"40k 8th Edition: April 28 community updates - Psychic Phase" Topic

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The Psychic phase for the new Warhammer 40,000 has changed a fair bit.

Previously, each of your psykers would generate warp charge for your pool. This worked pretty well in most games, but in very psyker-heavy armies, it often meant that some psykers sat around not doing a whole bunch, while one or two mega-psykers (we're looking at you, Magnus – you big warp charge hog) had all the fun.

In the new system, the Psychic phase has been re-worked from the ground up.

Each time you pick a psyker, you can cast as many spells as their datasheet states (which would previously be the same as their Mastery Level) and there's a simpler, two-dice mechanic for casting, you just need to beat the warp charge value. The more potent the power, the harder it will be to cast.

Enemy psykers will then have a chance to block these powers if they are within 24″, and again, the mastery of the psyker will dictate how often they can block a power each turn.

The new system is much more scalable – meaning that the phase works well at any size of game, with any number of psykers running around.

Perils of the Warp is still there of course. It wouldn't be Warhammer 40,000 without the chance of accidentally having your mind eaten by a Daemon and your soul sucked into the psychic oblivion of the Warp while your body exploded in a multifaceted explosion of etheric ichor…

Every faction will have its own psychic lore with a range of thematic powers. In addition, every psyker knows the Smite power:

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Mortal Wounds are a new mechanic too – these cannot be saved by any means and punch straight through thick armour and even invulnerable saves! Ouch.

That's the basics on the psychic phase.

We'll be back tomorrow with news on one of the updated war zones from the new Warhammer 40,000, and on Sunday, we'll be looking at the Shooting phase.

Interesting. And the concept of "scalability" is always a plus to me.

But I really wish they had ditched the term "invulnerable save". It sounds like something a third-grader would declare himself having on the playground.

I guess "unmodified" doesn't have the same "cool" factor as "invulnerable" :)

The Psychic Phase looks to be a modified Magic system from Age of Sigmar, which I really like.

Smite being a default power is great. That's a good balancing mechanic so that the weakest psykers can still affect the battle without being totally nullified.

and confirmed that Mortal Wounds are in!

Thanks, Doug, really appreciate you posting these to TMP each day!

The new Psychic Phase sounds a lot like Age of Sigmar's magic phase? Not hat this is a bad thing, I've enjoyed the AoS magic phase being fairly straightforward, and psychic powers are just 40K's magic. Everything about the new edition sounds fun!

I do wonder if they will keep something akin to Deny the Witch; I always liked it for non-psychic forces like the Black Templars.

Perhaps they could have gone with Immutable Save? Or Pucker Save? ;)

I am just happy because in previous 40k editions, psykers were like "batteries" that your one big psyker used to cast his big mega-spells.

The fact that even a lowly Imperial Psyker can now affect the battle and be useful is great.

(and no problem, my pleasure!)

Frankly I don't want psyker's in my sci-fi games. They are just wizards. I want sci-fi in my sci-fi games. Even if it's over the top ridiculous sci-fi. Oh well.

??? You can't have 40k without Chaos, the Warp and Psychic stuff.

Psychic powers are an established sci-fi trope. Foundation trilogy, Dune, Traveller, Dredd. All early influences on Warhammer 40,000 by the way.

Also, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Xintao, 40k is unabashedly science-fantasy, and psykers are a huge part of the entire plot!

Psykers have "The Force" and are part and parcel of the warp-spawned 30K/40K universe. In fact they give Chaos (except Khorne) and Eldar their unique identities.

Yes, complaining about psychers in 40K is akin to complaining you have to use miniatures in a miniatures wargame! 8)=

I guess "unmodified" doesn't have the same "cool" factor as "invulnerable" :)

"Invulnerable" is invulnerable. I would take "nigh-invulnerable", if you agree to paint all your terminators blue.

Well as long as they do not move back to what the WFB Magic phase was, I.E. rolling 4-6 dice just to see if you can roll two "6's".

Staying at just 2 x D6 is okay but 2 x D10 would be better, though the casting value would have to change.

So that 5 value for Smite would need to be around a 9 with 2 x D10's.

So tomorrow's update is not that interesting but Sunday's one about Shooting might be good.

Yeah they obviously aren't going back to polyhedrals, it's been d6's since 1998 :P

Other than using D4's D6's are the worst set of dice to use due to the limited amount of results.

Which is why Infinity uses D20's over three times the results as a D6.

Oh and it has been D6 long before 1998. I started playing in 1989 and D6's were the only dice that we used.

They had a chance to really change up the game by moving away from D6's but alas they did not.

If you gentlemen recall, polyhedrals were used in 40K 2nd edition for vehicle armor penetration.

We try to forget the vehicle targeting from back the then.

We use the put those guides in many different angles just trying to hit the location on the vehicle.

Vehicles back then we're very likely to survive the battle.

Though they would usually be shot to pieces.

The changes cover a lot of what I wanted. I'm not clear on whether the random psychic powers are gone, but I sure hope so. It made a lot of disciplines pointless and messed up balance--you never knew how powerful a psyker would actually be[\b]. Point-based powers would be best, but I suspect that we'll see fixed powers instead.

I was[\b] hoping for more hot psyker-on-psyker action, where you wanted to get your psyker in LOS of each other and have them mind blast each other! Alas, seems as though it's not to be, although the new "deny the witch" is a step in the right direction.