# Psychic powers and Mephiston



## hocky (Jan 31, 2009)

Hi guys, I have just started playing Mephiston in 7th - I know he is not as good as before but I really like him. I recently put him in a land raider redeemer with 5 th/ss termites to beat face. I was just wondering a couple of things psychic wise.

1 - He is mastery level 3 and gets sanguine sword. Does this mean he only gets 2 rolls on any other psychic discipline?
2 - What are the best psychic disciplines to roll on for him in your opinion? With and without the terminator squad.
3 - How does anyone else use Mephy in games? Are there any other tactics to consider?

Thanks, in my last game I quite liked biomancy and I rolled iron arm and enfeeble and punked everything in sight!


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

1; This is exactly what it says in the 7th edition codex.

"Mephiston always knows the Sanguine Sword psychic power. He may generate two more powers from the Sanguinary, Biomancy, Daemonology, Divination and Pyromancy disciplines."

2; Sanguinary; couple of good beatstick powers (unleash rage and quickening, with Sanguine Sword gives you 8-10 S10 Attacks on the charge. Alternatively, 8-10 S6 Instant Death Attacks (or 7-9 S10 Instant Death attacks if facing something like a Wraithknight). Unleash rage is good on a Terminator Squad as it makes up for their lack of additional close combat weapons, while Wings of Sanguinius lets them quickly redeploy. I personally think that TH/SS Terminators are overrated and prefer to run shooty terminators with Cyclones for the ability to use the Wings to put 2-4 Krak Missiles and a potential Blood Lance into the backside of a tank.

Running Biomancy for Iron Arm lets you get Smash for AP2 attacks, however.

3 - nope.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

The Biomancy or Sanguinary tables would be great for him in that squad, but with the randomness of powers and the stupid mandatory Sanguine Sword power I wouldn't count on him being the psychic force he once was.


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## hocky (Jan 31, 2009)

Sorry Vaz I have read the rules and what I actually meant to say was that because he has sanguine sword of he rolled on another chart for his remaining 2 powers would he get the primaris power too?

I was going for sanguinary or biomancy I think. If I could guarantee the 4+ invulnerable save from divination I would defo go for that though.

Being cheeky there is no way to get him to re roll his powers at the start is there?


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Can't see a way he'd get a free primaris in any other discipline, given his auto-include power. I don't have the BA book, but it seems pretty clear based on the BRB.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

Not a chance, all of any psyker's powers must be generated from the same discipline in order to gain the Psychic Focus bonus. Since one of his three powers is (a god damned hindrance and) not even from a specific discipline you're boned.

You could try and argue that he is indeed generating all of his available powers from that discipline, but it would likely just be an argument. Barring a FAQ from GW I doubt that we'll see him get the Primaris from the table he generates the remaining two powers from.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

There's a difference between Powers known and Generated.

If you have Powers Known and then gain are allowed to generate additional powers, you then generate powers. Plus, all Psykers with Force Weapons would be fucked as well.

So, yes. Provided that any powers you generate (i.e roll for) are from the same discipline, you gain Focus.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

Good call Vaz, I rescind my comment.

"If the Psyker knows other powers that are not part of a discipline, such as Force, those powers are not considered when determining whether the Psyker has Psychic Focus."

I would still rather be able to generate all his powers from one table and think Sanguine Sword is a hindrance to Mepshiston's overall effectiveness as a Psyker though, mostly due to the randomness of generating powers and that 3 chances are better than 2...though I've gotten fuck all with ML2 and ML3 guys alike I suppose.


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## hocky (Jan 31, 2009)

Agree with that NTAW, sanguine sword is a good power but i'd rather have 3 goes at getting iron arm and enfeeble which is effectively the same as ss but with toughness added which he needs with no inv save. To be honest all he needs is the inv save and he'd be awesome...


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

I think he's shitty as a melee psyker as he lost Wings of Sanguinius, and if he only has a 33% chance of getting it again if he spends his rolls on the Sanguiniary Discipline which is pretty crappy for him otherwise. T5, with only an armour save (albeit a good one) to protect his 3 wounds means he's going to get annihilated by a lot of competent challenge characters and he can't really split off on his own to terrorize shooting units like he could in 5th due to his shitty 6" movement and vulnerability to basically all kinds of guns.

I'd just bring a ML2 dude with Summoning/Prescience and Psychic Shriek and forget paying the extra bunch of points for the stat upgrades.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

Isn't Shriek from Telepathy (a discipline we no longer have access to)?


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## fatmantis (Jun 26, 2009)

although i agree with what you guys are saying.. i have to say stop looking at what he could do..and start looking at what he CAN do..he is still beast that is able to do alot of damage..now that he can join squads he survivability has gone WAY up..so ok waah waah powers..big deal..its not the end of the world..it just means now instead of having this guy run around by himself..you now have wonderful combos to play with.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

That's not how optimization works.

It's like going into art school and finger painting. Sometimes it's fun to just kick back and do nothing intense, but when talking about optimization, people don't really want to finger paint, they want the Da Vinci if possible.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

ntaw said:


> Isn't Shriek from Telepathy (a discipline we no longer have access to)?


Huh, I didn't know BA didn't get Telepathy any more. That sucks  In that case, a roll on Divination's your best bet.



fatmantis said:


> although i agree with what you guys are saying.. i have to say stop looking at what he could do..and start looking at what he CAN do..he is still beast that is able to do alot of damage..now that he can join squads he survivability has gone WAY up..so ok waah waah powers..big deal..its not the end of the world..it just means now instead of having this guy run around by himself..you now have wonderful combos to play with.


"Wonderful combos" being what, exactly? He's too beefy to join a unit (there's no point throwing more points at Hammernators, they already beat face without having an extra fighty combat character attached) but not beefy/fast enough to go off on his own and threaten units. He's a weird kind of beatstick trying to be a support unit or vice versa and I'm not really convinced he does either very well.

Mephiston's damage output, in terms of how strong he was for his points in a fight, isn't what made him really good, it was being a 25mm base infantry model with 12" Jump movement who could eat a squad of Tacticals or Necron Warriors or threaten vehicles if you let him get the drop on you. His damage, if I remember rightly, hasn't actually dropped off all that much but his resilience (he's no longer basically immune to small arms and he's far more vulnerable to big guns with his lower Toughness and Wounds) and his mobility (the most important thing about him) makes him just a more expensive Librarian who can fight better.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

fatmantis said:


> so ok waah waah powers..big deal..its not the end of the world


He's a cool model and I'll still pop him into squads every now and again, but as a ML3 psyker (one of the two Space Marine ones I am aware of barring any FW stuff) he offers nothing more to the unit he joins than a ML2 psyker you can get for 95 points thanks to Sanguine Sword. That's an 80 point tax to pay for his beat stick abilities, which come at AP3 despite the potential for S10. There's a lot of 2+ saves around that are going to shrug off his attacks even if all of them are hitting and wounding.

Now that I'm thinking about it, without even getting into the numbers I'd wager Astorath and some DC would be more effective than Mephiston and any unit in the BA codex for the same or less points.



MidnightSun said:


> Huh, I didn't know BA didn't get Telepathy any more. That sucks In that case, a roll on Divination's your best bet.


We traded it for Pyromancy, which is cool for my Libbynaught when I go that route.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

ntaw said:


> We traded it for Pyromancy, which is cool for my Libbynaught when I go that route.


Oh, how... useful...


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

:laugh: oh, I didn't say useful.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Pyromancy and Telekinesis, the Lost and the Damned.


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