Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Psychic 101

This page indexes how the Psychic Phase works in 7th edition Warhammer 40K:

Psychic Phase in General

In previous editions, psychic powers were pretty much extra gear/guns for the psyker; they activated whenever, simply took a Leadership check to trigger, could maybe be countered by certain models, and that was pretty much it.

In 7th edition psychic powers are used in their own phase, right after the Movement Phase (movement -> psychic -> shooting -> assault -> end) and the mechanics involved are slightly more, well, involved, similar to the Magic phase in Warhammer Fantasy with a few key differences.

The basic idea is that each and every one of your psykers now generates dice into an army-wide pool of psychic dice. When you cast a psychic power, you decide how many of these dice you want to throw into the attempt - using more dice in an individual power makes the power more likely to activate (while increasing the chances of Perils of the Warp, or a psychic misfire), while using fewer dice per power, you can attempt to cast more powers per turn that, while less likely to succeed, also are less likely to go terribly, terribly wrong for the caster. Overall, the new system seems more like an active part of the game, rather than a few special rules tacked onto the game itself, and the way it's designed is more flexible to allow some actual tactics over the phase.

How It Works

0: Generating Psychic Powers

Like in 6th edition, psychic powers are generated BEFORE the game starts. A given psyker has access to a certain amount of psychic powers and disciplines, depending on his mastery level and faction. Each discipline has 6 numbered powers (from 1 to 6) and a seventh 'Primaris' power.

To generate his psychic powers, a given psyker first chooses how many powers he wants from each psychic discipline known to him, up to a total of his Mastery Level. in other words, a Mastery Level 2 Space Marine Librarian generates two psychic powers, and can choose to generate them from any of the psychic disciplines marked in his Codex entry (Biomancy, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy, along with Sanctic and Malefic Daemonology in 7th Edition).

The psyker then rolls, one by one, for the powers in the disciplines he chose. Each power is numbered, so each dice roll indicates one power he knows from the discipline the psyker rolled on. If the psyker doesn't like that particular power, he may choose to exchange the rolled power for the Primaris power of that particular discipline. Once all your psykers are done rolling for powers, you're set.

Notes:

• The decision to exchange a power for a primaris power is done immediately after you roll the die to generate a power. You don't roll for all your powers and then choose to exchange one or more into primaris powers. Make the choice on which table to roll separately for each power you generate - so if you luck out on the first roll, you're perfectly valid in picking a power from a different discipline.
• A psyker may not know multiple copies of the same power; should you roll the same power multiple times for the same psyker while generating powers, you'll simply reroll the 'extra' copies in the same discipline until you end up with different powers. It is, however, entirely possible for multiple different psykers to know the same power.
• A new addition to 7e is Psychic Focus. If a psyker generates all his powers from the same psychic discipline, he gets Psychic Focus - he automatically knows the Primaris power of his chosen discipline in addition to his other powers. If at any point the psyker ever gains a power from a different discipline they lose psychic focus.
  • Psykers with a Mark of Chaos or psykers that are Daemons of a particular Chaos God instead automatically know the primaris power of their chosen deity, regardless of the other powers they might generate. Naturally, this means they can't claim psychic focus and chaos psychic focus at the same time.
• A psyker who has a force weapon of any description automatically also has the Force psychic power to actually activate the weapon. This does NOT count as one of his mastery level picks, nor does it prevent him from getting Psychic Focus.
  • A psyker who has fixed powers of no discipline (Ezekiel's Mind Worm / Ahazra Redth's Mirage) does not count these towards psychic focus so long as he generates any remaining powers from a single discipline. This stops them from losing out on Psychic Focus just by having a pre-set power.
• Some psykers - like most Grey Knight units, Eldar Hemlocks and so on - know only predetermined set of psychic powers. Unless otherwise mentioned, these are the ONLY powers they know, they do NOT generate additional ones, and are NOT eligible for Psychic Focus.
• Unlike in previous editions, a psyker's potential power selection is NOT limited by his mastery level. That is, a Mastery Level 1 psyker knows generally speaking one power, but that power may well be Warp Charge 2 or 3 - though a low-level psyker with high-charge powers will have to rely even more on luck of the dice and other psykers in his army to produce enough dice for casting.

Other Disciplines

Even though 7E has gone through pains in attempting to streamline powers, there are still armies with unique disciplines to take from.

• Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons both can generate from the Lore of Tzeentch/Slaanesh/Nurgle Disciplines. These disciplines are only available to psykers with the appropriate mark.
  • Aligned-psykers have a unique rule which limits the number of lore powers they can take to up to half (rounding up), marine sorcerers must draw at least one from their god-lore, though daemons are not so restricted. Both still have to take chaos psychic focus though.
• Orks can access the Powers of the Waaagh! Discipline.
• Space Wolves can access the Tempestas Discipline.
• Tyranids can only access the Powers of the Hive Mind Discipline.
• Blood Angels can access the Sanguinary Discipline.
• Harlequins can access the Phantasmancy Discipline.
• Craftworld Eldar can access the Runes of Battle and Runes of Fate Disciplines.
• Dark Angels can access the Interomancy Discipline.

1: Generating Warp Charges

When your psychic phase begins, you roll a single die. Both you and your opponent generate this many warp charges in your pool, plus the total amount of Mastery levels in your respective armies (plus any extra from wargear and/or special rules). You use the dice in your pool to attempt to cast psychic powers. Your opponent uses dice in his pool to attempt to counter your powers (Deny the Witch) and keep them from activating.

Notes:

• Only psykers actively on the board generate dice. If your Librarian is sitting in a Storm Raven in reserve, he's not contributing to your psychic pool (nor casting powers). Similarly, dead psykers don't generate dice. (A psyker in a transport or building on the table is, however, in play and thus does generate psychic dice).
• ALL models with the Psyker or Psychic Pilot rules or units with the Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers rules generate warp charges equal to their mastery level. In other words, things like Grey Knight vehicles and Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighters generate psychic dice (when they're on the table).
• Only the player whose turn it is rolls the initial d6 for generating psychic dice; both players use the same result and add their respective mastery levels to it. If you rolled a 6 for generating psychic dice, your opponent also gets more dice for trying to Deny your powers.
• Psychic dice are generated at the start of the psychic phase. If one of your psykers somehow dies during your psychic phase (say, from a Perils of the Warp attack) he obviously will not be generating any more dice on your subsequent turns, but the dice you have remaining in your pool -that moment- are not affected.

