Official WarSeer Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition discussion thread

[SideshowLucifer]

Well, I'm not really buying into much of this latest rumor. I had heard the percentage bit myself and I'm hoping that part is true. As for the psychic phase, I have long, long, awaited the return of the psychic phase, but I have never heard anything about it's rumored return until now. To me that means it likely is not going to happen.

[ForgottenLore]

Actually, this rumor doesn't say anything about a psychic phase, just that there will be distinct Lores and that powers will be randomly generated (I assume just before the battle). Nothing about a new phase.

[BDJV]

Some new stuff on Faeit 212

As far as 6th ed...
I will also add that vehicles use "hull points" in 6th. If a vehicle has 3 hull points it will die after 3 shaken results, but it can still explode after 1 shot as normal.

All cc weapons have AP values in 6th similar to what was in the fake 6th ed rule book leak.
There are going to be no different levels of Eternal Warrior either.

Cheers,
Grant

[SideshowLucifer]

Sounds close enough to it that I still don't buy it, especially since this is the first I have heard of it, though I think I'd love to be wrong.
Edited to reply to above post,
I could see that hull point thing cause a whole lot of crying when fighting necrons.

[Azzy]

Random psychic powers sounds incredibly stupid. The selection of powers should be the player's choice--leave the random for things like task resolution and such.

[althathir]

Something I worry about is that a lot of people have been hoping that 6th will help out Infantry armies, and nerf transports. But at the same time, there's a big new focus on Flyers - something infantry would probably have a hard time dealing with. Unmounted infantry might be out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

Honestly I think the boosting infantry & nerfing transports is mainly wishlisting. Transports make GW a lot of money they aren't gonna suck, personally I'm just hoping firing points have a more of drawback.

FoC is far from perfect, case in point when you can spend 1/20th on your "troops" and then your heavy takes up 75% of your points...

There's nothing about FoC in this current setup that works really well, it works for armies like marines, but honestly larger sized army (individually cheaper points) make more sense with a % based system.

The FoC isn't the only factor in listbuilding (unlike fantasy's system) the missions also push troops. I really feel like thats a better system, cause i'm looking at getting back into fantasy but core is somewhat depressing because it feels like a list tax whereas having troops be the scoring units makes them feel important.

I'm trying to figure out how random psychic powers would affect armies like Eldar. I can see something like this happening too often:

Warlock approaches group of Genestealers and knowing that he can't take them on in CC he decides to flame them using destructor, but instead rolls enhance. Well there goes that warlock.

They would have to totally redo all the Eldar psychic powers in some kind of update, or else Eldar will be virtually unplayable until they get a new codex.

It wouldn't shock me if Eldar would get to pick in this situation. Warlock powers haven't required a test since 3rd, and are purchased so I don't see why they would change because to a degree warlock powers are just wargear. Right now farseers pay for each power, and with psychers being one of our strengths it would make sense for them to be able to pick (plus the army really doesn't need a handicap). Nids would probably be in a similiar situation.

[self biased]

Random psychic powers sounds incredibly stupid. The selection of powers should be the player's choice--leave the random for things like task resolution and such.

this. i cannot fully express my loathing for the prevailing attitude that "MOAR RANDUM EES MOAR BETTAR!" that i see (caution: this sentence may contain hyperbole) among many gamers. what was that chaos unit that had a random table that you rolled on it at the beginning of the game that determined what they did? the horrifying thing about the way that worked was that you picked that unit hoping to roll what was clearly the best one, but you never knew what role they'd actually be playing on the battlefield. it's bad design. just like 'seize the initiative' is a bad rule. i've lost more games based simply on the fact that my opponnent happened to roll a six and hamstrung my army before i could even get out the gate (I play deathwing, so my opinion is somewhat biased as it only takes one crap roll on my part to end my game prematurely).

the idea of a separate psychic phase, and how many people wish to go back to this is a complete mystery. what is gained by having another shooting phase/assault phase/movement phase that's reserved for psychic powers? isn't the more elegant solution to just use the power when appropriate rather than segregating it to its own phase? Additionally, I would be in favor of instead of a straight up Ld test, give different powers a difficulty and say to activate the power you roll 2d6 and add your leadership. if the roll meets the threshold: BOOM, power activated. you can still figure out perils the same way as we currently do and be given more freedom to adjust the frequency to which a power can reliably work.

[MarikLaw]

I'm just going to chime in here with my two cents.

About the "Random" psychic powers, I doubt it's going to be as harsh as people are thinking it's going to be. Nowhere does it say that ALL psychic powers will be randomly generated. In my opinion, with GW starting to move away from having too much randomized content in armies, the aforementioned "Random Psychic Powers" will probably be just for the Lesser Psychic Powers. In my mind, the army's core Psychic Powers will work as they do now with you being able to select which ones you want and then, in addition to that, your psyker can/will/may have a randomized Psychic Power from a generic "Psychic School" of sorts.

[BDJV]

I'm just going to chime in here with my two cents.

