderful and hilarious) thing. 3. Psychic powers and psychic disciplines also exist, although powers are divided into major and minor arcana. Major arcana are powers that can only be cast once per turn regardless of how many psykers you have with that power, while minor arcana can be cast more than once per turn and don't cause perils on a casting roll of 12. 4. Psychic damage mostly uses str, ap and damage stats (although typically doesn't roll to hit if you succeed the manifestation check). While psychic powers do use conventional attacks stats, some are more powerful than most psychic attacks tend to be in 10th, being able to realistically effect hard targets. In our system daemonic saves are their own type of save, and can be modified by psychic attacks. A few rarer powers, like mind-war type effects, still cause mortal wounds, although in our system mortal wounds are rarer overall and do not spill over between models. 5. Our system doesn't use the 10th edition leader system (we use a system closer to 9th, with some fixes applied), partly because we just couldn't figure out a neat way of handling unit types. This avoids the unbelievably stupid situation in 10th where an entire unit gains the psyker keyword because a psychic leader joins.
The biggest problem is that the keyword [psychic] is only a detriment, triggering FNP, or giving you the pair Psyker keyword which allows some units to get an improved wound against you. I think the best fix is that damage from a weapon with the Psychic keyword carries over just like Mortal Wounds. Each time PSYCHIC wounds are inflicted on a unit, each of those PSYCHIC wounds inflicts one point of damage to that unit, and they are applied one at a time. Each PSYCHIC wound is allocated to a model in the same manner as allocating an attack. Excess damage from Psychic wounds is not lost if the damage can be allocated to another model. Instead keep allocating damage to another model in the target unit until either all the damage has been allocated or the target unit is destroyed.
I feel that the way that Old World does magic should be a big influence in how psychic could work in 40k. Just getting to choose your powers, not rolling randomly, because that can be quite a feels bad moment - and is less admin work. There are certain spell types, i.e. Assailment, Magic Missile, Hex or Enchantment, and the type of spell determines when you use it. If its a Conveyance spell, then its during movement, a magic missile is during shooting and an assailment spell is a melee attack during combat. So no need for a big 'stop the game psychic phase' but it gives something more fluid and varied and provides options - something they seem determined to remove from 40k at the moment.
The Swarmlord used to be a goated caster. It knew multiple powers, could use two per turn, and also had two denials per turn as well. It was a legit army-leading monster, unlike today where we're missing not only most of it's abilities, but also the phase of the game where it ran the table lol
I think you could move the psychic powers and deny the witch to be stratagems that don't cost command points and a deny the witch stratagem that can be used less frequently. This allows for more generic powers and faction specific powers. That way, you can have pronounced psychic powers that tell you when they could be used.
It would be hilarious if when a psycher rolls a 1 on their spell, instead of taking D3 mortals they roll another D6 to see what happens. Outcomes could include missing their next turn or spawning a greater demon that proceeds to attack them, then if he kills the psycher heads after the next closest unit on either army. Typhus's mortal wound spray feels like a psychic attack, it seems a bit silly that the 1k sons have half their attacks as shooting and are subject to stealth and cover like a normal shooting attack.
One of the biggest issues I have with psykers in 10th edition is that those who I am talking to and me as a person who loves wizards is that the people who have been most upset with the psychic phase changes are those who play psychic armies. The people who were effected by the change the most hated it and those who aren't didn't seem to mind it because of course they didn't.
I think old world has the best interpretation of Magic in game at the minute. Spells are cast throughout the turn and have casting values improved by your casters level
The psychic phase was unnecessary, just go back to how psykers used to be in the old additions. Pick a power and use it in the phase it actually interacts with. Also, bring back the old Ork weirdboy from 4th edition, that was so much fun!
True they rode the accessibility grift too hard and burned their ass on it. Strangely you probably shouldn't take your wildly success crunchy wargame and try to make it like all your competitors to appeal to wierd twitter (or I guess bluesky now 😂) people.
@@keyanklupacs6333 looking at sales numbers and the price of GW stock, I think it might be "bring back psychic phase" folks that are the minority (and the scatter dice people, and the war gear points cost people, and the force organization chart people, and the ...). 10th is a wild success. I really don't get what you mean with people on twitter may have had influence on 10th ed rules btw?
My main issue is with space marine librarians is that they use their rare and powerful psychic gifts to give out sustained hits, shoot some moderately damaging lightning and channel psychic energy through a force weapon for some mediocre melee attacks. But a basic Lieutenant can just use tactics to give his squad a better buff, and then pick up a plasma pistol which is actually better than the lightning, and wield a power fist which is better than the force sword. The Librarian would literally be better off if he didn't use his powers and just got some better weapons...
allow psykers, and only psykers, to access spell libraries, as their special ability, giving them flexibility. let them keep psychic weapons. you could make Psychic weapons have a special rule, like -1 to invuln saves made against them, or +1 to DEAMON units, or something.
I think some kind of ability the different phases . Like fast feet for movement buffs , dead eye for shooting etc with various buffs. Activate on 2 or 3 and psycher takes mortal wounds on 1.
The hyper focus on competitive balance is what I think caused 10th ed to be such a cluster fuck. I mean, why balance complex list building and a phase some armies don't use when you can just dumb it down in the former, and get rid of the latter.
Then make Two rule sets one for Tournaments and one for Casual with more free Building and Optimization/Customization Options Marines as examples was a very Complex army when you want you can build very fluffy CSM the same now they feel dry and flat if you build lists with them same occurs to Eldar but not that strong Makes no fun in list building
I think the answer is psychic powers similar to primarch main ability's, list of 3, choose one at start of battle, give effects, not just cast gun and have it on top of the special ability of the unit
I personally dont like the separate "Physic Phase" but I would re-introduce the choice of spells via 'Wargear choices' reframed as 'Ability choices' (points per ability like enhancements). The denial interaction also seemed fun to get back again, rolling 2D6 and battle it out type way, having some mini battles between models while not being focused in one main phase but just during the Shooting Phase or Commanding Phase etc.
They don't need a unique psychic phase. Just keep psychic powers as they are now as weapon profiles or abilities with a tag, but give people a list they can choose from. It's not that the powers themselves are weak, it's that there's no flexibility or uniqueness to psykers. In fact, all the anti-psyker stuff this edition makes it more of a detriment than anything.
As a player who has tried 40k on and off since 4th ed, I love the new system much more. Keep simplifying the game! A psychic phase and choosing powers is just all too convoluted and not going to pick up new players compared to other, better games out there (looking at you MCP)
I really think AOS has magic in a great place, at least design-wise. For people unfamiliar with AOS, most armies have a list of 3 spells that any wizard can cast. Casting is done on 2d6, with double 1s being harmful, and with enemy wizard counterspells rolled the same way. What this means is every caster has access to 3 abilities, making them versatile but without guaranteed power. More powerful casters also have their own unique spells, and some characters can cast more spells a turn. There's also a second magic system, priests, which roll a single d6, and can "charge up" prayers to cast more powerful versions. This gives another magic system, and allows less wizard-y armies to still play some magic. There is only 1 army with no magic (I think) and that doesn't mean half the game loses out on playing part of the game.
For the Psyker problem, the answer is simple. Priest exist. Even in older editions of 40k they basically were "Psyker who rolls 1d6 and doesn't Perils" Give them a Deny the Witch then add Psychic to either Command Phase or other relevant phases. Or don't have Deny the Witch and keep all MW stuff for really hard spells; the point is still that other armies have units that can fill the same Niche as Snipers (Chaplains, Priest, Dark Apostles, Ethereals, C'tan, debatebly Cryptek Arcanas.) Just... even if you don't want an entire phase there are better ways to do it then they currently are.
Take a look at channel minisodes. They do second edition battle reports demonstrating how simple and fun the psychic phase could work. Very easy to implement this in the current form. Easy.
Giving psykers alternate psychic powers as wargear choices would be fine with me. Don't need a psychic phase really, and Tsons cabal points are half the reason they where nerfed so hard, so you wouldnt want to spread that around really. But a LITTLE more choice of powers, especially the flavorful choices (Tzeentch getting foresight and flames, Nurgle rot, Emperor aligned getting "holy" buffs and the like) would be good.
