Personally I'm of the opinion that 30k and AoS do the balancing act of magic powers a lot better. Just give people some options on powers then have them be used in the phases they're most relevant in. Even if it's not the most creative solution it's certainly better than what 10th is doing
Psykers definitely should have their own mechanics, distinct from just Shooting, Moving, Assault, etc to make psychic powers feel distinct from other weapons and wargear, but having another phase of the game just adds additional layers of process which don't deepen the simulation. In MESBG, magic-users typically have access to several different spells and can pick and choose on which of them they spend their Will points and when. There's no "buying" spells, which only leads to min-maxing for efficiency, and the more situational powers never being played. I think GW should be designing Psychic Disciplines as a complete toolkit, which presents players with interesting choices, rather than having to figure outs one or two powers that are the best in the widest possible set of situations, which will always be direct-damage and self-buffs.
If you stripped out manifestations or changed them up quite a lot for AoS then I'd agree 100%. Nothing wrong with the magic system for AoS imo, but the manifestations feel like a big part of it (since its basically just additional spellcasting) but they really make the magic feel like garbage. I hate filling the board with non-thematic models just because I'm at an objective disadvantage if I don't do it.
To my knowledge there's no advantage to having it the anti psyker stuff would feel less bad if the psyker stuff gave you some reason to use it over something elts in the first place
Agreeing with another comment. This edition they decided to make Heroes simpler, and so everyone got this small little "My unit gets this bonus" ability. And Psykers basically just became another Lieutenant in an endless row of identical Lieutenants. Removing the Psychic phase basically removed any feeling of psychic abilities. Because what bonus does the Psykers get that is meaningfully different from other Hero units? Looking at the whole of my Grey Knights index I can say this: They play no differently from my Black Templars. They are literally the same army only that one teleports around, and the other charges into the enemy.
My issue with psykers is they replaced the phase with special abilities, which honestly I like. BUT they then gave EVERYONE a special ability, removing what makes them special
The Broodlord is a Psyker, and man do they not feel like Psykers at all. Hypnotic Gaze is cool and all but there's nothing that feels like you're using a power. Plus Paroxysm only on Flyrants and Onslaught only on Walkrants, feels bad.
@@calthepal312 yeah depends on the unit, most eldar powers have a roll, I think some marines too. I don't play other armies so not sure. But my biggest problem is lack of choice.. I preferred spell lists. I don't miss smite spam in 9th but I miss the rest
Is it just me, or does the CSM Dark Pacts feel more like a psycher attack than an actual psycher now? Even basic Legionaries can roll for bonus damage at a risk of losing units, which often feels a better than a dedicated psycher units…where a sorcerer lord in terminator armor - a dedicated psycher - gets its psychic damage potential outsourced to allies via marking targets. Feel like there is a monumental identity issue for Psychers in 10th, especially considering non-psychers often can match if not outperform them with similar mechanics.
As a grey knights player it sucks cause they stripped the psychic phase and didn’t give anything to replace it so we lost identity and psi weapons basically being the same there is no difference between a force sword and a glaive
Dont forget we lost anti daemon as well... Grey Knights are so shite in 10th if you remove the psyker keyword from their data sheets they just get BETTER since there is more anti psyker and feel no pain against psychic powers than any benefit you get for being a psyker...
My two main collections are necrons and admech so it didn’t affect me at all but I can imagine how awful it must be for someone who plays a psychic army
Having "Psychic" keyword atm is absolutely a negative. It means almost nothing except providing buffs against them. I'm not sure it needs it's own phase, but it could be split between Command phase and other phases. The way I see it being used is like another version of "CP". Every model has a "Psychic Gain" stat line and that adds to your total ability reserve for that turn. Each unit has a "Psychic ability" set and in Command you can choose which one is in effect that battle round. You can use the ability once per turn but you can have more than one of each ability. Each ability uses a specific amount of ability reserve.
The pskyer tag is nothing but a weakness. I mean it doesn't do anything to counter other space mages. My Tyranids don't feel like they are even psychic anymore either.
I started Tyranids cause I thought the swarmlord was the coolest. A melee monster that casted spells sounded awesome. Now I have an ok melee monster with a heavy flamethrower with a heavy bolter range. Cool
Yeah Swarmy doesn't really feel like a close combat blender anymore. Reminds me of that spin on the Beatles joke, "Is the Swarmlord the greatest melee unit in the universe? The Swarmlord isn't even the greatest melee unit in the Tyranids"
@@bonitabromeliads Good luck finding games. "Just play X edition" doesn't work if you don't have a dedicated group that wants to play said older edition. The overwhelming majority don't and won't.
@@TheAtomicSpoonyeah I know the Problem I have the luck to have a friend who plays with joy every edition with me we wanted from 1th-10th but that’s one out of a near 200head strong Community For games in 8th-9th you have about 5-6 six people (and there I count the next City Community too
Psychic phase always felt lopsided. I don't think it needs its own phase, but something to set it apart from basic shooting. Higher risk/reward with Perils, more support options, etc.
I don't miss the Psychic Phase; it was an extra stage of "gotcha" that slowed matches down. But 10th's handling of psychic characters is abysmal. Part of the issue is the lack of auras, and the other part is the lack of Wargear. In past editions, before the Psychic Phase, you could outfit your army with different psychic powers, weapons and benefits. These could be damaging attacks, powers akin to weapons, or abilities that buffed and debuffed units. But now the data sheet is limited. Units are restrained. And it all makes for a horribly restricted unit type in an extraordinarily limited and bland game.
Having 6 powers in at least one "lore" for each army is probably the best way to make sure you don'y just get screwed by a random lemon power and have a few generic powers in the core rules and "heavily psychic" armies can have 2 or 3 tables limited by unit or datasheet perhaps i.e. Farseers and warlocks and the harlequin psykers do different things. Plenty of choice no need to make any horribly complex but variety is the spice of life.
Yeah I miss being able to choose powers for psykers, and being able to choose litanies for chaplains. Added a nice little layer of flavor to the list-building process.
I don’t miss the psychic phase at all but Psykers need to feel reality warping in their abilities. Weirdboy handing out Da’Jump works great. Librarians giving you a FNP feels like it could be the ability of any random leader.
It doesn't need its own phase, it's just a pacing suck. The powers do need cool effects and a roll system with the 2d6 thing, perils ect. The counter system could maybe be like if you counter a spell, you can't cast on your next turn. Tau and Templars could have some kind of devices that can counter, but they cant cast.
@@keyanklupacs6333 Fair. It would be harder to remember, but maybe easier to follow.
13 часов назад+4
Can they just fire the 40k team and have the AoS team handle everything, like I genuinely mean this too. This, amongst borderline every issue in 40k, has literally been solved in AoS and the pacing/flow of the game in current ed is absolutely incredible bc of it
@keyanklupacs6333 It wouldn't be easier. Just flow a lot better. Having to sit there for 5-15 mins waiting for your opponent to roll EVERY psychic thing with no interuptions just killed the pacing, especially when you were playing one of the 6 factions with no psykers to counteract. If you break it up, at least after casting smite, your opponent might also shoot you so you can at least roll some dice before they move on to the next psycher.
Psyker mechanics in 9th were fun, but psychic phase isnt needed as long as the powers specify what phases they can be used in, or the models specify what phases they could cast in.
I really miss the psychic phase. I think psyker tag is mostly detrimental, units have fnp against it or special weapons. It would make sense if psykers were that much stronger than normal units, but on average is not the case. What I miss the most is variety, there was a lot of use from librarians, farseers, warlocks etc. Now it feels bit dull to me. I loved choosing powers and synergies.. back in 8th/9th That being said smite spam was really bad in 9th glad that it's gone XD
I'd love to see 11th take inspiration from the Old World magic system. You have a pool of 10 to 15 generic spells any faction can take, each spell can only be used in one phase, so Smite in the Shooting Phase, and then a handful of factions get 4 unique spells only them can use, on top of that you also have a few datasheets with a unique spell. A character can only cast one spell per phase, and you cannot cast if battle shocked. The Psyker keyword would have a number next to it, from 1 to 3, determining how many spell you can equip (including any spells bond to the datasheet). The number would also be used for denies, any Psyker within X inches of another can attempt a deny, if so both players roll a dice and add the number next to the Psyker keyword to the roll, whoever has the highest roll wins, the looser then passes an hazardous test, if the caster looses the spell doesn't go of. Hazardous is fine to represent peril of the warp, and most spells would be hazardous. On top of that you could potentially overcast spells to make their effect stronger but the hazardous test would be harder to pass. At last they should be flavorful mechanics for each faction like Eldar having a better time passing hazardous tests, chaos being able to sacrifice nearby cultists to auto-pass hazardous tests, some units slightly breaking the rules, like Kairos Fateweaver being Psyker 4 or the Lord of Change being able to cast multiple spells per phase, so on and so forth.
The "pysker problem" is the exact same than the "vehicle problem", when you wipe out a part of the game to turn it into generic stuff, OBVIOUSLY you totally destroy the whole point of that thing. When vehicle became just "big infantry model with lots of HP and toughness" it totally destroyed the whole rock paper scissor aspect of the game where vehicles demanded you to bring anti vehicle weapons, weapons that were specifically made for that. After removing the psychic phase, psykers are now just "guys with heavy laser in the brain" and... that's it, since now every character in the game also give aura effect when leading units.
I think this is a fantastic point. People talk about streamlining the game, but at what point are we just playing chess with extra steps. The complex rules make these games tabletop wargames instead of just boardgames.
