# Chaos and utilising psykers



## falcoso (Apr 7, 2012)

So I don't know if this is strictly a tactica or just a collection of notes and ideas I have discovered in the new edition, so if this is meant to be elsewhere I apologise.

So with 7th brinsg the new psychic phase and 2 new disciplines, Sanctic and Malific. With Chaos Space Marines and Deamons being battle brothers I will be talking about a combination of the both of them throughout this article.

Please note many of these ideas have not been thoroughly tested enough to see how well they work so please feel free to chip in your opinions on this too.

So both factions have the Chaos Psychic focus which means that they automatically generate the primaris from the discipline of their aligned God. Whether this counts as the power that MUST be generated on a discipline for Chaos sorcerers is unclear to me as in the codex it says one power must be generated from the discipline, I am sure an FAQ will clear this up soon.

*So Chaos Space Marines *

Unlike Deamons CSM do still perils on a double on any deamonology discipline wich in the games I have played so far has basically killed them off, which is understandable, as they have some very powerful affects. But you can roll on Sanctic - while some people may not see Sanctic as as powerful, there are more affective warp charge one powers should you not want to risk perils, and there is always the StrD blast.

Chaos do have a way of countering this however with the Crimson slaughter Supplement. I think lovers of psychic powers will be using this supplement much more if after more consistent testing we do find malefic is good enough. Giving your sorcerer the Prophet of Voices upgrade confers the deamon special rules to him. While he can ONLY join units of possesed (which are now troops choices) he will not perils on doubles on Malefic which I think is a very nice thing indeed, especially for 30pts. I'm not sure if you can still ally with deamons taking Crimson Slaughter as all it says for allies is that they can ally with CSM.

Alternatively if you are to roll up Possesion why not turn yourself into a Lord of Change for deamon malefic goodness, though you will have to re-roll your powers again

Huron Blackheart's Hamadrya became quite nice as you randomly generat the powers it has each turn as if it were a mastery level 1 psyker, meaning that you will always get the primaris of the discipline you cast on AS WELL AS the one you roll, which can make you psychic phase more diverse with the option of more powers to choose from per turn.

Lets face it Thousand sons were bad in the last edition. Whether or not they are useable in this edition still remains to be seen but they are certainly better. As well as generating the extra power dice from having a level 1 sorcerer in the unit you will now get 2 powers, and if chaos focus does count as the generated power, it now means you can roll up an extra power on another discipline which is a much bigger improvement on what they used to be.

*Onto the Chaos Deamons*

The big thing with deamons now is that they cast malefic as if it were any other power which lets be honest is big when there is the potential for so many psykers in a list.

Flickering fire of Tzeentch is an interesting power as I for one am certainly unclear if you declare what level you are casting before you do it or roll your dice and the number of warp charge harnessed is the level it is cast on. I for one believe it is the latter but this is another point for a possible FAQ.

If the latter it makes pink horrors much more flexible at smaller unit sizes as they will still be able to cast the higher level of the power as well as gaining two powers from chaos psychic focus. However depending on what other powers you have the horrors may now just be sitting there adding to your pool as you may want to casting other powers, possibly wasting their utility.

I feel more heralds may see the board than Lords of Change from now on though. Being much cheaper than the lord of change you will be able to take several and heck you may be able to change one to a lord of change at a later stage anyway. They also cannot be targeted directly as they can join units unlike LoC (although flying around may mitigate this).

I feel however the big winner of the new edition is the blue scribes. Their rules means they choose a discipline and randomly choose a power (though not the primaris) and this power manifests, no dice needed and no risk of perils, which I think is HUGE when psychic powers are more powerful and a lot less likely to be manifested in this edition. I actually think the worst discipline to roll on is Malefic as on a 6 you replace them with a Greater Deamons which I think is personally a waste alothough it will be nice to auto cast a new heral or some bloodcrushers, but that risk is there (albeit not necessarily *that* big a risk) 

So there are my thought on what I have noticed with new edition rules, feel free to discuss or completley shoot down my ideas if you think they are terrible


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## mayegelt (Mar 18, 2014)

So far I have seen a lot of people moan about OMG a daemon army can turn a 50 model army into a 90 model army then 150 next turn and so on.

