Dark Angels Codex Review: Part 4- Interromancy Discipline

Part four of my 9th edition Dark Angels codex review will look at the Interromancy Discipline psychic powers that you can add to your army. 

Interromancy Discipline

Mind Worm (WC6)- Select one enemy unit within 18", he unit suffers 1 mortal wound. Until the start of the next psychic phase, that unit is not eligible to fight in the Fight phase until all eligible units from your army have done so. 

A pretty solid power. The extra mortal wound is nice, but forcing an enemy unit to fight last is really strong against certain army builds. This allows your combat units, such as Black Knights or Terminators, to ensure that they can attack without an enemy unit cutting them down before they get a chance to strike. 

Aversion (WC6)- Select an enemy unit within 24". While the unit is within 6" of the Psyker, subtract one from the attacks characteristic of that unit. Any time an attack is made by the unit, subtract 1 from the hit roll. 

A good power for de-buffing an enemy unit. Getting -1 to hit is not as strong as it once was, as these can no longer stack, but it can still be pretty powerful. Also strong against melee attacks, where -1 is more difficult to get. Reducing the attacks of the enemy unit is also strong. This doesn't specify reduce the attacks by 1 to a minimum of 1, but I expect this to come in the FAQ. If not, this is really powerful against standard infantry. 

This also stacks really well with the Line Unbreakable stratagem. Forcing only enemy models in engagement range to be able to attack, along with -1 to hit and -1 attack really hinders the damage output of an enemy unit and could help your psyker survive or other units survive a powerful enemy melee unit. 

Battle Report 52- 1250 pts White Scars vs Dark Angels

This week's battle report sees my White Scars take on James' Dark Angels army. This would be another practice game for the upcoming Stronghold V tournament I would be attending. I have previously discussed the army I would be taking and my thoughts on its strengths and weaknesses. Based on feedback and another practice game, I decided to drop the attack bike and take some of my Scout Bikers that I had recently finished painting. We decided to play the Contact Lost maelstrom mission as this would be used at the tournament.

My army consisted of:

COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT

Librarian- Level 2 psyker, Bike, Hunter's Eye, Mantle of the Stormseer, Force Sword, Meltabombs (with CS)

5 Command Squad- Bikes, Apothecary, 4 veterans with grav guns, stormshields and 2 with meltabombs (CS)

5 Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant with power lance and meltabombs (BS1)

5 Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant with meltabombs (BS2)

5 Scouts- sergeant with meltabombs (S1)

Landspeeder Storm- Heavy Bolter, Cerberus missile launcher (LS)

Drop Pod- storm bolter (DP)

3 Scout Bikers- One grenade launcher, sergeant with meltabombs and locator beacon (SB)

Stormtalon- TL assault cannons, skyhammer missile launcher (S2)
Centurion Devastators- Grav cannons and grav amps, hurricaine bolters (C)

My warlord trait was Deadly Ambush (giving me +1 or -1 to reserve rolls), I re-rolled and got the same result. My Librarian rolled on the Librarius deck. These new powers will not be allowed at the tournament, but I wanted to give them a go after reviewing them recently. I rolled on the table and got Fury of the Ancients, Null Zone and Emperor's Wrath. Not the best powers on the table, but could be useful in the game.

Angels of Death Codex Review- Part 1: New Psychic Powers

Welcome to my review of the new Angels of Death Codex supplement for the Space Marines (quick as a flash, I only picked it up this morning). The supplement combines the special rules for various chapters of Space Marines, some previously published, and adds new rules for psychic powers and scenarios.

 

I picked the Codex supplement up today and had a look through the new rules. I tried to avoid most of the leaks and spoilers that had appeared online before it was released, so this review will be from my initial thoughts that I had while checking out the rules. As such, these are only my own opinions on various aspects of the new rules and have not been through any playtesting yet (though I'm sure they will do in the near future).

 

First up, I wanted to focus on the new psychic powers that are now available to Space Marine Librarians and review each of the four new decks. Subsequent reviews will focus on the different new models, chapter-specific special rules and scenarios that the marines will now have access to.

