Anti-Psyker Equipment Needed for Success?

[eagleboy7259]

I think everyone has noticed the trend of increasingly strong psychic powers since 4th ed. Now with stuff like Jaws of the World Wolf out there that can be potentially game changing I've been more inclined to do everything I can to try and squeeze a psychic hood into my list. I wonder if any of you out there have been doing the same. However some tournaments are banning Imperial players from using Demon Hunter and Witch Hunter allies, blocking access to cheap hoods. Looking forward to an upcoming tournament, I've been debating using a Libby and forcing out my Commander just to get access to his hood. Do you consider anti-psychic equipment necessary for success in tournaments?

[Lerra]

It depends completely on the local metagame. If there are a lot of pskyers in your area, then anti-psychic gear has a lot more value than if there are few.

I've noticed more rune priests running around, but they don't scare me enough to run a librarian just for the hood. YMMV depending on your list, though.

[Melissia]

Not a problem for me, but then I'm probably biased because every single infantry unit in my army is a piece of anti-psyker equipment.

[Chumbalaya]

It depends on my army and what I want from it.

My IG generally won't, since they're mostly mech and super shooty so psykers don't tend to last long. I'd take Mystics before a hood generally.

My Space Marines typically run a Librarian because he's awesome, the Ld10 hood is gravy.

My DW/RW don't because Belial/Sammael take up both HQ slots.

My Orks don't have any :P

Generally I think psychic defense is very useful, as long as you can fit it in without messing your army up. So long as they have more than one role (Farseers, Librarians) or are cheap.

[DarkLink]

Not a problem for me, but then I'm probably biased because every single infantry unit in my army is a piece of anti-psyker equipment.

What do you guys mean, you can't ignore psychic powers on a 5+ :D

I'm in the same boat with Grey Knights. Frankly, I'm not too concerned with psychic powers. Despite all the talk about some of them, I still wouldn't call them game-changing, and certainly not so vastly so that I would write my list to combat psykers. This of course depends on your local metagame, but to be honest, the much talked about powers are fairly few and far between, and limited to certain armies. There are more important parts of the metagame to worry about, most of the time.

Plus, playing fully mechanized armies helps a ton against psyker armies.

[Confuddled]

Nah.

Hardly essential, especially in a tournament setting – much better to invest in units that:

1) Generally ignore psychic attacks (ie mechanised units); and

2) Allow you to concentrate on killing the psyker (or his transport, at the very least). That old cliché about the best defence being a good offence comes to mind.


Using Codex: Space Wolves as an example (they’re the ones getting all the press these days, after all!) – I’m not going to take a Rune Priest because he provides psychic defence for the army.

I take him because he’s the only cheapest HQ choice I can buy who might still have an impact on the game without the need for multi-unit combos, attached squads or the like.

For 100-110 points, I get a Priest with Living Lightning and either Tempest’s Wrath or Murderous Hurricane – they’re all excellent support abilities, but I’m not going to need them to win the game – that’s what the other 1600+ points worth of units are for.

[RocketRollRebel]

Librarians are just a cool choice as it is but for most armies I would bother going out of my way for psychic defense. My IG are mech most the time these days so that solves most of my psyker problems and my BA will just have to deal with it but since the only guys who arnt mounted in a transport are jump troops JotWW doesn't bother me much at all :p. I've always liked psykers in 40k tho and I'm glad to see them making a comeback on the table top these days even if it is in the form of a space marine chapter that is notoriously anti-psyker... but thats another rant haha

[Droofus]

I'm not sure if it's necessary for EVERY army, but I do know that playing against a competent Eldar or Dual-Lash chaos player WITHOUT psychic defenses have been some of my most challenging games.

For my orks, if I could take a Weirdboy with psychic defense, I would probably rethink how I spent my HQ points. I still might not take him, but he'd definitely be in the running.

[Cryl]

My Space Marines typically run a Librarian because he's awesome, the Ld10 hood is gravy.


That is very true, I typically run a librarian as command because they're great (especially in terminator armour with a storm shield!) but it fits my list well. The psychic hood is a great bonus that makes Eldar in particular much easier to handle...

Although I'm saying it's not essential I suspect I've grown so used to having it that running an alternative HQ choice for marines would be unthinkable.

[Xas]

for nids atm I wouldnt go to any torunament without the full loudout of 3 tropes, 2 tyrants with 5 psychic screams and SitW.

but thats because there is a psychic power that basically means defoult loss off most of my anti-tank ability (and alltogether even the full loudout is cheap and has other devastating uses).

other armies can live without it although it is nice (if free/cheap) to mess with lash, eldar support and IG/SW.



I do think it will be more popular once more new codizies get better psykers (by now we have marines, guard, space wolves all with amazing psykers who are worth the great deal a librarian is even without the hood).

[eagleboy7259]

It seems like most people wouldn't go out of their way to get a psychic defense although after reading this I'm even more worried about getting it in there. Back when I started playing in 3rd ed. you really only had to worry about Eldar, but now people have access to much more viable and common psyker choices. It seems like you stand a decent chance of seeing one in every army except for Tau, Necrons, and Orks. Idk, what are some of the most worrisome psykers out there?

[RocketRollRebel]

It seems like most people wouldn't go out of their way to get a psychic defense although after reading this I'm even more worried about getting it in there. Back when I started playing in 3rd ed. you really only had to worry about Eldar, but now people have access to much more viable and common psyker choices. It seems like you stand a decent chance of seeing one in every army except for Tau, Necrons, and Orks. Idk, what are some of the most worrisome psykers out there?

I wouldn't say any of them are really enough of a threat to take into serious consideration to be honest. Eldar still have some potent powers but not enough to make me take an inq w/psychic hood in a tourny IG list. Dual lash can be a problem if you arnt mechanized but you can always kill the T5 DP who is throwing it at you. I'd say that at the moment the top dogs psychic wise are Space Wolves. Jaws ruins any MC heavy lists day (looking at you Tyranids!) while Murderous Hurricane is simply brutal to everyone not embarked in a transport. No doubt that Rune Priests are possibly the best psykers going and probably the best HQ in the SW codex.