@@MistaGuido-nk3iz Yup. What makes a wargame is a certain degree of realism capable of roughly simulate real battle. Things like templates that reproduce the effect of explosion had a direct impact on how you would position your troops (ie avoid grouping them together tightly). The more you shave off elements that contribute to the simulation, the more your wargame devolve into a gamey boargame where the strategy becomes more generic and detached from the actual battlefield. 10th is the peak of that, its not a wargame, it just an overgrown boardgame and dice roll simulator.
@@Pers0n97 Yeah, 10th edition feels more gamey because it is very barebone with regards to mechanics and variety and thus appears quite sterile. I strongly disagree with realism though, especially in terms of templates (at least the way they were used). Scatter mechanic is completely unrealistic over short distances, finding one spot where the unit is slightly packed and then drop all the templates there killing the other spread out parts of the unit as well is weird. barrage character sniping is the worst offender and of course the good old lash/plasma combo is extremely gamey and has nothing to do with a wargame either. I also don't miss the clunky vehicle mechanics especially when the distinction between monstrous creature and vehicle are unclear and sometimes arbitrary. If we want to make 40k into a wargame (which it isn't), we need to work on turn structure and scenarios, the game should be longer than just a few turns, we need to define the scale properly (tactical level, operational level etc.) and remove all the elements that don't fit. Then we can start talking about detail mechanics (and the first thing, I would do is introduce range modifiers...). Back in the day, 40k was just more gimmicky, more flavourful in that sense but also more bloated and extreme. It never was more realistic. Maybe the intention was more realistic, but the results weren't. Characters are much more reasonable now than before in terms of individual killing power. They still provide support value which should be their job. I agree though, now we are at a stage where it is too bland (and maybe they should take a step back in terms of lethality so that we don't see the weird gamey tables and can return to real terrain...
I absolutely don't miss the psychic phase and I also don't miss the mortal wound spam. What I would do is in the current situation: 1. Extract all psychic powers/abilities and give their respective unit a standard ability like all other units. On top, the unit gets one of them as psychic ability with the keyword psychic (mighty characters get 2 or maybe even 3) of your choice (of course the options need to be reasonable). (For example, All farseers psychic abilities get extracted from the model. They keep their fate dice mechanic as basic ability. And then they can choose between 2 (Eldrad gets 3) of eldritch storm, mind war, guide, doom and fortune) 2. Introduce a mechanic that psychic abilities need to be cast (with a keyword in which pase it is cast attached to it). They work on 2+ and on 6+ with some sort of enhancement and a hazardous roll afterwards. (same example, eldritch storm gets dev wounds and hazardous when cast on a 6, doom gets reroll 1s to wound in addition when cast on a 6 etc and also requires a hazardous roll) 3. Introduce a denial mechanic with specific ranges and and values and amounts of uses. Lesser psykers can have like one 12" deny on 6+ while powerful üsykers could have three 24" denys on 4+. This could be incorporated into unit abilities (anti psyker units) or stratagems (factions with no access to psykers). This would be great for me. You can also introduce points to the choice of the abilities to improve balance if some are stronger than others.
@keyanklupacs6333 less spells to choose from so less rules bloat, have to roll for it so brings that back, and putting it in the appropriate phase means things are done at the time that type of action needs to be done which simplifies things.
@@HadrosaurHero Isn't the AoS system that specific casters have specific powers, they don't get to choose from a list? 'Cause that's the old 40k system, the one where you have a list of six powers to choose from and the power level of casters range between 1 and 4, that's the old Fantasy system.
@@HadrosaurHerowierd I didnt day anything about the number of powers? 🤔 Isnt it easier to get swept up in doing the actual mechanics of that phase and forget a power instead of casting 4 powers at once in one phase? It's just a 3 step process. Roll 2d6 is it over the number? If yes opponent attempts to counter via deny the witch or an army power or their own psyker. If your opponent fails to interrupt you resolve the effect. Thats why it was changed from that system in 3rd - 5th ed. It was very easy to forget to trigger a power in the assault phase or movement phase and so they borrowed the magic phase from WFB.
Their downfall was when GW got rid of the Psychic phase and alot of units benefit from Psychic power and the phase. Thousands sons love thier Psychic phase, nids are Psychic power etc. Psychic phase needs to come back
Check out how psychic done in the old world or fantasy battles. Its very diverse and interesting, much more than it is now or even in 8th/9th ed. of 40k.
I don't think we 100% need a psychic phase to use it properly, no reason the psyker stuff couldn't be folded into other phases, TSons still essentially have a Psychic Phase. I think the real problem is for all the other psykers, who mostly just have a special ability (like every other unit in the game), and a psychic gun. Could have powers that get activated in the Command, Movement, Shoot (which we mostly do have), Charge, or Fight phases. It's the losing out on psychic powers that do things like manipulate movement or buff a unit in some way that we've really lost out on the most.
@@Lowlandlordthats how they done in the old world. Differents spells activates in different phases, powerfull mages have buffs to the spell casting or denying. Many magic related artifacts, different miscast resolutions and damaging spells are not just mortal wounds
I would be ok if we did away with the psychic phase and it never returned if instead we get extra abilities on psyker models or psyker focused detachments that unlock abilities for psyker models, not army wide abilities based on an arbitrary number of models like cabal points but abilities the models can vast while they are in the dedicated psyker detachment. I play Tyranids as my main army, half the range is a psyker or synapse creature I would benefit immensely if we got cool stuff for a psychic phase but I would rather not have that power if it makes the games a lot longer or skewed against armies with limited psyker units.
Sorry to those of you who didn't choose a cool ass faction with seers and wizards. I did. If you guys get to have crazy shooting abilities that do tons of damage then I deserve to have a moderate amount of fun with cool magic abilities that require me to roll dice in a slightly special way. Literally every issue with factions being OP in the past had almost nothing to do with psychic and had all to do with spamming one type of unit with ridiculous abilities. There was no need to take away the psychic phase UNLESS you were going to integrate it into every other phase like Horus Heresy and Old World. Do not be upset that I cast a spell. I came to the game to throw magic around. I still lose most of my games in my LGS. Just let me have my fun. Sincerely a fan of the Craftworld Eldar, the OG 'wizard' faction of Warhammer.
Also yes I do want my warlocks to explode again. I loved when my warlocks randomly exploded killing 5 of my own aspect warriors. Its fun. There shouldn't be any certainty in the magic of Warhammer. Its meant to be dangerous. Its literally the foundation of the setting's magic system.
@@gamingborger yes I totally agree... 9th was a storm of smite and I'm a grey knight player and I didn't agree with that crap and tenth has gone so far the other way it feels like part of the lore has been ripped out to make it easier to play! I play because of the lore!!
Frankly, I think it's broadly fine. I don't remember Deny The Witch very fondly, especially not when SoB Shield of Faith gave you Deny on 1D6 which could barely deny any powers in the game since most had casting values of over 6. Having models running about with extremely powerful abilities that might dominate the game completely, or might do nothing at all if the opponent had brought something to shut them down was a balance nightmare. What would be good would be allowing Psykers to pick different abilities, which is no different to giving other Characters the more flexible wargear options that people have wanted since 10th dropped. We already have Psykers who protect their units from other Psykers (Librarians giving out FNP against Psychic attacks) and ones that are more resistant to Perils (any Psyker with FNP, eg Mephiston). We have, for almost the first time, Psykers who can choose whether or not to risk killing themselves by going for the Hazardous version of a power. And if we do want extra powers, the Enhancement system is already right there. A page of Enhancements for Psykers only which are all new powers, boom, done. Complexity just for that sake of it won't improve the game, it'll just make it take longer.
The psychic phase had its ups and downs, but sometimes it could be stupidly fun in the most horrible ways: I remember a doubles game where everything was going quite well, right up until my kill rig decided it was time to perils while it had only a couple wounds left. It exploded, taking massive chunks out of two of my other units, killed my teammate's warlord, and left the Tau that were about to be charged... completely unscathed and very, very relieved! XD Bring back impactful psychic abilities and fun moments where they can go chaotically wrong!
My first experience with psychic powers was getting my blood angels terminator army tabled turn 1 by a Tzeentch army in a 2v1 match during 7th ed. I’m glad they want to sort of reign in things but the system in 8th worked fine enough to not completely throw it out. It is worth pointing out though that a lot of players just don’t see it as worth including in their armies even when it would strictly benefit them. I had a roommate who would complain all the time about my custodes army but refused to put a single librarian in his space marine army, among other things that would easily counter my guys.
@@SizzleCorndog I mean people have tastes and I get it. Some people aren't here for the magic part of the fantasy. Me personally? I love the wizard shit. I put em in every army I can. Sometimes I try to put em in armies I can't.
@ I mean this was someone who would know exactly what list I’d be bringing a head of time bc only so many models existed for custodes and kept bringing the same 3 squads with hellblasters and aura stack them, only to turn around and complain that I’d delete him in melee even though he didn’t bring anything to screen with. Like I play blood angels and would occasionally bring a psycher but this is someone who when told that psychic is a great way to counter custodes, just refused to do it effectively bc magic is cowardly and lame
@@SizzleCorndog Bro should be playin Khorne and there should be more psyker counter measures for armies without em. Hell add blanks to the game that'd be kinda interesting.
If my weapon has the massively huge psychic debuff keyword, it should be stronger than a none psychic option. Why does a greater daemon of the Lord of magic have a d3 damage gun. It’s just shit
I'd like a optional module with neutral psykic manifestation minis, that are randomly picked at the start of the battle and can be manipulated by your psykers. Kinda like the Malign Sorcery for AoS. I would also add some psyker units to all armies - Tau could have some allied Zoats or other alien race, Imperial Agents could cover any gaps in the imperium.