2: Casting Powers

Okay, so you have a bunch of dice waiting to be turned into mindbullets or whatever. Next up, using them.

The player actively casting powers (you, in this exercise) chooses one of his psykers and one of the powers that psyker knows. You then choose a number of dice from your psychic pool and roll them. Every roll of a 4+ on a psychic dice is an activated 'warp charge'. Each power requires a certain number of warp charges to go off - most take one, a handful need two, and a few rare ones take three. If you got enough warp charges from your psychic dice to meet or exceed the number of warp charges for the power, the power activated successfully. If you failed to meet the number of warp charges on the power, it fizzled - the dice used in casting it are wasted, and the power doesn't go off.

Notes:

• Casting psychic powers no longer affects the rest of the psyker's actions on the turn; a psyker can cast any of the powers he knows regardless of whether or not he moved on his Movement Phase, and casting psychic powers does not prevent him from running, shooting, or declaring a charge on the following Shooting and Assault phases. Being locked in combat does not prevent the psyker from generating dice, but does prevent the psyker from casting Witchfire and Focused Witchfire (shooting attack) powers. Buffs, debuffs and summons are A-OK though.
• A psyker may cast multiple different witchfire (shooting attack) powers during your psychic phase, as long as he has the necessary dice, may target them at the same or different units as he pleases, and unlike with regular shooting attacks, is not limited to charging at one of those targeted units in his assault phase.
• Psychic dice are not 'earmarked' for the psyker who generated them; it's entirely possible for you to use all your psychic die to manifest dice from one of your psykers, regardless of where the dice actually came from.
• A psyker in a building or a transport can manifest ONLY witchfire and focused witchfire (shooty) psychic powers, and even then only if he can draw line of sight to his target from the transport's/building's fire points or the transport itself (if open-topped). If your psyker intends to cast buffs/debuffs or anything more elaborate than blowing shit up with his brain, he's got to climb out of that metal box first. Similarly, units that are inside a transport or building cannot be targeted by a psychic power, beneficial or not. (The battlements of a building are not considered to be 'inside' a building, so a psyker can stand, say, on the roof of a Bastion or on a Skyshield Landing Pad and gain a degree of protection from that).
• Any one psyker can only attempt to manifest a given power once in a psychic phase, regardless of if it failed or succeeded. Two psykers knowing the same power can of course each (attempt to) cast it, at different or same targets.
• A single unit can only be affected by one copy of a given blessing at any one time - so Hammerhand, for example, no longer stacks. Two DIFFERENT blessings on the same unit are A-OK, though.
• Since psychic powers are used in the Psychic phase, you cannot use a witchfire power to shoot Overwatch if you get assaulted.
• Any dice not used in casting powers are lost and wasted at the end of the psychic phase.

Warpcharge table

The following table shows what chance you can expect to cast a power for a given number of warp charges.

number of warp charges	Chance of Success – WC1	Chance of Success – WC2	Chance of Success – WC3	Chance of Perils
1D6	50%	0%	0%	0%
2D6	75%	25%	0%	2.78%
3D6	87.5%	50%	12.50%	7.41%
4D6	93.75%	68.75%	31.25%	13.19%
5D6	96.88%	81.25%	50%	19.62%
6D6	98.44%	89.06%	65.63%	26.32%
7D6	99.22%	93.75%	77.34%	33.02%
8D6	99.61%	96.48%	91.02%	39.53%
9D6	99.80%	98.05%	94.53%	45.73%
10D6	99.90%	98.93%	94.53%	100%

Generally for a good chance of success you need to use double the warp charges of the spell's level plus one extra in order to get significantly better odds then a coin flip,

3: Perils of the Warp

Drawing raw psychic energy from hell itself to fuel otherworldly powers is a hazardous job. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes things notice you when you tap into the Warp.

When you cast a psychic power, every roll of 2 or more sixes on your psychic dice triggers a Perils of the Warp. In previous editions, a Perils of the Warp was simply an automatic wound that was difficult or impossible to save against. In 7th edition, it's a d6 table the psyker rolls on:

1. Dragged to the Warp - Make a Leadership check. On a success, the psyker takes one wound/glancing hit with no saves allowed. If the test failed, the psyker is immediately removed as a casualty and any unit he was part of immediately suffers d6 S6 AP1 hits (for wound allocation, imagine them coming from the psyker model itself). Feel free to imagine a rift to the Warp devouring the screaming psyker alive, or the unfortunate soul melting into a rampaging That Which Must Not Be Named before dissolving into a noxious puddle of warp slime.
2. Mental Purge - The psyker immediately takes one wound or glancing hit with no saves allowed. In addition, they lose a randomly determined psychic power they know; that psyker can no longer use that particular psychic power for the rest of the battle.
3. Power Drain - The psyker immediately takes one wound or glancing hit with no saves allowed. In addition, if it is currently the psychic phase, roll a d3; both players immediately lose that many psychic dice from their pool.
4. Psychic Backlash - The psyker immediately takes one wound or glancing hit with no saves allowed.
5. Empyric Feedback - Roll a Leadership check. If the test failed, the psyker immediately takes one wound or glancing hit with no saves allowed. If the check was successful, the psyker instead suffers no further ill effects.
6. Warp Surge - Roll a Leadership check. If the test was a failure, the psyker immediately takes one wound or glancing hit with no saves allowed. If the check was successful, the psyker instead gains a 3+ invulnerable save, along with the Fleshbane, Armourbane and Smash special rules, until the beginning of the next friendly Psychic Phase. Yes, this pretty much temporarily turns your Weirdboy or Librarian into a mini-daemon prince. The problem is actually using it. Unless your Psyker is already part of a CQC squad or running solo, your have to choose between running into combat to make the most of it or being able to shoot a non-assault weapon, and unless you're looking at your opponent's warlord or some other very high value target(psyker) and you think your opponent will be dumb enough to accept a challenge from a mini-Daemon Prince, you're likely better off shooting.