I think they should return to psychic in 9th. give it a phase again, but give every army a unit for psychic defense. Such as Necron Pariahs, or give the Tau a psyker corp to utilize as deny units. Because the GW article REALLY wanted to emphasize how one sided fighting a psyker army was, when they could've just as easily introduced a couple extra models for anti psyker actions. In a parallel to us having anti tank units for dealing with tanks.
Not having a psychic phase feels far nicer, casting them in an appropriate phase is just better design. The issue is that the spells are bland AF. Make psykers way more expensive, and make their spells massively impactful.
I think the issue of certain armies not having psykers is to give them some ability to deal with them. Some ideas I have are these: Necrons getting Blackstone wargear or enhancements to shut down Psychic stuff The Tau getting psychic Auxillaries, like a Kroot Psyker called a Mind Shaper or something The Drukhari getting special weapons or wargear to deal with psykers
I need my floating psychic space bears for t'au. I need the nicassar as an actual model I can use. please gw, I know kroot are cool but for an empire with many different alien species why is there only 3 represented with actual rules.
That would be a Great way to Sisters of Battle with Inquisitors or give it to the Priest Admech with Specialized Robots or Servitors out of psykers Psychic Knights exist Khorne give it to the Lords or something like that It can’t be that Hard to find a Solution for 7Armies from 33
To me the biggest annoying factor is that there is nothing to separate the feel of psychic powers. I'm not against powers having their own stats, and then you might as well give them a to hit stat and hazardous instead of an old school spell dificulty. But at least make it work a bit diferent. Idk, maybe psychic attacks ignore all modifiers to hit and wound unless that effect specifically targets psychic attacks, so that you can't 'rust' your opponent' lightning bolt, but you can still block a spell with a spell caster or denier.
Overall, I've enjoyed 10th a fair amount. But I played Grey Knights in 9th specifically because I wanted an army of units that used Psychic power to buff themselves or even teleport with a big cast. And every so often throw out a smite. They changed from a gish/paladin like army to just the teleporters. That's it. 99% of the "Psychic" stuff they have just has to tacked on to make them weak against a couple of SM librarians and Daemons.
I would give psykers the AoS model of casting chance. There is several psychic abilities they have a psychic modifier and then roll against the spell challenge if fail takes mortal. Each main faction gets a lore and one person detachment
As someone who used to run 5+ psykers in 9th I can see why they made the change in 10th. Most psykers could have a psychic phase, a shooting phase, and in some cases melee too. They could do a ton of damage on their turn and their points didnt really reflect that.
I think 11th edition psychic should have a little of both from 9th and 10th. What I mean is that if you have a psyker that is a character, that unit should be able to customize their powers. If a psyker unit does not contain the character keyword, they have a psyker shooting profile and maybe a predetermined psyker ability to balance them out with other armies troops. For good measure, it should be a general psyker rule that if a non-character datasheet does gain the character keyword when lead by a character, they are prevented from customizing their psyker powers. It could be a new universal keyword such as “limited psyker” or something that signifies no psyker customizations. Relics were cool but I don’t know if we necessarily need them back as it contributed to rules bloat. That and some relics in certain armies were just league’s better than anything anyone else had. Overall, I’d say 11th should bring back customization for character psykers only and hold off on relics for the time being. My Weirdboy and Grimnyr would be happy to chose their powers again.
I'm personally EXTREMELY happy that the psychic phase is gone for 10th. I play necrons, and I absolutely despise having nothing to do and no consistent counterplay to the psychic phase either. So I ended up just waiting for my opponent to do their thing and then actually roll dice again in the shooting phase. I would be ok with spells being cast in their respective phases, but I dread getting a dedicated psychic phase back
Completely agree on this point. The "Magic phase" worked in a system like Fantasy because the rules always allowed the opponent to have some interaction. In 9th edition, your army could either partake in the psychic phase, or be a wooden dummy whilst eating mortal wounds. Placing abilities into the relevant phases is a much better game system. That said, they could bring back some kind of Leadership test for casting Psychic spells, perhaps offset by increasing their power for higher rolls, and including Perils for rolling (e.g) doubles.
I think what would be nice would be psykers could choose a spell from a codex(or from a supplement if you're playing divergent factions), just like you choose enhancements for your characters. Passive psychics could have better buffs compared to other passive abilities, but would need to roll D3 for activation, making it unstable but fun to use. Active psychics could work like stratagems, but would roll a D6 for pass/fail, 1 for a disasterous failure, 2-5 for intended effects and 6 for BOTH to happen. Three at max seems balanced to me, so psyker-heavy armies do have the upper hand but not by too much.
As a TS player the removal of the psychic phase coupled with how the remaining psychic abilities is why I haven't played 40k in a long time. After a few games in the first roughly three months. buffs just have the word psychic slapped on regardless of what the ability does. Psychic attacks are just guns. If they had implemented psykers in a fun flavorful way I wouldn't have had a problem.
I wasn't part of the hobby for any of the table top before 10th, and since tyranids are my favorite faction. 10th was a great point to start with leviathan. So I have no idea how things used to work other than the bits of context I get when an opponent or friend I play with mentions something along the lines of "Oh, that does this now? back in x edition it did this" or "I miss when x unit did x". I don't mind the curreny system
Yeah all they get is an extra shooting attack and a aura buff/debuff that feels like any other in any other unit. They are so lame in this edition. I feel that most people that don't mind are new players that haven't experienced anything else. In the last year or two now that 40K has become mainstream, there has been an insane influx of new players.
@@keyanklupacs6333 erm, no? In the shooting phase a model can fire all its ranged weapons, regardless of whether some of them are psychic attacks. My Farseer happily fires both their Singing Spear and their Eldrich Storm at the same time. Only for melee weapons you have to pick a single one (unless the others have the Extra Attacks trait).
I saw someone else in a comment on one of Auspex's videos say that psychic weapons should have their AP modify Invul saves, and I keep thinking that'd be a really good way of making them feel distinct, have a niche and not make the psychic keyword a straight downgrade. It'd be really easy for them to just roll that out in a balance dataslate. Long term though I hope to see them do more with it in 11th. It doesn't need it's own phase, it doe sneed to feel more interesting and lore accurate.
Meanwhile...
Grey Knights: We are the hammer!
GW: What hammer?
The warhammer 40,000
When the codex releases. I hope. Please. GW. I need my hammers back.
@@benmunn7481for fuckin real. My Paladin hammer squad needs to hit hard again.
@@jakebeansboy3755So you’re telling me one man, James Workshop, crafted 40,000 Warhammer?!?!
Grey Knights: we are the psyker
Gw: what psyker
Grey Knights: we are the anti daemon
GW: what anti daemon
😐
My issue with psykers is they replaced the phase with special abilities, which honestly I like. BUT they then gave EVERYONE a special ability, removing what makes them special
The Broodlord is a Psyker, and man do they not feel like Psykers at all. Hypnotic Gaze is cool and all but there's nothing that feels like you're using a power. Plus Paroxysm only on Flyrants and Onslaught only on Walkrants, feels bad.
I agree every unit has a special ability, only difference is a psyker fails on a 1 XD and is vulnerable to some weapons.
@@peters6345 that's very dependant on the ability, most psychic powers don't even make you roll anymore
@@calthepal312 yeah depends on the unit, most eldar powers have a roll, I think some marines too. I don't play other armies so not sure.
But my biggest problem is lack of choice.. I preferred spell lists. I don't miss smite spam in 9th but I miss the rest
They do get alot of their which fires as actual attacks now. Which i prefer as a tau player.
Agreeing with another comment. This edition they decided to make Heroes simpler, and so everyone got this small little "My unit gets this bonus" ability. And Psykers basically just became another Lieutenant in an endless row of identical Lieutenants.
Removing the Psychic phase basically removed any feeling of psychic abilities. Because what bonus does the Psykers get that is meaningfully different from other Hero units?
