Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Psychic 101
This page indexes how the Psychic Phase works in the Horus Heresy wargame.
How It Works
Generating Psychic Powers
Like in editions past, psychic powers are generated BEFORE the game starts. A given psyker has access to a certain number of psychic powers and disciplines but will always know the Aetheric Lightning power on top of whatever they choose.
- Notes:
- 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.
Casting Powers
They Psychic phase as you know it is gone. We're back to the old days of powers going off during the turn.
The player actively casting powers (you, in this exercise) chooses one of his psykers and one of the powers that psyker knows. You then roll 2d6, trying to roll under the psyker's Leadership.
Notes:
- Some psychic powers have the ability to be automatically cast instead of needing to make a Psychic test to cast. Of course, doing so gives you a weaker version of the power, forcing you to measure the pros and cons of actually chancing that test.
- 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.
- Perils of the Warp as we knew it have been done away with, replaced with the more generic d3 save-ignoring wounds. Of course, any invulns can still be taken.
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.
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). For Psychic Weapons, this would be the point where you start rolling to hit and all that like the weapon it's supposed to be.
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).
Psychic Tactics
So that's how you mind bullet, but what do you do with them?
Well the problem with tactics is the fact that not all armies get the same favor with psykery. While the Legiones Astartes do have Librarians, their power levels are pretty heavily limited due to the Edict of Nikea...unless, of course, you take those assholes from Prospero. Similarly, certain loadouts for Ruinstorm Daemons might see you have plenty of psykers to throw around.
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.
- 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 Divination, Malefic Daemonology, and 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
- 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, Jaws of the World Wolf Removes From Play without Wounding, so Look Out, Sir does not apply.
- Similar reasoning applies to Feel No Pain.
Psychic Disciplines
One thing you'll notice as a massive departure from last edition is the inclusion of Psychic Weapons. See, instead of using types like Witchfires and Novas, your psykers just gain special weapons. Aside from Aetheric Lightning, all of these weapons have the Psychic Focus rule, which requires you to make a psychic check before you can attack with them. Because of this, it's a bad idea to rely on any of these to use in overwatch.
As a matter of fact, psychic types as a whole have been abolished, as even Blessings and Maledictions are just lumped under Psychic Powers. Not that this changes much on them, as the list of psychic powers has drastically shrunk.
Rulebook Psychic Disciplines
This section lists the psychic disciplines outlined in the general rulebook; they can be used by psykers from multiple Warhammer 40,000 armies.
Force
- Overview
- Force counts as a Psychic power, but it does not actually belong to any discipline nor does it count against how many powers you know. Remember, you need to make a psychic test in order activate it so you'll need to pick out the prime opportunity. Additionally, it can be denied, but it's unlikely your opponent would want to take that chance unless your psyker is looking at something he does not want to die.
| Number | Name | Type | Range | Target | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | Force | Blessing | Self | Unit | All Force weapons in the Psyker's unit gain Instant Death. |
Aetheric Lightning
- Overview
- The default power known to all psykers. Just as modern 40K gives Smite to every psyker, this acts as your Smite. It's pretty flimsy on the outset by virtue of only being S3 AP4, but it also has Force, meaning that if you pass a Psychic check, you can bump this up enough to cut through a couple marines with some support from an attached squad.
| Range | Type | S | AP | Special Rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | Assault 4 | 3 | 4 | Force |
Biomancy
- Overview
- Biomancy is taken for two main reasons: You want to make your Psyker a fighter, or you're gonna make someone else one. For the former, it's usually better to attempt to buff a character that's already an acceptable fighter, rather than trying to make a weak unit suddenly awesome; Daemons in particular can get some excellent mileage from Biomancy, as (barring Blue Scribes), every character they have with access to it is at least Strength and Toughness 5.
| Name | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biomancer's Rage |
| ||||||||||
| Biomantic Augmentation | Instead of shooting, you can cast this on a friendly unit within 6" and give them +1 Strength. If you pass a Psychic test, you can boost this to also add +1 to Toughness as well. Regardless of whether or not you opt for that boost, you're still giving a decent boost to someone, if hamstrung by the very limited range. |
Divination
- Overview
- While you no longer have any ability to guarantee that you get a good roll, you do have one power that can cash out on a good hit and another that can snake through many of the defenses that would otherwise foil psychic weapons.
| Name | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divinatory Aegis | Instead of shooting, you can give a friendly unit within 6" Precision Shots (6+) and Precision Strikes (6+). If you pass a Psychic test, you can up these to proc on a 5+ in the event that you're really banking on them. | ||||||||||
| Diviner's Dart |
|
Pyromancy
- Overview
- Pyromancy is good for only one thing: melting light infantry hordes. Orks, Guardsmen, Tyranids, Daemons maybe. This is the only discipline that focuses on AoE effects, giving you the ability to blast whatever you see, but it leads to limited effect against vehicles of any sort since you lack something like Molten Beam.