Notes:

• A Perils of the Warp is always ONE roll on the table, regardless of how many sixes you actually rolled. If you rolled four sixes on your psychic test, you did NOT Perils twice as hard.
• A psychic power succeeds or fails regardless of whether or not you triggered a Perils of the Warp attack. If you rolled enough warp charges to activate a psychic power, the power does activate - regardless of whether or not the psyker actually casting the power took a wound or even survived.
• Since you need a roll of double sixes on (most) powers to Perils, it's impossible to Perils if you only use one die in your casting attempt. Similarly, the more dice you pump into a single power, the more likely it is for you to suffer a Perils attack.
• Sanctic and Malefic Daemonology are slightly more risky to play with - unless you're a Grey Knight (for Sanctic) or a Daemon (for Malefic), powers cast from those disciplines will perils on ANY roll of doubles (or more) on your psychic dice. The powers are not actually any less likely to activate than 'regular' powers, but considerably more likely to blow up back in your face. Therefore it is advised that if you have non-daemon casting Daemonology, then have the psyker be in Brotherhood of Psykers since Brotherhoods have more wounds to spend on Perils wounds while still retaining psychic powers. F.ex having Malefic Primaris Psyker in Malefic Wyrdvane psyker squad.

4: Deny the Witch

While one player's psykers cast powers, the other player's psykers try to counter them. Denying the Witch is how you can (try to) keep the other player's powers from activating.

When your opponent successfully casts a psychic power that affects one or more of your units, you choose one of them to make a Deny the Witch roll. Basically you choose the unit, pick a number of dice from your own pool of psychic dice, roll them and add modifiers:

• +1 if the unit has one or more models (attached or otherwise) with the Psyker, Psychic Pilot or Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers special rules
• +1 if the unit has one or more models with a Mastery level higher than the casting psyker's Mastery level
• +1 if the unit has one or more models with the Adamantium Will special rule

Every roll of 6 or more on a Deny the Witch dice negates one successful warp charge from your opponent's casting attempt. To successfully Deny a psychic power, you must negate -all- successful warp charges used in casting that power. If you failed to get enough successes on the Deny roll, the dice are simply wasted and the enemy power still activates.

If none of your units were targeted by the psychic power (The power was a blessing or summoning power, for example, that doesn't directly effect your units) you can still try Deny the power; instead of choosing a unit to Deny the power with, you simply choose how many dice to use in your Deny attempt. Each roll of a straight 6 on a dice negates one warp charge.

Notes:

• To successfully Deny a power, you must counter ALL the successful warp charges used in casting the power. If your opponent uses four dice to cast a 2-charge power and gets three successes, you must counter all three. Two will NOT be enough.
• You decide whether or not to attempt to Deny a power (and how many dice you use, if any) AFTER your opponent rolls his psychic test for casting the power. You can't be suckered into Denying powers that wouldn't activate anyways, and you can opt to not try Denying powers that you don't have a chance to succeed in countering anyways (powers with four successes when all you have is three dice, and so on).
• Obviously rolling multiple sixes on a Deny roll will NOT trigger a Perils of the Warp attack.
• If a psychic power targets multiple units, only one of those units gets to do a Deny attempt. If a psychic blast power scatters and hits two of your units, you pick one to do a Deny with, not try to Deny twice.
• Psychic Hoods have changed - now a unit within 12" of a friendly unit targeted with a psychic power can roll the Deny attempt as if it was targeted for the power instead of the actual target. Generally this means getting to benefit from the psyker and his mastery level in the Deny attempt. If the Deny roll fails, the power still affects the original target, not the bearer of the Hood.
  • Note that the rule specifically says friendly unit. You cannot, therefore, use a psychic hood to Deny a power targeted at an Ally of Convenience unit or use the hood to boost your odds of denying a blessing. Only units from an army that is Battle Brothers with the hood-bearer can benefit.
• Successfully denying a power that succeeded, but triggered Perils of the Warp, means the power does not activate but the casting psyker still ends up suffering the results of the Perils attack.
• Like with casting powers, any dice not used in Deny attempts are lost and wasted at the end of a given psychic phase.

Psychic tactics

So that's how you mind bullet, but what do you do with them?

Well the problem with tactics is some armies have the ability to bring a lot more psykers, and therefore warp charges than others.

Space marines for example can only bring two (assuming battle forged, single FOC) level two psykers since their psykers are all HQ choices, while daemons can easily bring over ten warp charges a turn thanks to horrors.

Step one is to therefore consider how you and your opponent's mind bullets stack up to each other. If you have a clear lead in mental fire power you can afford to spread your charges thinner as your opponent won't be able to deny you as easily. If on the other hand the playing field is roughly even you need to play more carefully, while if you're completely outclassed pick one or two powers you really need to go off and spend all your charges on them, so that even with twice as many or more warp charges they can't completely deny you, although your psykers are likely to implode before the game is half over if you do it every turn, so pick your moments.

When casting powers, first budget what powers you need most to go off, (example: invisibility) then cast all your other powers in least to most importance before it. This way your opponent is forced to save his deny dice for either the big very important one or basically give you free reign in the phase. While that works if you're in the lead, and very useful if you're evenly matched in terms of warp charges since he might think he can spare the charges, it's much less effective if you're completely out classed since your opponent may have the charges to deny your final important power, and you won't have the power to force it though because you spent the charges on 'deny fodder' first.

That all said, the mere presence of a big power alters the flow of the phase a lot. Your opponent (or you, this goes both ways) now has to choose between saving his charges for the big one, or attempt to spend his charges denying all the little powers.