 

Initially, I was not going to pick up the book, just the psychic cards for the new powers. But when it came time to pre-order them, I simply clicked on the book and cards bundle and got both. I figured I could review the new rules in the book for the blog and if I liked it, I would keep a hold of them (I already have the White Scars formations and new rules from the last supplement, so wasn't too bothered about the new ones). The softback book is nice. I do like the new hardback codices that you can buy now, but the reduced weight should come in handy when transporting all the rules I need in one bag. It would have been nice to get a small discount for purchasing the book and cards together, but it is not a deal breaker.

 

The box that the cards come in is not the thick card I am used to with other card sets such as the previous psychic power decks, the tactical objective decks and army specific decks. That's a shame as I quite like the sturdy quality of these boxes. The cards themselves also feel a little bit thinner than normal. Odds are I will probably put these new decks with my old Divination and Telepathy decks for transport (I rarely use the other 4 decks anyway).

 

Anyway, on to the new decks and rules. Each section will give a quick run down of the new psychic powers and my initial thoughts on them.

 

LIBRARIUS DISCIPLINE

This deck seems to focus on the manipulation of saves, boosts to the Librarian and a couple of shooting attacks.

 

The Emperor's Wrath (WC1)

With the range of a grav gun, S5 AP3 and an assault blast, this is a witchfire power that is ironically really good at killing marines. A decent primaris power, the blast helps as there is little worse than successfully manifesting your power and then missing with the shot.

Psyched Out!- The Evolution of the Psychic Phase in 40k

Welcome to my ongoing series looking at the evolution of various aspects of 40k over the years. This time round, I look at the evolution of the psychic phase. For the rest of the series of articles, check out the Evolution of 40k tab above.

The Warp, the parallel dimension that is a swirling maelstrom of energy, has been an integral part of the 40k lore for a long time now. It provides the basis of interstellar travel for many of the races of the 40k universe, and it is often said that without the Warp's ability to travel vast distances in (relative) safety, the Imperium of Mankind would crumble in no time. This chaotic dimension also provides energy to the psykers of the 40k universe, imbuing them with vast power to unleash their arts on the enemy.

Mondays, am I right?

The psychic phase has seen substantial changes over the various editions of 40k. Indeed, for several editions of the game, no such phase existed in the turn sequence. I don't tend to run psychic heavy armies, the reasons for which I will get to as the article proceeds, but there is no doubt that the addition of psykers to the 40k tabletop can have a dramatic effect on the course of the battle.

Second Edition (1993-1998)- Pick a Card, Any Card......

As with much of the game, the psychic phase was a very different beast in second edition.

The Main Book
A version of the rules for the psychic phase was included in the main rulebook for 2nd edition 40k- the Psionics section.

This section provided some simplified rules for using psykers in games of 40k. It gave the four different mastery levels for psykers and provided 6 psychic powers that they could choose from at the start of the game.
In order to cast a psychic power, the player had to roll above the casting value on the power and were able to add the mastery level of the psyker to the die roll. Rolls of a 1 always failed when casting, but with a highest casting level of 6, level 4 psykers has a 1 in 6 chance of successfully using a psychic power each turn. Each psyker could only use one power per turn, regardless of their mastery level.

One of the example psychic powers in the rulebook was psychic shield. Cast on a 3+, this power provided the psyker with the equivalent of a 3+ invulnerable save against shooting and close combat wounds. Against psychic attacks or powers, it provided a 4+ invulnerable save. The shield remained in effect until it was used to block a psychic attack.

Much like the close combat phase, both players took part in the psychic phase. The player whose turn it was could attempt to use a psychic power from one of their psykers, then their opponent could attempt to use a power from one of their psykers. This continued until no more psykers remained.

The psionics section also included the rules for Force weapons. In 2nd edition, the psyker got to add their mastery level to the strength of their attack in combat when using a force weapon. As armour saves were modified by the strength of the attacker, this meant that a powerful psyker could cut through power armoured models with ease.
Daemons were said to be especially vulnerable to Force weapons- any attack from a force weapon that hit a Daemon in combat automatically wounded and ignored their saving throw. This made psykers a very powerful unit for taking on daemonic units in combat.