But the odds of doing so are low unless you are packing out loads of 11man horror units and loads of lv3 heralds, and is then only achievable you are then using all those psy dice you have got on summoning rather than dmging the enemy. What kinda negated all those points you spent on those horrors for all those dice for 1-2 turns. As they aren't gunna do well in close combat and cant shoot outside of psychic. 

As for Thousand Sons. I was doing the math for all those sorcerers you will be getting. And it turns out.... Its a kinda a nerf.
Seems like you may be able to have an extra spell in your deck, and you can target something different to the rest of your squad... both of these being buffs. But your chance to cast is reduced to 50% without using extra dice, rather than 91.66% previous under doing a leadership check. In smaller armies this isn't much of a prob, as your D6 additional dice will give you a spare for a few of your sorc. But larger games you end up with only about 50% of your powers actually working if they are Level 1 spells.


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## Straken's_Fist (Aug 15, 2012)

Spell Familiars are surely much more useful now. I assume now it will mean you can re-roll one 6 per psychic phase?


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## falcoso (Apr 7, 2012)

mayegelt said:


> So far I have seen a lot of people moan about OMG a daemon army can turn a 50 model army into a 90 model army then 150 next turn and so on.
> 
> But the odds of doing so are low unless you are packing out loads of 11man horror units and loads of lv3 heralds, and is then only achievable you are then using all those psy dice you have got on summoning rather than dmging the enemy. What kinda negated all those points you spent on those horrors for all those dice for 1-2 turns. As they aren't gunna do well in close combat and cant shoot outside of psychic.
> 
> ...


Yeah while it is easier for deamons to make more deamons than other armies do I don't think it will be that much of an issue in smaller games, as you won't be bale to damage your opponent as directly but then I guess a wall of bodies is never a bad thing.

You are right about the thousand sons but then now all level 1 psykers are like that but it comes free with the unit anyway. with 2 powers now as well is nice as you can never have too many powers to choose from as you never know when theh may come in handy, and an extra power dice is always a good thing for your more powerful sorcerers to use.



Straken's_Fist said:


> Spell Familiars are surely much more useful now. I assume now it will mean you can re-roll one 6 per psychic phase?


Spell familiars are just re-roll psychic tests, and now a psychic test is when you roll warp charge to try and harness them, so if you fail you can re-roll all the dice, or even if you perils, which I think makes them very much worth taking now especially for 15pts


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## mayegelt (Mar 18, 2014)

falcoso said:


> Spell familiars are just re-roll psychic tests, and now a psychic test is when you roll warp charge to try and harness them, so if you fail you can re-roll all the dice, or even if you perils, which I think makes them very much worth taking now especially for 15pts


However makes the Balestar of Mannon (Crimson Slaughter) rather pointless as all Chaos Sorc now have access to Divination from what I have been told. So now it is just 25pt version of a spell familiar what stops you (as in when powers are cast against you) getting the deny the witch bonus.


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## scscofield (May 23, 2011)

I haven't seen this chart that points out what codexes have what powers in the BRB, can someone with it give me the page number?


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## Nordicus (May 3, 2013)

scscofield said:


> I haven't seen this chart that points out what codexes have what powers in the BRB, can someone with it give me the page number?


If anything, it comes with the new psyker cards. Surely it should be somewhere in the BRB as well though.


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## scscofield (May 23, 2011)

I looked at the psychic phase and powers sections of the book and did not see a chart. Not saying it isn't there, I am just missing seeing it if it is. Hence the request for someone else with the book to give me a page number.


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## mayegelt (Mar 18, 2014)

Xabre was the one to point it to me, but doesn't seem to say where the chart is there, just that it is.