Psychic power list

Force

Technically, Force counts as a Psychic Power now, though it doesn't count against Psychic Focus or your limit of allotted powers. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same killing machine it has been before. Remember you need a warp charge to activate it so don't go spending them all on mind bullets before you get the chance to activate it. Additionally, it can be denied and if your enemy has a lot more charges than you he might be able to pull it off, but it's unlikely he would spend the powers unless your psyker is looking at something he does not want to die.

Biomancy

• Primaris: Smite - Warp Charge 1. 18 range, assault 4, AP2, strength 4. All things considered, this is not a bad power, particularly if you get it by Psychic focus so you get it free. Is largely superior to a plasmagun against infantry since it has two more shots without gets hot, however it lacks life leechs wound regaining power.one of the better mind bullet powers
• 1: Iron Arm - Warp Charge 1. Iron Arm is a tricky power for some, and a OP bullshit for others. It buffs your strength and toughness by +3 and grants Smash. What makes it tricky is it's only good in assault or if your unit is by itself. When in a unit, you wound on majority toughness, so being toughness 7 does not help if the tactical squad your lib is running with is four, and if you're by yourself then you have to weather an entire unit's worth of shooting, and of course to get the most of the strength buff you need to run with a Assault unit. That all said, it is very powerful, but getting the most out of it is tricky. All what I just said can be thrown out the window if you're already very strong and tough, and if you already planned to use your psyker in a aggressive assaulting way.
• 2: Enfeeble - Warp Charge 1. A malediction that lowers a target's Strength and Toughness by one and treats all terrain as dangerous terrain. Dangerous terrain is not that useful, (though that one time he fails a save would be funny to watch) but the nerf to strength and especially toughness are very handy. Aside from just making things vulnerable to the general damage it also lowers their Instant Death threshold, so have a nice time instagibing Crisis battlesuits with plasma, exploding nob bikers with krak missiles or even evaporating MCs with a single Vindicator shot.
• 3: Life Leech - Warp Charge 1. God damn Zubats! life Leech is similar to smite, +2 strength, two fewer shots, same AP and range. What makes it handy is when you inflict a wound, you can cause either the psyker or a model within 6 inches to regain a wound. Better use this on your psyker, though given how most of the Perils strip wounds off the ability to get them back is a life-saver.
• 4: Warp Speed - Warp Charge 1. Remember what we said about Iron Arm? Put all of that, and put it here as well. Giving the psyker +3 attacks and initiative while also granting fleet this is a power that only works in the assault, more than Iron Arm even, though fleet does help you get there a bit faster. Be careful though, three more initiative does not cancel out 'unwieldy' axes that go last. Like Iron arm, Useful, but to get the most out of it you need to already planning to punch faces with your psyker so you can properly kit him out. A ML2 Librarian with a Power Sword that rolls this plus Iron Arm can essentially solo entire MEQ squads before they know what hit them.
• 5: Endurance - Warp Charge 2. This power grants a unit 4+ Feel No Pain, Relentless and Eternal Warrior. Wowza, the ability to rapid fire a target then charge it, with a 4+ Feel No Pain and Eternal Warrior is nasty! Use this on squads with big weapons to get them into position, or a troop choice to make them hold no matter what. It can be used to help a squad that can not normally assault help get the attached psyker into CQC to get the most out of Iron Arm or Warp Speed.
• 6: Haemorrhage - Warp Charge 2. A focused witch fire with 18" range (if you harness three or more Warp Charges, you get to pick the target) that forces a model to take two toughness tests or suffer an unsavable wound for each failure. If the target dies, a nearby model within 2" needs to test toughness or die as well. Not the best power, but with two chances to kill a single wound model you have a decent chance of sniping heavy weapons or sarges out of a unit. Still, not worth two charges UNLESS you have Enfeeble, then you have a chance to make low toughness blobs melt. This power gets exponentially better, the lower the number of wounds and toughness value of the target is: On average, assuming one wound models, barely any kill on T5, barely 2 on T4, 4 on T3, 9 on T2, 36 on T1. Because of this, all in all you will most likely need more than 2 warp charges to get the most out of it : Either you'll have to cast Enfeeble to stand a chance at doing real damage, or you will need those 3 successes to be able to choose your target and not just kill some scrubs.

Overview: Biomancy is a set of powers made to help a psyker beat faces with three powers to help them in assault, one of which drags a unit with the psyker, and the other three either help make enemies easier to kill (Enfeeble) or directly shoot them dead. One of those shooting powers heals the psyker or (with some lucky rolls) make a horde explode. It's best used with MCs who want to be in assault, and can disregard the short range of the shooting powers.