Hey Auspex I noticed you mixed a few things up for 6th and 7th edition, in 6th edition, just like in 7th you had a base tier of mastery level on every psyker and could buy extra depending on the datasheet, based on this tier you would roll randomly on any of the core disciplines or your faction exclusive one as highlighted on the datasheet, where for example space marine librarians did not have access to the malefic daemonology discipline, but did have access to the pyromancy, biomancy, etc. disciplines, the only difference between these two editions was the change to the warp charges system as you described for 7th where 6th continued to use the leadership system. I hope this helps clarify the situation as 7th was not the massive shakeup on all these fronts as you described. If you want I think I can look for my copy of the 6th edition rulebook somewhere if you want proof. For the rest love your videos, this just threw me off as a massive psyker fanatic that started in 6th.
I loved the old psychic powers of previous editions - being able to pick the powers and having it feel meaningful and flavourful. While I appreciate it might have had some balancing issues it seems that it's basically had the same solution to difficult to balance unit types in 10th edition - effectively getting rid of it.
I think you could move the psychic powers and deny the witch to be stratagems that don't cost command points and a deny the witch stratagem that can be used less frequently. This allows for more generic powers and faction specific powers. That way, you can have pronounced psychic powers that tell you when they could be used.
I would love to seee them bring back the disaplin system. with each psyker chosing a power from the list of disaplins they have acess to, with no duplication. psyick powers could easly be just the 'powers' that we have now but alowing us to custoimise the psykers for there role.
The psyker rules in second edition (Dark Millennium) was most fun. Randomizing spells and draw secret cards, with power, each turn. It was exciting! But I like the opposite too, the 10th edition, with no option and tags. Meaning you need special save against it.
The biggest problem is that the keyword [psychic] is only a detriment, triggering FNP, or giving you the pair Psyker keyword which allows some units to get an improved wound against you. I think the best fix is that damage from a weapon with the Psychic keyword carries over just like Mortal Wounds. Each time PSYCHIC wounds are inflicted on a unit, each of those PSYCHIC wounds inflicts one point of damage to that unit, and they are applied one at a time. Each PSYCHIC wound is allocated to a model in the same manner as allocating an attack. Excess damage from Psychic wounds is not lost if the damage can be allocated to another model. Instead keep allocating damage to another model in the target unit until either all the damage has been allocated or the target unit is destroyed.
Maybe give the psychic keyword a use by having the model do a battleshock test, if they fail they’re battleshocked and take a mortal or three, if they don’t you get the hazardous profile instead of the normal one. That way Denise can come back and it gives psychic a use. Then you put at least 2 psychic guns you have to choose between on a data sheet to equip to the model before the battle. Maybe say a defensive and offensive power if you want to commit to everyone getting two, then you can say a psyker is on offensive power if you want DPS, or defensive if you want support and a worse gun. Or maybe apply these buffs in the shooting phase?
It would be hilarious if when a psycher rolls a 1 on their spell, instead of taking D3 mortals they roll another D6 to see what happens. Outcomes could include missing their next turn or spawning a greater demon that proceeds to attack them, then if he kills the psycher heads after the next closest unit on either army. Typhus's mortal wound spray feels like a psychic attack, it seems a bit silly that the 1k sons have half their attacks as shooting and are subject to stealth and cover like a normal shooting attack.
I think the Farseers are the perfect example of what went wrong. Why does having a bike or not determine what spells this ancient eldar can cast? Why is the one on jetbike casting the spell that overlaps with the jetbikes?
I feel that the way that Old World does magic should be a big influence in how psychic could work in 40k. Just getting to choose your powers, not rolling randomly, because that can be quite a feels bad moment - and is less admin work. There are certain spell types, i.e. Assailment, Magic Missile, Hex or Enchantment, and the type of spell determines when you use it. If its a Conveyance spell, then its during movement, a magic missile is during shooting and an assailment spell is a melee attack during combat. So no need for a big 'stop the game psychic phase' but it gives something more fluid and varied and provides options - something they seem determined to remove from 40k at the moment.
I think the answer is psychic powers similar to primarch main ability's, list of 3, choose one at start of battle, give effects, not just cast gun and have it on top of the special ability of the unit
Take a look at channel minisodes. They do second edition battle reports demonstrating how simple and fun the psychic phase could work. Very easy to implement this in the current form. Easy.
Grey Knights - Great! All our weapons have the psychic keyword....umm... what does it do? Daemons: - Cool, it gives my flesh-hounds a feel no pain... Thousand Sons - well, we can make your psychic weapons hazardous, and we get to choose to make ours sustained/lethal/devastating with some cabal points... can't you? Grey Knights: .........
I personally dont like the separate "Physic Phase" but I would re-introduce the choice of spells via 'Wargear choices' reframed as 'Ability choices' (points per ability like enhancements). The denial interaction also seemed fun to get back again, rolling 2D6 and battle it out type way, having some mini battles between models while not being focused in one main phase but just during the Shooting Phase or Commanding Phase etc.
At the very least they need to give something to things with the Psyker tag so that it isn't just a weakness for armies outside of Ksons. I know Grey knights do have Radiant Strike that makes psychic weapons do dev during the fight phase, but at 2 cp, that's pretty nasty. Really hoping that with the Christmas detachments GK get something that's more around their psychic instead of just being the mobility army in power armor that the teleport strike force is named towards
As someone who used to run 5+ psykers in 9th I can see why they made the change in 10th. Most psykers could have a psychic phase, a shooting phase, and in some cases melee too. They could do a ton of damage on their turn and their points didnt really reflect that.
My suggestion: make psykerbound enhancements for every detachement. Everbody wins: people can make their psykers nasty and powerful, you can balance every "ability" for itself via points cost, no new phase, GW can sell a new, expensive book.
allow psykers, and only psykers, to access spell libraries, as their special ability, giving them flexibility. let them keep psychic weapons. you could make Psychic weapons have a special rule, like -1 to invuln saves made against them, or +1 to DEAMON units, or something.
I think they should return to psychic in 9th. give it a phase again, but give every army a unit for psychic defense. Such as Necron Pariahs, or give the Tau a psyker corp to utilize as deny units. Because the GW article REALLY wanted to emphasize how one sided fighting a psyker army was, when they could've just as easily introduced a couple extra models for anti psyker actions. In a parallel to us having anti tank units for dealing with tanks.
Yeah all they get is an extra shooting attack and a aura buff/debuff that feels like any other in any other unit. They are so lame in this edition. I feel that most people that don't mind are new players that haven't experienced anything else. In the last year or two now that 40K has become mainstream, there has been an insane influx of new players.
@@keyanklupacs6333 erm, no? In the shooting phase a model can fire all its ranged weapons, regardless of whether some of them are psychic attacks. My Farseer happily fires both their Singing Spear and their Eldrich Storm at the same time. Only for melee weapons you have to pick a single one (unless the others have the Extra Attacks trait).
The psychic phase was unnecessary, just go back to how psykers used to be in the old additions. Pick a power and use it in the phase it actually interacts with. Also, bring back the old Ork weirdboy from 4th edition, that was so much fun!
I would give psykers the AoS model of casting chance. There is several psychic abilities they have a psychic modifier and then roll against the spell challenge if fail takes mortal. Each main faction gets a lore and one person detachment
As far as force weapons, I cant decide whether my preferred way of handling it would be devastating wounds on all force weapons, or hazardous for +1 damage on all of them
I hope they do something down the line where every detachment can get a unique psyker stratagem that can be played for that detachment only, by any psyker in your army. Could bring some depth to the game, keep it fairly balanced and without requiring a re-work of all datasheets and so on. Just an expansion for the game, kept in check by the CP system so that it becomes overall more of an iptional side-grade.
Giving psykers alternate psychic powers as wargear choices would be fine with me. Don't need a psychic phase really, and Tsons cabal points are half the reason they where nerfed so hard, so you wouldnt want to spread that around really. But a LITTLE more choice of powers, especially the flavorful choices (Tzeentch getting foresight and flames, Nurgle rot, Emperor aligned getting "holy" buffs and the like) would be good.
I think the denials are the thing I miss most (buying in specific powers is a very close second).The visual of two space wizards engaging in a mental duel, battling on a metaphysical level as well as a physical felt very 40k. Might be because I play Tyranids, though. They were really rather good at it. 😅 I can appreciate it not really feeling all that fun from the other side of the table. I definitely had games where my opponent just stopped trying to do anything psychic. Perhaps locking it to specific units and enhancements as opposed to every psyker would make it less of a "feels bad."
I wasn't part of the hobby for any of the table top before 10th, and since tyranids are my favorite faction. 10th was a great point to start with leviathan. So I have no idea how things used to work other than the bits of context I get when an opponent or friend I play with mentions something along the lines of "Oh, that does this now? back in x edition it did this" or "I miss when x unit did x". I don't mind the curreny system
I think 11th edition psychic should have a little of both from 9th and 10th. What I mean is that if you have a psyker that is a character, that unit should be able to customize their powers. If a psyker unit does not contain the character keyword, they have a psyker shooting profile and maybe a predetermined psyker ability to balance them out with other armies troops. For good measure, it should be a general psyker rule that if a non-character datasheet does gain the character keyword when lead by a character, they are prevented from customizing their psyker powers. It could be a new universal keyword such as “limited psyker” or something that signifies no psyker customizations. Relics were cool but I don’t know if we necessarily need them back as it contributed to rules bloat. That and some relics in certain armies were just league’s better than anything anyone else had. Overall, I’d say 11th should bring back customization for character psykers only and hold off on relics for the time being. My Weirdboy and Grimnyr would be happy to chose their powers again.
