Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Psychic 101 (section)

= Psychic Tactics=
So that's how you mind bullet, but what do you do with them?

Well the problem with tactics is some armies have the ability to bring a lot more psykers, and therefore warp charges than others. 

Space marines for example can only bring two (assuming battle forged, single FOC) (why would you assume that when the Librarium formation is in the main codex?) level two psykers since their psykers are all HQ choices, while daemons can easily bring over ten warp charges a turn thanks to horrors. 

Step one is to therefore consider how you and your opponent's mind bullets stack up to each other. If you have a clear lead in mental fire power you can afford to spread your charges thinner as your opponent won't be able to deny you as easily. If on the other hand the playing field is roughly even you need to play more carefully, while if you're completely outclassed pick one or two powers you really need to go off and spend all your charges on them, so that even with twice as many or more warp charges they can't completely deny you, although your psykers are likely to implode before the game is half over if you do it every turn, so pick your moments.

When casting powers, first budget what powers you need most to go off, (example: invisibility) then cast all your other powers in least to most importance before it. This way your opponent is forced to save his deny dice for either the big very important one or basically give you free reign in the phase. While that works if you're in the lead, and very useful if you're evenly matched in terms of warp charges since he might think he can spare the charges, it's much less effective if you're completely out classed since your opponent may have the charges to deny your final important power, and you won't have the power to force it though because you spent the charges on 'deny fodder' first.

That all said, the mere presence of a big power alters the flow of the phase a lot. Your opponent (or you, this goes both ways) now has to choose between saving his charges for the big one, or attempt to spend his charges denying all the little powers.

==General Psychic Tips==

*As a rule, Psychic Powers are innately unreliable, and require a lot of investment for them to pay off. While lucky rolls can give you a super-happy Psychic Deathstar of Doom, they generally support an army rather than define it.
*You get diminishing returns when investing in Psykers. Casting a basic power has a 50% chance of failure, which halves for each additional Warp Charge spent on the power. What this means is, as you take more psykers in your army, you gradually have fewer Warp Charges for each individual Psyker to use, as it is usually preferable to use some as power plants for the others.
**This is particularly true due to needing to roll for powers - you have no practical way for forcing your Psykers to know different powers, so as you add more, more and more of them will share more and more powers rather than adding to your power versatility, if that was your goal.  Conversely, you can't guarantee the collisions except for Primaris powers, so adding more with the intent of spamming some power over and over will only work if you're trying to spam a Primaris.
*Some armies will take units simply to serve as secondary "batteries" for other casters, though they will weigh the costs of this accordingly. For example, if you want a unit of Terminators for your army, a unit of Grey Knight Terminators is ''more'' cost-effective than similar Terminator units, but their one WC point can only go towards buffing themselves in melee, and so it effectively gets farmed off to other Psykers with more dramatic powers. This is if you're running Terminators anyway/running Grey Knights anyway.
*Generally speaking, the three most popular core disciplines are [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Psychic_101#Divination|Divination]], [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Psychic_101#Malefic|Malefic Daemonology]], and [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Psychic_101#Telepathy|Telepathy]]. They don't have any real "dud" powers and most will find use in nearly any game (rather than being conditionally awesome every other game), but most importantly, they have really good Primaris Powers.
**Psychic Shriek is a power with a wide potential for effects. On "average", it may inflict two wounds on an enemy unit, but when the dice are hot, it has the potential to one-shot a unit of Terminators, or a Monstrous Creature. It doesn't need to make a "To-Hit" roll, so you can occasionally use it to smack monsters out of the sky as well.
**Prescience is a no-frills power. Being able to reroll to-hit is very useful on nearly any unit.
**Summoning lets you bring more units into the game, though if your Psyker is not a Daemon you'll Peril like a motherfucker.
**You don't have to limit yourself to these disciplines, but they tend to be the safest starting off. Biomancy can be nice if you bank on rolling Iron Arm, and most armies have at least one good army-specific Discipline to work with (except Tyranids, alas), but you now run the risk of rolling an underwhelming power, and having to settle for a situationally usable Primaris ("I can penalize the Invulnerable Saves of Daemons..." "I'm playing Necrons." "Right...curses.")
*Biker Psykers are more than just a cute rhyme. They can give you a unique threat vector, due to the ability to move, cast powers, then turbo-boost to another position. The same can be said for Jump Packs and Flying Monstrous Creatures.
*Conjuration Powers are interesting. When 7th first came out, people theoryhammered about being able to Summon Horrors, who could summon more Horrors, but such armies never really materialized (ha!) as a threat. That said, Summoned units make good "bait"/threats that must be dealt with. Because you are dealing with Deep Strike, the units can end up away from your intended point of entry. Thus, it's ideal to summon "fast" units like Daemonettes/Flesh Hounds/Screamers, to correct any deviations.
*Feel No Pain is your best friend. It's the only "save" you're allowed against Perils and can really help a charge-heavy caster, especially a malefic summoner.

==Rules Interactions to Watch Out For==

*Beams do not target models or units, so are a good way to psychically murder something that cannot be targeted, such as Invisible enemy unit.
*Profileless Witchfires quite often ignore armor saves, but because they lack a profile, the wording is usually "ignores armor saves", not "AP2", which means you disregard rules based on the AP of the weapon - for example, [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Tau(7E)#Special_Characters|Aun'Va]]'s Paradox will not trigger, and you similarly get no bonus to damaging vehicles as you would from an actual AP2 weapon.
*Because a specific model can only Deny the Witch when it or a nearby model friendly to it (in the case of a Librarian's Hood, for example) is affected by a power, Blessings are inherently more powerful than Maledictions in that they are harder to Deny, as no model will get to use its special rules on it.
*Chariots are the only vehicle that allows full casting from an embarked Psyker.  All other vehicles, including buildings, only allow Witchfires, which means e.g. you can't cast a Blessing while embarked (unless embarked on a Chariot).
*Look Out, Sir works on Psychic powers just fine, including Profileless Witchfires, but it is triggered by allocating Wounds, so it can only be used if the Power inflicts wounds - for example, [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Psychic_101#Tempestas_.28Space_Wolves.29|Jaws of the World Wolf]] Removes From Play without Wounding, so Look Out, Sir does not apply.
**Similar reasoning applies to Feel No Pain.