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

= How It Works =


== 0: Generating Psychic Powers ==

Like in 6th edition, psychic powers are generated BEFORE the game starts. A given psyker has access to a certain amount of psychic powers and disciplines, depending on his mastery level and faction. Each discipline has 6 numbered powers (from 1 to 6) and a seventh 'Primaris' power.

To generate its psychic powers, a given psyker first chooses how many powers it wants from each psychic discipline known to it, up to a total of its Mastery Level. In other words, a Mastery Level 2 Space Marine Librarian generates two psychic powers, and can choose to generate them from any of the psychic disciplines marked in his Codex entry (discipline access is therefore entry-specific and not based on Mastery Level). 

The psyker then rolls, one by one, for the powers in the disciplines he chose. Each power is numbered, so each die roll indicates one power he knows from the discipline the psyker rolled on. In the case of multiple rolls matching, thus yielding multiple copies of a particular power, re-roll the copy until it doesn't match. If the psyker doesn't like a particular power, it may choose to exchange the rolled power for the Primaris power of that particular discipline; this decision is made immediately after the roll for the power being exchanged. If a psyker generates all its powers from the same psychic discipline, it gets Psychic Focus - it automatically knows the Primaris power of its chosen discipline in addition to its other powers. If at any point the psyker ever gains a power from a different discipline, it loses Psychic Focus.  Once all your psykers are done rolling for powers, you're set.

The odds of a psyker of a given Mastery Level (ML) being able to guarantee a given power by rolling on the same discipline until it gets it is ML/6, which is slightly better than multiple psykers at lower MLs doing it: for example, an ML2 psyker can guarantee a power with odds 33.33%, while two ML1 psykers both trying for it will manage it (on at least one of them) with odds 30.56%.

*'''Notes:'''
**The decision to exchange a power for a primaris power is done immediately after you roll the die to generate a power. You don't roll for all your powers and then choose to exchange one or more into primaris powers. Make the choice on which table to roll separately for each power you generate - so if you luck out on the first roll, you're perfectly valid in picking a power from a different discipline. 
**A psyker may not know multiple copies of the same power; should you roll the same power multiple times for the same psyker while generating powers, you'll simply reroll the 'extra' copies in the same discipline until you end up with different powers. It is, however, entirely possible for multiple different psykers to know the same power.
**Psykers with a Mark of Chaos or psykers that are Daemons of a particular Chaos God instead automatically know the primaris power of their chosen deity, regardless of the other powers they might generate.
**A psyker who has a force weapon of any description automatically also has the Force psychic power to actually activate the weapon. This does NOT count as one of his mastery level picks, nor does it prevent him from getting Psychic Focus.
**A psyker who has fixed powers of no discipline ''([[Ezekiel]]'s Mind Worm / Ahazra Redth's Mirage)'' does not count these towards psychic focus so long as he generates any remaining powers from a single discipline. This stops them from losing out on Psychic Focus just by having a pre-set power.
**Some psykers - like most Grey Knight units, Eldar Hemlocks and so on - know only predetermined set of psychic powers. Unless otherwise mentioned, these are the ONLY powers they know, they do NOT generate additional ones, and are NOT eligible for Psychic Focus.
**Unlike in previous editions, a psyker's potential power selection is NOT limited by his mastery level. That is, a Mastery Level 1 psyker knows generally speaking one power, but that power may well be Warp Charge 2 or 3 - though a low-level psyker with high-charge powers will have to rely even more on luck of the dice and other psykers in his army to produce enough dice for casting.

== 1: Generating Warp Charges ==
When your psychic phase begins, you roll a single die. Both you and your opponent generate this many warp charges in your pool, plus the total amount of Mastery levels in your respective armies (plus any extra from wargear and/or special rules). You use the dice in your pool to attempt to cast psychic powers. Your opponent uses dice in his pool to attempt to counter your powers (Deny the Witch) and keep them from activating.

'''Notes:'''
*Only psykers actively on the board generate dice. If your Librarian is sitting in a Storm Raven in reserve, he's not contributing to your psychic pool (nor casting powers). Similarly, dead psykers don't generate dice. (A psyker in a transport or building on the table is, however, in play and thus does generate psychic dice).
*ALL models with the Psyker or Psychic Pilot rules or units with the Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers rules generate warp charges equal to their mastery level. In other words, things like Grey Knight vehicles and Eldar [[Hemlock Wraithfighter]]s generate psychic dice (when they're on the table).
*Only the player whose turn it is rolls the initial d6 for generating psychic dice; both players use the same result and add their respective mastery levels to it. If you rolled a 6 for generating psychic dice, your opponent also gets more dice for trying to Deny your powers.
*Psychic dice are generated at the start of the psychic phase. If one of your psykers somehow dies during your psychic phase (say, from a Perils of the Warp attack) he obviously will not be generating any more dice on your subsequent turns, but the dice you have remaining in your pool -that moment- are not affected.