Divination

• Primaris: Prescience - Warp Charge 2. If you've ever played a game of 40K with a Divination Psyker, you know what a boon this is, and the Psychic Focus makes any Divination-based psyker become worth it. For those that haven't, it's a blessing with a 12" range that allows a unit to re-roll to hit.
• 1: Foreboding - Warp Charge 1. A blessing that gives his unit Counter-Attack and allows them to Overwatch at full BS (though anything that can't overwatch still can't). Overall nothing to argue with, as this gives you a better chance at mulching anything that charges you. The issue is that most armies nowadays are mostly focused on shooting, so you have a good chance never actually be in a risk of being charged, making this power ultimately useless.
• 2: Forewarning - Warp Charge 1. A blessing that gives a unit within 12" a 4++ save. Is basically Azrael's helmet of trolling in a 1WC package, and gives anything with worse saves than termies insurance again high AP weapons, or makes blobs hair-rendingly difficult to remove.
• 3: Perfect Timing - Warp Charge 1. Have a pesky bunch of Fire Warriors cowering behind cover? Use this and now your psyker and his unit can ignore cover and put anything down! Use it on weapons you know will kill them and be assured that they'll be wiped! Also works on jink saves. Be warned, however, tat it only affects the psyker's unit, so if you roll this power, consider reattaching your psyker into the squad that can make a big use out of it.
• 4: Precognition - Warp Charge 1. A much more advanced form of Prescience, this gives your Psyker (and ONLY your Psyker) re-rolls to-hit, re-rolls to-wound and re-rolls on any saving throws. It sounds really useful and it is, but compare being to buff one model or a unit and you see that, while good, it's not the most useful power here. Of course, just like with Biomancy self-buffing powers, if your psyker is already a scary solo model, that car rip apart tanks and shit, giving him re-roll everything is massively awesome.
  • An Alternate Take: With a psyker with a 2+ armor save, you can actually get a lot of mileage out of having them use this power while in the front of a unit to tank wounds. A 2+ re-rollable is tough to crack with volume of fire, and in a situation where you can actually up the psyker's invul save, will work against low-AP weapons as well, or for the more nervous among us, can be easilly look-out-sir'd to someone in the unit if your psyker is in danger of getting insta-death'd.
• 5: Misfortune - Warp Charge 2. A malediction that targets a enemy within 24" and makes it so that any attacks against the target gets rending. This sounds epic on paper, and if you're willing to throw enough dice at a target, it can be epic, but notice the important part of that sentence, "enough dice". You need to have all the pieces set up before hand to get the most out of it. Say, cast it on a land raider just before you open up with six autocannons, or on a terminator squad or a rhino before you fire 50 lasguns into it. Using it only to nerf a enemy unit that is only going to get shot at by only one other unit (unless that single unit has a LOT of shots) is just not the best use of this power.
• 6: Scrier's Gaze - Warp Charge 2. A blessing that allows you to re-roll reserves, outflanking, and mysterious objectives. Also, you can drop one Tactical Objective card and draw another. Gaze fits into that rather odd category of being a "meta advantage", it does not help you fight better, but it helps you (the player not the dudes) play the mission better, it's not really helpful in the conventional sense, but it can allow some good rescues.

Overview: Divination is a set made for people who want that extra bit of assurance against the bad roll, which is why it is used a lot. While all of them help protect you in some way, it's clear to see that more people want Prescience, Perfect Timing, Forewarning, and Foreboding more than the others, if only because their uses are the most direct ones.

Pyromancy

• Primaris: Flame Breath - Warp Charge 1. It's a Soulblaze heavy flamer. Not much to add, eats anything short of a space marine and is still inferior to the actual weapon.
• 1: Fiery Form- Warp Charge 1. The Psyker gains a 4+ invulnerable save, their melee attacks have Soul Blaze and they may re-roll failed to-wound rolls for all subsequent Pyromancy psychic powers they manifest. Not as good as some of the Biomancy self buffs, (what is?) but this is still a not half bad power just before the Pysker gets stuck in, and unlike a lot of powers like that this one does a some good while not in close combat since you other Pyromancy powers get more reliable.
• 2: Fire Shield- Warp Charge 1. A blessing that grants a 4+ cover save and all enemy units in 6" treat all terrain as Dangerous terrain. 4+ is good, stealth turns it to 3+ before you go to ground. A useful buff spell.
• 3: Spontaneous Combustion- Warp charge 1. 18" range focused witchfire, The target model suffers a single Strength 6 AP3 hit with Soulblaze. If the unlucky sod dies, he turns into a strength five AP4 blast marker with Ignores Cover and Soulblaze. Good at taking out cover camping wimps, unlike other focused witchfires, don't try and snipe heavy weapons out, go for models that can get you a cluster of hits with the blast.
• 4: Sunburst- Warp Charge 1. A nova that gives all units in 9" 2d6 Strength 4 AP5 Ignores Cover Soulblaze hits. Thing to note about novas, obvious as it is, the range is the radius of the power, your actually have a 18" area of burning. Get your psyker into place and your cook lightly armored infanty.
• 5: Inferno- Warp Charge 2. This has a large strength 4, Ap5, 24" range Ignores Cover blast...oh and Soulblaze as well. I'm sensing a theme here, again, a light infantry cooker.
• 6: Molten Beam- Warp Charge 2. Buys you a 12" beam with a strength 8, AP1 melta rule. Gott mit himmel! All things going perfect you could explode maybe two tanks or if your line it up right three terminators. The issue with this power is that it's only good against tanks, and your rolling up Pyromancy powers to cook light infantry, while this power is not bad, your likely counting on infantry cookers when useing pyromancy and not getting one could be a unwelcome kink.

Overview: Pyromancy is good for only one thing, melting light infantry hordes. Orks, guards, Tyranids, Daemons maybe. Thanks to the ability to squeeze out more than one witch fire a turn, this power could unleash a lot of hurt. Not the first choice for disciplines, but a decent secondary if you're fighting low armor save cover campers and blobs.

