A plethora of changes are coming to the Age of Darkness with Heresy third edition, and the Psychic aspect of the game is no different. Psykers have had a tumultuous history in the Horus Heresy, evolving from the dreaded “Psychic Phase” of first edition to the “How Many Telepathy Librarians Can I Cram Into 3,000 Points” of second edition. Now, I think we are at a mix of the best of both of those worlds, borrowing flavorful rules and ease of use from both iterations of the game.
In this article, I will be exploring the Core Psychic Disciplines as well as any generic Disciplines available to the Legiones Astartes via Consul or Army Build selection. Cyberthurgy is its own thing and will be covered in my colleagues’ Mechanicum deep dives, and the individual Legion special disciplines will be expounded upon in their respective coverage. (I’m coming for you, Thousand Sons!)
Using Psychic Abilities
Much like last edition, there is no “Psychic Phase” in which all powers manifest. Each individual power will tell you exactly when and how to use it. While most psychic abilities in the last edition were “instead of a shooting attack,” there are a whole host of different times that different psychic powers can be used in this edition.
Manifesting (or Resisting) a Psychic ability uses the cool “new” (old for some of us hobby grognards) Willpower stat. The Psychic test is made in the same way as any other Characteristic Check in that you roll 2D6 and are aiming to roll at or below the manifesting model’s WP stat. If you roll doubles on these dice, you suffer Perils of the Warp!
Perils of the Warp has changed a bit from last edition, returning to something more familiar to older first edition Heresy/pre-8th 40k players in that it triggers on doubles. There’s a handy chart on page 215 of the Core Rulebook (and the Saturnine box cheat sheet), but in short double 2, 3, 4, and 5 inflicts the unit with Aetheric Feedback, afflicting the Stunned status, while double 1 and 6 inflicts a “Warp Rupture,” causing a number of wounds equal to 13 minus the highest Willpower in the unit (assuming it has a Sergeant, Command, or Paragon Model in it) against which only Invulnerable Saves can be taken. Ouch. Worth noting, a double can still be a success AND trigger Perils, a double 1 always succeeding and a double 6 always failing. Sometimes Perils is inflicted without trying to Manifest or Resist a psychic ability, in which case you just roll 1D6 and apply the result from the chart.
This is good and bad; on the one hand, failing to manifest a psychic ability does not automatically apply Perils anymore, meaning that your average Psyker WP of 9 will succeed 83.33% of the time. But this also means that Perils will occur just as frequently whether you succeed or fail the check. In other words, Perils will still happen statistically as often (16.67% of the time rolling doubles vs. failing a Characteristic 9 check), but the competency of your Psyker nerd doesn’t really matter for that, i.e. Perils are just as likely to happen with a higher WP Psyker as a lower one; those odds never change. The Warp works in mysterious ways, so just be aware of this fact going in.
Psychic powers are broken up into a few different categories:
- Psychic Weapons: Essentially bonus wargear granted to the Psyker that are either a Shooting or Melee weapon profile and are freely usable; the Psyker does not need to make a Willpower check to use these. Some of these weapons will have the Force (X) special rule, in which the Psyker can choose to make a Willpower Check to double the value of the X stat (often Damage or Strength). These checks are optional however and are again NOT required to use the weapon’s base profile.
- Psychic Powers: Active effects that your Psyker manifests onto the table. These abilities are limited to once a turn per Psyker, so unless your Psyker has rules that state otherwise, they can only use ONE power per Active turn. GW has also clarified for us that the model basically has to be on the table to use a Power; models in Reserves or in Transports cannot use them, and the effect of the power immediately ends if the model enters Reserves or Embarks on a Transport. These powers are broken into two sub-categories:
- Psychic Blessings: Buffs applied to the Psyker, his unit, a nearby unit, or in an area of effect. These have a variety of affects and will tell you in the ability when and how they are used. These require a Willpower Check to manifest.
- Psychic Curses: Debuffs that you try to put on an enemy unit; sometimes they have to make a Resistance Check in order to try to resist the power, and sometimes still requires your Psyker to make a Manifestation check, but often not both.
- Psychic Reactions: These are psychic abilities used as a Reaction in your opponent’s turn. These still use a point of your Reaction allotment and are still limited in the same way as normal Reactions (i.e. a unit cannot do more than one in the other player’s turn regardless of your Reaction point allotment.) Psychic Weapons and Gambits do not count towards this total.
- Psychic Gambits: Exactly what they sound like; psychic abilities used exclusively in and for Challenges.
