Anti-psyker (non-coven) unit

Just finished my first take on an anti-psyker unit and then realised it was another Coven unit. Back to the drawing board!

Okay, take two!

Enslaved Pariah
Perhaps the most prized of all slaves in The Dark City, the pariah is a pitiful being. Subjected to years of physical and alchemical torture these psychic blanks are finally broken and forced into the service of their owner who uses them as mobile psychic defence for himself and his key forces

WS 2, BS 3, S 2, T 3, W 1, I 3, A 1, LD 10, Sv 5+

UNIT TYPE:
Infantry

UNIT COMPOSITION:
0-2 Enslaved Pariahs can be included in a Court of the Archon for 12 points per model

WARGEAR:
• Null Blaster

SPECIAL RULES:
• Fear
• Fearless
• Psychic Abomination

Psychic Abomination
All Psykers, friend or foe, within 12" of a model with this special rule have -3 Leadership, do not generate any Warp Charge (i.e. they do not add dice to their owning player’s Warp Charge Pool in the Psychic phase) and only harness Warp Charge points on a roll of 6, even if the unit would otherwise harness Warp Charge on another result. A unit that includes any models with this special rule can never be targeted or affected by psychic powers – other units in the unit’s vicinity that are hit by beam or nova powers, or by witchfire powers that use templates, are hit/ affected normally. Any blessing or malediction psychic powers affecting a unit are immediately nullified if the unit moves within 12" of a model with this special rule or vice versa.

Null Blaster
Focused Mode: Range 24”, S 2, AP -, Type Assault 2, Psi-shock
Dispersed Mode: Range Template, S 2, AP -, Type Heavy 1, Psi-shock
Psi-shock: If a unit containing at least one model with the Psyker, Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers or Psychic Pilot special rules is hit by a weapon with the Psi-shock special rule, for each hit suffered, one randomly determined Psyker model in that unit suffers Perils of the Warp in addition to any other damage

12 points might be a bit cheap for a model with a template weapon that auto-causes perils for each "Hit" suffered, and the culexis psychic void thing. How much are sisters of silence?

15ppm

Quote :

12 points might be a bit cheap for a model with a template weapon that auto-causes perils for each "Hit" suffered, and the culexis psychic void thing. How much are sisters of silence?

15 points per model, with a minimum squad size of five. That information is from 1d4chan, however, so I'm unsure if that's their actual stats.

I think that this model is rather well suited for our play style, granted that it might be a little undercosted. It offers a unit that is very good at taking out psykers, but will explode when set up against anything else.

I would suggest a point increase as well as a cap of how many of these things can be taken. Fluff-wise, it seems unlikely that even the most prestigious Archons will have more than one or two of these things, and crunch-wise, this thing seems like it has the very real potential to be abused.

Link to their actual 40k dataslate

Found this free from GW.

Oh yeah, I recall thinking how ridiculously underpriced sisters of silence were when they came out too. With units that cheap that have psychic abomination, why bother with a Culexus assassin?

Well the Culexus has WAAAAY more offensive capability than Sisters and Sisters, in turn have better, well, pretty much everything than the Enslaved Pariah, which is why I went for a low cost.

I don't know. The template weapon would cause massive damage to a seer council. Particularly the way I run mine on foot and deep strike. I'd probably be looking at 6-7 hits per template weapon, for 6-7 perils rolls, for which I have no defense since it doesn't happen in the psychic phase when I actually HAVE psychic dice with which to use my ghost helms. So it's a more powerful, unavoidable version of perils, basically.

Well I'd say that's a fairly good reason not to deep strike anywhere near a Pariah with a Seer Council then, which seems to be working as intended.

I take your point though. Either I need to rethink the points cost or the template mode of the blaster. I wonder if making the template version Heavy might do the trick? That way it couldn't be fired on the move but is still powerful defensively, which would match my thinking behind the pariah effectively being a defensive device for an Archon.

TheBaconPope wrote:

I would suggest a point increase as well as a cap of how many of these things can be taken. Fluff-wise, it seems unlikely that even the most prestigious Archons will have more than one or two of these things, and crunch-wise, this thing seems like it has the very real potential to be abused.