Telekinesis

• Primaris: Assail - Warp Charge 1. It's an 18" Beam with Strength 6, AP -, Strikedown and Assault 1. Quick recap on what Strikedown does: it means the target you hit is reduced to Initiative 1 and has to move through difficult terrain next turn, don't matter if he saved the wound or not. Definitely worth smacking up some units you want to keep from an objective or charging and buying you another turn to shoot them. AP - means you probably won't be killing anything with this.
• 1: Crush - Warp Charge 1. A Focused Witchfire with Strength 2d6 and AP d6, rolls of 11 or 12 auto wound or pen. Worth it? Well, if you think you like your luck or bother running Flash Gitz, then give it a try, with a average strength of seven this can pen a transport, though without a AP of 1 or 2 exploding it is impossible. not a good power. Avoid if possible like the plague.
• 2: Objuration Mechanicum - Warp Charge 1. One enemy unit within 24" now has Gets Hot! on their guns, while vehicles take a automatic Strength 1 Haywire hit - it is very useful for dealing with flyers and vehicle squadrons - and even better against flyer squadrons or squadrons of 2HP vehicles (landspeeders, cans, warwalkers, vipers, pirahnas and so on), even more so if they pack a lot of non-twin-linked dakka to kill themselves with Gets Hot! glances, since thy would only need one after they got haywired. And since it does not count as shooting they cannot even jink against it. Haywire for everyone!. This is obviously meant to nail hordes of low-BS units. Orks or Guardsmen firing at T4 targets would deal as much wounds to themselves as to their targets before saves are made, mathammer-wise wiping up to 30% of their own squad in one volley (with shootas and first rank fire respectively). This also can be painful on more elite units that rely on the volume of fire, like Swooping Hawks, Scourges, Venoms or Land Raider Punisher. And when things come to overwatching under Objuration effect... well, chances are they would take double or triple the damage they deal to your units.
• 3: Shockwave - Warp Charge 1. A 9" Nova with Strength 4, AP -, Assault 2d6, and Pinning. Powerful against swarms, but that lack of AP kills it against anything else. Compare to Sanctic/Pyromancy's far superior novas that trade Pinning for AP, Ignores Cover, and higher strength.
• 4: Levitation - Warp Charge 1. A new blessing that shows how cheap this edition got. This makes the Psyker and his unit (Unless they're Zooming, Swooping, or in combat) move 12", ignoring terrain or other units. However, starting or landing in Dangerous Terrain means taking a test, and you can't charge afterwards. Remember, powers are used after moving, so if you're already in a jump squad you can jump in the movement phase and then in the psychic phase for a 24 inch move. Dark Eldar be jealous. Your first idea would be to use it to get into combat faster, but you cannot charge out of teleport, so you'd be playing sitting ducks for entire turn, much like with deep strike. Better uses would be jumping away from a close combat unit, jumping close to flamer, melta or rapid fire a target to death, jump behind vehicles to lay some painful dakka on their rear armor or claim objectives (especially useful on Maelstrom). To sum it up, a great power to move elite specialist weapons, like Chosen or Sternguard or relentless heavy weapons, like Centurions exactly where they're needed.
• 5: Telekine Dome - Warp Charge 2. A blessing that gives everyone within 12" of the psyker a 5++ against shooting. Is it useful? Ask your fellow Ork player would he ever field an army without at least one KFF. If your guys have Sv5+ or 6+ this thing is great, and even if they're MEQs, you can fit more squads under that 12" bubble, and be sure they won't be ass-raped by those low-AP blasts everyone tend to spam nowadays. Note that you'll have 5+ cover often enough to negate the benefits of this power unless facing a lot of templates/ignore cover shooting, and that this power, at 2 warp charges, is overcosted and largely inferior to a Dark Angels power field generator or the aforementioned KFF.
• 6: Psychic Maelstrom - Warp Charge 3. A 12" Large Blast witchfire with Strength 10, AP1, Assault 1, and Barrage. Basically your own pocket Demolisher cannon. With large blast this is arguably better than the D strength vortex that Sanctic got. Whatever you throw this on, it WILL get hurt if it hits. Generally a proper Vindicator/Medusa/Demolisher is a better bet, since you need to sink 7 warp charges to make it work reliably (and likely to suffer Perils) - and those warp charges aren't cheap. Though you're gaining the benefits of survivability and mobility, since your psyker can hide inside METAL BOXES, some infantry blob or even fly on daemonic wigs, raining pipe plates of death on poor chaps below.

Overview: With generally high strength, Telekinesis is trying to be the anti tank power set, and three powers do just that, (albeit it one does it shakily), one other power's pretty worthless against anything but a hoard in the open, and two support powers. This is not exactly a all purpose set of powers and, like Pyromancy, not strong enough to be used by themselves, it is a decent backup to another more powerful discipline. All in all a pretty mixed bag, with some of the powers being useful while others...not so much.

Telepathy

• Primaris: Psychic Shriek - Warp Charge 1. An 18" range witch fire. Roll 3d6 and subtract the target's leadership, they take the difference in wounds with no cover or armor saves allowed. MAKES ME WANNA WAIL!! Best used on small elite squads or monsters where those wounds will hurt more. Demons with very low leadership will also suffer from this a lot. Also, taking rules as written all witchfires have to roll to hit, including this one, so no screaming flyrants off the board.

• 1: Dominate - Warp Charge 1. A 24" malediction. If the targeted unit wants to move, cast powers, shoot, run or charge they have to pass a leadership test. Generally speak most units will pass the test, but should some unlucky Crisis Suit or named Character fail even once, then the once would be enough. This is mainly a psychological tool, though. At some point, your enemy might simply leave the unit alone instead of making yet another leadership test.

• 2: Mental Fortitude- Warp charge 1. A blessing that makes a friendly unit immediately regroups if it was falling back and become fearless. Rather simple for a blessing, go to ground one turn and get them to stand up to shoot the next.

• 3: Terrify - Warp charge 1. Like a wonder twin to Fortitude, it's a 24" malediction that gives -1 leadership to one target, who then has to pass a morale test at the end of the phase, and makes them treat all units as having the Fear USR. Use this before you cast shriek for best results.
  • Be VERY careful with this. you do not want a unit to run away from you and put you out of rapid fire range. Also note the moral test is independent of the fear rule, so units that normally don't have to worry about fear (such as any of the 12 types of space marine) still have to pass a moral test or leg it.

• 4: Shrouding- Warp Charge 1. A blessing that grants all units within 6" the shrouded special rule. Like some other powers, the issue with this one is that to effect more than one unit you have to bunch up your army a bit. Even so, with only 6" you're likely to only get two units anyway since you only need one model in range to pull to affect the whole unit. A nice power, and not at ALL like it's doctor evil twin...

