Anti-psyker (non-coven) unit

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

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.

That is how your comments were coming across, at least in part, so glad we've got that ironed out.

I'm not sure it's as simple as comparing point-for-point efficiency of Grav vs this anti-psyker unit. After the Grav Devs have killed the Wraithknight, they can still kill plenty of other stuff you point them at if they're not removed. After this anti-psyker unit's killed the psykers, it's basically nothing more than an ablative wound. It'd be invaluable vs your psychic deathstar, but flat-out useless against the rest of your army.

I like the idea of making it a Covens-style MC, especially if they spin off Covens/Mandrakes/DEldar as a codex slightly separate from the Ynnari lot. Making it Rapid Fire sounds good too.

I'm not certain we should be using Sisters of Silence as a benchmark for this new unit though. How often are they found in competitive lists?

What did you think of the perils on a leadership test idea? I suppose really that's just an extra faff of rolling an additional Ld test when a similar effect could be had just making it Rapid Fire...

How does 35pts for a Rapid Fire Perils gun attached to an Eldar body sound? Statistically it'd be roughly equivalent to a BS4 Fleshbane gun for psykers that ignores inv saves. Make it S3 against normal targets so that it can still do some (minimal) damage to non-psykers and it seems pretty reasonable in a Court to me. What do you think?

Ynneadwraith wrote:

I like the idea of making it a Covens-style MC, especially if they spin off Covens/Mandrakes/DEldar as a codex slightly separate from the Ynnari lot. Making it Rapid Fire sounds good too.

To be fair, this whole subject started from someone doing exactly that

Ynneadwraith wrote:

That is how your comments were coming across, at least in part, so glad we've got that ironed out.

Based on the conversation before you chimed in, I don't see how it would be perceived this way without having some pre-existing bias towards me or something.

We're discussing rule changes to a homebrew codex, and what would be fair/balanced. As I'm unlikely to ever play a homebrew codex, I have no dog in this race, except to help people to maintain perspective and objectivity in an effort to end up with a polished final product that will be perceived as fair and playable by others. My presence in this thread is pure benevolence.

Ynneadwraith wrote:

How does 35pts for a Rapid Fire Perils gun attached to an Eldar body sound? Statistically it'd be roughly equivalent to a BS4 Fleshbane gun for psykers that ignores inv saves. Make it S3 against normal targets so that it can still do some (minimal) damage to non-psykers and it seems pretty reasonable in a Court to me. What do you think?

Sounds much more reasonable to me. I'd probably make them poison 4+ with 12" range rapid fire, and just say the psyker effect is a result of some warp-infused gas that the poison vials release as an aerosol upon impact or something.

That'd mean 5 of them in a unit would cost 175 and be able to trigger up to 10 perils rolls, averaging closer to 7 in rapid fire range. That is still a lot, but it takes more bodies and an appropriate amount of points to achieve. Since they're specialized weapons that are only REALLY good against psykers, making them very, very good at that isn't a huge problem, in my opinion. It also makes having 1 or 2 in a squad impactful without being devastatingly OP.

Haha round full circle eh?

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Based on the conversation before you chimed in, I don't see how it would be perceived this way without having some pre-existing bias towards me or something.

Perhaps not, but genuinely there was an inkling in the back of my mind that that might be a background influence. Now, I know that you're pretty objective when it comes to things, but again reading your messages at face value it does come across slightly as 'my psychic deathstar should be invulnerable because it's 900pts'. If it was a potential background thought, then I thought it would be useful to point out so you can reflect on whether or not that's the case. If not, then great you know (and anyone else reading the thread knows) that you're being objective

That's also why I was testing through the examples with the Yncarne points cost and Grav points costs too. If I can pick out that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, then so will others reading, which reduces their value as supporting evidence.

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I'm glad that the idea of a squad of ~35pt anti-psyker rapid-fire perils guns seems to be powerful but not OP

How would you feel about making it a specialist weapon available to Kabalites and Trueborn (maybe with a bigger version on Taloi)? It would allow us to have a smattering throughout the army if you need redundancy, but most importantly if GW is listening (which I doubt, but you never know!), it'd be dead easy to circumvent the 'no model, no rules' thing.

Rather than releasing a whole kit for a new unit of anti-psykers, they could just release an 'upgrade sprue' with a bunch of DEldar heavy/specialist weapons on it that includes these 'Perils guns'. That'd sell anyway as people collect Blasters like no-one's business, and they've already got all the CAD models for those drawn up. Minimal additional expenditure.

The question would be if having them available basically army-wide (even if it's at cost and to the detriment of anti-tank as you're replacing Blasters and HWB) would be OP...

Alright, so how about just dialing back the power of the weapon instead, and/or increasing the points slightly?

My suggestion is the following:

Increase points per model to 20 (you can only take a max of 2 in a Court of the Archon anyway, so it's not going to be *that*much of a point sink in any case, but it's certainly enough to be felt).

