Shadow in the Warp, 6th ed problem

[nurglitch]

"Note that a Psyker who incurs Perils of the Warp on a roll of double 1 still uses his power, even if he is wounded or killed as a result."

[coredump]

Jul 18, 2012 19:20:22 GMT nurglitch said:

Yes, I keep providing it:

"Manifesting Psychic Powers

3. Take Psychic Test
The Psyker must now take a Psychic test."

Jul 18, 2012 19:24:17 GMT nurglitch said:

The rules on p.67 governing manifesting psychic powers say psykers must take a psychic test; they must pass this psychic test at step 3 to move on to step 4 ("Deny the Witch") and step 5 ("Resolve Psychic Power").

Please quote the rules from p67, not the summary of the rules from p67.

If you continue to ignore the actual rules, it makes it pointless to try and have a discussion of the rules.

Actual rules: Need to pass a psy test.

[nurglitch]

That's not a summary, that a step in the procedure for manifesting psychic powers. In order to manifest a psyker's psychic power, the player has to follow those 5 steps, the 3rd of which is taking a psychic test. Interestingly the 2nd and 4th are conditional on the psychic power having a (2) target, and (4) passed a psychic test and the target was an enemy. The third step (3) is a requirement.

You're misquoting the sentence: "The psyker must now pass a Psychic test to see if he can control the power he's calling upon." That sentence connects Step 3 to Step 4 & 5, as manifesting a psychic power requires passing a psychic test.

[Interesting note, a properly written manual would have included sentences stating purpose and organization as well as context, but then I'm not convinced GW's rulebooks are intended as use-documents.]

The rules for Psychic Tests go on:

"If the test is passed, the psychic power is manifested successfully and can be resolved - although if it was used on an enemy unit, your opponent first has a chance to Deny the Witch (see page 68).

"If the test is failed, the psychic power does not work, and nothing happens. In either event, there is a chance that the Psyker has come to the attentions of the denizens of the Warp.

"Perils of the Warp
If the roll for the Psychic test is either a double 1 or double 6 (whether the test was passed or not) this indicates that something horrible has happened to the Psyker. The forces of the Daemon-haunted Warp claw at the Psyker's mind and threaten to engulf and destroy him. The Psyker immediately suffers 1 wound with no saves of any kind allowed. Note that a Psyker who incurs Perils of the Warp on a roll of double 1 still uses his power, even if he is wounded or killed as a result."

So there you have it. The specifics of the Psychic Test agree with the procedure for manifesting psychic powers: the psyker takes a psychic test, and whether the test was passed or not, suffers Perils of the Warp if the roll for the psychic test is either double 1 or double 6.

The Grey Knights take their psychic test, use the Brotherhood Banner to automatically pass it, regardless of whether they pass the Leadership test or not, and then suffer Perils of the Warp when any two dice on that Leadership test are either both 1s or both 6s.

[Jabberwocky]

Jul 18, 2012 19:35:33 GMT nurglitch said:

Jabberwocky:

That's an interesting point. Going by memory, which is usually wrong, Warlocks don't have the "Psyker" special rule, and their 'powers' aren't psychic powers by the rules.

At Mastery Level 0 they cannot use any psychic powers, which is alright because by the rules they don't have psychic powers.

They are listed as psykers, each of their powers is chosen/bought as a psychic power, and some are listed in the faq as psychic shooting attacks. They are mastery 0, can't swap them in, don't require warp charge, don't test for them but still count as psychic attacks for deny the witch.

They break the procedure summary quite nicely really

[nurglitch]

Jabberwocky:

So what you're saying is that they have verbiage that explicitly exempts them from taking a psychic test? Reading the FAQ it appears that they do. They do not automatically pass psychic tests, they don't take psychic tests at all. Seems interesting for GW to make that distinction.

[1b2a]

coredump vs nurglitch t v t

[maugrim]

If the assumption of having to roll dice whenever you are required to take a test, disregarding auto pass/fail conditions attached to it, was true then you would always roll leadership for Fearless. Roll to hit for Hammer. Roll leadership for Instinctive Behaviour while within Synapse. Roll to wound for Blinding Venom which hit on 6s. Roll to hit vehicles when they were stationary.

And if you did have to roll, the Rule of One would come into play (always fail on a roll of 1) - thus you could generate a situation where Hammer misses, Blinding Venom failed to wound, and you missed a Stationary Vehicle.

Then you'd have two rules in contradiction - one says you succeeded, one says you failed. Which one takes precedence? 4+? FAQ?

OR, you take the rules at face value and when something says you automatically pass/fail, you skip the roll to prove that you pass/fail and all the resultant problems that would occur because of it.