| Name | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pyromantic Combustion | Drop 1/3 large blasts (depending on whether or not you take a psychic test) anywhere within 18" of the psyker and scatter d6". These pieplates will remain on the field until next turn, with any model who starts within them or walks into them taking an S6 AP4 hit. While the scatter is a little sucky, you've got a pretty hefty means of area denial that might cut off routes for the enemy. | ||||||||||
| Pyromantic Desolation |
|
Telekinesis
- Overview
- A generally combat-focused set of powers, with one giving a defensive boost and another being a psychic weapon to smash
| Name | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Telekine Dome | Instead of moving, you can cast this, giving any models within 8" a 5++ Invuln against anything from beyond 8". This power is unique that this can persist indefinitely, but your psyker will be a sitting duck for the entire time, unable to fight back or even get behind cover without breaking focus on the power. Fortunately, you can spend any turn yo make a psychic test to chance boosting that save to a 4++. | ||||||||||
| Telekine's Focus |
|
Telepathy
- Overview
- Telepathy is a generally powerful support discipline. Both of them rob the opponent of the ability to take reactions, one of the big features of the game, with one even going so far as pinning foes.
| Name | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Telepathic Fugue | During any phase, you can cast this on any enemy unit within 24" to rob them of their reaction. Considering the limited number of reactions you can use in a given turn, this can prove to be devastating for the enemy, especially ones that give the opponent extra firepower. | ||||||||||
| Telepathic Hallucinations |
|
Daemonology
A few notes about Sanctic and Malefic before we start. Unlike the other powers that peril only on a double six, these powers peril on any double unless you're a Grey Knight (who can only use Sanctic) or a Daemon (ditto but for Malefic). This means your psyker is much more likely to implode and will do so much faster if not from these armies, so think carefully if the risk is worth it.
Sanctic
- Overview
- Generally speaking, Sanctic Daemonology is used for building a better Deathstar. The reason for this is simple: All the Blessings in this Discipline directly target the Psyker's unit. Hammerhand makes them hit harder, Sanctuary makes them harder to kill, and Gate of Infinity gives them protection against being tarpitted. Round this off with two two "High Risk/High Reward" Witchfires for good effect. The main weaknesses of this Discipline are that it doesn't do much to benefit MSU builds, it has a very situational Primaris, and it has a good chance of blowing up your caster. Of note is that a lot of these powers were originally unique to Grey Knights back in 5th edition. They remain the only army that can use these powers without suffering Perils on any double roll, and many of their units get "fixed" powers on this table, allowing you a surprising degree of reliability in using this discipline.
| Number | Name | Type | Range | Target | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primaris | Banishment | Malediction | 24 | Unit (Daemon) | Can only be used on units with the Daemon special rule. This will reduce the Daemon's Invulnerable save by 1 (So the basic 5+ Daemon Invulnerable becomes a 6+). It's a situational power at best, only really useful when dealing with Malefic Psykers who summon Daemons and/or Daemons themselves. Although far more situational, this can be absolutely horrific to a Daemon player who was unlucky enough to already have their invulnerable save reduced by 1 by rolling 4 on the Warp Storm table. Watch your Daemon opponent sob and grovel as you widdile down their Great Unclean One or destroy a squad of Bloodletters in one Shooting Phase since they have no more saves except maybe FNP or Warp-Forged Armor. | ||||||||||
| 1 | Gate of Infinity | Blessing | Self | Unit | Allows a single unit that isn't swooping or zooming to Deep Strike anywhere. Of course, this is your fabulous SURPRISE FUCKERS! However, remember the 1d4chan advice for deep striking: you want to be able to survive a turn of shooting, and assault troops are going to get shot up before they can do their thing. Best done with a tough shooting squad or something you're willing to DISTRACTION CARNIFEX with. | ||||||||||
| 2 | Hammerhand | Blessing | Self | Unit | Grants the caster and his unit +2 Strength. You remember how it was back in 3rd edition when you still had Daemonhunters? Yeah, it's like that. While obviously best done before getting stuck in, you might consider using it defensively. E.g. "Do you really want to charge my strength six Assault Marines?" On the down side, this power has the same issue as Iron Arm and Warp Speed: unless you were already planning to run the Psyker with a squad made to punch faces, then you're not getting the most out of this power. | ||||||||||
| 3 | Sanctuary | Blessing | Self | Unit | The caster and his unit gain +1 to their Invulnerable save. If the unit does not have an Invulnerable save, they gain a 6++. Additionally, all Daemons (allies and enemies) within 12" of the caster treat all terrain including open ground as Dangerous Terrain. This is mostly helpful in buffing preexisting Invulnerable saves, since conferring an unreliable 6++ is practically a waste of Warp Charges; though it could be helpful in preserving hopefully enough troops in your blobs if you plan on using it as a Tarpit or to drown a priority target in armor saves. Conversely, it's helpful against daemon hordes especially if combo'd with Banishment, as putting it on just a few units placed ahead of the main body of army can mean seeing lots of daemons disappear as they move ahead to engage your troops, as well as seeing a blob of daemons get ruined because they had the balls to charge you. Just bear in mind that Assault Terminators with a 2++ is likely to lose you friends. | ||||||||||