The Core Disciplines
The main basic core psychic disciplines remain, usually granting some kind of baseline passive additional rule for the Psyker, and then granting some combination of two Psychic abilities of Weapons, Powers, Reactions, or Gambits. There is no “Basic” psychic ability anymore sadly, so say goodbye to Force Lightning. Otherwise, let’s get at it!
Biomancy
Living their best Jojo’s Posing life, Biomancy Psykers are absolute units, turgid with warp energy and bulging muscles.
Biomancy comes with a handy built-in Impact (S) for the Psyker himself, great if you intend him to just be a melee monster and making lower Strength, at-Initiative weapons like power swords and lightning claws much scarier.
This Discipline has the Biomantic Slam melee weapon and the Biomantic Rage Psychic Blessing. Biomantic Slam has an impressive stat line; I-3 A1 S12 AP2 D2 Armourbane, Force (D). While obviously intended to represent the Psyker punching through the side of a Land Raider (causing a penetrating hit on anything more than a ‘1’), this can also be used to Hulk Smash anything less than a Terminator Praetor in a single shot (assuming you make your Force check and they fail their Invulnerable save that is.) Note: the Psyker doesn’t get to use his Impact (S) on this as it has a fixed S stat.
Biomantic Rage is a Psychic Blessing that can manifest during a charge, importantly BEFORE any Volley Attacks are made. The Psyker may grant a unit Charging (his or any unit he can see within 18”) +2 Strength and Toughness for the rest of that Assault Phase. The buffed unit has to forego their Volley Attacks, but whoopty doo +2 Strength and Toughness are hella worth that.
Biomancers are a great force multiplier (no pun intended) for a melee unit so would go great with something like terminators or assault veterans (assuming they get their jump packs back in that shiny Legacies PDF!)
Pyromancy
Some people just want to watch the world burn, and this is no truer than the Pyromancy Psyker. Pyromancers come stock with a hilarious Explodes (4+), meaning they splash their Wound value of S8 AP- D1 hits to all units within 6” when they die on a 4+. Unique among the Core Disciplines, Pyromancy only has 2 psychic weapons, the Ranged Wildfire and the Conflagration Melee attack.
Wildfire, R18 FP1 S4 AP4 D1 Panic (1), Blast (5”), Force (S), represents the classic ‘fireball the gazebo’ and is a great way to throw around some ranged Panic and can really wrack up the hits with the Large Blast marker it drops. You can also try to Glance any mid-armor bunched up vehicles by applying Force and is a great little utility weapon for your Psyker to wield.
Conflagration, I-1 A6+D3 S5 AP4 D1 Deflagrate (5), is a great way of just slinging a bunch of attacks into a melee, and is going to absolutely wreck Solar Aux in combat.
Pyromancy is a great way to save some points on equipping your Psyker with any special weapons as they’ll come with a weapon for almost any occasion.
Telekinesis
A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and the Telekine Psyker does absolutely the opposite, able to manipulate objects with their mind or create powerful psychic barriers for them and their allies. Coming with an impressive Shroud (4+) base, the Telekinesis Discipline also comes with the Force Barrier Psychic Reaction and the Immovable Force Psychic Weapon.
Force Barrier allows the Psyker to erect a Kine shield in either the Assault Phase or the Shooting Phase and grants a 3+ Shroud against any Volley or Shooting attacks made. Bubble shields for days, boys!
Immovable Force, R18 FP3 S6 AP4 D1 Pinning (2), Force (FP), is great for locking a unit down with crushing gravity and leaving them exposed to friendly guns (or preventing them from moving closer to charge!)
Telekine Psykers are great utility pieces and are really going to exponentially increase the survivability of a unit by both granting the Shroud Damage Mitigation and keeping enemy units from getting to them in the first place. NOTE: the Psyker’s native Shroud (4+) only applies to that model unless you use the Force Barrier Psychic Reaction to give the whole unit the Shroud (3+); to use it you would need to allocate the wounds to them and per the new Wound Allocation rules, they would need to keep taking wounds until the Wound Pool is empty or they are dead so just FYI. I’d especially consider one attached to a unit you don’t intend to move around a lot, like a Heavy Support Squad or double gun Saturnine Terminator squad. Imagine, if you will, a T6 3W 2+/4++ unit that can shoot out of Line of Sight and can get a Shroud (3+) on top of that. Yikes.