I saw someone else in a comment on one of Auspex's videos say that psychic weapons should have their AP modify Invul saves, and I keep thinking that'd be a really good way of making them feel distinct, have a niche and not make the psychic keyword a straight downgrade. It'd be really easy for them to just roll that out in a balance dataslate. Long term though I hope to see them do more with it in 11th. It doesn't need it's own phase, it doe sneed to feel more interesting and lore accurate.
I dont think it needs a whole phase of its own. But i would want psychic abilities to be more impactful and elaborate. At the moment most of them just feel like a shooting attack thats on par or worse than normal guns or a slight passive buff.
No psychic phase is good. I think allowing you to shoot and do your abilities is key. Add pistol and assault to psychic. Hazardous when “super charging” is good. Ignoring cover would be good too. And I don’t think it would be broken. Just very encouraging to grab psykers and consequently anti psyker
There are more Anti Psyker options and Psi Damage Denial options then good Psychic Options Mostly you take a Psyker not because it’s Weapons more because of it’s ability’s 4++invul for the whole unit with the Librarian -1to hit with the Chaos Sorcerer Sustained hits 1 with the Librarian in Terminator Armor on the Other hand is lame there is the Ancient better or a Captain Psychers should feel mighty You can reflect this might in the points cost but there should be a bonus that you feel not a Debuff that you feel because nearly everything has a 4fnp against Psychic attacks
@ it does seem there’s lots of anti. I think more abilities or keywords attached to “Psyker” and allowing greater flexability with attaching to squads, more like an apothecary would help a lot
I understand why the psychic phase was changed. The ridiculous pregame prep and the pages full of powers for psychic heavy armies was a little ridiculous. I think if every Psyker just had 1 or 2 predetermined powers, the psychic phase could come back.
The psychic phase didn't really work as a phase and I think it's removal was a good choice. They could have retained a test for Psychic abilities or something to make them feel different to regular datasheet abilities.
As a GSC player, psychic powers use to do pretty interesting stuff in 8th and 9th (mind control used to be hilarious), now it's, hmm... well nobody plays the Magus anymore
Why not make it just like the Aos Hero phase. You get the spells back. The rest of the leaders can use their abilities as well. That way even armies with little or no psykers have something to do.
As a player who has tried 40k on and off since 4th ed, I love the new system much more. Keep simplifying the game! A psychic phase and choosing powers is just all too convoluted and not going to pick up new players compared to other, better games out there (looking at you MCP)
I think how they have it is ok however I do with psychic units had some abilities like +1 to save on nearby unit or maybe having a separate pool of faction wide psychic units only enhancements and more unique abilities for each factions psychic units
I think the removal of the psychic phase is one of the best things in 10th. The only downside to me is the lack of customization. It’s too bad you can’t pay for psychic enhancements on Psyker units/models. Overall though most customization is gone. I liked “creating” a character in 9th. But I get why they did it too.
You know I actually LIKE 10th edition. However, I think the Psychic Phase being folded into shooting etc is a downgrade. I think the deny/cast mechanic was SUPER fun. Thousand Sons just seem SO much less flavorful in 10th.
Yeah totally agree with you Auspex. Cast/deny, choosing powers, instant death with psychic weapons, dev wounds on psychic shooting and return of the psychic phase are all changes I would welcome in 11th
I think what would be nice would be psykers could choose a spell from a codex(or from a supplement if you're playing divergent factions), just like you choose enhancements for your characters. Passive psychics could have better buffs compared to other passive abilities, but would need to roll D3 for activation, making it unstable but fun to use. Active psychics could work like stratagems, but would roll a D6 for pass/fail, 1 for a disasterous failure, 2-5 for intended effects and 6 for BOTH to happen. Three at max seems balanced to me, so psyker-heavy armies do have the upper hand but not by too much.
I think the issue of certain armies not having psykers is to give them some ability to deal with them. Some ideas I have are these: Necrons getting Blackstone wargear or enhancements to shut down Psychic stuff The Tau getting psychic Auxillaries, like a Kroot Psyker called a Mind Shaper or something The Drukhari getting special weapons or wargear to deal with psykers
I need my floating psychic space bears for t'au. I need the nicassar as an actual model I can use. please gw, I know kroot are cool but for an empire with many different alien species why is there only 3 represented with actual rules.
That would be a Great way to Sisters of Battle with Inquisitors or give it to the Priest Admech with Specialized Robots or Servitors out of psykers Psychic Knights exist Khorne give it to the Lords or something like that It can’t be that Hard to find a Solution for 7Armies from 33
I like the ability system, it just isn't comprehensive enough for psykers. Instead of one or two abilities I think psykers should be able to draw from a book of spells, functioning like free strategems. The utility and flavour of psyker units skyrockets. If the problem is balancing, that's what points are for, increase until they're fair.
I'd kinda prefer picking spells, but in my Grey Knights and GSC games, i just picked the same spells for the same units every time, so I really don't mind losing that.
My take: No own phase. Bring back choices. Either via points or balanced. So a unit can use one of two/three different psychic abilities each round. Or pay to have one or others in army building. Remove the ability to shoot and spell in the shooting phase. One or the other. Just make the spells better to compensate. Make the spells good but specific. Like anti-tank spells. Or anti-horde. Or capping movement (not reducing, since it would be an anti fast unit spell) and so on. So that the choice matters. Also I would love that the same units get the same choices. Like librarians, should get the same spells. Regardless of armour, just change the other abilities if you feel the need.
'Let's make this commander give devastating wounds' 'What about this psyker?' 'Let's make this psyker give devastating wounds AND ALSO HAVE A BOLTGUN BUT PSYCHIC!'
Currently, it doesn't matter what Psychic Powers a psyker has: if it doesn't do Mortal Wounds, it doesn't count. It used to be a case that they'd be either support or damage dealers, but not so straight forward as "take wounds, no saves for you, tough shit" (which is terrible). I quite liked it when there were different disciplines of psychic powers, and various powers. But as always, some were just straight up "auto take" and many were utter junk. But I did like how casting would done on Ld, that made sense. When it went Fantasy style, with power dice and one-upmanship, that wasn't so fun.
If they were to balance it without major written rule changes, it could be done by allowing Psychic keyword on attacks to ignore Invulnerable Saving throws, because its god damn space magic. Ofcourse this would have to be balanced by points on the units with these psychic attacks.
They don't need a unique psychic phase. Just keep psychic powers as they are now as weapon profiles or abilities with a tag, but give people a list they can choose from. It's not that the powers themselves are weak, it's that there's no flexibility or uniqueness to psykers. In fact, all the anti-psyker stuff this edition makes it more of a detriment than anything.
Meanwhile...
Grey Knights: We are the hammer!
GW: What hammer?
The warhammer 40,000
When the codex releases. I hope. Please. GW. I need my hammers back.
@@benmunn7481for fuckin real. My Paladin hammer squad needs to hit hard again.
@@jakebeansboy3755So you’re telling me one man, James Workshop, crafted 40,000 Warhammer?!?!
Grey Knights: we are the psyker
Gw: what psyker
Grey Knights: we are the anti daemon
GW: what anti daemon
😐
Personally I'm of the opinion that 30k and AoS do the balancing act of magic powers a lot better. Just give people some options on powers then have them be used in the phases they're most relevant in. Even if it's not the most creative solution it's certainly better than what 10th is doing
Psykers definitely should have their own mechanics, distinct from just Shooting, Moving, Assault, etc to make psychic powers feel distinct from other weapons and wargear, but having another phase of the game just adds additional layers of process which don't deepen the simulation. In MESBG, magic-users typically have access to several different spells and can pick and choose on which of them they spend their Will points and when. There's no "buying" spells, which only leads to min-maxing for efficiency, and the more situational powers never being played. I think GW should be designing Psychic Disciplines as a complete toolkit, which presents players with interesting choices, rather than having to figure outs one or two powers that are the best in the widest possible set of situations, which will always be direct-damage and self-buffs.
So true
Even the Mechanic of the 7th would be better then now
@@zadakielfrostaxt1825I liked the how it was done in 9th just get ride of smite spam
If you stripped out manifestations or changed them up quite a lot for AoS then I'd agree 100%. Nothing wrong with the magic system for AoS imo, but the manifestations feel like a big part of it (since its basically just additional spellcasting) but they really make the magic feel like garbage. I hate filling the board with non-thematic models just because I'm at an objective disadvantage if I don't do it.
AoS spells happen before movement. So it gives non magic armies a way to play around by just moving key units out of range
I can't find much use for a psyker tag on a unit that doesn't outweigh the debuff it brings for anti Psyker weapons.
Or anti psychic fnps.
having the psykic keyword is bad
To my knowledge there's no advantage to having it the anti psyker stuff would feel less bad if the psyker stuff gave you some reason to use it over something elts in the first place
@@jakegunning61 psykic weapons dont have have the minus 1 damage debuff against magnus
@@jamesygamesy5124 oh that's cool I didn't actually know that I haven't run into one yet but that's still not a lot
Agreeing with another comment. This edition they decided to make Heroes simpler, and so everyone got this small little "My unit gets this bonus" ability. And Psykers basically just became another Lieutenant in an endless row of identical Lieutenants.
Removing the Psychic phase basically removed any feeling of psychic abilities. Because what bonus does the Psykers get that is meaningfully different from other Hero units?
Looking at the whole of my Grey Knights index I can say this: They play no differently from my Black Templars. They are literally the same army only that one teleports around, and the other charges into the enemy.
My issue with psykers is they replaced the phase with special abilities, which honestly I like. BUT they then gave EVERYONE a special ability, removing what makes them special
The Broodlord is a Psyker, and man do they not feel like Psykers at all. Hypnotic Gaze is cool and all but there's nothing that feels like you're using a power. Plus Paroxysm only on Flyrants and Onslaught only on Walkrants, feels bad.