| 4 | Purge Soul | Witchfire (Focused) (Profileless) | 24 | Model |
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| 5 | Cleansing Flame | Witchfire (Nova) | 9 | Unit |
| ||||||||||
| 6 | Vortex of Doom | Witchfire | 12 | Unit |
|
Malefic
- Overview
- There's a reason most armies don't use this; it's a major sink for your Warp Charges. Unless you can ensure that you've got a lot of them (which Daemons really can do, hence this. although the core strategy used in that list no longer works) don't be expecting to make clusterfucks appear at a whim. But if you do have a ton of Warp Charges to throw around, you may be able to make your army double in size in a couple of turns. However, even if you do, realize that using your entire army to make more army doesn't actually accomplish anything (unless you plopped a new scoring unit on a tactical objective, anyway); at some point you need to stop recursing and actually kill the enemy. Sacrifice is effective enough on its own to cast at every opportunity, but you can bet your ass that the enemy can clear off (or at least cripple) a Summoned unit with a smaller point investment than you used to get those 6-8 dice. Used mindlessly you will get out-paced, but used surgically you can make even the best opponents tear their hair out.
| Number | Name | Type | Range | Target | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primaris | Summoning | Conjuration | 12 | None | Summons one of the following within 12 inches of the user: 10 Bloodletters, 10 Pink Horrors, 10 Plaguebearers, 10 Daemonettes, 5 Flesh Hounds, 3 Flamers, 3 Nurgling Swarms, 5 Seekers. The reason this was used was because of the massive clusterfuck you could make with this, since Horrors are psykers and could get Summoning as well so you could summon psykers to summon psykers to summon psykers, repeat ad nauseam. This is currently FAQed away, as "new" Horrors don't get Daemonology; there is no explanation what the FAQ means by "new", but Horrors conjured by this power seem to unequivocally qualify. As a result, there are two big limits to the use of this power. The first is obvious: who the hell has that many horror models? The second is that you're summoning ML1 horrors with access to only the Change discipline. Since they do have mind bullets, they now have more kick, but even with this buff it does not change the fact that the daemon swarm is just not that good. If you're at home using Daemons as lackeys then don't go overboard on summoning. Do it to get reinforcements, but the 'bacterial swarm' is best used for the occasional fun list with a lot of proxy models. See below this chart for further notes on Summoning. | ||||||||||
| 1 | Cursed Earth | Blessing | Self | Model | All models with the Daemon special rule (allied and enemy) within 12 inches of the user gain +1 to their Invulnerable save and do not scatter when Deep Striking within range of the user. If you have a good blob unit or deathstar, then this power will go a long way in allowing them to survive a little further. Use with the chaos demon Grimoire for a 2+ invulnerable (and with Tzeentch daemons to make it re-rollable; the infamous "Screamerstar"). Also, be careful: to get the most out of this your daemons have to be within 12" of the caster, meaning you have to bunch up a bit. Not a deal breaker thanks to the higher invulnerable, but something to remember. Also remember that this power applies to enemies with the Daemon rule, too. So yeah, that's one thing not to cast if you're facing down an Avatar of Khaine. If you have a bunch of daemons already this will probably draw every remaining die your enemy can throw at it in a mad attempt to Deny it. Don't let them, either by draining their pool first with frivolous bullshit or by throwing enough dice at it that denial is unlikely. Or, use it as the bait for something else, like an unholy barrage of beams and witchfires the enemy is now powerless to stop. | ||||||||||
| 2 | Dark Flame | Witchfire | Torrent | Unit |
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| 3 | Infernal Gaze | Witchfire (Beam) | 18 | Unit |
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| 4 | Sacrifice | Conjuration | 6 | None | Summons a Herald of your choice (with up to 30 points' worth of wargear options) within 6 inches of the user. However, the user or another friendly unit in range suffers a single wound with no saves allowed (so FNP works, as usual). Don't expect it to survive for long on its own, so you'd better summon some mooks to help him survive. This is a slick little power to have on hand if you get blindsided or if you bite off more than you can chew. For instance, sudden combat with an overzealous challenge character? Bring in a Herald of Khorne with an Axe of Khorne and show him what's what. My favorite trick is to summon a bunch of Tzeentch Heralds on Disks over the course of the game who turbo to hiding spots all over the board only to emerge turns 5-7 as needed to contest and take objectives. The Imperial Knight formation that has people in a tizzy has almost no defense against this trick as they have nearly no Objective Secured. Also, for the love of the Emperor, be polite and have some Heralds pre-kitted before the game starts so you don't have to hunt in the codex for a few minutes in the middle of the game to see your options. Like Cursed Earth, this draws Deny aggro like nobody's business. If you need it to go off, throw at least 3 dice at it; otherwise, it makes great bait so you can cast everything else with impunity. | ||||||||||