I agree that a cap on how many can be taken would be a good idea, both to limit abuse and to represent their rarity. 1-2 per Court seems reasonable. With the change I mentioned above (Heavy for the template mode) I would say that 12 points is still fairly reasonable.

I think the points cost is fair. A single unit should not be the only reason you adjust the points cost.
It's a hard counter, you are limited to 2 in the unit and are super fragile. It's a one hit wonder that will subsequently die. Heck Magnus wouldn't even be affected by it since he is immune to perils.

Rule suggestion: I hate random allocation of wounds. I would prefer you allocate it to closest psyker to model firing the weapon as that follows more normal allocation protocols. Just a thought, and increases their usefulness even more.

The random allocation is due to the psi-shock rule being a straight copy from SoS and Culexus (apart from adding 'for each hit suffered'). I agree that it's a bit of a pain but didn't want to deviate too much from the established rules.

Yeah, giving it the heavy rule resolves my issues with points cost. That makes it to where they also can't webway portal/deep strike in and template a unit of psykers. As heavy, it makes it almost entirely defensive in nature. I might go one step further and just give them a rule that says they may not fire them on a turn in which they moved or arrived from reserve, even if accompanied by a slow and purposeful model.

I don't think a limit to the number of them is necessary either with that change.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Yeah, giving it the heavy rule resolves my issues with points cost. That makes it to where they also can't webway portal/deep strike in and template a unit of psykers. As heavy, it makes it almost entirely defensive in nature. I might go one step further and just give them a rule that says they may not fire them on a turn in which they moved or arrived from reserve, even if accompanied by a slow and purposeful model.

I don't think a limit to the number of them is necessary either with that change.

I don't think it really fits well within the theme of dark eldar to have defensive heavy weapons like that, which require you to sit still for a full turn to use at all.

If you webway portal in a unit in order to take out a unit of psykers, a) you're sinking a considerable amount of points into that unit to maybe kill one unit, b) it will likely get slaughtered immediately afterward, and c) if your opponent's entire game rests on that one unit of psykers you just demolished, then they have put their list together rather poorly.

It's a really specialized weapon - it doesn't really need any penalties simply because it won't even be useful at all in some games within a standard take-all-comers environment. If you want to nerf it, just give it the template shot and no focused shot, so that it *requires* that you get in close to use it.

I agree with krayd. If this were in a codex and it was a heavy weapon, I couldn't see myself ever taking it.

I think it's key to keep in mind here that the template weapon is only about a third of the usefulness. Most armies will be keeping their psykers alone with a lot of space between them
To me, at least, the template mode of the weapon serves as a counter to Close Combat Centric abominations. But heck, I'd take it for the support value alone.

Yeah it strikes me a bit like the Soul Trap. Its main purpose is to point out to your opponent that if your Archon over here challenges that character over there, he'll be buffed up to S8 and will start wrecking face all over the place.

Cue your opponent thinking twice about accepting challenges from your Archon, and keeping units with characters well clear.

krayd wrote:

If you webway portal in a unit in order to take out a unit of psykers, a) you're sinking a considerable amount of points into that unit to maybe kill one unit, b) it will likely get slaughtered immediately afterward, and c) if your opponent's entire game rests on that one unit of psykers you just demolished, then they have put their list together rather poorly.

Kill 1 unit? You're kidding, right?

The seer council unit I typically run costs around 800-900 points and technically includes 5-8 units. This is a 12 point model that can teleport in via webway portal and cancel all their buffs/powers(invis, fortune, etc) without a roll of any kind. You're suggesting that it further should be able to take out half of my 900 point seer council on the turn that it arrives with a weapon that it gets for free under the auspice of that same 12 points?

That's absurd.

Honestly, even without the template weapon, this will be the best anti-psyker in the game currently because neither sisters of silence or a culexus assassin have a reliable deep strike delivery system.

Being able to webway portal in a 12 point psychic abomination aura is borderline broken by itself.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

krayd wrote:

If you webway portal in a unit in order to take out a unit of psykers, a) you're sinking a considerable amount of points into that unit to maybe kill one unit, b) it will likely get slaughtered immediately afterward, and c) if your opponent's entire game rests on that one unit of psykers you just demolished, then they have put their list together rather poorly.

Kill 1 unit? You're kidding, right?