I agree every unit has a special ability, only difference is a psyker fails on a 1 XD and is vulnerable to some weapons.
@@peters6345 that's very dependant on the ability, most psychic powers don't even make you roll anymore
@@calthepal312 yeah depends on the unit, most eldar powers have a roll, I think some marines too. I don't play other armies so not sure.
But my biggest problem is lack of choice.. I preferred spell lists. I don't miss smite spam in 9th but I miss the rest
They do get alot of their which fires as actual attacks now. Which i prefer as a tau player.
Is it just me, or does the CSM Dark Pacts feel more like a psycher attack than an actual psycher now?
Even basic Legionaries can roll for bonus damage at a risk of losing units, which often feels a better than a dedicated psycher units…where a sorcerer lord in terminator armor - a dedicated psycher - gets its psychic damage potential outsourced to allies via marking targets.
Feel like there is a monumental identity issue for Psychers in 10th, especially considering non-psychers often can match if not outperform them with similar mechanics.
As a grey knights player it sucks cause they stripped the psychic phase and didn’t give anything to replace it so we lost identity and psi weapons basically being the same there is no difference between a force sword and a glaive
Dont forget we lost anti daemon as well...
Grey Knights are so shite in 10th if you remove the psyker keyword from their data sheets they just get BETTER since there is more anti psyker and feel no pain against psychic powers than any benefit you get for being a psyker...
Stopp there is one it’s easy to become a 4+Fnp against your Psychic weapon just because it’s Psychic
My two main collections are necrons and admech so it didn’t affect me at all but I can imagine how awful it must be for someone who plays a psychic army
Having "Psychic" keyword atm is absolutely a negative. It means almost nothing except providing buffs against them.
I'm not sure it needs it's own phase, but it could be split between Command phase and other phases.
The way I see it being used is like another version of "CP".
Every model has a "Psychic Gain" stat line and that adds to your total ability reserve for that turn. Each unit has a "Psychic ability" set and in Command you can choose which one is in effect that battle round. You can use the ability once per turn but you can have more than one of each ability. Each ability uses a specific amount of ability reserve.
Make grey knights pskyers again
They have the tag.....
@@AggressiveLemur and...?
Do you mean the tag that is for anti psycers
The pskyer tag is nothing but a weakness. I mean it doesn't do anything to counter other space mages. My Tyranids don't feel like they are even psychic anymore either.
@@AggressiveLemur which means you have an army of units that get torn apart by anti psykers with no real reward for having it!!
I started Tyranids cause I thought the swarmlord was the coolest. A melee monster that casted spells sounded awesome. Now I have an ok melee monster with a heavy flamethrower with a heavy bolter range. Cool
So just play 9th edition?
Yeah Swarmy doesn't really feel like a close combat blender anymore. Reminds me of that spin on the Beatles joke, "Is the Swarmlord the greatest melee unit in the universe? The Swarmlord isn't even the greatest melee unit in the Tyranids"
@@bonitabromeliads Good luck finding games. "Just play X edition" doesn't work if you don't have a dedicated group that wants to play said older edition. The overwhelming majority don't and won't.
@@TheAtomicSpoonyeah I know the Problem I have the luck to have a friend who plays with joy every edition with me we wanted from 1th-10th but that’s one out of a near 200head strong Community
For games in 8th-9th you have about 5-6 six people (and there I count the next City Community too
Go away @@bonitabromeliads
Psychic phase always felt lopsided. I don't think it needs its own phase, but something to set it apart from basic shooting. Higher risk/reward with Perils, more support options, etc.
I also don't miss the uninteractive smite spam as you ate 30 mortals from Thousand Sons.
@@pixywings7715 Playing my Necrons against my friend's TSons was always an exercise in futility.
@@pixywings7715 def some things I don't miss. Maybe buffs debuffs would've been better and scrap the smite spam. But I think it's boring now
@@pixywings7715 Learn to screen
Just make it a shooting phase ability?
I don't miss the Psychic Phase; it was an extra stage of "gotcha" that slowed matches down. But 10th's handling of psychic characters is abysmal. Part of the issue is the lack of auras, and the other part is the lack of Wargear.
In past editions, before the Psychic Phase, you could outfit your army with different psychic powers, weapons and benefits. These could be damaging attacks, powers akin to weapons, or abilities that buffed and debuffed units. But now the data sheet is limited. Units are restrained. And it all makes for a horribly restricted unit type in an extraordinarily limited and bland game.
Having 6 powers in at least one "lore" for each army is probably the best way to make sure you don'y just get screwed by a random lemon power and have a few generic powers in the core rules and "heavily psychic" armies can have 2 or 3 tables limited by unit or datasheet perhaps i.e. Farseers and warlocks and the harlequin psykers do different things. Plenty of choice no need to make any horribly complex but variety is the spice of life.
Yeah I miss being able to choose powers for psykers, and being able to choose litanies for chaplains. Added a nice little layer of flavor to the list-building process.
And a bit of complexity to make it interesting
I don’t miss the psychic phase at all but Psykers need to feel reality warping in their abilities. Weirdboy handing out Da’Jump works great. Librarians giving you a FNP feels like it could be the ability of any random leader.
Fnp for Psychic Attacks so it just works against other Psychers
It doesn't need its own phase, it's just a pacing suck. The powers do need cool effects and a roll system with the 2d6 thing, perils ect. The counter system could maybe be like if you counter a spell, you can't cast on your next turn. Tau and Templars could have some kind of devices that can counter, but they cant cast.
How is resolving powers in all the other phases easier to remember vs just having on universal timing?
@@keyanklupacs6333 Fair. It would be harder to remember, but maybe easier to follow.
Can they just fire the 40k team and have the AoS team handle everything, like I genuinely mean this too.
This, amongst borderline every issue in 40k, has literally been solved in AoS and the pacing/flow of the game in current ed is absolutely incredible bc of it
@keyanklupacs6333 It wouldn't be easier. Just flow a lot better. Having to sit there for 5-15 mins waiting for your opponent to roll EVERY psychic thing with no interuptions just killed the pacing, especially when you were playing one of the 6 factions with no psykers to counteract.
If you break it up, at least after casting smite, your opponent might also shoot you so you can at least roll some dice before they move on to the next psycher.
Better not AoS have this point better but a Horrible Wound system
Psyker mechanics in 9th were fun, but psychic phase isnt needed as long as the powers specify what phases they can be used in, or the models specify what phases they could cast in.
I really miss the psychic phase. I think psyker tag is mostly detrimental, units have fnp against it or special weapons.
It would make sense if psykers were that much stronger than normal units, but on average is not the case.
What I miss the most is variety, there was a lot of use from librarians, farseers, warlocks etc. Now it feels bit dull to me. I loved choosing powers and synergies.. back in 8th/9th
That being said smite spam was really bad in 9th glad that it's gone XD
I'd love to see 11th take inspiration from the Old World magic system.
You have a pool of 10 to 15 generic spells any faction can take, each spell can only be used in one phase, so Smite in the Shooting Phase, and then a handful of factions get 4 unique spells only them can use, on top of that you also have a few datasheets with a unique spell. A character can only cast one spell per phase, and you cannot cast if battle shocked.
The Psyker keyword would have a number next to it, from 1 to 3, determining how many spell you can equip (including any spells bond to the datasheet). The number would also be used for denies, any Psyker within X inches of another can attempt a deny, if so both players roll a dice and add the number next to the Psyker keyword to the roll, whoever has the highest roll wins, the looser then passes an hazardous test, if the caster looses the spell doesn't go of.
Hazardous is fine to represent peril of the warp, and most spells would be hazardous. On top of that you could potentially overcast spells to make their effect stronger but the hazardous test would be harder to pass.
At last they should be flavorful mechanics for each faction like Eldar having a better time passing hazardous tests, chaos being able to sacrifice nearby cultists to auto-pass hazardous tests, some units slightly breaking the rules, like Kairos Fateweaver being Psyker 4 or the Lord of Change being able to cast multiple spells per phase, so on and so forth.
The "pysker problem" is the exact same than the "vehicle problem", when you wipe out a part of the game to turn it into generic stuff, OBVIOUSLY you totally destroy the whole point of that thing.
When vehicle became just "big infantry model with lots of HP and toughness" it totally destroyed the whole rock paper scissor aspect of the game where vehicles demanded you to bring anti vehicle weapons, weapons that were specifically made for that.
After removing the psychic phase, psykers are now just "guys with heavy laser in the brain" and... that's it, since now every character in the game also give aura effect when leading units.
I think this is a fantastic point. People talk about streamlining the game, but at what point are we just playing chess with extra steps. The complex rules make these games tabletop wargames instead of just boardgames.
@@MistaGuido-nk3iz Yup. What makes a wargame is a certain degree of realism capable of roughly simulate real battle.
Things like templates that reproduce the effect of explosion had a direct impact on how you would position your troops (ie avoid grouping them together tightly).
The more you shave off elements that contribute to the simulation, the more your wargame devolve into a gamey boargame where the strategy becomes more generic and detached from the actual battlefield.
10th is the peak of that, its not a wargame, it just an overgrown boardgame and dice roll simulator.
@@Pers0n97
Yeah, 10th edition feels more gamey because it is very barebone with regards to mechanics and variety and thus appears quite sterile.
I strongly disagree with realism though, especially in terms of templates (at least the way they were used).
Scatter mechanic is completely unrealistic over short distances, finding one spot where the unit is slightly packed and then drop all the templates there killing the other spread out parts of the unit as well is weird. barrage character sniping is the worst offender and of course the good old lash/plasma combo is extremely gamey and has nothing to do with a wargame either.