Looking at the whole of my Grey Knights index I can say this: They play no differently from my Black Templars. They are literally the same army only that one teleports around, and the other charges into the enemy.
i feel they could have gotten around this simply by giving psychers more abilities than non psychers get, mby some beefier ones too. I like my ahriman making one "spell" free ontop of what else they do so add more of that. But the grey knights got shafted compared to the thousand sons.
And further than that, you got the psychic keyword on your entire unit so it also paint target on them. Lieutenants don’t have a special anti-Lieutenant ability that they have to worry about by adding them to the unit
Yeah they really did Heroes dirty this edition. Some Heroes are NEVER taken because they are just not good for either their point totals, OR the fact they just do not do anything. Why take a single model for 75 points when I could just take a full squad of Space Marines for 85 points. Which is a huge shame because one of the biggest reasons i got into Warhammer 40k was the Heroes. Herohammer was probably one of the most fun things in 40k. Was it a little busted? Yeah a bit but that's what made it fun, just this singular model that costed 95 points and if it touched something you knew some crazy shit was about to go down.
I miss being able to take a Captain and turn them into a Chapter Master in normal gameplay, or stacking Warlord traits with Relics to empower a Hero. It was, genuinely, the best for me.
Is it just me, or does the CSM Dark Pacts feel more like a psycher attack than an actual psycher now?
Even basic Legionaries can roll for bonus damage at a risk of losing units, which often feels better than a dedicated psycher units…where a sorcerer lord in terminator armor - a dedicated psycher - gets its psychic damage potential outsourced to allies via marking targets.
Feel like there is a monumental identity issue for Psychers in 10th, especially considering non-psychers often can match if not outperform them with similar mechanics.
Personally I'm of the opinion that 30k and AoS do the balancing act of magic powers a lot better. Just give people some options on powers then have them be used in the phases they're most relevant in. Even if it's not the most creative solution it's certainly better than what 10th is doing
Psykers definitely should have their own mechanics, distinct from just Shooting, Moving, Assault, etc to make psychic powers feel distinct from other weapons and wargear, but having another phase of the game just adds additional layers of process which don't deepen the simulation. In MESBG, magic-users typically have access to several different spells and can pick and choose on which of them they spend their Will points and when. There's no "buying" spells, which only leads to min-maxing for efficiency, and the more situational powers never being played. I think GW should be designing Psychic Disciplines as a complete toolkit, which presents players with interesting choices, rather than having to figure outs one or two powers that are the best in the widest possible set of situations, which will always be direct-damage and self-buffs.
So true
Even the Mechanic of the 7th would be better then now
@@zadakielfrostaxt1825I liked the how it was done in 9th just get ride of smite spam
If you stripped out manifestations or changed them up quite a lot for AoS then I'd agree 100%. Nothing wrong with the magic system for AoS imo, but the manifestations feel like a big part of it (since its basically just additional spellcasting) but they really make the magic feel like garbage. I hate filling the board with non-thematic models just because I'm at an objective disadvantage if I don't do it.
AoS spells happen before movement. So it gives non magic armies a way to play around by just moving key units out of range
I can't find much use for a psyker tag on a unit that doesn't outweigh the debuff it brings for anti Psyker weapons.
Or anti psychic fnps.
having the psykic keyword is bad
To my knowledge there's no advantage to having it the anti psyker stuff would feel less bad if the psyker stuff gave you some reason to use it over something elts in the first place
@@jakegunning61 psykic weapons dont have have the minus 1 damage debuff against magnus
@@jamesygamesy5124 oh that's cool I didn't actually know that I haven't run into one yet but that's still not a lot
As a grey knights player it sucks cause they stripped the psychic phase and didn’t give anything to replace it so we lost identity and psi weapons basically being the same there is no difference between a force sword and a glaive
Dont forget we lost anti daemon as well...
Grey Knights are so shite in 10th if you remove the psyker keyword from their data sheets they just get BETTER since there is more anti psyker and feel no pain against psychic powers than any benefit you get for being a psyker...
Stopp there is one it’s easy to become a 4+Fnp against your Psychic weapon just because it’s Psychic
My two main collections are necrons and admech so it didn’t affect me at all but I can imagine how awful it must be for someone who plays a psychic army
@@Skitarii-w8yeven with those two armies fighting against something that just hands out mortals with very little possible interaction is an issue.
GW: But we gave you Uppie-downie! You guys are unique!
Also GW 5 Mintues later: Lets give uppie_downie, superior shooting, melee, and support to functionally every other faction in the game.
Make grey knights pskyers again
They have the tag.....
@@AggressiveLemur and...?
Do you mean the tag that is for anti psycers
The pskyer tag is nothing but a weakness. I mean it doesn't do anything to counter other space mages. My Tyranids don't feel like they are even psychic anymore either.
@@AggressiveLemur which means you have an army of units that get torn apart by anti psykers with no real reward for having it!!
I started Tyranids cause I thought the swarmlord was the coolest. A melee monster that casted spells sounded awesome. Now I have an ok melee monster with a heavy flamethrower with a heavy bolter range. Cool
So just play 9th edition?
Yeah Swarmy doesn't really feel like a close combat blender anymore. Reminds me of that spin on the Beatles joke, "Is the Swarmlord the greatest melee unit in the universe? The Swarmlord isn't even the greatest melee unit in the Tyranids"
@@bonitabromeliads Good luck finding games. "Just play X edition" doesn't work if you don't have a dedicated group that wants to play said older edition. The overwhelming majority don't and won't.
@@TheAtomicSpoonyeah I know the Problem I have the luck to have a friend who plays with joy every edition with me we wanted from 1th-10th but that’s one out of a near 200head strong Community
For games in 8th-9th you have about 5-6 six people (and there I count the next City Community too
Go away @@bonitabromeliads
Don’t really understand why they dropped psyker phase… For every army that didn’t have psykers absolutely nothing changed.
For every army that utilizes psykers, they’ve become a huge liability. You basically have a series of cons for your special shootah, that isn’t really better than the other guys not so special shootah.
They just need to take the psyker keyword off their dataslates if they are going to keep this up.
I don’t miss the psychic phase at all but Psykers need to feel reality warping in their abilities. Weirdboy handing out Da’Jump works great. Librarians giving you a FNP feels like it could be the ability of any random leader.
Fnp for Psychic Attacks so it just works against other Psychers
Psychic phase always felt lopsided. I don't think it needs its own phase, but something to set it apart from basic shooting. Higher risk/reward with Perils, more support options, etc.
I also don't miss the uninteractive smite spam as you ate 30 mortals from Thousand Sons.
@@pixywings7715 Playing my Necrons against my friend's TSons was always an exercise in futility.
@@pixywings7715 def some things I don't miss. Maybe buffs debuffs would've been better and scrap the smite spam. But I think it's boring now
@@pixywings7715 Learn to screen
Just make it a shooting phase ability?
Psykic phase was so much fun man. Choosing pregame between buffs, debuffs, or straight up magic attacks added another layer of good complexity
Having "Psychic" keyword atm is absolutely a negative. It means almost nothing except providing buffs against them.
I'm not sure it needs it's own phase, but it could be split between Command phase and other phases.
The way I see it being used is like another version of "CP".
Every model has a "Psychic Gain" stat line and that adds to your total ability reserve for that turn. Each unit has a "Psychic ability" set and in Command you can choose which one is in effect that battle round. You can use the ability once per turn but you can have more than one of each ability. Each ability uses a specific amount of ability reserve.
I think that's a great idea. I DISLIKE the idea of having a whole phase of the game that some armies (and their players) can't even really take part in, and I really LIKE keywords. Tags and keywords let you follow the tenants of Mechanically Simplify, Optionally Diversify: Don't make the players memorize 100 different ways of doing 100 things, make 10 different ways of doing 1000 things. Honestly I think its one of the strengths of Magic: The Gathering, love it or hate it. However...