About the "Random" psychic powers, I doubt it's going to be as harsh as people are thinking it's going to be. Nowhere does it say that ALL psychic powers will be randomly generated. In my opinion, with GW starting to move away from having too much randomized content in armies, the aforementioned "Random Psychic Powers" will probably be just for the Lesser Psychic Powers. In my mind, the army's core Psychic Powers will work as they do now with you being able to select which ones you want and then, in addition to that, your psyker can/will/may have a randomized Psychic Power from a generic "Psychic School" of sorts.

Why on earth would GW do that, it makes zero sense. If GW does as rumored the system will resemble the way magic works in 8th ed WFB. So there will be a completely new list of Psychic power lores in the MRB and they will replace/invalidate all those listed in the codices.

[Maxis Lithium]

I suspect that armies that have specific powers will still be able to take those by default. What I expect is something akin to what was tested out right before 4th. Old psyckers wil likely be able to either give up their default power, or pay points to roll on the psychic lore chart (I'm guessing things like Telekinesis being one kind, Pyrokenisis being another. Precognition being a tree and so on and so forth.) I don't expect you to be forced to roll for units that already buy their psychic powers. T here are units like Necromancers that buy their spells with points in Fantasy that don't roll randomly.
I expect it will become more important in new books as new psyckers will likely be relying more on the new core rules.
I suspect it will be kinta like the situation in Fantasy ow with old and new books, and the universal magic items list. New books have significantly fewer magic items while old ones have three times as many. Both have access to the new 'common

[Formerly Wu]

All fine as far as that goes. But why is this necessary to add to 40k?

In Fantasy, a magic phase with common spell lores makes sense. Magic is an intrinsic part of the world and theme of a fantasy setting. Every race (save Dwarfs) have multiple magic-capable units or, at the very least, beasts and warmachines that are magical in nature.

On the other hand, while psyker powers and the Warp are certainly intrinsic parts of the 40k universe, they're far from ubiquitous. Off the top of my head, I'd say only Grey Knights, Daemons, Eldar, Tyranids, and maybe Chaos Space Marines make wide use of psychic abilities. Imperial Guard, Necrons, SoB, and most Space Marines have only limited access to psychic (or techno-sorcery, faith or whatever) powers, and Black Templars, Dark Eldar and Tau have none at all. Nor are psychic powers a particularly rich theme in the 40k universe as a whole.

I buy that GW wants to bring in some successful 8e Fantasy concepts to 40k, but this just doesn't make any sense to me.

[Maxis Lithium]

I have found that the Psychics of 40K have been too limited and too ridged. They either mimic other things like shooting weapons, or they function im awkward ways. Powers are tossed around all number of phases and suffer inconsistencies. (Lash needs to roll to hide, but JOTWW dosen't?) It also makes little sense that every race must have different psychic powers. Unique powers make sense, but one would think that some powers, such as telepathy which shows up in the fluff repeatedly for multiple races, isn't is represented in several ways though out the game. An Astropath gives +1 reserves, but isn't 'psychic' but an inquisitor or Grey Knight do something similar, are psykers and have to roll. Universal powers, like universal rules, would give the game developers tools that help define how various psykers function and help to keep the game balanced throughout the life of the edition.

It's the same reason we need the Universal Special rules. In order to increase the game's complexity, we must first simplify what we have so deviations from what is standard becomes clearer, and more meaningful.

[Rick Blaine]

The annoying thing will be when Space Marines have access to all "lores" and everyone else just gets one or two, including factions that should be way more psychic than Marines.

[Theis]

I have found that the Psychics of 40K have been too limited and too ridged. They either mimic other things like shooting weapons, or they function im awkward ways. Powers are tossed around all number of phases and suffer inconsistencies. (Lash needs to roll to hide, but JOTWW dosen't?) It also makes little sense that every race must have different psychic powers. Unique powers make sense, but one would think that some powers, such as telepathy which shows up in the fluff repeatedly for multiple races, isn't is represented in several ways though out the game. An Astropath gives +1 reserves, but isn't 'psychic' but an inquisitor or Grey Knight do something similar, are psykers and have to roll. Universal powers, like universal rules, would give the game developers tools that help define how various psykers function and help to keep the game balanced throughout the life of the edition.

It's the same reason we need the Universal Special rules. In order to increase the game's complexity, we must first simplify what we have so deviations from what is standard becomes clearer, and more meaningful.

Can't disagree with your logic here at all. Standardization of psychic powers would benefit every faction to some degree or other. Random allocation of these powers at the beginning of the game, however I can not see the benefit of. Purple Sun, as an example from Fantasy, can be a game ruiner. The game is over the instant it's cast, almost the moment one side gets it really.

In my experience magic dominates Fantasy. You either have access to it, or are trying to find ways to counter it. It is one of the largest issues of Fantasy currently. The strength of your army relies greatly upon your ability to do one, or both, of these things. I would hate to see 40k go the same way with psychic powers.

[geoffkemp]

A good friend of mine works in the FLGS and informed me that the German starter box will be available second week of June.