I also don't miss the clunky vehicle mechanics especially when the distinction between monstrous creature and vehicle are unclear and sometimes arbitrary.
If we want to make 40k into a wargame (which it isn't), we need to work on turn structure and scenarios, the game should be longer than just a few turns, we need to define the scale properly (tactical level, operational level etc.) and remove all the elements that don't fit. Then we can start talking about detail mechanics (and the first thing, I would do is introduce range modifiers...).
Back in the day, 40k was just more gimmicky, more flavourful in that sense but also more bloated and extreme. It never was more realistic. Maybe the intention was more realistic, but the results weren't. Characters are much more reasonable now than before in terms of individual killing power. They still provide support value which should be their job.
I agree though, now we are at a stage where it is too bland (and maybe they should take a step back in terms of lethality so that we don't see the weird gamey tables and can return to real terrain...
I absolutely don't miss the psychic phase and I also don't miss the mortal wound spam.
What I would do is in the current situation:
1. Extract all psychic powers/abilities and give their respective unit a standard ability like all other units. On top, the unit gets one of them as psychic ability with the keyword psychic (mighty characters get 2 or maybe even 3) of your choice (of course the options need to be reasonable).
(For example, All farseers psychic abilities get extracted from the model. They keep their fate dice mechanic as basic ability. And then they can choose between 2 (Eldrad gets 3) of eldritch storm, mind war, guide, doom and fortune)
2. Introduce a mechanic that psychic abilities need to be cast (with a keyword in which pase it is cast attached to it). They work on 2+ and on 6+ with some sort of enhancement and a hazardous roll afterwards.
(same example, eldritch storm gets dev wounds and hazardous when cast on a 6, doom gets reroll 1s to wound in addition when cast on a 6 etc and also requires a hazardous roll)
3. Introduce a denial mechanic with specific ranges and and values and amounts of uses. Lesser psykers can have like one 12" deny on 6+ while powerful üsykers could have three 24" denys on 4+. This could be incorporated into unit abilities (anti psyker units) or stratagems (factions with no access to psykers).
This would be great for me. You can also introduce points to the choice of the abilities to improve balance if some are stronger than others.
Just steal AOS's system with wizard and priests
Agree. The AOS system is simple but gives flavour to the magic and prayers.
How does having powers spread over multiple phases make it any easier?
@keyanklupacs6333 less spells to choose from so less rules bloat, have to roll for it so brings that back, and putting it in the appropriate phase means things are done at the time that type of action needs to be done which simplifies things.
@@HadrosaurHero Isn't the AoS system that specific casters have specific powers, they don't get to choose from a list? 'Cause that's the old 40k system, the one where you have a list of six powers to choose from and the power level of casters range between 1 and 4, that's the old Fantasy system.
@@HadrosaurHerowierd I didnt day anything about the number of powers? 🤔 Isnt it easier to get swept up in doing the actual mechanics of that phase and forget a power instead of casting 4 powers at once in one phase? It's just a 3 step process. Roll 2d6 is it over the number? If yes opponent attempts to counter via deny the witch or an army power or their own psyker. If your opponent fails to interrupt you resolve the effect. Thats why it was changed from that system in 3rd - 5th ed. It was very easy to forget to trigger a power in the assault phase or movement phase and so they borrowed the magic phase from WFB.
Their downfall was when GW got rid of the Psychic phase and alot of units benefit from Psychic power and the phase. Thousands sons love thier Psychic phase, nids are Psychic power etc. Psychic phase needs to come back
Check out how psychic done in the old world or fantasy battles. Its very diverse and interesting, much more than it is now or even in 8th/9th ed. of 40k.
I don't think we 100% need a psychic phase to use it properly, no reason the psyker stuff couldn't be folded into other phases, TSons still essentially have a Psychic Phase. I think the real problem is for all the other psykers, who mostly just have a special ability (like every other unit in the game), and a psychic gun.
Could have powers that get activated in the Command, Movement, Shoot (which we mostly do have), Charge, or Fight phases. It's the losing out on psychic powers that do things like manipulate movement or buff a unit in some way that we've really lost out on the most.
@PATA_PON yeah i do like the old wotlc or sigmar
@@Lowlandlordthats how they done in the old world. Differents spells activates in different phases, powerfull mages have buffs to the spell casting or denying. Many magic related artifacts, different miscast resolutions and damaging spells are not just mortal wounds
As a new player, the psychic phase was confusing
I would be ok if we did away with the psychic phase and it never returned if instead we get extra abilities on psyker models or psyker focused detachments that unlock abilities for psyker models, not army wide abilities based on an arbitrary number of models like cabal points but abilities the models can vast while they are in the dedicated psyker detachment.
I play Tyranids as my main army, half the range is a psyker or synapse creature I would benefit immensely if we got cool stuff for a psychic phase but I would rather not have that power if it makes the games a lot longer or skewed against armies with limited psyker units.
The Psychic Awakening™ was followed by the Psychic Powernap™
Sorry to those of you who didn't choose a cool ass faction with seers and wizards. I did. If you guys get to have crazy shooting abilities that do tons of damage then I deserve to have a moderate amount of fun with cool magic abilities that require me to roll dice in a slightly special way. Literally every issue with factions being OP in the past had almost nothing to do with psychic and had all to do with spamming one type of unit with ridiculous abilities. There was no need to take away the psychic phase UNLESS you were going to integrate it into every other phase like Horus Heresy and Old World. Do not be upset that I cast a spell. I came to the game to throw magic around. I still lose most of my games in my LGS. Just let me have my fun. Sincerely a fan of the Craftworld Eldar, the OG 'wizard' faction of Warhammer.
Also yes I do want my warlocks to explode again. I loved when my warlocks randomly exploded killing 5 of my own aspect warriors. Its fun. There shouldn't be any certainty in the magic of Warhammer. Its meant to be dangerous. Its literally the foundation of the setting's magic system.
Baron of dice is outrageoulsy expensive.
Cheaper than GW, but can you suggest some good alternatives?
psychic just feels... not there in 10th
@@gamingborger yes I totally agree... 9th was a storm of smite and I'm a grey knight player and I didn't agree with that crap and tenth has gone so far the other way it feels like part of the lore has been ripped out to make it easier to play! I play because of the lore!!
Ngl it was my favourite phase and a reason why I collected a lot of my armies. Screw 10th and its
Horus Heresy doesn’t have a psychic phase, but it manages to make psykers work GREAT.
Frankly, I think it's broadly fine. I don't remember Deny The Witch very fondly, especially not when SoB Shield of Faith gave you Deny on 1D6 which could barely deny any powers in the game since most had casting values of over 6. Having models running about with extremely powerful abilities that might dominate the game completely, or might do nothing at all if the opponent had brought something to shut them down was a balance nightmare.
What would be good would be allowing Psykers to pick different abilities, which is no different to giving other Characters the more flexible wargear options that people have wanted since 10th dropped. We already have Psykers who protect their units from other Psykers (Librarians giving out FNP against Psychic attacks) and ones that are more resistant to Perils (any Psyker with FNP, eg Mephiston). We have, for almost the first time, Psykers who can choose whether or not to risk killing themselves by going for the Hazardous version of a power. And if we do want extra powers, the Enhancement system is already right there. A page of Enhancements for Psykers only which are all new powers, boom, done.
Complexity just for that sake of it won't improve the game, it'll just make it take longer.
Didn't Shield of Faith always trigger on a 6 so it was basically just a 1/6 chance of denying?
@Yama048 Not in 8th Edition, no. I skipped 9th Ed so it's always possible something like that happened there- you'd think it would be sensible!
The psychic phase had its ups and downs, but sometimes it could be stupidly fun in the most horrible ways:
I remember a doubles game where everything was going quite well, right up until my kill rig decided it was time to perils while it had only a couple wounds left. It exploded, taking massive chunks out of two of my other units, killed my teammate's warlord, and left the Tau that were about to be charged... completely unscathed and very, very relieved! XD
Bring back impactful psychic abilities and fun moments where they can go chaotically wrong!
My first experience with psychic powers was getting my blood angels terminator army tabled turn 1 by a Tzeentch army in a 2v1 match during 7th ed. I’m glad they want to sort of reign in things but the system in 8th worked fine enough to not completely throw it out. It is worth pointing out though that a lot of players just don’t see it as worth including in their armies even when it would strictly benefit them. I had a roommate who would complain all the time about my custodes army but refused to put a single librarian in his space marine army, among other things that would easily counter my guys.
@@SizzleCorndog I mean people have tastes and I get it. Some people aren't here for the magic part of the fantasy. Me personally? I love the wizard shit. I put em in every army I can. Sometimes I try to put em in armies I can't.
@ I mean this was someone who would know exactly what list I’d be bringing a head of time bc only so many models existed for custodes and kept bringing the same 3 squads with hellblasters and aura stack them, only to turn around and complain that I’d delete him in melee even though he didn’t bring anything to screen with. Like I play blood angels and would occasionally bring a psycher but this is someone who when told that psychic is a great way to counter custodes, just refused to do it effectively bc magic is cowardly and lame
@@SizzleCorndog Bro should be playin Khorne and there should be more psyker counter measures for armies without em. Hell add blanks to the game that'd be kinda interesting.
If my weapon has the massively huge psychic debuff keyword, it should be stronger than a none psychic option. Why does a greater daemon of the Lord of magic have a d3 damage gun. It’s just shit
I'd like a optional module with neutral psykic manifestation minis, that are randomly picked at the start of the battle and can be manipulated by your psykers. Kinda like the Malign Sorcery for AoS. I would also add some psyker units to all armies - Tau could have some allied Zoats or other alien race, Imperial Agents could cover any gaps in the imperium.