The seer council unit I typically run costs around 800-900 points and technically includes 5-8 units. This is a 12 point model that can teleport in via webway portal and cancel all their buffs/powers(invis, fortune, etc) without a roll of any kind. You're suggesting that it further should be able to take out half of my 900 point seer council on the turn that it arrives with a weapon that it gets for free under the auspice of that same 12 points?

That's absurd.

Honestly, even without the template weapon, this will be the best anti-psyker in the game currently because neither sisters of silence or a culexus assassin have a reliable deep strike delivery system.

Being able to webway portal in a 12 point psychic abomination aura is borderline broken by itself.

You're taking a massive risk playing a single psyker unit that costs 800-900 points. If there is a new unit that forces you to reconsider that risk, then that doesn't by definition mean that new unit is broken. It could very well be that your list is poorly optimised to deal with that threat.

Uh, no. It could mean that the home-brewed 12 point unit might be a touch OP. That's like claiming that you're taking a huge risk taking a wraithknight just because you can design a home-brew unit that completely counters them. You can literally make ANYTHING up in homebrew, so if a 12 point ANYTHING that is homebrew is taking out 800 points of ANYTHING that isn't, the homebrew is probably a bit over the top.

My deathstar has never been a risk at all. I don't even know where you get that idea from. I know you don't look at things from an overly competitive standpoint. I do, so everything I play has been analyzed and assessed for risk extensively. Very few things can even hurt it, and rightly so. It's 900 points, after all.

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To put this in perspective:

The Yncarne's psychic ability gives access to a warp charge THREE power that does ONE unavoidable level of damage that can't be saved with any kind of save. The Yncarne only has a 50% chance of getting this power if using all 3 rolls on that discipline. The Yncarne is 275 points.

This template ability provides the ability to ALSO do unavoidable levels of damage, but instead of 1, we're looking at up to EIGHT or so. It's also got a 100% chance of having the weapon, a 0% chance of missing to hit, a 0% chance of failing to manifest the weapon, and a 0% chance of an opponent denying the witch against the weapon. The proposed model cost is 12 points.

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If you don't see something wrong, we don't play the same game.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Uh, no. It could mean that the home-brewed 12 point unit might be a touch OP. That's like claiming that you're taking a huge risk taking a wraithknight just because you can design a home-brew unit that completely counters them. You can literally make ANYTHING up in homebrew, so if a 12 point ANYTHING that is homebrew is taking out 800 points of ANYTHING that isn't, the homebrew is probably a bit over the top.

My deathstar has never been a risk at all. I don't even know where you get that idea from. I know you don't look at things from an overly competitive standpoint. I do, so everything I play has been analyzed and assessed for risk extensively. Very few things can even hurt it, and rightly so. It's 900 points, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To put this in perspective:

The Yncarne's psychic ability gives access to a warp charge THREE power that does ONE unavoidable level of damage that can't be saved with any kind of save. The Yncarne only has a 50% chance of getting this power if using all 3 rolls on that discipline. The Yncarne is 275 points.

This template ability provides the ability to ALSO do unavoidable levels of damage, but instead of 1, we're looking at up to EIGHT or so. It's also got a 100% chance of having the weapon, a 0% chance of missing to hit, a 0% chance of failing to manifest the weapon, and a 0% chance of an opponent denying the witch against the weapon. The proposed model cost is 12 points.

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If you don't see something wrong, we don't play the same game.

Hmmm, I might have misread how it works. I was under the assumption that it forced perils tests on psykers, rather than caused 8 unavoidable wounds. That I thought was a better value for 12pts.

I do agree that in the iteration you're describing it's overpowered for its meagre points cost.

However, I'm assuming you understand that when new units come out you will have to re-evaluate the risk of taking a 900pt strong blob of psykers. At the moment, that's the most competitive take. In previous editions it was Wave Serpent spam. New units come out, rules change and you have to re-evaluate what you previously thought was a strong list.

Not that I'm arguing against your conclusion with the Yncarne comparison, but you're not capturing the whole picture there. The Yncarne also has a Greater Daemon's statline, can teleport around the battlefield throughout the course of the game, can regenerate wounds and has a Fleshbane/Armourbane/AP2 weapon, as well as access to psychic disciplines.