Divination
This Psyker knew you would do that, and is able to Divine his way into being an absolute Challenge monster. This is a truly offensive Discipline and is for the Commander wanting to make quick, decisive plays.
First, Divination comes with a built-in Duellist’s Edge (2), giving him a standard +2 to Focus in a Challenge. Alongside that, Divination grants the Every Strike Foreseen Psychic Gambit and the Foresight’s Blessing psychic, uh, blessing.
Every Strike Foreseen, following a Willpower Check, allows the manifesting Psyker to always hit on a 2+ in the subsequent Strike Phase of a Challenge, giving him the ability to bully equivalent stat lines or truly punch up against more skilled opponents. Note: this Gambit never triggers Perils of the Warp, so you’re not going to screw yourself out of a Challenge if you choose to make use of it. Pretty crazy!
Foresight’s Blessing is used during a Shooting Attack on the Psykers unit or any unit within 18” and grants Precision (5+). This is pretty gnarly considering Artificer Armor tanking is more or less gone, letting you snipe out important equipment models with high power weapons or piling armor saves onto them with volume of fire weapons.
Truly a glass cannon, Diviners can really let you snipe out some enemy power pieces or annoying models like apothecaries, officers, or nuncio-voxes. And it goes without saying that this guy is a melee monster, especially paired with the Paragon of Battle Prime Advantage giving him an additional WS, BS, and A.
Telepathy
The spooky boogeyman Discipline from second edition took a much needed smack with the nerf bat but is still absolutely usable and effective. The Discipline grants the Psyker Fear (1) and access to the Mind-Burst Psychic Curse and Cursed Whispers Psychic Weapon.
Mind-burst is a Psychic Power that forces a non-Vehicle enemy unit within 18” to remove all of its Statuses and immediately make a Fall Back move, then take an unmodified LD Check and gain Routed if they fail.
NOTE: The fact this ability is called a Curse is a bit odd, because RAW currently it only requires a successful Manifestation check for YOUR unit, not a Resistance check for the enemy, but it still targets an enemy unit; we think this may be due for an FAQ as it seems a bit off and the intent for the ability is not 100% clear. Seems a bit strong for an enemy unit with a high WP to not be able to try to resist AT ALL. This same note/consideration also applies to the Thousand Sons Corvidae ability Paths of Consequence, but we’re not covering that in this article and frankly, nobody is taking Corvidae for that.
While you can’t use this to farm Vanguard (X) points (the enemy has to be forced to Fall Back after Combat), the utility of this ability cannot be understated. Forcing your opponent to move Initiative + D6 away from something/you is unbelievably strong, and then the chance to give them Routed on top of that is the cherry on top. Not quite the Auto-Pin or “Turn Off Reactions” abilities of this discipline from last edition, but wow is it still strong.
Cursed Whispers, R18 FP2D6 RS3 AP- D1 Stun (-), is just a way for the Psyker to hand out Stun Cool Checks, which is always a good thing. Stun an enemy Heavy Support Squad to protect your incoming Deep Strike or prevent Overwatch for an upcoming charge.
Your Psyker can in theory pull both of these off as Mind-burst is done in the Movement Phase and Cursed Whispers is a Shooting Attack and can be used freely. Either way, these are both really strong together and I think Telepathy will still be a popular pick for Librarians, though not as out-of-control busted as last edition.
Thaumaturgy
This “holier than thou” Psychic Discipline that should feel right at home amongst the ranks of the self-righteous Imperial Fists or the hypocritical Space Wolves is very much the “anti-Psyker” choice. Baseline, it gives your Psyker Hatred (Psykers), giving them +1 to Wound in melee against them. Cut his life into pieces, this is his last resort.
First, the Psychic Reaction Resurrection allows the Psyker to try to bring a shooting casualty from his unit back to life. After a successful Manifestation (and before any Perils are resolved), the controlling player rolls a die and on a 4+, a slain model is returned to the unit with its full base Wounds (note: this only works on things with Wounds.) While it seems a bit annoying to have to do two separate checks for this one, let’s be real that it’d be kinda busted if there weren’t. Good for high wound model count units like terminators, vets, or even Rapier batteries. Also note that this power does not work on single models; RAW the model is removed as a casualty then placed in unit coherency with another model in its unit. A model can’t be placed in unit coherency with nothing; sorry Magnus, no immortality for you. May get an FAQ, but…I don’t think it needs it. Don’t be that guy.