Hey Auspex I noticed you mixed a few things up for 6th and 7th edition, in 6th edition, just like in 7th you had a base tier of mastery level on every psyker and could buy extra depending on the datasheet, based on this tier you would roll randomly on any of the core disciplines or your faction exclusive one as highlighted on the datasheet, where for example space marine librarians did not have access to the malefic daemonology discipline, but did have access to the pyromancy, biomancy, etc. disciplines, the only difference between these two editions was the change to the warp charges system as you described for 7th where 6th continued to use the leadership system. I hope this helps clarify the situation as 7th was not the massive shakeup on all these fronts as you described. If you want I think I can look for my copy of the 6th edition rulebook somewhere if you want proof. For the rest love your videos, this just threw me off as a massive psyker fanatic that started in 6th.
I loved the old psychic powers of previous editions - being able to pick the powers and having it feel meaningful and flavourful. While I appreciate it might have had some balancing issues it seems that it's basically had the same solution to difficult to balance unit types in 10th edition - effectively getting rid of it.
I think you could move the psychic powers and deny the witch to be stratagems that don't cost command points and a deny the witch stratagem that can be used less frequently. This allows for more generic powers and faction specific powers. That way, you can have pronounced psychic powers that tell you when they could be used.
I would love to seee them bring back the disaplin system. with each psyker chosing a power from the list of disaplins they have acess to, with no duplication.
psyick powers could easly be just the 'powers' that we have now but alowing us to custoimise the psykers for there role.
I play black Templars and my friend has a thousand sons army and even I miss the psychic phase
The psyker rules in second edition (Dark Millennium) was most fun. Randomizing spells and draw secret cards, with power, each turn. It was exciting!
But I like the opposite too, the 10th edition, with no option and tags. Meaning you need special save against it.
The biggest problem is that the keyword [psychic] is only a detriment, triggering FNP, or giving you the pair Psyker keyword which allows some units to get an improved wound against you.
I think the best fix is that damage from a weapon with the Psychic keyword carries over just like Mortal Wounds.
Each time PSYCHIC wounds are inflicted on a unit, each of those PSYCHIC wounds inflicts one point of damage to that unit, and they are applied one at a time. Each PSYCHIC wound is allocated to a model in the same manner as allocating an attack. Excess damage from Psychic wounds is not lost if the damage can be allocated to another model. Instead keep allocating damage to another model in the target unit until either all the damage has been allocated or the target unit is destroyed.
Maybe give the psychic keyword a use by having the model do a battleshock test, if they fail they’re battleshocked and take a mortal or three, if they don’t you get the hazardous profile instead of the normal one. That way Denise can come back and it gives psychic a use. Then you put at least 2 psychic guns you have to choose between on a data sheet to equip to the model before the battle. Maybe say a defensive and offensive power if you want to commit to everyone getting two, then you can say a psyker is on offensive power if you want DPS, or defensive if you want support and a worse gun. Or maybe apply these buffs in the shooting phase?
It would be hilarious if when a psycher rolls a 1 on their spell, instead of taking D3 mortals they roll another D6 to see what happens. Outcomes could include missing their next turn or spawning a greater demon that proceeds to attack them, then if he kills the psycher heads after the next closest unit on either army. Typhus's mortal wound spray feels like a psychic attack, it seems a bit silly that the 1k sons have half their attacks as shooting and are subject to stealth and cover like a normal shooting attack.
I think the Farseers are the perfect example of what went wrong. Why does having a bike or not determine what spells this ancient eldar can cast? Why is the one on jetbike casting the spell that overlaps with the jetbikes?
@@emdeo He only has his 3rd tome on audiobook so it limits what he can access while driving.
Im still shocked that Psychic “Guns” don’t deal mortal wounds or something. They’re kinda just guns that ‘okay’
depends on the unit I think, Zoanthropes w/ Neurotyrant are quite scary
And even then you mostly must overload them to be a Danger to marines or Armor start at 3+
Maybe if you say just Invuls stopp them would help
@@Chogbortszoanthropes are literally just las guns with lethals hits.
The MW cut from psyhic is good.
They way everything else is handled in reguards to psyhic is awfull
I feel that the way that Old World does magic should be a big influence in how psychic could work in 40k. Just getting to choose your powers, not rolling randomly, because that can be quite a feels bad moment - and is less admin work. There are certain spell types, i.e. Assailment, Magic Missile, Hex or Enchantment, and the type of spell determines when you use it. If its a Conveyance spell, then its during movement, a magic missile is during shooting and an assailment spell is a melee attack during combat. So no need for a big 'stop the game psychic phase' but it gives something more fluid and varied and provides options - something they seem determined to remove from 40k at the moment.
I think the answer is psychic powers similar to primarch main ability's, list of 3, choose one at start of battle, give effects, not just cast gun and have it on top of the special ability of the unit
Take a look at channel minisodes. They do second edition battle reports demonstrating how simple and fun the psychic phase could work. Very easy to implement this in the current form. Easy.
Grey Knights - Great! All our weapons have the psychic keyword....umm... what does it do?
Daemons: - Cool, it gives my flesh-hounds a feel no pain...
Thousand Sons - well, we can make your psychic weapons hazardous, and we get to choose to make ours sustained/lethal/devastating with some cabal points... can't you?
Grey Knights: .........
I personally dont like the separate "Physic Phase" but I would re-introduce the choice of spells via 'Wargear choices' reframed as 'Ability choices' (points per ability like enhancements). The denial interaction also seemed fun to get back again, rolling 2D6 and battle it out type way, having some mini battles between models while not being focused in one main phase but just during the Shooting Phase or Commanding Phase etc.
At the very least they need to give something to things with the Psyker tag so that it isn't just a weakness for armies outside of Ksons. I know Grey knights do have Radiant Strike that makes psychic weapons do dev during the fight phase, but at 2 cp, that's pretty nasty. Really hoping that with the Christmas detachments GK get something that's more around their psychic instead of just being the mobility army in power armor that the teleport strike force is named towards
a imperial fist psychic power i liked was basically a long range heal. very cool concept
Who here remembers Runes of Warding 😉😏
As someone who used to run 5+ psykers in 9th I can see why they made the change in 10th. Most psykers could have a psychic phase, a shooting phase, and in some cases melee too. They could do a ton of damage on their turn and their points didnt really reflect that.
My suggestion: make psykerbound enhancements for every detachement.
Everbody wins: people can make their psykers nasty and powerful, you can balance every "ability" for itself via points cost, no new phase, GW can sell a new, expensive book.
What's a psyker? The guys with a worthless magic gun?
allow psykers, and only psykers, to access spell libraries, as their special ability, giving them flexibility. let them keep psychic weapons.
you could make Psychic weapons have a special rule, like -1 to invuln saves made against them, or +1 to DEAMON units, or something.
I think they should return to psychic in 9th. give it a phase again, but give every army a unit for psychic defense. Such as Necron Pariahs, or give the Tau a psyker corp to utilize as deny units. Because the GW article REALLY wanted to emphasize how one sided fighting a psyker army was, when they could've just as easily introduced a couple extra models for anti psyker actions. In a parallel to us having anti tank units for dealing with tanks.
Give Psychic powers back, they just get used in the command phase like AoS with Prayers and Spells
Yeah all they get is an extra shooting attack and a aura buff/debuff that feels like any other in any other unit. They are so lame in this edition. I feel that most people that don't mind are new players that haven't experienced anything else. In the last year or two now that 40K has become mainstream, there has been an insane influx of new players.
Its not even extra they have to choose between it and any other ranged weapons they might have lol.
Having just started using tsons (and 40k in general) a year ago, the psychic keyword literally just marks stuff for stratagems.
@@keyanklupacs6333 erm, no? In the shooting phase a model can fire all its ranged weapons, regardless of whether some of them are psychic attacks. My Farseer happily fires both their Singing Spear and their Eldrich Storm at the same time. Only for melee weapons you have to pick a single one (unless the others have the Extra Attacks trait).
@@giantnanomachine True i was probably think about how combat phase sequences attacks with the extra attack keyword you're right.
@@giantnanomachineright except you Fire a Pistol weapon than you cat Fire anything else if it’s no pistol
The psychic phase was unnecessary, just go back to how psykers used to be in the old additions. Pick a power and use it in the phase it actually interacts with.
Also, bring back the old Ork weirdboy from 4th edition, that was so much fun!
I would give psykers the AoS model of casting chance. There is several psychic abilities they have a psychic modifier and then roll against the spell challenge if fail takes mortal. Each main faction gets a lore and one person detachment
As far as force weapons, I cant decide whether my preferred way of handling it would be devastating wounds on all force weapons, or hazardous for +1 damage on all of them
I hope they do something down the line where every detachment can get a unique psyker stratagem that can be played for that detachment only, by any psyker in your army. Could bring some depth to the game, keep it fairly balanced and without requiring a re-work of all datasheets and so on. Just an expansion for the game, kept in check by the CP system so that it becomes overall more of an iptional side-grade.
AoS mage system work great : smaller pool of pickable spells + a dedicated spell per unit.
Psychic phase in 2nd edition is the best - a cheeky little card game that's fun for both players each turn and leads to some fun narrative moments.
Giving psykers alternate psychic powers as wargear choices would be fine with me. Don't need a psychic phase really, and Tsons cabal points are half the reason they where nerfed so hard, so you wouldnt want to spread that around really. But a LITTLE more choice of powers, especially the flavorful choices (Tzeentch getting foresight and flames, Nurgle rot, Emperor aligned getting "holy" buffs and the like) would be good.