The 12pt (or however many points we decide it's worth, 35pts?) unit presumably has an Eldar's statline and negligible function beyond nullifying psykers. It's utterly situational, and also requires a 95pt HQ unit attached to actually make it functional beyond area denial.

I'm finding it very difficult to respond to you civilly after that condescension.

You're a self-professed non-competitive player, attempting to lecture an extremely competitive player with a nearly flawless win rate about adjusting to the meta. I custom make my lists to each individual tournament's house rules that I enter. I understand all too well adjusting to the meta, and it seems extremely condescending for you to talk as if you know something I don't about the shifting meta, particularly when you aren't even competitive yourself, and don't bother to stay that well apprised of the prevailing competitive strategies. This isn't even an adjustment to the meta that we're discussing. It's a homebrew. With all of the information we have available to us about what GW intends for things like this(based on decisions surrounding models with similar abilities), we have to assume they'd never include this in the game anywhere near it's current writeup or points. It'd probably be a monstrous creature with a "meh" statline that moved 6" a turn and could never utilize a webway portal.

It's obvious you are a macro sort of guy who looks at the big picture and fluff, and doesn't bother too much with paying attention to the micro details. I'm a micro guy, and here are the reasons that pretty much everything you asserted is incorrect:

1 - It IS perils tests, which you're obviously not familiar with. 4 out of 6 perils results kill single wound models automatically without a save. 1 kills single wound models automatically if they fail a leadership test. And 1 kills them if they fail a leadership test, or benefits them if they pass. So for each "hit" by the template weapon, single-wound psykers have an 83% chance of dying with no saves of any kind. They have a 17% chance per hit of doing an additional d6 S6 AP1 hits to their unit when they die, even if they're multi-wound models. Perils are no joke. They are some of the most dangerous things in the game. A gun that shoots perils tests is very powerful. Basically, all 6 results on the perils table can do unsaveable damage. 4 of them do it automatically.

2 - I constantly weigh and measure the tides of competition. New units come out constantly. You don't need to tell me how to adjust to meta, and if you truly "assumed I understand" then you wouldn't have felt the need to "explain" it to me. You keep using absolute macro terms like "At the moment, that's the most competitive take.", when that isn't true at all. Is it competitive? Sure. But almost everything is relative. I went to a friend's house to practice my adepticon list the other day. When casting my powers, he held out all 26 of his dice to deny the witch against a relatively non-threatening power that I use to extremely lethal effect because he knew how I used it. I've never had someone do that before, because they never see it coming, primarily because I don't share things like that online any more, so my methods no longer proliferate. But with a very strong psyker list himself, he was able to effectively cut the balls off my list because he's lost to it so many times that he knows the gimmick(I still won, just without the use of my 850 point deathstar). Honestly, I could probably post my lists on here with no explanation of how I play them, and 90% of the people here would have no idea what I was doing with the list. The problem is that the other 10% might actually be able to figure it out, and would probably publicly discuss it/reveal it. Your assertion that it's a "big risk" playing almost a thousand points of psykers is sort of an example of people thinking there is risk because they have no idea what I'm doing with it. There isn't. They assume I do what everyone else does with a seer council. I don't. There is redundancy, and pretty much anything I roll benefits me because I plan, and plan, and plan, and form contingencies for my contingencies. I grind the luck out of the game, to the point where I basically can't fail to execute my plan, short of a 1 in 100 string of bad rolls. And I guess I can live with losing 1 out of 100 games due to bad rolls. It's far better than these bozos who claim to lose due to bad rolls all the time. If people are losing regularly "due to bad rolls", then they're simply failing to plan effectively. That's a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow.

3 - I was playing in the previous edition. Psyker stars were still good, and in many cases better than they are now because things like D weapons didn't exist, and if you were clever, you could still piece together pretty awesome deathstars. In the age of the wave serpent, I was thrashing serpent spammers with non-wave serpent lists. I was actually playing a lot more pure DE back then, but eldar allies for powers was fun too. DE deathstars were viable and fun to play. Wyches had haywire grenades for 2ppm and every one of them was able to be used in combat. A lot more tactical flexibility and potential for very interesting strategies with pain tokens and 35 point Haemonculi. Good times.