The Psychic Curse, Tranquility, forces an enemy Psyker within 18” to inflict a -2WP on any Psychic Check they make and forces the S of any Psychic Weapon to be at -1S. I think this one has some very niche uses, but against a legion like Thousand Sons or a player you know likes to bring Psykers it may be a great pick. That idea really applies to this whole discipline. Probably not going to be a super popular pick, but it has its uses and can lead to some cool plays with Resurrection.
Credit – Meltabombed
The Nullify Psychic Reaction
One of the Core Reactions in the main Rulebook is the Nullify Advanced Reaction, which is essentially a “do-over” Resistance Check if a unit containing a Psyker fails to Resist a Curse. The Reacting Psyker subtracts the Manifesting Psyker’s WP from his, and applies that as a modifier to the result of this second Resistance roll. Oddly, it seems you’d want your guy to have less WP than the guy attacking, since the modifier applies to the roll, not the target number for whatever reason; this seems like another place we may need an FAQ or Errata. Eitehr way, neat but seems pretty limited in its use as Curses are already pretty rare (especially given our note about the wording of them above) and the likelihood that you and your opponent both have Psykers within 18” of each other (the most common range for these) seems pretty low. It’s there to be used and could come in real clutch if someone is trying to Mind Burst you off an Objective.
Generic Astartes Disciplines/Consuls
Several Legions have individual Legion Psychic Disciplines (like the Thousand Sons’ Proserpine Arcana or the White Scars’ Stormcalling) that will be covered in their bespoke Legion articles. However, there are a couple of generic Psykers available to all Astartes, namely the Esoterist and the Librarian.
Esoterist
The Esoterist comes with the Anathemata Psychic Discipline which does different things based on which Allegiance he has, Loyalist or Traitor.
Baseline, the whopping WP10 Esoterist comes with Fear (1) and the Void Darts Psychic Weapon. With R18 FPD6 S5 AP4 D1 Shred (5+), Force (D), this nasty little pocket Heavy Bolter can spike nicely with Force to get up a respectable D3, though into anything besides Mortals will likely still be able to save the Wounds anyway. Also packing a force weapon and archeotech pistol base is a nice little bonus for this guy.
A Loyalist Esoterist can Manifest the Seal the Veil Psychic Curse Reaction, which targets an enemy Malefic Unit (basically what Corrupted/Demon was last edition) attempting to Charge the Psyker’s unit. If successfully Manifested, the Curse reduces any Set-Up Moves to 1” and forces the charging unit to discard the highest dice roll of the 2D6 Charge roll rather than the lowest (i.e. roll two pick the lowest instead of roll two pick the highest.) This is a pretty strong Reaction against a nasty Demon unit trying to charge your Psyker, but again the use cases for this ability are pretty edgy.
Traitor Esoterists can Breach the Veil, making it so a Demon unit in Reserves automatically passes its Reserve roll that turn. Definitely not as useful as the pocket pokeball demon summoning from last edition, but then again that ability was REALLY powerful, especially considering the demons could Charge out of being summoned. More than one opponent of mine last edition found themselves on the wrong end of a Turn 1 Charge on a unit that deployed a little too aggressively; this is much more tame.
Librarian
This unit will be discussed in a bit more depth in our Liber coverage, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention him.
Also coming standard with a force weapon, the WP9 Librarian can take up to 2 of the Core Disciplines, all being Free (Thaumaturgy), 10 points (Telepathy and Pyromancy), or 20 points (Biomancy, Telekinesis, and Divination), which says interesting things about how SGS views the internal balance on these disciplines. I’m glad that Thaumaturgy is a free pick, because otherwise I doubt anyone would pay for it. That said, multiple choices of disciplines being available the Librarian at the same time increases both the tactical choices and utility of the piece, and if you have an idea in mind for what you want your Librarian to do, throw Thaumaturgy on him as a secondary discipline just in case he crosses paths with another Psyker. This also opens up a wider possibility of modeling opportunities (imagine a combo Pyromancer and Biomancer with bare arms and fire fists, cocking his arms like Henry Cavill and getting ready to punch someone’s absolute daylights out, for example.) Pretty cool stuff all around.
Final Thoughts
So that’s it, all the space wizard shenanigans you can shake a force stick at! Psykers, especially for Legions, will be a great asset to your force and can bring a lot of added utility to the table while also unlocking an extra Auxiliary Detachment as a Command Unit. Check back in with us soon to have a more in-depth look at specific Legion Psykers, and check out the Liber Mechanicum Review here to have a better look at Cyberthurgy. Psych-on you 31st Millenium magic dabbler, you!
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