Heard something similair in the UK as well

[Fable]

While I dont' think random powers would work in the current game... They pretty much worked in 2nd edition. If it's something along those lines then I could see them working in 6th.

[Formerly Wu]

I have found that the Psychics of 40K have been too limited and too ridged. They either mimic other things like shooting weapons, or they function im awkward ways. Powers are tossed around all number of phases and suffer inconsistencies. (Lash needs to roll to hide, but JOTWW dosen't?) It also makes little sense that every race must have different psychic powers. Unique powers make sense, but one would think that some powers, such as telepathy which shows up in the fluff repeatedly for multiple races, isn't is represented in several ways though out the game. An Astropath gives +1 reserves, but isn't 'psychic' but an inquisitor or Grey Knight do something similar, are psykers and have to roll. Universal powers, like universal rules, would give the game developers tools that help define how various psykers function and help to keep the game balanced throughout the life of the edition.

It's the same reason we need the Universal Special rules. In order to increase the game's complexity, we must first simplify what we have so deviations from what is standard becomes clearer, and more meaningful.

Hm, okay. Color me convinced.

I'm still not sold on the idea of randomly generated powers or an entire psychic phase. I don't think they're prevalent enough to support that. But standardized psychic powers and rules, okay.

[althathir]

I'm kinda curious to see what happens with psychic powers to be honest. I have a theory on it though (this is speculation), that what they will do is add a casting value and make it clearer when powers are used.

So for example take JoTWW they could assign it a value of 8 and have psychic shooting attacks happen before other shooting attacks. When you use the power you'd roll the test like normal except the power wouldn't work unless it was either equal or less then than the casting value, if a successful result was higher then the models leadership the power would still work but the psycher would suffer a perils (and maybe the power couldn't be blocked). This would let some of the lower leadership armies have psychers that would work but probably blow up, and allow for them to nerf some of the powers that are OTT (jaws working on a 8 or less instead of a 10 or less is a sizable nerf). This would more or less work within the existing framework but give them more design space.

I also think its more likely that if there are lores in the 40k book it'll just be updated psychic powers for each army (with casting values) rather than a selection of lores for everybody. If powers are random then some armies may gain or lose powers to fit, but I would think that would be the extent of it. I'm really on the fence about the random power rumour to be honest, for most armies it wouldn't be too bad, but eldar would basically get kicked while their down.

Again these are just guesses on my part.

[BramGaunt]

All fine as far as that goes. But why is this necessary to add to 40k?

In Fantasy, a magic phase with common spell lores makes sense. Magic is an intrinsic part of the world and theme of a fantasy setting. Every race (save Dwarfs) have multiple magic-capable units or, at the very least, beasts and warmachines that are magical in nature.

On the other hand, while psyker powers and the Warp are certainly intrinsic parts of the 40k universe, they're far from ubiquitous. Off the top of my head, I'd say only Grey Knights, Daemons, Eldar, Tyranids, and maybe Chaos Space Marines make wide use of psychic abilities. Imperial Guard, Necrons, SoB, and most Space Marines have only limited access to psychic (or techno-sorcery, faith or whatever) powers, and Black Templars, Dark Eldar and Tau have none at all. Nor are psychic powers a particularly rich theme in the 40k universe as a whole.

I buy that GW wants to bring in some successful 8e Fantasy concepts to 40k, but this just doesn't make any sense to me.

But what if they wanted to change that? Maybe they want 40k to be a fantasy-scifi game with a much bigger focus on the supernatural. Let's face it, the concept of Chaos is the only thing that seperates 40k from the other big SciFi settings. Bugs, Terminators, Superadvanced Alien Races, that's all very common in Science Fiction and repeated many times. (EG the Zerg of StarCraft, the Bugs from the Starship Troopers Movies, the Xenomorphs from the Alien Universe, all share the insect-like appearance of the big devouring swarm, just as Tyranids are another incarnation of this concept)

But Chaos, the Warp and daemons are way more of a Fantasy element than a SciFi Element, and it is what seperates 40k a little from the others. Star Wars has the Force as a super-natural element, and that's whats added flavor to it.

I am not big on SciFi, but I can't name another 25 year old SciFi universe where something even remotly as the whole concept of the Warp and Chaos exists. Please, correct me if I am wrong.

[Theocracity]

A thought: perhaps the random psychic power idea is due to the current problem of Psykers being 'too good,' added to the fact that Mastery levels could make them even better.

Currently, for most armies with decent Psykers, the Psyker is the default best choice for the HQ. Librarians, Farseers, Rune Priests (as well as Demon Princes and Tervigons) are all great support units with game defining powers. If Mastery levels start to allow more powers being cast, they might be interested in making Psykers less of sure-shot choice.

I do think that not all powers will be random; at least a primary power should be selectable, with other minor powers randomized. This means that they can't necessarily rely on multiple effective powers they can cast multiple times a turn, but still serve their primary purpose.

Of course, they could also fix this problem by making the other HQ choices provide better support. But that's a codex issue that's slower to solve.