== 2: Casting Powers ==

Okay, so you have a bunch of dice waiting to be turned into mindbullets or whatever. Next up, ''using'' them.

The player actively casting powers (you, in this exercise) chooses one of his psykers and one of the powers that psyker knows; if the power has a variable cost, choose the cost now. You then choose a number of dice from your psychic pool and roll them. Every roll of a 4+ on a psychic dice is an activated 'warp charge'. Each power requires a certain number of warp charges to go off - most take one, a handful need two, and a few rare ones take three. If you got enough warp charges from your psychic dice to meet or exceed the number of warp charges for the power, the power activated successfully. If you failed to meet the number of warp charges on the power, it fizzled - the dice used in casting it are wasted, and the power doesn't go off.

'''Notes:'''
*Casting psychic powers no longer affects the rest of the psyker's actions on the turn; a psyker can cast any of the powers he knows regardless of whether or not he moved on his Movement Phase, and casting psychic powers does not prevent him from running, shooting, or declaring a charge on the following Shooting and Assault phases. Being locked in combat does not prevent the psyker from generating dice, but does prevent the psyker from casting Witchfire and Focused Witchfire (shooting attack) powers. Buffs, debuffs and summons are A-OK though.
*A psyker may cast multiple different witchfire (shooting attack) powers during your psychic phase, as long as he has the necessary dice, may target them at the same or different units as he pleases, and unlike with regular shooting attacks, is not limited to charging at one of those targeted units in his assault phase.
*Psychic dice are not 'earmarked' for the psyker who generated them; it's entirely possible for you to use all your psychic die to manifest dice from one of your psykers, regardless of where the dice actually came from.
*A psyker in a building or a transport can manifest ONLY witchfire and focused witchfire (shooty) psychic powers, and even then only if he can draw line of sight to his target from the transport's/building's fire points or the transport itself (if open-topped). If your psyker intends to cast buffs/debuffs or anything more elaborate than blowing shit up with his brain, he's got to climb out of that metal box first. Similarly, units that are inside a transport or building cannot be targeted by a psychic power, beneficial or not. (The battlements of a building are not considered to be 'inside' a building, so a psyker can stand, say, on the roof of a Bastion or on a Skyshield Landing Pad and gain a degree of protection from that).
*Any one psyker can only attempt to manifest a given power once in a psychic phase, regardless of if it failed or succeeded. Two psykers knowing the same power can of course each (attempt to) cast it, at different or same targets.
*A single unit can only be affected by one copy of a given blessing at any one time - so Hammerhand, for example, no longer stacks. Two DIFFERENT blessings on the same unit are A-OK, though.
*Since psychic powers are used in the Psychic phase, you cannot use a witchfire power to shoot Overwatch if you get assaulted.
*Any dice not used in casting powers are lost and wasted at the end of the psychic phase.

=== Warp Charge Table===
The following table shows what chance you can expect to cast a power for a given number of warp charges. Note that this for the standard odds of harnessing (4+) and periling (at least 2 sixes), and hence does not cover situations where harnessing is improved or periling is more likely (such as with Daemonology).

{| border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4 align=left style="text-align:center;"
|+ Chances of Success and Perils for Charges and Dice
|- valign=top
! Dice !! Success, WC1 !! Success, No Perils, WC1 !! Success, WC2 !! Success, No Perils, WC2 !! Success, WC3 !! Success, No Perils, WC3 !! Perils
|-
| 1D6 || 50.00% || 50.00% || 00.00% || 00.00% || 00.00% || 00.00% || 00.00%
|-
| 2D6 || 75.00% || 72.22% || 25.00% || 22.22% || 00.00% || 00.00% || 02.78%
|-
| 3D6 || 87.50% || 80.09% || 50.00% || 42.59% || 12.50% || 09.26% || 07.41%
|-
| 4D6 || 93.75% || 80.56% || 68.75% || 55.56% || 31.25% || 22.22% || 13.19%
|-
| 5D6 || 96.88% || 77.25% || 81.25% || 61.63% || 50.00% || 33.85% || 19.62%
|-
| 6D6 || 98.44% || 72.12% || 89.06% || 62.74% || 65.63% || 41.91% || 26.32%
|-
| 7D6 || 99.22% || 66.20% || 93.75% || 60.73% || 77.34% || 46.15% || 33.02%
|-
| 8D6 || 99.61% || 60.08% || 96.48% || 56.95% || 85.55% || 47.23% || 39.53%
|-
| 9D6 || 99.80% || 54.07% || 98.05% || 52.31% || 91.02% || 46.06% || 45.73%
|-
| 10D6 || 99.90% || 48.35% || 98.93% || 47.38% || 94.53% || 43.47% || 51.55%
|}<br style="clear: both; height: 0px;" /><br>

Generally, for a good chance of success you need to use double the warp charges of the spell's level to beat a pure coin flip; you can add 1 or 2 charges, with diminishing returns, to increase your odds, but should never commit more than 2 extra charges, as your odds of perils will become too high to be worth it.