9th ed was the best for me ; many different powers, a deny mechanic, true perils of the warp, smite by default... The good old times !
Psychic should be similar to strategems, with Psychic units generating MP every round to be spent at any time on a psychic ability
I think the denials are the thing I miss most (buying in specific powers is a very close second).The visual of two space wizards engaging in a mental duel, battling on a metaphysical level as well as a physical felt very 40k.
Might be because I play Tyranids, though. They were really rather good at it. 😅
I can appreciate it not really feeling all that fun from the other side of the table. I definitely had games where my opponent just stopped trying to do anything psychic.
Perhaps locking it to specific units and enhancements as opposed to every psyker would make it less of a "feels bad."
I wasn't part of the hobby for any of the table top before 10th, and since tyranids are my favorite faction. 10th was a great point to start with leviathan. So I have no idea how things used to work other than the bits of context I get when an opponent or friend I play with mentions something along the lines of "Oh, that does this now? back in x edition it did this" or "I miss when x unit did x". I don't mind the curreny system
I think 11th edition psychic should have a little of both from 9th and 10th.
What I mean is that if you have a psyker that is a character, that unit should be able to customize their powers.
If a psyker unit does not contain the character keyword, they have a psyker shooting profile and maybe a predetermined psyker ability to balance them out with other armies troops.
For good measure, it should be a general psyker rule that if a non-character datasheet does gain the character keyword when lead by a character, they are prevented from customizing their psyker powers. It could be a new universal keyword such as “limited psyker” or something that signifies no psyker customizations.
Relics were cool but I don’t know if we necessarily need them back as it contributed to rules bloat. That and some relics in certain armies were just league’s better than anything anyone else had.
Overall, I’d say 11th should bring back customization for character psykers only and hold off on relics for the time being.
My Weirdboy and Grimnyr would be happy to chose their powers again.
I saw someone else in a comment on one of Auspex's videos say that psychic weapons should have their AP modify Invul saves, and I keep thinking that'd be a really good way of making them feel distinct, have a niche and not make the psychic keyword a straight downgrade. It'd be really easy for them to just roll that out in a balance dataslate.
Long term though I hope to see them do more with it in 11th. It doesn't need it's own phase, it doe sneed to feel more interesting and lore accurate.
I dont think it needs a whole phase of its own. But i would want psychic abilities to be more impactful and elaborate. At the moment most of them just feel like a shooting attack thats on par or worse than normal guns or a slight passive buff.
No psychic phase is good. I think allowing you to shoot and do your abilities is key. Add pistol and assault to psychic. Hazardous when “super charging” is good. Ignoring cover would be good too. And I don’t think it would be broken. Just very encouraging to grab psykers and consequently anti psyker
There are more Anti Psyker options and Psi Damage Denial options then good Psychic Options
Mostly you take a Psyker not because it’s Weapons more because of it’s ability’s
4++invul for the whole unit with the Librarian
-1to hit with the Chaos Sorcerer
Sustained hits 1 with the Librarian in Terminator Armor on the Other hand is lame there is the Ancient better or a Captain
Psychers should feel mighty
You can reflect this might in the points cost but there should be a bonus that you feel not a Debuff that you feel because nearly everything has a 4fnp against Psychic attacks
@ it does seem there’s lots of anti. I think more abilities or keywords attached to “Psyker” and allowing greater flexability with attaching to squads, more like an apothecary would help a lot
I understand why the psychic phase was changed. The ridiculous pregame prep and the pages full of powers for psychic heavy armies was a little ridiculous. I think if every Psyker just had 1 or 2 predetermined powers, the psychic phase could come back.
The psychic phase didn't really work as a phase and I think it's removal was a good choice. They could have retained a test for Psychic abilities or something to make them feel different to regular datasheet abilities.
As a GSC player, psychic powers use to do pretty interesting stuff in 8th and 9th (mind control used to be hilarious), now it's, hmm... well nobody plays the Magus anymore
Why not make it just like the Aos Hero phase. You get the spells back. The rest of the leaders can use their abilities as well. That way even armies with little or no psykers have something to do.
As a player who has tried 40k on and off since 4th ed, I love the new system much more. Keep simplifying the game! A psychic phase and choosing powers is just all too convoluted and not going to pick up new players compared to other, better games out there (looking at you MCP)
I think how they have it is ok however I do with psychic units had some abilities like +1 to save on nearby unit or maybe having a separate pool of faction wide psychic units only enhancements and more unique abilities for each factions psychic units
Couldn't agree more. Hope GW takes notice.
I think the removal of the psychic phase is one of the best things in 10th. The only downside to me is the lack of customization. It’s too bad you can’t pay for psychic enhancements on Psyker units/models. Overall though most customization is gone. I liked “creating” a character in 9th. But I get why they did it too.
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Bring back the psychic phase 😢
You know I actually LIKE 10th edition. However, I think the Psychic Phase being folded into shooting etc is a downgrade. I think the deny/cast mechanic was SUPER fun. Thousand Sons just seem SO much less flavorful in 10th.
Yeah totally agree with you Auspex. Cast/deny, choosing powers, instant death with psychic weapons, dev wounds on psychic shooting and return of the psychic phase are all changes I would welcome in 11th
I think what would be nice would be psykers could choose a spell from a codex(or from a supplement if you're playing divergent factions), just like you choose enhancements for your characters.
Passive psychics could have better buffs compared to other passive abilities, but would need to roll D3 for activation, making it unstable but fun to use.
Active psychics could work like stratagems, but would roll a D6 for pass/fail, 1 for a disasterous failure, 2-5 for intended effects and 6 for BOTH to happen.
Three at max seems balanced to me, so psyker-heavy armies do have the upper hand but not by too much.
Then go back two a Two D6 test Snake eyes Damage Double six Damage give the perfect Room 1D6 is a bit Heavy in Suiziding
@@zadakielfrostaxt1825 To be fair we already have hazardous and I never mentioned what the 'Disasterous failures' would be
I think mortals and devastating wounds are really important Sam army's just don't have access to high strength weapons
I think the issue of certain armies not having psykers is to give them some ability to deal with them.
Some ideas I have are these:
Necrons getting Blackstone wargear or enhancements to shut down Psychic stuff
The Tau getting psychic Auxillaries, like a Kroot Psyker called a Mind Shaper or something
The Drukhari getting special weapons or wargear to deal with psykers
I need my floating psychic space bears for t'au. I need the nicassar as an actual model I can use. please gw, I know kroot are cool but for an empire with many different alien species why is there only 3 represented with actual rules.
@@coldstar2035you mean the Psi Worms?
That would be a Great way to
Sisters of Battle with Inquisitors or give it to the Priest
Admech with Specialized Robots or Servitors out of psykers
Psychic Knights exist
Khorne give it to the Lords or something like that
It can’t be that Hard to find a Solution for 7Armies from 33
I like the ability system, it just isn't comprehensive enough for psykers. Instead of one or two abilities I think psykers should be able to draw from a book of spells, functioning like free strategems. The utility and flavour of psyker units skyrockets. If the problem is balancing, that's what points are for, increase until they're fair.
just bring back the psychic phase. It made psychers actually feel like a thing rather then a after thought now
no one i know plays 10th its all 9th still
I'd kinda prefer picking spells, but in my Grey Knights and GSC games, i just picked the same spells for the same units every time, so I really don't mind losing that.
I miss picking spells for psychic units in the game. Thousand Sons are the only army that feels like a psychic army.
My take:
No own phase.
Bring back choices. Either via points or balanced. So a unit can use one of two/three different psychic abilities each round. Or pay to have one or others in army building.
Remove the ability to shoot and spell in the shooting phase. One or the other. Just make the spells better to compensate.
Make the spells good but specific. Like anti-tank spells. Or anti-horde. Or capping movement (not reducing, since it would be an anti fast unit spell) and so on. So that the choice matters.
Also I would love that the same units get the same choices. Like librarians, should get the same spells. Regardless of armour, just change the other abilities if you feel the need.
Also. Add deadly demise to all. 😂 that would be fun.
And maybe auto demise if killed by psychic. To add more chaotic feel to the psychers.
'Let's make this commander give devastating wounds' 'What about this psyker?' 'Let's make this psyker give devastating wounds AND ALSO HAVE A BOLTGUN BUT PSYCHIC!'
lol orks have somehow ended up with the only real psyker in the game.
"Deny the witch" should be a psychic power in itself, like smite was for all psykers. Except Chaos doesn't get it. or something like that.
What do you have against Chaos?
We have less love then Marines Anyway
And that what you say there makes no sense by the way
Currently, it doesn't matter what Psychic Powers a psyker has: if it doesn't do Mortal Wounds, it doesn't count. It used to be a case that they'd be either support or damage dealers, but not so straight forward as "take wounds, no saves for you, tough shit" (which is terrible). I quite liked it when there were different disciplines of psychic powers, and various powers. But as always, some were just straight up "auto take" and many were utter junk. But I did like how casting would done on Ld, that made sense. When it went Fantasy style, with power dice and one-upmanship, that wasn't so fun.
If they were to balance it without major written rule changes, it could be done by allowing Psychic keyword on attacks to ignore Invulnerable Saving throws, because its god damn space magic.
Ofcourse this would have to be balanced by points on the units with these psychic attacks.
2nd Edition Psychic was very cool. Very flavorful & fun.
They don't need a unique psychic phase. Just keep psychic powers as they are now as weapon profiles or abilities with a tag, but give people a list they can choose from. It's not that the powers themselves are weak, it's that there's no flexibility or uniqueness to psykers. In fact, all the anti-psyker stuff this edition makes it more of a detriment than anything.