Change psi-shock to force a LD check for every model hit, with a randomly-allocated peril of the warp applied for every failure. This will make the weapon more of a gamble at distances past template range, and a total beast at close range, where LD penalties kick in (though not as much of a beast as before).

Alternatively, you could make the weapon S7 AP1, but rolls to wound vs. leadership rather than toughness, with a successful wound forcing a perils of the warp, and having no effect on non-psykers. That would also have a similar effect, making the weapon much less effective at long distance, but having a base 50% chance to cause perils per hit (assuming LD 10 psyker) at close range.  It would also meld nicely with freakshow lists.

I think Ynneadwraith's 35 point model is the best suggestion yet., particularly with the details previously discussed.

@Ynneadwraith: I think making it available to Warriors, Trueborn, and/or Taloi probably would make it too prolific in the army, and would run the risk of making it OP by not requiring any sort of points commitment from the listbuilder other than the cost of an upgrade on a troop or unit they were already planning to buy.

That said, I wouldn't be able to tell for certain without hearing a proposal to actually implement it. Points cost, number of weapons allowed per number of men in the unit, specific weapon stats, etc.

Thanks man

Yeah i was thinking the special weapon option sounded like it would be really easy to spam lots in a list on units that you're already going to take (Kabs in Venoms).

The idea would be maybe 15pts for an Assault 2 12" S3/poison gun that causes perils on hits. Same 1 per 5 on Kabs as other special weapons. You'd trade redundancy for a unit being unfocussed (although it's not as if obsec venoms are without utility in themselves).

Yeah, seems a bit much on initial impressions, if borderline ok.

It would be really, really good because it doesn't really make them that unfocused, particularly if they're poison guns.

I'd also like to point out that your proposed cost on them is cheaper than the cost of getting 1 of the specialist units with it. 9 point kabalite + 15 pt weapon = 24 points.

Forcing a unit to perils is really good. It's almost the equivalent to a D weapon against a psyker.

I think it'd be too easy to get for such a good effect if it was available as a 15 point upgrade on basic troops. I'd have less problem with proposals that gave a cronos access to an upgrade of some sort, but not really Talos. Talosi are meant to be the slicey, dicey big nasties, while cronos are the support/special effect big nasties, so it'd make more sense on a cronos, I think.

It'd also give us a reason to see cronos played more often.

Yeah I was thinking 15pts was a little low as I was typing it, and if it's a poison (or even an S3) weapon then it's still useful alongside poison for shooting other stuff.

I'd definitely agree with it fitting more on a Cronos than a Talos too. Definitely fluffier

So, 35pt dudes with a Kabalite's statline and access to these weapons in squads of 5 (or as part of a Court?), plus an upgrade for a Cronos.

Sounds good to me

This was my original version of the anti-psyker unit:

MOROS NULL ENGINE – 120 Points
WS BS S T W I A LD SV
3 3 5 7 3 4 3 10 3+

UNIT TYPE:
Monstrous Creature

UNIT COMPOSITION:
1 Moros Null Engine

WARGEAR:
• Armoured carapace
• Null Blades
• Twin-linked Null Cannon

SPECIAL RULES:
• Fearless
• Feel No Pain
• Night Vision
• Power from Pain
• 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 Blades
Range - , S User, AP -, Type Melee, Null
Null: Armour saves cannot be taken against Wounds inflicted by a weapon with this special rule. Any close combat attack inflicted by a weapon with this special rule that rolls a 6 To Wound has the Instant Death special rule. Any close combat attack inflicted by a weapon with this special rule that is allocated to a Psyker has the Instant Death special rule.

Heavy Null Cannon
Range 24”, S 2, AP -, Type Heavy 3, 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

Does the 'psychic abomination' rule confer immunity to ID from force weapons? If not, then it probably should. Can't remember offhand if that counts as a blessing for the weapon (which would be nullified).

Force is a blessing so that will stop working within 12".

Just some positive feedback. I really like the idea that the null aura affects a psyker whether it's a friend or foe.

Not only is it fluffy, it also means people have to think twice about including them in psychic-heavy Eldar lists, or at least think twice about where to position them on the battlefield.

Yeah, @Ynneadwraith, the psychic null aura is just an exact copy of the null aura games workshop uses for the Culexus Assassin and Sisters of Silence.

Count Adhemar wrote:

This was my original version of the anti-psyker unit:

MOROS NULL ENGINE – 120 Points

I actually think I like this best of all the ideas. It does what you want it to do while being fairly close to appropriately priced, the stats are good, and it eliminates the large balance concerns inherent to giving those abilities to a cheap infantry model.

I would probably only change 2 things. On this MC, I don't think it'd be inappropriate to buff it's anti-psyker gun to either give it poision and AP5, or S4 AP5. In either case, it should be able to do SOMETHING in the event your opponent has no psykers. I'd also then give it a 10-20 point bump and add this rule:

Warp Rage: Once per game, when within 18" of a unit containing a psyker, the Moros Null Engine may move 12" in it's movement phase instead of 6, but it must move directly towards the unit containing the psyker, and may target no other units with shooting attacks or assaults in that turn(other than a disembarking unit if the original target was a transport.)