| 5 | Incursion | Conjuration | 12 | None | Summons one of the following within 12 inches of the user: 3 Bloodcrushers, 3 Screamers, 3 Plague Drones, 3 Fiends. This generally isn't used for much unless you're planning to cheese your way to an infinite Screamerstar, or you're looking for some Distraction Daemons. While you shouldn't forget about this if you get it, if you're gonna get the Primaris anyway due to psychic focus, then the limited use will mean you won't cast this all that often. Bonus points: summon three screamers next to your enemy's Land Raider and watch him devote untold forces to getting rid of them. | ||||||||||
| 6 | Possession | Conjuration | 6 | None | Summons a Greater Daemon of your choice within 6 inches, and removes the user as a casualty. (If the user was part of a unit with a Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers, the whole unit is removed.) If the Psychic test to manifest this power fails, the user automatically suffers Perils of the Warp. (Just imagine the look on your opponent's face when your otherwise useless Wyrdvane Psykers explode into a Bloodthirster. Or your Lord of Change, on his last wound, explodes into a new and fully healed Lord of Change.) The spell specifically states you must summon either a Bloodthirster of any variation, a Lord of Change, a Great Unclean One or a Keeper of Secrets, so no, you can't summon a named greater daemon. This generally isn't used because of the mighty cost it takes, but the reward it allows (especially if you're running Daemons) makes it insanely tempting. Use at your own peril. Also note, as per the May 2016 FAQ, Flying Monstrous Creatures must now be declared to be either Swooping or Gliding when conjured or summoned to the table, so you now have the choice of whether to keep them in the relative protection of the air, or on the ground so that they can get stuck in sooner. Note: they still are still deployed as per Deep Strike and so cannot charge that same turn, this just means you don't have to waste an additional turn switching flight modes. |
More on Summoning
- "New" horrors can't roll from Daemonology per Wrath of Magnus/latest FAQs. Whoops.
- "New" is not explained, so it could mean all Horrors ("new" meaning "latest rules"), or only ones that join your army after list creation ("new" as in "conjured"). The FAQ does not clarify. Either way, summoned horrors can't roll on it.
- Some quick math; you generally want to throw 6-8 dice at the Summoning to make it go off reliably. A 10-man Horror squad is only Mastery 1 (they're taken in lists because you spend 9 points for a second warp charge, a min squad is crap), so your return on investment is at best 20%. Even if you successfully cast it 5 times in a turn, you're only able to pull off one more Summoning than you were before, assuming none of your squads get wiped by the thousand-odd points of return fire (you do actually have to pay points for your initial warp charge). Even if you do, a horror unit minus its warp charge (since that's getting used for recursion) is basically a 10-man unit of Imperial Guard without lasguns. Making even a hundred more cultist-equivalents for a thousand points of input energy is a bad trade; you have to do something with all that warp charge to actually win the game, like summon Daemonettes (who can actually kill people without using your precious warp charges) or channel a bajillion Flickering Fires out of all those horrors. Recursion is a fine way to spend your first turn while you advance into range, but make sure you have a plan for how to get work out of it.
- In lower points games, Summoning is an excellent tool for a lot of situations. Summon Bloodletters in front of Spess Mehreens as a Distraction Carnifex (because they will either get shot down or tear MEQs a new asshole), summon Horrors as objective-holders and batteries, summon Daemonettes for messing up infantry, summon Plaguebearers to hold objectives / pluck apart MCs, summon some Flesh Hounds to harrass Heavy Weapon teams or summon a bunch of Flamers close enough to units they can actually kill with their shots. If you use this only to make more army, you might as well leave it. Seekers are much less useful than Daemonettes, and Nurglings are out-performed by Plaguebearers. If you summon those units for a purpose, however, you can easily change the course of the game with it. However, the more points you play with, the less useful this power is. If you summon 100 points worth of unit in a 500 point game, you just increased your army by 20%, which is freaking huge. As the games get bigger, the impact of this spell is lessened, though.
- Also keep in mind that if you manage to pull this power off, it is almost impossible to deny. 3 Warp Charges minimum with no modifier to deny the witch means on average 18(!) dice minimum to negate this, which nobody has, and if they did, they wouldn't blow them all to negate your Summoning.
| Warhammer 30,000 Tactics Articles | |
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| General Tactics | |
| Imperium | |
| Chaos | |