== 3: Perils of the Warp ==

Drawing raw psychic energy from hell itself to fuel otherworldly powers is a hazardous job. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes things notice you when you tap into the Warp.

When you cast a psychic power, every roll of 2 or more sixes on your psychic dice triggers a Perils of the Warp. In previous editions, a Perils of the Warp was simply an automatic wound that was difficult or impossible to save against. In 7th edition, it's a d6 table the psyker rolls on; in the table below, "wound" means the psyker suffers 1 wound or glancing hit with no saves allowed (FNP *is* allowed).  Leadership tests are taken by the Periling psyker.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ '''Perils of the Warp'''
! Name !! Number !! Leadership Test Not Taken !! Leadership Test Success !! Leadership Test Failure
|-
! Dragged Into the Warp
| 1 || - || Wound. || Psyker is removed as a casualty and his unit takes D6 S6 AP1 hits, starting from the closest to where he was removed.
|-
! Mental Purge
| 2 || Wound. Randomly select one power from the psyker. It is lost for the rest of the game. || - || -
|-
! Power Drain
| 3 || Wound. If it's the psychic phase, both players lose D3 Warp Charge points. || - || -
|-
! Psychic Backlash
| 4 || Wound. || - || -
|-
! Empyric Feedback
| 5 || - || - || Wound.
|-
! Warp Surge
| 6 || - || Psyker gains 3++, Fleshbane, Armourbane, and Smash until the next friendly psychic phase. || Wound.
|}

'''Notes:'''
*Yes, Warp Surge pretty much temporarily turns your Weirdboy or Librarian into a mini-daemon prince.  The problem is actually using it. Unless your Psyker is already part of a CQC squad or running solo, your have to choose between running into combat to make the most of it or being able to shoot a non-assault weapon, and unless you're looking at your opponent's warlord or some other very high value target(psyker) and you think your opponent will be dumb enough to accept a challenge from a mini-Daemon Prince, you're likely better off shooting.
*A Perils of the Warp is always ONE roll on the table, regardless of how many sixes you actually rolled. If you rolled four sixes on your psychic test, you did NOT Perils twice as hard.
*A psychic power succeeds or fails regardless of whether or not you triggered a Perils of the Warp attack. If you rolled enough warp charges to activate a psychic power, the power does activate - regardless of whether or not the psyker actually casting the power took a wound or even survived.
*Since you need a roll of double sixes on (most) powers to Perils, it's impossible to Perils if you only use one die in your casting attempt. Similarly, the more dice you pump into a single power, the more likely it is for you to suffer a Perils attack. 
*Sanctic and Malefic Daemonology are slightly more risky to play with - unless you're a Grey Knight (for Sanctic) or a Daemon (for Malefic), powers cast from those disciplines will perils on ANY roll of doubles (or more) on your psychic dice.  The powers are not actually any less likely to activate than 'regular' powers, but considerably more likely to blow up back in your face. Therefore it is advised that if you have non-daemon casting Daemonology, then have the psyker be in Brotherhood of Psykers since Brotherhoods have more wounds to spend on Perils wounds while still retaining psychic powers. F.ex having Malefic Primaris Psyker in Malefic Wyrdvane psyker squad.

== 4: Deny the Witch ==

While one player's psykers cast powers, the other player's psykers try to counter them. Denying the Witch is how you can (try to) keep the other player's powers from activating.

When your opponent successfully casts a psychic power that affects one or more of your units, you choose one of them to make a Deny the Witch roll. Basically you choose the unit, pick a number of dice from your own pool of psychic dice, roll them and add modifiers:
*+1 if the unit has one or more models (attached or otherwise) with the Psyker, Psychic Pilot, or Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers special rules.
*+1 if the unit has one or more models with a Mastery level higher than the casting psyker's Mastery level.
*+1 if the unit has one or more models with the Adamantium Will special rule.

Every roll of 6 or more on a Deny the Witch dice negates one successful warp charge from your opponent's casting attempt. To successfully Deny a psychic power, you must negate -all- successful warp charges used in casting that power. If you failed to get enough successes on the Deny roll, the dice are simply wasted and the enemy power still activates.

If none of your units were targeted by the psychic power (the power was a blessing or summoning power, for example, that doesn't directly effect your units) you can still try Deny the power; instead of choosing a unit to Deny the power with, you simply choose how many dice to use in your Deny attempt. Each roll of a straight 6 on a dice negates one warp charge.