If you are building something with tag mechanics, you need to use them properly. Although consolidating Psychic mechanics with other abilities achieves the tenant of Mechanically Simplify, the options we're expecting aren't really there. The rule of using tags is to only create a separate tag or category if something is different enough to warrant it, and I don't think they've met that rule. If they wanted to keep the game's mechanics consolidated but add extra context for Psykers, they could do something as simple as adding Stratagems that can only be used on/with a living Psyker in your army; that would be mechanically simple. But, I think there's plenty of room to do what you're suggesting, and have a separate "CP" counter. Having Command Points and Psyker Points would not be that much harder to keep track of, and would also allow Warhammer developers to consider different ways of adding psychic powers without having them overtake the focus of the game. Having a generalized list of powers, plus detachment-specific powers would be very consistent with what our brains are already doing in 10th--it's how Stratagems are already organized, so it's Mechanically Simple! And yet, it would provide Diverse Options.
@nurrodenthyme1671 yeah, I agree. That's what was in my head. I don't like a whole phase because it slows the game down more. But this way it allows the keyword to be used more effectively. I also like the idea that the more "psychers" you have, the more powerful it becomes. It compounds. Which makes having a faction of Psychers actually worth something (maybe I'm biased on this one as I'm a Grey Knights collector, but I'm also fed up of it being a hindrance/net-negative to me also).
The "pysker problem" is the exact same than the "vehicle problem", when you wipe out a part of the game to turn it into generic stuff, OBVIOUSLY you totally destroy the whole point of that thing.
When vehicle became just "big infantry model with lots of HP and toughness" it totally destroyed the whole rock paper scissor aspect of the game where vehicles demanded you to bring anti vehicle weapons, weapons that were specifically made for that.
After removing the psychic phase, psykers are now just "guys with heavy laser in the brain" and... that's it, since now every character in the game also give aura effect when leading units.
I think this is a fantastic point. People talk about streamlining the game, but at what point are we just playing chess with extra steps. The complex rules make these games tabletop wargames instead of just boardgames.
@@MistaGuido-nk3iz Yup. What makes a wargame is a certain degree of realism capable of roughly simulate real battle.
Things like templates that reproduce the effect of explosion had a direct impact on how you would position your troops (ie avoid grouping them together tightly).
The more you shave off elements that contribute to the simulation, the more your wargame devolve into a gamey boargame where the strategy becomes more generic and detached from the actual battlefield.
10th is the peak of that, its not a wargame, it just an overgrown boardgame and dice roll simulator.
@@Pers0n97
Yeah, 10th edition feels more gamey because it is very barebone with regards to mechanics and variety and thus appears quite sterile.
I strongly disagree with realism though, especially in terms of templates (at least the way they were used).
Scatter mechanic is completely unrealistic over short distances, finding one spot where the unit is slightly packed and then drop all the templates there killing the other spread out parts of the unit as well is weird. barrage character sniping is the worst offender and of course the good old lash/plasma combo is extremely gamey and has nothing to do with a wargame either.
I also don't miss the clunky vehicle mechanics especially when the distinction between monstrous creature and vehicle are unclear and sometimes arbitrary.
If we want to make 40k into a wargame (which it isn't), we need to work on turn structure and scenarios, the game should be longer than just a few turns, we need to define the scale properly (tactical level, operational level etc.) and remove all the elements that don't fit. Then we can start talking about detail mechanics (and the first thing, I would do is introduce range modifiers...).
Back in the day, 40k was just more gimmicky, more flavourful in that sense but also more bloated and extreme. It never was more realistic. Maybe the intention was more realistic, but the results weren't. Characters are much more reasonable now than before in terms of individual killing power. They still provide support value which should be their job.
I agree though, now we are at a stage where it is too bland (and maybe they should take a step back in terms of lethality so that we don't see the weird gamey tables and can return to real terrain...
@@Nazdreg1The big problem and disconnect is that it sounds like we agree what 40k should be. An immersive sci fi war simulation game, a “war game”.
But GW is pushing for a “competitive” game and all of the balance as well as rules development is focused on the tournament scene. A few dozen players change win rates by 5-20% every other weekend and our armies face the consequences of people playing a completely different game than us.
I really want there to be a *wargame* for us, with all its complexity, and a competitive boardgame for the people that only care about the tabletop scene.
I don’t even necessarily play the game to win. I like to win but I would be happier ignoring objectives and points and just going at it with an opposing force for control of the field or eradication.
The irony is that you are describing exactly what 10th did to fix the problem. The only thing that will reliably kill medium to heavy tanks bodies in 40k are dedicated Anti-Tank Profiles (IE: Lascannon or Equivalents) because of their high toughness and 2+ or 3+ saves. In fact tanks are so tough right now the game actually has problem where traditionally anti-tank profiles now struggle to actually deal with them like plasma and melta because they typically only wound on 5+ and some factions don't even get access to good anti-tank weapons. Horus Heresy 2nd Edition, probably the most balanced of the "old" edition rules so long as you only play space marines and don't spam terminators and dreadnoughts (maybe its because they don't have a chance to just instantly blow up and get a ridiculous 2+/5++ save?) has the problem where most vehicles are at best glass cannons that can shatter to a lucky autocannon hit. Land Raiders and Spartans pretty much make up the list of tanks worth using for marines purely because they serve as a bus for your terminators and are reasonably tough barring a pre-mature explodes result from a lascannon shot.
I'd love to see 11th take inspiration from the Old World magic system.
You have a pool of 10 to 15 generic spells any faction can take, each spell can only be used in one phase, so Smite in the Shooting Phase, and then a handful of factions get 4 unique spells only them can use, on top of that you also have a few datasheets with a unique spell. A character can only cast one spell per phase, and you cannot cast if battle shocked.
The Psyker keyword would have a number next to it, from 1 to 3, determining how many spell you can equip (including any spells bond to the datasheet). The number would also be used for denies, any Psyker within X inches of another can attempt a deny, if so both players roll a dice and add the number next to the Psyker keyword to the roll, whoever has the highest roll wins, the looser then passes an hazardous test, if the caster looses the spell doesn't go of.
Hazardous is fine to represent peril of the warp, and most spells would be hazardous. On top of that you could potentially overcast spells to make their effect stronger but the hazardous test would be harder to pass.
At last they should be flavorful mechanics for each faction like Eldar having a better time passing hazardous tests, chaos being able to sacrifice nearby cultists to auto-pass hazardous tests, some units slightly breaking the rules, like Kairos Fateweaver being Psyker 4 or the Lord of Change being able to cast multiple spells per phase, so on and so forth.
I feel this. I bought the T-sons 9th Edition Codex shortly before 10th was announced (I was still very new, didn't have much of the army ready). I remember reading all of the very cool psychic disciplines T-sons had access to, and I was looking forward to an onslaught of smite damage.
Now, I like a lot of the abilities The different Sorcerers have in tenth, some of them are really cool. But, just like the video says, there is NO. ANTI. TANK. None that's effective anyways. The only Psyker with Anti-vehicle and Anti-Monster is the Terminator Sorcerer. And what does the profile look like? Three attacks that deal 2 damage apiece, with dev wounds on a 4+. Even if all three attacks wound, Heavier tanks, Knights, and big scare monsters chuckle at losing 6 wounds. Chances are the Sorcerer will not get another chance to shoot the same target.
The Aspiring sorcerers who lead the Rubrics aren't that impressive. I get they're the leader of a battleline unit but their warp smite is just boring and frankly shameful for a psychic attack. They basically made them an equivalent to SM combi weapons. (Salty they changed those too).
I'm being forced to bring tanks to deal with other tanks, which is alright, but I bought into T-sons to run cool space wizards, not tanks. T-sons also have NO vehicle support. Give me a tech sorcerer, dammit!
It's amazing how Magnus' psychic powers are somehow on par with a krak missile and a heavy flamer. His melee is better than his psychic.
@thanroshi8514 He should have something as scary as the Mutalith's beam. Which, btw *isn't* psychic.
I really miss the psychic phase. I think psyker tag is mostly detrimental, units have fnp against it or special weapons.
It would make sense if psykers were that much stronger than normal units, but on average is not the case.
What I miss the most is variety, there was a lot of use from librarians, farseers, warlocks etc. Now it feels bit dull to me. I loved choosing powers and synergies.. back in 8th/9th
That being said smite spam was really bad in 9th glad that it's gone XD
Smite spam was only from two armies and they were a menace! Still no End of 8th Iron Hands.