Yes, it give the Banner a boost. But it also means our Venom works, we always hit Stationary Vehicles, etc, etc.

Don't go looking for problems, there are enough REAL issues with the rules that we don't need to create new ones.

[coredump]

I will continue with my same basic policy, if anyone else wishes to discuss this, I will continue. It is a waste of time and effort to quibble with Nurglitch.

For everyone else, look at p67. It starts with a summary of the steps, using shorthand for the steps. If you look at the actual rules, the only requirement is to *pass* the test.

[nurglitch]

Given that the disagreement is what the actual rules say, the rules that have quoted ad nauseum in this this, it's disingenuous to claim that the actual rules agree with your interpretation, especially when you continually ignore the parts of the rules that ignore them, and the arguments demonstrating that your opinion is not based on the facts printed on p.67.

[kippawah]

IMO

It would seem, fluff-wise, if a unit of Paladins with this banner, charging into, say a Trygon Prime or Hive Tyrant (something with SitW) would be taking a gamble with channeling the Warp soo close to these creatures. It SHOULD be dramatically more difficult to be successful. It doesn't seem that it should EVER be a free psychic activation. Though they make be inspired/focused enough to BE successful, there is the ever-present danger of possibly becoming a casualty of the Warp.

I mean, is this really the only case (aside from special rule Eldar chicanery) of a unit being exempt from making a roll?

I do understand that what this means is every unit having to roll a Psychic test, and that is tedious. I mean, is that how that would regularly work? Maybe I don't understand it. Would the unit normally just take one test, and apply it to all models, or individual models having to take the test?

Otherwise, it seems that having Shadow in the Warp is largely useless and not nearly as big a deal as it is described to be, fluff-wise.

[nurglitch]

The Brotherhood of Psykers rule means that when the unit of Grey Knights takes a psychic test for powers like Hammerhand and activating force weapons, it uses the Leadership of its Justicar or Knight of the Flame, or a random member in the absence of either. Likewise Perils of the Warp affects that model.

The Brotherhood Banner gives the unit a bonus attack, and allows the unit to automatically pass its psychic test to activate its force weapons. Otherwise they have to pass on 3D6, and even at Ld10 that's a 50% rate of failure, and that's before the Tyranid Deny the Witch attempt if any is available. Most Grey Knight units are Ld9, with a 1/6 chance of failure without the Shadow in the Warp.

The Shadow in the Warp rule makes sense as a representation of the background, to me: Psykers find their powers drastically harder and more dangerous to use, hence the whole 'driven mad' and coverage depends on the concentration of Tyranids in the local area. Remember that battlefield psykers are a serious step up from uncontrolled psykers in the general populace, in terms of their powers and mastery.

[coredump]

The way things "Should" be... or "make sense" are fine justifications for house rules.

[kippawah]

Jul 19, 2012 16:47:44 GMT nurglitch said:

The Shadow in the Warp rule makes sense as a representation of the background, to me: Psykers find their powers drastically harder and more dangerous to use, hence the whole 'driven mad' and coverage depends on the concentration of Tyranids in the local area. Remember that battlefield psykers are a serious step up from uncontrolled psykers in the general populace, in terms of their powers and mastery.

Sure, battlefield psykers are highly trained, etc. Does that make them able to traverse the Warp without consequence? Wouldn't that be more like what the idea of the Emperor of Mankind is doing?

A Grey Knight in terminator armor with a force weapon, and a banner being held next to him somehow confers perils-free access to the Warp?

That doesn't sounds very accurate.

[lostminds]

So what you are saying is that if a model has the rule that it automatically passes all dangerous terrain tests, then they would still have to roll and on a roll of 1 take a wound.

Same logic can be applied to Icons for deepstriking. Even though it doesn't drift you would have to roll to see if you would mishap on something.

If they wanted you to take a test they would say so...

[kippawah]

Jul 19, 2012 19:10:38 GMT lostminds said:

So what you are saying is that if a model has the rule that it automatically passes all dangerous terrain tests, then they would still have to roll and on a roll of 1 take a wound.

Same logic can be applied to Icons for deepstriking. Even though it doesn't drift you would have to roll to see if you would mishap on something.

If they wanted you to take a test they would say so...

1) Is there such a thing? Or is it that the rule is written more like dangerous just becomes difficult? (therein not necessitating a dangerous terrain roll)

2) I am unfamiliar with Chaos and their icons. I am familiar with spores and drop pods, that stop when they meet impassible, still drift and can still mishap if they go off the table. So, probably not the same thing.

3) You really think GW has been diligent enough to write their rulebooks and codices with every situation in mind? Having said codices thoroughly playtested enough to have the verbage be accurate enough to avoid having to interpret said rules?

I'm pretty confident they don't.