• 5: Invisibility- Warp Charge 2. A 24" blessing that means all shooting against the target unit are snap shots and it can only be hit on a 6 in close combat. Sound simple enough, but remember, you can't snap fire blasts and templates. This is the worst power in the whole game, not because it's bad, but because it's too good. This is a Tarkin Doctrine of 40k and will lead to deathstars everywhere because on top of only hitting on sixes, you then need to get though whatever armor, cover saves or invul saves they may have on top of that. Ridiculously cheesy, there are not a lot of counters since most options such as line makers just can't be snap fire. Use beams to hit nearby units and just "happen" to go though the invisible unit, maledictions and Witchfire Novas still work since they don't roll to hit, but your best option is to deny this thing with every warp charge dice you have, that is not a polite suggestion, DO IT!! However, as of 2015 the new Skitarii Cognis weapons snap fire at BS2, and the Rhino Primaris allows a unit to snap-shoot at full Ballistic Skill. The best counters to this power, by far. Also raises a rules conundrum with Kharn, who always hits on a 2+, vs. invisibility's "always hit on 6". (Simple; Invisibility is a Rulebook power. Kharn's always hit on 2s is a Codex rule. Codex overrides rulebook. Kharn still hits on 2s, in other words the blood god does not give a fuck about your psychic bullshit)

• 6: Hallucination - Warp charge 2. A malediction with a 24" range. Roll a D6 on the table to determine what happens to the target. On a 1-2, the unit must take a Pinning test. On a 3-4, the unit reduces their Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Initiative and Attacks by 1 to a minimum of 1. On a 5-6, a randomly determined character model in the unit suffers a number of Strength 3 hits equal to the number of other models in the unit; if no such character model is available, treat this a 3-4 result instead. While none of these are partially bad, they're not very good either. Only 3-4 and 5-6 are useful. 5-6 might strip a wound of a character through number of hits, make that warboss pay for leading 30 boyz!

Overview: A generally powerful support discipline with strong buffs and nerfs, and one power that is blatantly gonna make your opponent rip his hair out. All but one of the powers are very useful, and even that last one has a chance to do something, recommended very much as a 'first' choice discipline.

Demonology

Few notes about Sanctic and Malefic before we start. Unlike the other powers that peril only on a double six, these powers peril on any double unless you're a Grey Knight (who can only use Sanctic) or a Demon, (ditto but for Malefic). These mean your psyker is much more likely to implode and will do so much faster if not from these armies, so think carefully if the risk is worth it.

Sanctic

• Primaris: Banishment - Warp Charge 1. A Malediction with a 24" range that can only be used on units with the Daemon USR. Will reduce the Daemon's Invul save by 1 (So the basic 5+ Daemon Invul becomes a 6+). It's a situational power at best, only useful when dealing with Malefic Psykers who summon Daemons and/or Daemons themselves.

NOTE: While using Games Workshops Psychic Cards, Banishment is written as Warp Charge 3. When I saw this, my Grey Knight opponent had a mini heart attack, yet we checked both the BRB and the Grey Knight Codex and saw that Banishment was Warp Charge 1. Oh Games Workshop. Silly Games Workshop.

• 1: Gate of Infinity - Warp Charge 1. A blessing that allows a single unit that isn't swooping or zooming to Deep Strike anywhere. Of course, this is your fabulous SURPRISE FUCKERS!, however remember the 1d4chan advice for deep striking, you want to be able to last a turn of shooting, and assault troops are going to get shot up before they can do there thing. Best done with a tough shooting squad or something you're willing to DISTRACTION CARNIFEX with.
• 2: Hammerhand - Warp Charge 1. A blessing that grants the caster and unit +2S. You remember how it was back in 3E when you still had Daemonhunters? Yeah, it's like that. While obviously best done before getting stuck in, you might consider using it defensively, "you really want to charge my strength six assault marines?". Another issue is the same with Iron Arm and Warp Speed, unless you were already planning to run the Psyker with a squad made to punch faces, then you're not getting the most out of this spell.
• 3: Sanctuary - Warp Charge 1. Caster and his unit gain +1 to their Invul save. If the unit does not have an Invuln, they gain a 6++. Additionally, all Daemons (allies and enemies) within 12" of the caster treat all terrain as Dangerous Terrain. It's helpful to an extent, and seeing a blob of daemons get ruined because they had the balls to charge you is funny. Best combined with a squad with a preexisting invul save for the best benefit, Assault terminators with a 2+ invul save is just horrible.
• 4: Purge Soul - Warp Charge 1. Focused Witchfire power with a range of 24". Both you and your enemy must now roll d6 and add Ld to the roll. If the enemy loses, he must take an unsavable wound. Overall, it's low risky since you don't lose anything if you fail to kill but with no great a reward for it. While not a waste of warp charges, it's not the most effective use of warp charges and they could be spent else where.
• 5: Cleansing Flame - Warp Charge 2. Range 9" S5 AP4 Assault 2d6 Nova power with Soulblaze and Ignores Cover, well can destroy anything with armor weaker than a marine, and a lot of them, if you get your psyker in the right place. Refer back to power one, if you get them both engage your troll face.
• 6: Vortex of Doom - Warp Charge 3. Range 12" Strength D AP1 Assault 1 Blast Vortex power. Failing the test to manifest this power automatically causes perils. DEVASTATION. EVERYWHERE. Given it's a small blast aim for monsters and tanks, troops are tempting but if they're fully spaced out your have trouble getting the most out of this. Don't forget that this is Vortex, so blast template is very likely to wonder on the field uncontrollably till the end of the game, eating random units it lands on, so never cast it near the bulk of your own army.
  • Alternate opinion: nope, nope, just nope. You need to throw enough dice at this to make it reliably go off, because otherwise you risk perils. If you throw enough dice at it to get three charges, the chance for Perils is about 30%. Non-Grey Knights peril on any doubles, so if you roll three charges they peril more than 90% of the time. If you roll four charges with non-Grey Knights, you cannot NOT peril. Wrong, you can roll any of 1, 2 or 3 and then roll a 4, a 5 and a 6. On 3 rolls, Non-Grey Knights will peril on 97.22% of rolls, requiring a 4, 5, and a 6 each. However, with 4 rolls, the chance of failure with perils is 63.27%, perils with success with perils 25.77% and chance of success with no perils is 5.48%. Overall success is 31.25% and perils is 94.52%. You have a chance of getting it off but will most likely kill your psyker before you can. [1]
  • Alternate alternate opinion. The New Librarius Conclave formation that the marines have will allow you to get off even this power with comparative ease.

Overview: If you've ever played Grey Knights back in 5E or 6E, then you'll feel right at home. Everyone else, this is a powerful set of tools for messing up Daemons, but you better not rely on them to do all the hard work in killing them. That said a lot of the powers except the Primaris are well able to stand up against a lot of armies and if your willing to risk the perils this is a powerful tool box if you have the kit to get the most out of it.