@Bathion yeah Ironhands was pretty bonkers in 8th 😆
@peters6345
You know it's just a Space Marine Chapter with Death Guard's FNP ability, T'au Overwatch, Necron vehicle rules, and their regular GW Space Marine lineup. ... how could it be unbalanced!?
@@Bathion and immortal dreadnoughts at least before faq 😆
@peters6345 oh Yeah! Who could forget that!
I don't miss the Psychic Phase; it was an extra stage of "gotcha" that slowed matches down. But 10th's handling of psychic characters is abysmal. Part of the issue is the lack of auras, and the other part is the lack of Wargear.
In past editions, before the Psychic Phase, you could outfit your army with different psychic powers, weapons and benefits. These could be damaging attacks, powers akin to weapons, or abilities that buffed and debuffed units. But now the data sheet is limited. Units are restrained. And it all makes for a horribly restricted unit type in an extraordinarily limited and bland game.
Having 6 powers in at least one "lore" for each army is probably the best way to make sure you don'y just get screwed by a random lemon power and have a few generic powers in the core rules and "heavily psychic" armies can have 2 or 3 tables limited by unit or datasheet perhaps i.e. Farseers and warlocks and the harlequin psykers do different things. Plenty of choice no need to make any horribly complex but variety is the spice of life.
Yeah I miss being able to choose powers for psykers, and being able to choose litanies for chaplains. Added a nice little layer of flavor to the list-building process.
And a bit of complexity to make it interesting
It doesn't need its own phase, it's just a pacing suck. The powers do need cool effects and a roll system with the 2d6 thing, perils ect. The counter system could maybe be like if you counter a spell, you can't cast on your next turn. Tau and Templars could have some kind of devices that can counter, but they cant cast.
How is resolving powers in all the other phases easier to remember vs just having on universal timing?
@@keyanklupacs6333 Fair. It would be harder to remember, but maybe easier to follow.
Can they just fire the 40k team and have the AoS team handle everything, like I genuinely mean this too.
This, amongst borderline every issue in 40k, has literally been solved in AoS and the pacing/flow of the game in current ed is absolutely incredible bc of it
@keyanklupacs6333 It wouldn't be easier. Just flow a lot better. Having to sit there for 5-15 mins waiting for your opponent to roll EVERY psychic thing with no interuptions just killed the pacing, especially when you were playing one of the 6 factions with no psykers to counteract.
If you break it up, at least after casting smite, your opponent might also shoot you so you can at least roll some dice before they move on to the next psycher.
Better not AoS have this point better but a Horrible Wound system
Horus Heresy doesn’t have a psychic phase, but it manages to make psykers work GREAT.
I think the Farseers are the perfect example of what went wrong. Why does having a bike or not determine what spells this ancient eldar can cast? Why is the one on jetbike casting the spell that overlaps with the jetbikes?
@@emdeo He only has his 3rd tome on audiobook so it limits what he can access while driving.
Psyker mechanics in 9th were fun, but psychic phase isnt needed as long as the powers specify what phases they can be used in, or the models specify what phases they could cast in.
Just steal AOS's system with wizard and priests
Agree. The AOS system is simple but gives flavour to the magic and prayers.
How does having powers spread over multiple phases make it any easier?
@keyanklupacs6333 less spells to choose from so less rules bloat, have to roll for it so brings that back, and putting it in the appropriate phase means things are done at the time that type of action needs to be done which simplifies things.
@@HadrosaurHero Isn't the AoS system that specific casters have specific powers, they don't get to choose from a list? 'Cause that's the old 40k system, the one where you have a list of six powers to choose from and the power level of casters range between 1 and 4, that's the old Fantasy system.
@@HadrosaurHerowierd I didnt day anything about the number of powers? 🤔 Isnt it easier to get swept up in doing the actual mechanics of that phase and forget a power instead of casting 4 powers at once in one phase? It's just a 3 step process. Roll 2d6 is it over the number? If yes opponent attempts to counter via deny the witch or an army power or their own psyker. If your opponent fails to interrupt you resolve the effect. Thats why it was changed from that system in 3rd - 5th ed. It was very easy to forget to trigger a power in the assault phase or movement phase and so they borrowed the magic phase from WFB.
Baron of dice is outrageoulsy expensive.
Cheaper than GW, but can you suggest some good alternatives?
@@absolutfreak5012 lol any dice in any FLGS for 30% of price?
@@MarcinObuchowski I guess I needed to be clearer - any good alternatives that aren't basic dice that I can buy literally anywhere?
Thanks for that useless "gotcha" though.
Their downfall was when GW got rid of the Psychic phase and alot of units benefit from Psychic power and the phase. Thousands sons love thier Psychic phase, nids are Psychic power etc. Psychic phase needs to come back
Check out how psychic done in the old world or fantasy battles. Its very diverse and interesting, much more than it is now or even in 8th/9th ed. of 40k.
I don't think we 100% need a psychic phase to use it properly, no reason the psyker stuff couldn't be folded into other phases, TSons still essentially have a Psychic Phase. I think the real problem is for all the other psykers, who mostly just have a special ability (like every other unit in the game), and a psychic gun.
Could have powers that get activated in the Command, Movement, Shoot (which we mostly do have), Charge, or Fight phases. It's the losing out on psychic powers that do things like manipulate movement or buff a unit in some way that we've really lost out on the most.
@PATA_PON yeah i do like the old wotlc or sigmar
@@Lowlandlordthats how they done in the old world. Differents spells activates in different phases, powerfull mages have buffs to the spell casting or denying. Many magic related artifacts, different miscast resolutions and damaging spells are not just mortal wounds
As a new player, the psychic phase was confusing
psychic just feels... not there in 10th
@@gamingborger yes I totally agree... 9th was a storm of smite and I'm a grey knight player and I didn't agree with that crap and tenth has gone so far the other way it feels like part of the lore has been ripped out to make it easier to play! I play because of the lore!!
I would like to see Psykic returned to a stronger place than it is now, but less so than it was in 9th.
I like moving abilities to different phases, buffing to comand phase, damage to shooting/fight phase etc.
I do not like armour saves being able to counter psykic damage, 'I channel the power of the warp to turn your brain to mush ... but you rolled a 6 so your flak jacket prevents it'... ???
I would keep the roll to hit and wound parts but all psykic damage should be mortals/devastating. Also tailor the strength of psykic attacks so that they dont pose much of a threat to vehicles (potentially also give non-biologicals a strong resistance to it as well)
I play black Templars and my friend has a thousand sons army and even I miss the psychic phase
Ngl it was my favourite phase and a reason why I collected a lot of my armies. Screw 10th and its
If my weapon has the massively huge psychic debuff keyword, it should be stronger than a none psychic option. Why does a greater daemon of the Lord of magic have a d3 damage gun. It’s just shit
The psychic phase had its ups and downs, but sometimes it could be stupidly fun in the most horrible ways:
I remember a doubles game where everything was going quite well, right up until my kill rig decided it was time to perils while it had only a couple wounds left. It exploded, taking massive chunks out of two of my other units, killed my teammate's warlord, and left the Tau that were about to be charged... completely unscathed and very, very relieved! XD
Bring back impactful psychic abilities and fun moments where they can go chaotically wrong!
The Psychic Awakening™ was followed by the Psychic Powernap™
Im still shocked that Psychic “Guns” don’t deal mortal wounds or something. They’re kinda just guns that ‘okay’
depends on the unit I think, Zoanthropes w/ Neurotyrant are quite scary
And even then you mostly must overload them to be a Danger to marines or Armor start at 3+
Maybe if you say just Invuls stopp them would help
@@Chogbortszoanthropes are literally just las guns with lethals hits.
The MW cut from psyhic is good.
They way everything else is handled in reguards to psyhic is awfull
@@user-zh8dr1qt1s yeah and that shit hurts
Grey Knights - Great! All our weapons have the psychic keyword....umm... what does it do?
Daemons: - Cool, it gives my flesh-hounds a feel no pain...
Thousand Sons - well, we can make your psychic weapons hazardous, and we get to choose to make ours sustained/lethal/devastating with some cabal points... can't you?