4 - You seem to easily discount the tactical prowess of a unit that can be deep struck with no scatter, who creates a 24 inch bubble of psychic nullification. One could easily make a strong argument that drop podding cullexus assassins(which used to be able to do this) were the primary drivers behind GW's decision to ban battle brothers from starting in each other's transports.(Which they FAQed because it's allowed by the rules.) So we're talking about reintroducing a mechanic that GW banned from the game. No other anti-psyker unit like this has access to a delivery mechanism like deep strike. So we're giving this homebrew carte blanch to bring something in that could previously only be done by a ~150 point model + 35 point drop pod that required it's own entire formation, but then got banned by GW, and we're considering not only making it 12 points, but also giving it a weapon that can outright kill some of the most expensive models in the game en masse. This would be the most undercosted, overpowered unit in the entirety of 40k if it were introduced as originally discussed. I'd never play an eldar, DE, corsairs, or Ynnari army that didn't include 2 of these and a WWP archon. They'd be too good and too cheap not to auto-include them any time you possibly could. And any time something is so good that it's an auto-include no matter what, that means it's too powerful.

I didn't intend to be condescending. From your previous comments in this thread, your willingness to adapt to changing meta was not apparent. What came across to me was a seeming desire for your psychic deathstar to remain at the peak of the meta, and anything that threatens its supremacy (regardless of how situational that unit is) is OP. I do agree that for 12pts it is OP, but I just wanted to make sure that if anyone else was reading and got the same impression as I did they didn't dismiss something that is genuinely OP as someone not wanting their psychic deathstar neutered.

I think it might also be helpful to explain why I added the 'if GW included this unit' bit. I don't think it's actually likely, but as far as I can tell the main function of homebrew codices is to brainstorm ideas that might be a neat idea for GW to include. Similar to how you make a point of pointing out the nerfs the DEldar codex has received so that if GW is watching they might take note.

Now, if it's a homebrew codex that's actually going to be used, then I'm fairly certain for it to actually stand a chance of being played with it needs to be pretty low-key, which would rule out the Count's codex as it's got some pretty hefty changes.

So, with that explained and hopefully any animosity quelled.

1. Thankyou, that's helped me understand that better. Do you think that could be improved (as in, made less completely deadly), by making the weapon only cause perils on a failed leadership test? An extra hurdle of probability to jump through, plus it would have nice synergy with various freakshow elements of the DEldar army.

2. I've already explained this above hopefully. the 'assume you understand' is so anyone else reading it doesn't assume you're getting butthurt about a unit nullifying your precious psychic deathstar (being deliberately facetious there, impersonating what someone else might think, rather than saying you're precious about your deathstar). You know you're not. I assumed you're not (but couldn't be sure). It's valuable clarify to anyone else reading that you're not.

3. Definitely agreed a general roll back to the 5th ed. codex with some formations thrown in would be a very positive step.

4. Gotcha. I've already agreed that the unit is undercosted. Thanks to your explanation in point 1, I also agree it's over-effective. What I disagreed on was the implication that something shouldn't be able to hurt a 900pt deathstar because it's 900pts and it's a psychic deathstar. 900pts of Wraithknight falls pretty spectacularly to a lot less points-worth of Grav. 900pts of Imperial Knights falls to a lot less points of Solitaires. At the moment, I can't think of something that is an adequate response to a psychic deathstar.

If your army is nigh-unbeatable primarily because of this one 'gimmick' you use, and it appears that you only have to flex your tactical nouse when someone already knows what your one 'gimmick' is and specifically plans to counter it.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem to me like what 40k should be about. In a better balanced game, you should be forced to adapt your tactics based on each army you're facing. Not that you don't do that already, but if your 'gimmick' is as strong as it is against as many armies as you suggest, it's indicative that it's not balanced. Would you not welcome something that forces you to adapt?

So, how much would we need to price a unit that has access to a WWP (via a 95pt Archon), an Eldar's statline, and purely the perils-causing flamer (which, say, only causes perils on a failed Ld check) so that it would have the desired effect of making psychic deathstars an option, rather than a nigh-mandatory take in a tournaments list, while not being horribly undercosted.

OK, you're approaching this from the completely wrong angle. It seems like you're approaching this thinking I care how it would effect my armies personally. I don't. I care how it would effect the overall game.