'''Notes:'''
*To successfully Deny a power, you must counter ALL the successful warp charges used in casting the power. If your opponent uses four dice to cast a 2-charge power and gets three successes, you must counter all three. Two will NOT be enough.
*You decide whether or not to attempt to Deny a power (and how many dice you use, if any) AFTER your opponent rolls his psychic test for casting the power. You can't be suckered into Denying powers that wouldn't activate anyways, and you can opt to not try Denying powers that you don't have a chance to succeed in countering anyways (powers with four successes when all you have is three dice, and so on). 
*Obviously rolling multiple sixes on a Deny roll will NOT trigger a Perils of the Warp attack.
*If a psychic power targets multiple units, only one of those units gets to do a Deny attempt. If a psychic blast power scatters and hits two of your units, you pick one to do a Deny with, not try to Deny twice.
*Psychic Hoods have changed - now a unit within 12" of a friendly unit targeted with a psychic power can roll the Deny attempt as if it was targeted for the power instead of the actual target. Generally this means getting to benefit from the psyker and his mastery level in the Deny attempt. If the Deny roll fails, the power still affects the original target, not the bearer of the Hood.
** Note that the rule specifically says '''friendly''' unit. You cannot, therefore, use a psychic hood to Deny a power targeted at an Ally of Convenience unit or use the hood to boost your odds of denying a blessing. Only units from an army that is Battle Brothers with the hood-bearer can benefit.
*Successfully denying a power that succeeded, but triggered Perils of the Warp, means the power does not activate but the casting psyker still ends up suffering the results of the Perils attack.
*Like with casting powers, any dice not used in Deny attempts are lost and wasted at the end of a given psychic phase.

== 5: Resolve Power ==
Unless otherwise stated, psychic powers with a duration last until the start of the Psyker’s next Psychic phase. The ongoing effects of any one particular power do not stack on the same unit, but benefits from different powers are cumulative. Unless otherwise stated, powers cannot modify characteristics above 10 or below 1 (or below 2, in the case of Leadership).

When a power summons a unit, it Deep Strikes within the power's maximum range; the new unit is under your control and is treated as having arrived from Reserves for all rules purposes. If the new unit suffers a Deep Strike mishap and ends up in Ongoing Reserves, it can Deep Strike anywhere on the board when it enters play.  Summoned psykers cannot use summoning on the same turn they're summoned.  Unless otherwise stated, summoned units have no upgrades and generate all random attributes (such as psyker powers) as soon as the power resolves.  Summoned Chaos Daemons can take an Icon and/or Instrument of Chaos, and/or upgrade to a character, if their codex entry says they can (and they do it for free).

That covers Blessings (targets friendly unit(s)), Maledictions (targets enemy unit(s)), and Conjurations (summons a new unit).
*'''Witchfires'''
**Resolve as Shooting attacks (non-witchfires which affect an enemy unit do not), although because they happen in the Psychic phase, not the Shooting phase, Shooting phase specific consequences of shooting do not apply, such as preventing running.  Note that this normally means the Psyker has to roll to hit or scatter using BS as normal unless the power is a Template or otherwise stated, although some sub-types of Witchfires subvert some of the shooting rules (see below), including needing to roll to hit.  Per the Errata, a witchfire power which does not list a weapon profile hits automatically.
***'''''Focused'' Witchfires'''
****If this witchfire was cast using at least one more Warp Charge than it needed, its hits are ''Precision Shots''.
***'''''Profileless'' Witchfires'''
****A witchfire with no profile hits automatically, without needing to roll to hit.
***'''Beams'''
****Beams automatically hit, and, in a curiosity for WH40K, are usually offensive powers capable of hitting your own units. Choose a point within the power’s range and trace a 1mm thick line between the chosen point and the center of the Psyker’s base – [[Derp|this line cannot be drawn over any unit that is locked in combat]]. All units under the line [[AWESOME|(friend and foe)]] are hit, with the exception of Zooming Flyers, Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures, and the Psyker himself (or his transport, if embarked on one). Each unit hit by the attack takes a number of hits equal to the number of models from that unit that are under the line. Only one unit that has a model under the line can attempt to Deny the Witch.
*****Note:  Remember, beams are drawn from the CENTER of the casting model, unlike all other types of witchfire, so the range is shorter than you're used to.
***'''Novas'''
****A nova power automatically targets and hits all enemy units (including Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures) within the psychic power’s maximum range, regardless of line of sight, being locked in combat, intervening models/terrain and so on. Only one unit that is within the power’s maximum range can attempt to Deny the Witch.  
*****Note that Nova powers are drawn from the edge of the Psyker's base with the range defining the circle's radius, so the diameter of the circle is double the power's range plus the diameter of the psyker's base, meaning a larger base can drastically increase the area under the power.