Grey Knights: .........
I think it'd be fun for Psykers to have a system similar to "Secondary" missions. A deck of cards, tasks to complete to score VP, that type of thing. I think of Psykers as a support asset for a battleforce, not as a combat unit. Leave war to the Tactical Squad, while the Librarian forwards them information of their foes or whatever
My first experience with psychic powers was getting my blood angels terminator army tabled turn 1 by a Tzeentch army in a 2v1 match during 7th ed. I’m glad they want to sort of reign in things but the system in 8th worked fine enough to not completely throw it out. It is worth pointing out though that a lot of players just don’t see it as worth including in their armies even when it would strictly benefit them. I had a roommate who would complain all the time about my custodes army but refused to put a single librarian in his space marine army, among other things that would easily counter my guys.
@@SizzleCorndog I mean people have tastes and I get it. Some people aren't here for the magic part of the fantasy. Me personally? I love the wizard shit. I put em in every army I can. Sometimes I try to put em in armies I can't.
@ I mean this was someone who would know exactly what list I’d be bringing a head of time bc only so many models existed for custodes and kept bringing the same 3 squads with hellblasters and aura stack them, only to turn around and complain that I’d delete him in melee even though he didn’t bring anything to screen with. Like I play blood angels and would occasionally bring a psycher but this is someone who when told that psychic is a great way to counter custodes, just refused to do it effectively bc magic is cowardly and lame
@@SizzleCorndog Bro should be playin Khorne and there should be more psyker counter measures for armies without em. Hell add blanks to the game that'd be kinda interesting.
@@MistaGuido-nk3iz blanks are already in the game and at least with custodes in 8th ed on a 6 you could just ignore mortal wounds from psychic powers. idk I like having things that hit hard but I do think that the harder something hits the more glaring its counter needs to be, and a good example would be custodes and psychic stuff
I would be ok if we did away with the psychic phase and it never returned if instead we get extra abilities on psyker models or psyker focused detachments that unlock abilities for psyker models, not army wide abilities based on an arbitrary number of models like cabal points but abilities the models can vast while they are in the dedicated psyker detachment.
I play Tyranids as my main army, half the range is a psyker or synapse creature I would benefit immensely if we got cool stuff for a psychic phase but I would rather not have that power if it makes the games a lot longer or skewed against armies with limited psyker units.
'Let's make this commander give devastating wounds' 'What about this psyker?' 'Let's make this psyker give devastating wounds AND ALSO HAVE A BOLTGUN BUT PSYCHIC!'
One simple way they could add some choice would be each army having a few psyker enhancements to represent different powers that can only go on psykers, these could have a points value which would make it easy to balance them
Hey Auspex I noticed you mixed a few things up for 6th and 7th edition, in 6th edition, just like in 7th you had a base tier of mastery level on every psyker and could buy extra depending on the datasheet, based on this tier you would roll randomly on any of the core disciplines or your faction exclusive one as highlighted on the datasheet, where for example space marine librarians did not have access to the malefic daemonology discipline, but did have access to the pyromancy, biomancy, etc. disciplines, the only difference between these two editions was the change to the warp charges system as you described for 7th where 6th continued to use the leadership system. I hope this helps clarify the situation as 7th was not the massive shakeup on all these fronts as you described. If you want I think I can look for my copy of the 6th edition rulebook somewhere if you want proof. For the rest love your videos, this just threw me off as a massive psyker fanatic that started in 6th.
I would love to seee them bring back the disaplin system. with each psyker chosing a power from the list of disaplins they have acess to, with no duplication.
psyick powers could easly be just the 'powers' that we have now but alowing us to custoimise the psykers for there role.
I loved the old psychic powers of previous editions - being able to pick the powers and having it feel meaningful and flavourful. While I appreciate it might have had some balancing issues it seems that it's basically had the same solution to difficult to balance unit types in 10th edition - effectively getting rid of it.
I love the breakdown. Thank you.
I think because GW DOES NOT PLAYTEST this stuff, I felt like they took the same stance they did with flyers: They can't get flyers/psychicers right, so let's phase them out without actually phasing them out.
If they played with the power balance some, I see no reason why psychers should be game breaking. Or just make the perils more devastating: higher risk for higher reward. You are paying with the Warp after all.
They do need to change the Shadow of the Warp rule for my Tyranids I think; -1 to psychic tests I always thought was token if not an out and out a joke.
As an Ad Mech and TSons player, I think 10th Edition does a pretty good job with psykers, could easily tweak it to being a choice of powers like other loadout options. Making another phase that some armies don't interact in was just pretty awful tbh. You already have some armies that don't do shooting or melee, so having another phase on top of that is not ideal. I think the best way to handle "denies" would be a general strategem that requires a keyword to use (like grenade strat does), and it can interfere with [psychic] keyworded abilities, forcing a LD test to use the ability, or giving the target FNP or whatever. Seems a clean way to do it without massive rules bloat.
My suggestion: make psykerbound enhancements for every detachement.
Everbody wins: people can make their psykers nasty and powerful, you can balance every "ability" for itself via points cost, no new phase, GW can sell a new, expensive book.
The psyker rules in second edition (Dark Millennium) was most fun. Randomizing spells and draw secret cards, with power, each turn. It was exciting!
But I like the opposite too, the 10th edition, with no option and tags. Meaning you need special save against it.
100% agree with Grey knights, they should have given them a normal special ability AND a psychic ability otherwise there is really no difference between them and normal units. I dont mind the psychic phase being absorbed into other phases, but would be nice to have more psychic flavour. I don't miss Deny the witch OR peril's of the warp to be honest, it's nice to have more certainty in what you can do.
Maybe give the psychic keyword a use by having the model do a battleshock test, if they fail they’re battleshocked and take a mortal or three, if they don’t you get the hazardous profile instead of the normal one. That way Denise can come back and it gives psychic a use. Then you put at least 2 psychic guns you have to choose between on a data sheet to equip to the model before the battle. Maybe say a defensive and offensive power if you want to commit to everyone getting two, then you can say a psyker is on offensive power if you want DPS, or defensive if you want support and a worse gun. Or maybe apply these buffs in the shooting phase?
I'd like a optional module with neutral psykic manifestation minis, that are randomly picked at the start of the battle and can be manipulated by your psykers. Kinda like the Malign Sorcery for AoS. I would also add some psyker units to all armies - Tau could have some allied Zoats or other alien race, Imperial Agents could cover any gaps in the imperium.
I played Tau and as stated outside of one talisman which was farsight only we had no protection at all. In 6th and 7th we were a little overtuned with shooting which let us keep up but in 8th/9th a psychic heavy army could run roughshod over us with little recourse. I do admit that my Tyranid army was sad to see the phase leave and it certainly feels like something needs to change to make psychic actually feel worthwhile but if we do expand psychic back towards its former prominence we need to adjust for armies that don’t have it. If that means bringing in more allies for Tau, implementing a prayer system to deny for sisters/templars, or something else then it would need to be addressed.
My playgroup disliked 10th edition so much we wrote our own edition, including some pretty fundamental stuff like implementing alternating activations. Here is how we handle psykers:
1. There is no psychic phase, due to the alternating activations we have two main phases (other than command at the beginning and end at . . . well, the end). The main phases are engage (where a unit can move, activate psychic powers and shoot, with psychic powers resolved at any point) and assault (where a unit can charge and fight in melee). Each phase is resolved with players alternating their activations using a system to balance between low and high value units, which I wont get into here.
2. Psychic manifestation checks still exist as in 8th/9th, as do denies. Perils of the warp are, of course, a (wonderful and hilarious) thing.
3. Psychic powers and psychic disciplines also exist, although powers are divided into major and minor arcana. Major arcana are powers that can only be cast once per turn regardless of how many psykers you have with that power, while minor arcana can be cast more than once per turn and don't cause perils on a casting roll of 12.
