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Tabletop Hacks – Using the New Space Marine Psychic Powers

Librarian-tiggy

Checkout the tricks you can do with your Space Marines and the new Psychic Powers from Angels of Death.

INTRODUCTION
I finally had a chance to review the new psychic powers in the recently released Angels of Death supplement. I’ve also read or watched some batreps featuring these new powers. There’s been a lot of talk about these new psychic powers and how they are very over powered. Just like any other psychic lore there are some good ones but there some duds too. My favorite go to lores are still Divination, Santic and Telepathy.

BEST NEW PSYCHIC POWERS
There is one really good psychic power from the new Fulmination lore called Veil of Time which is a blessing and allows the target unit to re roll failed saves… Obviously this is really a great thing for Death Stars. The other new power (Shifting Worldscape) that really stands out is from the Geokinesis lore which allows you to move a piece of terrain up to 24″… Again really good for Death Stars since you can use the terrain as an open topped transport to launch assaults… Should work very well with the new Wulfen too.

The other new powers didn’t really grab me as much to be honest but there are some other good ones too I will mention below. Even with a Libarius Conclave you’re fishing for these two super powers above with no guarantee you’ll get them. There is another new psychic power called Null Zone I should mention that’s a malediction and subtracts 2 from the invulnerable save for the targeted enemy unit… I don’t rank it as high as the other two since it’s quite situational only being of value versus certain armies. There’s also another good one called Phase that allows a shooting attack to ignore both cover and doesn’t need line of sight either. Finally there’s another new power Electrodisplacement from the Fulminations lore that lets you swap the position of two friendly units, one unit being the one with the casting psyker… This is a great way to get a soft unit out of combat and insert your Death Star into the melee in their place which is definitely a viable deterrent.

Seeing that the good psychic powers are spread over three lores (Techmomancy is not all that much to be honest) it’s like I said above – you’re fishing for them and probably won’t get all the ones you really want. So I think due to the randomness alone you’re at a potential risk rolling on these new lores.

APPLICATIONS
This article also demonstrates how to optimally use some of these new psychic powers for your Death Stars. My advice is don’t rely upon them to buff sub optimal units such as terminators as they are still sub tier even with the new super buffs.

Libarius Conclave is your go to formation since you’ll be able to roll for the most psychic powers and very reliably cast them too. The good news is Super Friends are even better now. I know there is still some hate out there but seriously with Tau and the very OP eldar it’s not a big deal at all. 40k has never been more broke and that’s the name of the game… Always has been.

BUFFING WULFEN
The new Wulfen can greatly benefit from these new psychic powers since you can cast them on friendly units. Put them in a big piece of gnarly terrain then launch it 24″ right up into your opponent’s grill… And yes they can assault out from the terrain the same turn – of course that’s the best part. This is absolute proof GW is really bringing back the assault phase in a big way. If you can combo this with Endurance and Invisibility it’s even better.

Remember how at first when the new Centurions were released nobody really knew how to fully utilize them then Khaldor Draigo came along… Same thing here with Wulfen – they just got a lot better now. It’s never been easier to make a unit more unkillable while simultaneously juicing up its killability.

BUFFING SUPER FRIENDS
I’m very excited to test the new psychic powers on my Super Friends army for the extra über buffage. The army already is fast enough as is and the ability to re roll all saves for your Death Star will take them right over the very top. I see this as being a major problem for Tau – they have been relegated to sitting duck status… Heh ! Remember you can move line of sight blocking terrain to shut the shooty xenos down too. It’s like I said above – completely unkillable with even more killability. The correct combination of old school Biomancy and Telepathy lores with the new ones will yield the best overall results. Ravenwing will greatly benefit too since you can give them re rollable invulnerable saves.

You’ll want to start with your conclave first roll on either Endurance or Telepathy… I personally prefer Telepathy since I don’t run a lot of multi wound models in my units. I would next roll on Santic for Hammerhand and Sanctuary. Your last lore is from the new ones… I’d go for the re roll saves since my army is way fast. Basically you’ll have to figure out yourself what’s the best combination for your own army.

THE REACTION
So Space Marines finally have their own psychic powers… I have discussed these new psychic powers including an introduction and provided some tips on how to best use them. Some people are really upset about them but after having finally read them my conclusion is the really good ones are spread across the four new lores – Librarius, Fulmination, Technomancy and Geokinesis so even with three Librarians in a conclave you might at best only roll up one of the really good ones, some of which as I’ve said are very situational. I would never take more than three Librarians in a conclave because after this amount you begin to lose efficiency in regards to your army and start wasting points. The main purpose of the conclave is to enhance other units in your army, not to be your army’s lynchpin unit.

The best new psychic powers let you move a piece of terrain up to 24″, switch positions between two squads (including a squad locked in close combat), shoot while ignoring line of sight, and re roll saves. These psychic powers will definitely shake up the current meta bringing back the assault phase back which is a problem for Tau and eldar players whom like to play the shoot and hide game – and that’s a good thing in my opinion if these new psychic powers are given a chance and not immediately nerfed automatically by tournament organizers. My gauge on the overall reaction across the Internet is close to mine… No the sky is not falling.

Eldar have their own psychic lore which includes Fortune that lets them re roll saves – nothing new there and it’s been a staple for jetseer council for a long long time. Tau have units which can shoot at a high rate of fire power while ignoring cover and line of sight without having to use any psychic powers so nothing new there either. Maybe they don’t like it when another army has access to the same abilities but this kind of thing happens all the time. If they don’t have any qualms using these abilities why should anyone else ? Think about it.

Chaos Space Marines used to have Lash of Submission which was similar to the new Geokinesis psychic power that lets you move terrain. Sure it was very popular but there was never a movement to ban it’s use – back then players learned how to deal with it. So while I’m not going to deny some of the new psychic powers are really good I just don’t see them as game breaking like some say and I’ll even go so far as to say it could actually be a good thing since it’ll help deal with those annoying units like Warp Spiders and Windrider jetbikes.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion my opinion is Telepathy and Santic Daemonology are still your go to psychic powers for Death Stars closely followed by Biomancy and Divination. I will add Geokinesis to the list now but like I said above its all random and some of the new psychic powers are very situational such as Null Zone which is a malediction that debuffs the targeted enemy unit’s invulnerable saves. You can bet that opposing players with their own Death Stars will save their warp charge to dispel this one too which is not all that hard to do with a conclave and Admantium Will.

The new psychic powers will help some armies more than others. Eldar have had their own psychic powers for a long long time – it’s not a big deal. Units that were already good will get even better now.

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About the Author: Steve Turner