Just seen some of the rules from the new Talons of the Emperor book and Sisters of Silence now have a Rhino transport which itself has the Bane of Psykers and Psychic Abomination rules! So once again, GW has released a powerful Imperial unit with a mitigating weakness (not being able to project an aura from within a vehicle) and then eliminated that weakness.

All hail the Imperium of Man!

EDIT - Oh, and the Psychic Abomination aura extends by a further 3" radius for every Sisters unit in the formation with that special rule. So 3 units of Sisters and 3 Rhi-nulls EACH have a 27" radius Psychic Abomination aura.

In other words, there are no psychic powers in WH40K anymore.

While it increases rock paper scissors syndrome. I doubt it will completely make psychic powers absolute. It makes it less reliable, as psychic should be.
I actually like it, a large amount of death-stars rely on psychic powers or at least boost to insane levels because of psychic powers.
The option to nullify psychic powers makes the tournament meta less likely to go for those death-stars.
Also the precedent of severely reducing psychic powers of the opposition might also hint to some options for us in the new edition?

I don't think it makes psychic powers less reliable, it makes them utterly meaningless. For 360 points in a standalone formation you can cover the entire table in an aura that prevents you from generating warp charge. Even if you somehow manage to have psykers outside of the aura, they basically can't cast anything into the aura.

I bet anyone who bought Magnus and/or Thousand Sons recently is really happy about this!

I agree, it's a bit much. Psychic abomination was once the exclusive purview of the Cullexus Assassin. It was OK then, when a single, expensive model in a standalone formation was the only one who had access to it.

And in the fluff, the whole "psychic abomination" thing was supposed to be super rare. Then along came sisters of silence.

All that said, an opponent who did this would actually help my adepticon list based on my gameplan, despite me using lots of psykers.

SoS has been in the fluff for a while I believe. I came back to this to state the new SoS rules, but you guys already got there. Your 20-30 pt model that forces perils isn't that bad anymore hahahaha. You made the claim that it is as good as a D weapon. That is incredibly false. The vast majority of the perils you get to take a LD test and it goes away or the effect is minimal. D weapons offer no such mercy haha. Hell one of the results makes you a beast!

ligolski wrote:

SoS has been in the fluff for a while I believe. I came back to this to state the new SoS rules, but you guys already got there. Your 20-30 pt model that forces perils isn't that bad anymore hahahaha. You made the claim that it is as good as a D weapon. That is incredibly false. The vast majority of the perils you get to take a LD test and it goes away or the effect is minimal. D weapons offer no such mercy haha. Hell one of the results makes you a beast!

Forcing a single perils isn't like a D weapon. It's just a 75% chance of taking a wound with no saves of any kind allowed, and a 17% chance of having to roll leadership or die. Having a TEMPLATE that forces a number of perils equal to the number of models underneath it absolutely IS like a D weapon, however. Damage from perils ignores all saves, and for every model that dies due to certain results on the perils chart, it generates even MORE S6 auto-hits against the unit.

You're right. Against something like a librarius conclave joined to a unit of anything, it's not like a D weapon. It's better.

That writeup was stronger than any other perils-causing weapon currently in existence by orders of magnitude. Being able to cause 8 perils with a single model, rather than a max of 1 peril per 5 models(because the sisters of silence use a grenade, of which only 1 can be thrown, and then it only generates 1 peril no matter how many models are hit).

Count Adhemar wrote:

I don't think it makes psychic powers less reliable, it makes them utterly meaningless. For 360 points in a standalone formation you can cover the entire table in an aura that prevents you from generating warp charge. Even if you somehow manage to have psykers outside of the aura, they basically can't cast anything into the aura.

I bet anyone who bought Magnus and/or Thousand Sons recently is really happy about this!

While I agree with your statement I think you misunderstand me.

It makes psychic powers less reliable since most games you will not see SoS. But when you do you cannot use you psychic powers.
Thus in 9 games your psychic works normal and 1 game you cannot use it: while in one game it might not be less reliable, over the course of a tournament it is.
Thus you cannot rely only on your psychic powers.

@betray would you be willing to explain how it would benefit your gameplan despite having a lot of psykers? Or would it disrupt your tactics if you explained before the tournament?

It would be too large a reveal before the tournament. I'll post my list ASAP once the tournament starts. That might be after day 1, or it might be after round 1. We'll see how it all goes.

|Meavar wrote:

While I agree with your statement I think you misunderstand me.

It makes psychic powers less reliable since most games you will not see SoS

I think that's where we disagree. I think most tournament lists will now incorporate SoS as it is a hard counter to psychic powers of any description. You can see the top 8 lists from the LVO here. Five of the lists have a significant psyker element. Three of them, including 2 of the top 3, I would say revolve heavily around psykers. So if you can spend a few hundred points on something that is 100% guaranteed to shut them down I think you're going to seriously consider doing that.

Over time the meta will adapt and change but in the short term it's likely to be pretty nasty!