4. Psychic damage mostly uses str, ap and damage stats (although typically doesn't roll to hit if you succeed the manifestation check). While psychic powers do use conventional attacks stats, some are more powerful than most psychic attacks tend to be in 10th, being able to realistically effect hard targets. In our system daemonic saves are their own type of save, and can be modified by psychic attacks. A few rarer powers, like mind-war type effects, still cause mortal wounds, although in our system mortal wounds are rarer overall and do not spill over between models.
5. Our system doesn't use the 10th edition leader system (we use a system closer to 9th, with some fixes applied), partly because we just couldn't figure out a neat way of handling unit types. This avoids the unbelievably stupid situation in 10th where an entire unit gains the psyker keyword because a psychic leader joins.
The biggest problem is that the keyword [psychic] is only a detriment, triggering FNP, or giving you the pair Psyker keyword which allows some units to get an improved wound against you.
I think the best fix is that damage from a weapon with the Psychic keyword carries over just like Mortal Wounds.
Each time PSYCHIC wounds are inflicted on a unit, each of those PSYCHIC wounds inflicts one point of damage to that unit, and they are applied one at a time. Each PSYCHIC wound is allocated to a model in the same manner as allocating an attack. Excess damage from Psychic wounds is not lost if the damage can be allocated to another model. Instead keep allocating damage to another model in the target unit until either all the damage has been allocated or the target unit is destroyed.
I feel that the way that Old World does magic should be a big influence in how psychic could work in 40k. Just getting to choose your powers, not rolling randomly, because that can be quite a feels bad moment - and is less admin work. There are certain spell types, i.e. Assailment, Magic Missile, Hex or Enchantment, and the type of spell determines when you use it. If its a Conveyance spell, then its during movement, a magic missile is during shooting and an assailment spell is a melee attack during combat. So no need for a big 'stop the game psychic phase' but it gives something more fluid and varied and provides options - something they seem determined to remove from 40k at the moment.
The Swarmlord used to be a goated caster. It knew multiple powers, could use two per turn, and also had two denials per turn as well. It was a legit army-leading monster, unlike today where we're missing not only most of it's abilities, but also the phase of the game where it ran the table lol
Even Hive Tyrants could cast two per turn, the tyrants were always a threat when it came to powers of the mind
I think you could move the psychic powers and deny the witch to be stratagems that don't cost command points and a deny the witch stratagem that can be used less frequently. This allows for more generic powers and faction specific powers. That way, you can have pronounced psychic powers that tell you when they could be used.
lol orks have somehow ended up with the only real psyker in the game.
It would be hilarious if when a psycher rolls a 1 on their spell, instead of taking D3 mortals they roll another D6 to see what happens. Outcomes could include missing their next turn or spawning a greater demon that proceeds to attack them, then if he kills the psycher heads after the next closest unit on either army. Typhus's mortal wound spray feels like a psychic attack, it seems a bit silly that the 1k sons have half their attacks as shooting and are subject to stealth and cover like a normal shooting attack.
One of the biggest issues I have with psykers in 10th edition is that those who I am talking to and me as a person who loves wizards is that the people who have been most upset with the psychic phase changes are those who play psychic armies. The people who were effected by the change the most hated it and those who aren't didn't seem to mind it because of course they didn't.
I think old world has the best interpretation of Magic in game at the minute. Spells are cast throughout the turn and have casting values improved by your casters level
just bring back the psychic phase. It made psychers actually feel like a thing rather then a after thought now
The psychic phase was unnecessary, just go back to how psykers used to be in the old additions. Pick a power and use it in the phase it actually interacts with.
Also, bring back the old Ork weirdboy from 4th edition, that was so much fun!
I think it's okay to admit that the problem is 10th edition.
Just how 7th, 8th, 9th, and soon 11th is the problem
@@saberz6615(G)ee...I (W)onder what all those things have in common 😏
True they rode the accessibility grift too hard and burned their ass on it. Strangely you probably shouldn't take your wildly success crunchy wargame and try to make it like all your competitors to appeal to wierd twitter (or I guess bluesky now 😂) people.
"Wargamers only hate 2 things:
The way things are now and change"
@@keyanklupacs6333 looking at sales numbers and the price of GW stock, I think it might be "bring back psychic phase" folks that are the minority (and the scatter dice people, and the war gear points cost people, and the force organization chart people, and the ...). 10th is a wild success.
I really don't get what you mean with people on twitter may have had influence on 10th ed rules btw?
My main issue is with space marine librarians is that they use their rare and powerful psychic gifts to give out sustained hits, shoot some moderately damaging lightning and channel psychic energy through a force weapon for some mediocre melee attacks.
But a basic Lieutenant can just use tactics to give his squad a better buff, and then pick up a plasma pistol which is actually better than the lightning, and wield a power fist which is better than the force sword.
The Librarian would literally be better off if he didn't use his powers and just got some better weapons...
allow psykers, and only psykers, to access spell libraries, as their special ability, giving them flexibility. let them keep psychic weapons.
you could make Psychic weapons have a special rule, like -1 to invuln saves made against them, or +1 to DEAMON units, or something.
Give Psychic powers back, they just get used in the command phase like AoS with Prayers and Spells
I think some kind of ability the different phases . Like fast feet for movement buffs , dead eye for shooting etc with various buffs. Activate on 2 or 3 and psycher takes mortal wounds on 1.
The hyper focus on competitive balance is what I think caused 10th ed to be such a cluster fuck. I mean, why balance complex list building and a phase some armies don't use when you can just dumb it down in the former, and get rid of the latter.
Then make Two rule sets one for Tournaments and one for Casual with more free Building and Optimization/Customization Options
Marines as examples was a very Complex army when you want you can build very fluffy
CSM the same now they feel dry and flat if you build lists with them same occurs to Eldar but not that strong
Makes no fun in list building
I think the answer is psychic powers similar to primarch main ability's, list of 3, choose one at start of battle, give effects, not just cast gun and have it on top of the special ability of the unit
There are two types of people in 40k:
People who abused the Psychic Phase.
And people who were abused by the Psychic Phase.
I personally dont like the separate "Physic Phase" but I would re-introduce the choice of spells via 'Wargear choices' reframed as 'Ability choices' (points per ability like enhancements). The denial interaction also seemed fun to get back again, rolling 2D6 and battle it out type way, having some mini battles between models while not being focused in one main phase but just during the Shooting Phase or Commanding Phase etc.
They don't need a unique psychic phase. Just keep psychic powers as they are now as weapon profiles or abilities with a tag, but give people a list they can choose from. It's not that the powers themselves are weak, it's that there's no flexibility or uniqueness to psykers. In fact, all the anti-psyker stuff this edition makes it more of a detriment than anything.
As a player who has tried 40k on and off since 4th ed, I love the new system much more. Keep simplifying the game! A psychic phase and choosing powers is just all too convoluted and not going to pick up new players compared to other, better games out there (looking at you MCP)
Psykers and Aircraft are like the biggest unit comp debates I hear about. I am a black templar player what's a psyker?
GW: exactly, what is a psyker?
"Psychic lascannon" and "Psychic bullets" used to mean something.
Psychic phase in 2nd edition is the best - a cheeky little card game that's fun for both players each turn and leads to some fun narrative moments.
I really think AOS has magic in a great place, at least design-wise.
For people unfamiliar with AOS, most armies have a list of 3 spells that any wizard can cast. Casting is done on 2d6, with double 1s being harmful, and with enemy wizard counterspells rolled the same way.
What this means is every caster has access to 3 abilities, making them versatile but without guaranteed power. More powerful casters also have their own unique spells, and some characters can cast more spells a turn.
There's also a second magic system, priests, which roll a single d6, and can "charge up" prayers to cast more powerful versions. This gives another magic system, and allows less wizard-y armies to still play some magic.
There is only 1 army with no magic (I think) and that doesn't mean half the game loses out on playing part of the game.
For the Psyker problem, the answer is simple.
Priest exist. Even in older editions of 40k they basically were "Psyker who rolls 1d6 and doesn't Perils" Give them a Deny the Witch then add Psychic to either Command Phase or other relevant phases. Or don't have Deny the Witch and keep all MW stuff for really hard spells; the point is still that other armies have units that can fill the same Niche as Snipers (Chaplains, Priest, Dark Apostles, Ethereals, C'tan, debatebly Cryptek Arcanas.) Just... even if you don't want an entire phase there are better ways to do it then they currently are.