Psykers are expensive models, almost universally. I used my psychic deathstar as an example, not because I'm super attached to it and don't want anything to ever be able to hurt it, but rather because I know what it's capable of, what can normally hurt it, and how much it costs.

I could have easily used a librarius conclave with 4 termie librarians with ML2 and Tigerius, but off the top of my head I have no idea how much that costs. If I ventured a guess, I'd say around 675 points.

Having a very innexpensive model that can fit in just about any DE or Eldar list being capable of murdering that many expensive characters is pretty much unheard of. The fact that you're comparing it to things like grav quickly taking down a wraithknight is actually sort of telling of your inexperience with the rules, because grav isn't cheap.

To have enough grav to take down a wraithknight, you'd either need multiple tactical units with grav guns, a centurian squad with grav cannons, or devastators with grav cannons. Not a single one of those options is significantly cheaper than a wraithknight in the difference in costing you're talking about here. Just sticking with already discussed costing:

12 point unit able to kill 450 points worth of a psychic deathstar. Proposed new unit
210 point unitable to kill a 295 point unit. - grav cannon devs
5 80 point units(400 points) able to kill a 295 point unit. grav gun tacticals
270 point unit able to kill a 295 point unit. grav cannon dev centurions typical loadout

One of these things is not like the others. Between the 3 grav units, they're averaging at 293 points worth of models to kill a 295 point model, or roughly 100% of their cost.
Whereas 12 points killing 450 points is killing 3700% of it's cost.

See, the problem isn't really costing so much as it is that the idea is fundamentally overpowered if it is able to be utilized easily in an offensive capacity. In order to make it mathematically closer to the grav comparison, let's use the cheapest grav setup to kill them: Grav cannon devastators.

If a unit of grav cannon devastators(210) kills a wraithknight(295), then they're operating at 140% efficiency. So, in order to get this new unit to roughly the same efficiency as you compared them to, we'd need to increase the cost of that 1 model to roughly 315 points, which is ridiculous for the model and statline he proposed.

It's just too powerful to be set up as an offensive weapon like that. In order to reign in it's power while still retaining it's utility, maybe make it a rapid fire weapon instead of a template weapon. Or keep the weapon the same but put it on an MC with a statline similar to or a bit worse than a cronos and reprice it.

There are lots of options to make it workable. Raising the price of the model isn't really one of them.

Here is a good example: Sisters of Silence. They're basically the same exact unit, with the same rules, but they have to be taken in units of at least 5 and can't be mixed with court guys in order to fiddle with unit toughness values and things. The sisters of silence have a GRENADE (meaning only 1 can shoot despite having to purchase 5 of them), that has a blast template and S2. If it hits a unit, it triggers a SINGLE perils of the warp test on a randomly determined psyker in the unit, regardless of how many "hits" are scored by the blast template. So they're a 75 point, 5 model unit that can only ever trigger a maximum of 1 perils roll per shooting phase, and it seems like this unit is primarily what he was basing his homebrew model off of. If we multiply that by 8, the equivalent firepower to a single "template" weapon as previously described would be 600 points worth of sisters of silence(Who have no way of deep striking in, by the way.)

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Here is a good example: Sisters of Silence. They're basically the same exact unit, with the same rules, but they have to be taken in units of at least 5 and can't be mixed with court guys in order to fiddle with unit toughness values and things. The sisters of silence have a GRENADE (meaning only 1 can shoot despite having to purchase 5 of them), that has a blast template and S2. If it hits a unit, it triggers a SINGLE perils of the warp test on a randomly determined psyker in the unit, regardless of how many "hits" are scored by the blast template. So they're a 75 point, 5 model unit that can only ever trigger a maximum of 1 perils roll per shooting phase, and it seems like this unit is primarily what he was basing his homebrew model off of. If we multiply that by 8, the equivalent firepower to a single "template" weapon as previously described would be 600 points worth of sisters of silence(Who have no way of deep striking in, by the way.)

This assessment is only valid at this time, in a few days we will see any updates to their rules now that they are getting their own book with the custodes. As we saw with the GSC models from Overkill, do not expect these rules to reflect everything that the models will be able to do. As such, I suggest holding off on using the models as a valid point of comparison.