Xabre said:


> I'm really liking the fact that now my Thousand Sons have a little bit more bite by adding additional firepower with a second spell to each Aspiring Sorcerer.
> 
> On the other hand, Ahriman actually just got smacked around a bit, because if you think about it, as Mastery 4, he can't benefit from the bonus power, because there are only 4 powers. And as a marked sorcerer, he can't just go 'ooh, all Divination please!' because he needs at least 1 Tz power. That annoys me slightly.
> 
> ...


However with a quick searchy I presume it comes with the cards.

Linky here
http://www.3plusplus.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/psy1.jpg


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## falcoso (Apr 7, 2012)

mayegelt said:


> However makes the Balestar of Mannon (Crimson Slaughter) rather pointless as all Chaos Sorc now have access to Divination from what I have been told. So now it is just 25pt version of a spell familiar what stops you (as in when powers are cast against you) getting the deny the witch bonus.


Yeah, Spell familiars are in the standard wargear section though so you can still get them with the crimson slaughter so it affectively makes it an unnecessary upgrade.


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## mayegelt (Mar 18, 2014)

I'm sure the access to divination may be an oversight. Though IF that is the case then why do space marines who previously didn't have divination get it, but dark angels still cant get biomancy I don't know, unless the card is wrong.


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## Ork Mad (Sep 17, 2010)

falcoso said:


> I feel however the big winner of the new edition is the blue scribes. Their rules means they choose a discipline and randomly choose a power (though not the primaris) and this power manifests, no dice needed and no risk of perils, which I think is HUGE when psychic powers are more powerful and a lot less likely to be manifested in this edition. I actually think the worst discipline to roll on is Malefic as on a 6 you replace them with a Greater Deamons which I think is personally a waste alothough it will be nice to auto cast a new heral or some bloodcrushers, but that risk is there (albeit not necessarily *that* big a risk)


for the blue scribes it says:
"not that the Blue Scribes are not Psykers for the purposes of any special rules that target Psykers"
and for possession it says:
"If this power is successfully manifested, the Psyker is immediately removed as a casualty.."
so would that even effect them?


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## neferhet (Oct 24, 2012)

clearly we must wait for some faqing here. lots of codex specific rules are just superseded now or conflicting or badly worded.


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## falcoso (Apr 7, 2012)

Ork Mad said:


> for the blue scribes it says:
> "not that the Blue Scribes are not Psykers for the purposes of any special rules that target Psykers"
> and for possession it says:
> "If this power is successfully manifested, the Psyker is immediately removed as a casualty.."
> so would that even effect them?


Ah this is a good point. I hadn't thought of that. So either the power wouldn't cast, you get a Greater Deamon (which probably seems a bit OP) as there is no psyker to remove but I believe it just says place a greater deamon not REplace with a greater deamon (though I do not have the rulebook on me to check). Or it would still cast as normal, as it is not a special rules targeting them, so they would still count as psykers for the purpose of manifesting.

For instance if they roll up something like Iron Arm that would still affect them too, as its not a special rule affecting them, its a psychic power. I think this is for the purposes of +1 to deny the witch or things that target and enemy psyker (although the same logic could theoretically be applied as above).


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## mayegelt (Mar 18, 2014)

FAQ seems to have fixed that, it kinda says they get the spell instant cast at the power required to do it. The enemy can still deny it but does so in the normal way (having to deny the amount of charge it costs) and they cant be effected by any effects vs psykers.


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## falcoso (Apr 7, 2012)

It still says special rules on the FAQ as it does in the codex which doesn't seem to change anything. It just clarifies Deny the witch rolls are done to dispel the minimal amount of warp charge needed to cast the power.

On a seperate note I have just noticed how the Scroll of Magnus makes a none psyker a level one psyker on the turn they start using it, which is nice just to get an extra power dice, plus Chaos psychic focus give you a power from Tzeentch automatically when you use it now


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