Take a look at channel minisodes. They do second edition battle reports demonstrating how simple and fun the psychic phase could work. Very easy to implement this in the current form. Easy.
Couldn't agree more. Hope GW takes notice.
a imperial fist psychic power i liked was basically a long range heal. very cool concept
Giving psykers alternate psychic powers as wargear choices would be fine with me. Don't need a psychic phase really, and Tsons cabal points are half the reason they where nerfed so hard, so you wouldnt want to spread that around really. But a LITTLE more choice of powers, especially the flavorful choices (Tzeentch getting foresight and flames, Nurgle rot, Emperor aligned getting "holy" buffs and the like) would be good.
I think they should return to psychic in 9th. give it a phase again, but give every army a unit for psychic defense. Such as Necron Pariahs, or give the Tau a psyker corp to utilize as deny units. Because the GW article REALLY wanted to emphasize how one sided fighting a psyker army was, when they could've just as easily introduced a couple extra models for anti psyker actions. In a parallel to us having anti tank units for dealing with tanks.
Not having a psychic phase feels far nicer, casting them in an appropriate phase is just better design.
The issue is that the spells are bland AF. Make psykers way more expensive, and make their spells massively impactful.
I think the issue of certain armies not having psykers is to give them some ability to deal with them.
Some ideas I have are these:
Necrons getting Blackstone wargear or enhancements to shut down Psychic stuff
The Tau getting psychic Auxillaries, like a Kroot Psyker called a Mind Shaper or something
The Drukhari getting special weapons or wargear to deal with psykers
I need my floating psychic space bears for t'au. I need the nicassar as an actual model I can use. please gw, I know kroot are cool but for an empire with many different alien species why is there only 3 represented with actual rules.
@@coldstar2035you mean the Psi Worms?
That would be a Great way to
Sisters of Battle with Inquisitors or give it to the Priest
Admech with Specialized Robots or Servitors out of psykers
Psychic Knights exist
Khorne give it to the Lords or something like that
It can’t be that Hard to find a Solution for 7Armies from 33
To me the biggest annoying factor is that there is nothing to separate the feel of psychic powers. I'm not against powers having their own stats, and then you might as well give them a to hit stat and hazardous instead of an old school spell dificulty. But at least make it work a bit diferent.
Idk, maybe psychic attacks ignore all modifiers to hit and wound unless that effect specifically targets psychic attacks, so that you can't 'rust' your opponent' lightning bolt, but you can still block a spell with a spell caster or denier.
9th ed was the best for me ; many different powers, a deny mechanic, true perils of the warp, smite by default... The good old times !
Overall, I've enjoyed 10th a fair amount. But I played Grey Knights in 9th specifically because I wanted an army of units that used Psychic power to buff themselves or even teleport with a big cast. And every so often throw out a smite. They changed from a gish/paladin like army to just the teleporters. That's it. 99% of the "Psychic" stuff they have just has to tacked on to make them weak against a couple of SM librarians and Daemons.
I would give psykers the AoS model of casting chance. There is several psychic abilities they have a psychic modifier and then roll against the spell challenge if fail takes mortal. Each main faction gets a lore and one person detachment
As someone who used to run 5+ psykers in 9th I can see why they made the change in 10th. Most psykers could have a psychic phase, a shooting phase, and in some cases melee too. They could do a ton of damage on their turn and their points didnt really reflect that.
I think 11th edition psychic should have a little of both from 9th and 10th.
What I mean is that if you have a psyker that is a character, that unit should be able to customize their powers.
If a psyker unit does not contain the character keyword, they have a psyker shooting profile and maybe a predetermined psyker ability to balance them out with other armies troops.
For good measure, it should be a general psyker rule that if a non-character datasheet does gain the character keyword when lead by a character, they are prevented from customizing their psyker powers. It could be a new universal keyword such as “limited psyker” or something that signifies no psyker customizations.
Relics were cool but I don’t know if we necessarily need them back as it contributed to rules bloat. That and some relics in certain armies were just league’s better than anything anyone else had.
Overall, I’d say 11th should bring back customization for character psykers only and hold off on relics for the time being.
My Weirdboy and Grimnyr would be happy to chose their powers again.
I miss customizing my army to make it feel more like my army. Psykers and choosing psychic abilities are a big part of that.
I'm personally EXTREMELY happy that the psychic phase is gone for 10th. I play necrons, and I absolutely despise having nothing to do and no consistent counterplay to the psychic phase either. So I ended up just waiting for my opponent to do their thing and then actually roll dice again in the shooting phase. I would be ok with spells being cast in their respective phases, but I dread getting a dedicated psychic phase back
Completely agree on this point. The "Magic phase" worked in a system like Fantasy because the rules always allowed the opponent to have some interaction. In 9th edition, your army could either partake in the psychic phase, or be a wooden dummy whilst eating mortal wounds. Placing abilities into the relevant phases is a much better game system. That said, they could bring back some kind of Leadership test for casting Psychic spells, perhaps offset by increasing their power for higher rolls, and including Perils for rolling (e.g) doubles.
I think what would be nice would be psykers could choose a spell from a codex(or from a supplement if you're playing divergent factions), just like you choose enhancements for your characters.
Passive psychics could have better buffs compared to other passive abilities, but would need to roll D3 for activation, making it unstable but fun to use.
Active psychics could work like stratagems, but would roll a D6 for pass/fail, 1 for a disasterous failure, 2-5 for intended effects and 6 for BOTH to happen.
Three at max seems balanced to me, so psyker-heavy armies do have the upper hand but not by too much.
Then go back two a Two D6 test Snake eyes Damage Double six Damage give the perfect Room 1D6 is a bit Heavy in Suiziding
@@zadakielfrostaxt1825 To be fair we already have hazardous and I never mentioned what the 'Disasterous failures' would be
As a TS player the removal of the psychic phase coupled with how the remaining psychic abilities is why I haven't played 40k in a long time. After a few games in the first roughly three months. buffs just have the word psychic slapped on regardless of what the ability does. Psychic attacks are just guns. If they had implemented psykers in a fun flavorful way I wouldn't have had a problem.
I wasn't part of the hobby for any of the table top before 10th, and since tyranids are my favorite faction. 10th was a great point to start with leviathan. So I have no idea how things used to work other than the bits of context I get when an opponent or friend I play with mentions something along the lines of "Oh, that does this now? back in x edition it did this" or "I miss when x unit did x". I don't mind the curreny system
I miss the psychic phase. 10th “fixed” a problem that didn’t exist.
A little problem has existed but with a Option of a Psi resistance check it would be solved
Yeah all they get is an extra shooting attack and a aura buff/debuff that feels like any other in any other unit. They are so lame in this edition. I feel that most people that don't mind are new players that haven't experienced anything else. In the last year or two now that 40K has become mainstream, there has been an insane influx of new players.
Its not even extra they have to choose between it and any other ranged weapons they might have lol.
Having just started using tsons (and 40k in general) a year ago, the psychic keyword literally just marks stuff for stratagems.
@@keyanklupacs6333 erm, no? In the shooting phase a model can fire all its ranged weapons, regardless of whether some of them are psychic attacks. My Farseer happily fires both their Singing Spear and their Eldrich Storm at the same time. Only for melee weapons you have to pick a single one (unless the others have the Extra Attacks trait).
@@giantnanomachine True i was probably think about how combat phase sequences attacks with the extra attack keyword you're right.
@@giantnanomachineright except you Fire a Pistol weapon than you cat Fire anything else if it’s no pistol
I saw someone else in a comment on one of Auspex's videos say that psychic weapons should have their AP modify Invul saves, and I keep thinking that'd be a really good way of making them feel distinct, have a niche and not make the psychic keyword a straight downgrade. It'd be really easy for them to just roll that out in a balance dataslate.
Long term though I hope to see them do more with it in 11th. It doesn't need it's own phase, it doe sneed to feel more interesting and lore accurate.
2nd Edition Psychic was very cool. Very flavorful & fun.