Malefic

• Primaris: Summoning - Warp Charge 3. A conjuration that summons one of the following within 12 inches of the user: 10 Bloodletters, 10 Pink Horrors, 10 Plaguebearers, 10 Daemonettes, 5 Flesh Hounds, 3 Flamers, 3 Nurgling Swarms, 5 Seekers. The reason this is used is because of the massive clusterfuck you can make with this, since Horrors are psykers and can get Summoning as well so you can summon psykers to summon psykers to summon psykers, repeat ad nauseam. There are two big limits to the use of this power. The first is obvious: who the hell has that many horror models? The second is that you're summoning ML1 horrors who only have two spells, and thanks to chaos psychic focus one of them must be Flickering Fire, leaving you with one other summoning spell (which can still be swapped for the primaris). Since they do have mind bullets along with summoning shenanigans, they now have more kick, but even with this buff it does not change that the daemon swarm is just not that good. If you're at home using Daemons as lackeys then don't go overboard on summoning. Do it to get reinforcements but the 'bacterial swarm' is best used for the occasional fun list with a lot of proxy models.
  • Some quick math; you generally want to throw 5-7 dice at the Summoning to make it go off reliably. A 10-man Horror squad is only Mastery 1 (they're taken in lists because you spend 9 points for a second warp charge, a min squad is crap), so your return on investment is at best 20%. Even if you successfully cast it 5 times in a turn, you're only able to pull off one more Summoning than you were before, assuming none of your squads get wiped by the thousand-odd points of return fire (you do actually have to pay points for your initial warp charge). Even if you do, a horror unit minus its warp charge (since that's getting used for recursion) is basically a 10-man unit of Imperial Guard without lasguns. Making even a hundred more cultist-equivalents for a thousand points of input energy is a bad trade; you have to do something with all that warp charge to actually win the game. Like summon Daemonettes (who can actually kill people without using your precious warp charges) or channel a bajillion Flickering Fires out of all those horrors. Recursion is a fine way to spend your first turn while you advance into range, but make sure you have a plan for how to get work out of it.
  • In lower points games, Summoning is an excellent tool for a lot of situations. Summon Bloodletters in front of Spess Mehreens as Distraction Carnifex (because they will either get shot down or tear MEQs a new asshole), summon Horrors as objective-holders and batteries, summon Daemonettes for messing up infantry, summon Plaguebearers to hold objectives / pluck apart MCs, summon some Flesh Hounds to harrass Heavy Weapon teams or summon a bunch of Flamers close enough to units they can actually kill with their shots. If you use this only to make more army, you might as well leave it. Seekers are much less useful than Daemonettes and Nurglings are out-performed by Plaguebearers. If you summon those units for a purpose, however, you can easily change the course of the game with it. However, the more points you play with, the less useful this power is. If you summon 100 points worth of unit in a 500 point game, you just increased your army by 20%, which is freaking huge. As the games get bigger, the impact of this spell is lessened, though.
  • Also keep in mind that if you manage to pull this power off, it is almost impossible to deny. 3 Warp Charges minimum with no modifier to deny the witch means on average 18(!) dice minimum to negate this, which nobody has, and if they did, they wouldn't blow them all to negate your Summoning.

• 1: Cursed Earth - Warp Charge 1. All models with the Daemon USR (allied and enemy) within 12 inches of the user gain +1 to their invulnerable save and do not scatter when Deep Striking within range of the user. If you have a good blob unit or deathstar, then this power will go a good way in allowing them to survive a little further. Use with the chaos demon Grimoire for a 2+ invul (and with Tzeentch daemons to make it re-rollable; the infamous "Screamerstar"). also be a bit careful, to get the most out of this you have to be within 12" of the caster meaning you have to bunch up a bit, not a deal breaker thanks to the higher invul but something to remember.
• 2: Dark Flame - Warp Charge 1. A Witchfire template power with S4 AP5, Assault 1, and the Soul Blaze and Torrent rules. It's a fierce weapon, yeah and at least it does not have it's got Warp flame, so...yeah, not a bad power but nothing compared to the utility of Cursed Earth.
• 3: Infernal Gaze - Warp Charge 1. A 18" range Beam power with S3 AP4, Assault 1, and the Armourbane and Fleshbane rules. Absolute PAIN on anything it hits. However, it is only ONE hit, so it won't be killing legions of spehss mehrens or hordes of chittering gaunts (unless they're conga dancing). What it WILL do, though, is seriously mess up any priority target you set your eyes upon. Best ignore anything other than light armor, even with Armourbane strength 3 limits you a lot.
• 4: Sacrifice - Warp Charge 1. A conjuration that summons a Herald of your choice (with up to 30 points' worth of wargear options) within 6 inches of the user. However, the user or another friendly unit in range suffers a single wound with no saves allowed. Remember that this can also allow you to summon named Heralds like Skulltaker or Epidemus, so if you're planning on taking them as opposed to a generic Herald, then take it up. Otherwise, it's merely a Herald. (The units you can summon are listed by name, e.g. "Herald of Khorne"; it does not say "summon anything on the Heralds list". This means you can't summon an Exalted Flamer for Heavy d3 Lascannon goodness either, sadly.) Don't expect it to survive for long on its own, so you better bring summon some mooks to help him survive. Also, for the love of the Emperor, be polite and have some Heralds pre kitted before the game starts so you don't have to hunt in the codex for a few minutes in the middle of the game to see your options. Generally you'll want Greater Reward + Lesser Reward, but 30 points could also get you a Seeker Chariot for your Slaaeneshi Herald, or a Psyker Mastery Level.
• 5: Incursion - Warp Charge 3. A conjuration that summons one of the following within 12 inches of the user: 3 Bloodcrushers, 3 Screamers, 3 Plague Drones, 3 Fiends. This generally isn't used for much unless you're planning to cheese your way to an infinite Screamerstar, or you're looking for some Distraction Daemons. While you shouldn't forget about this if you get it, if you're gonna get the Primaris anyway due to psychic focus, then the limited use will mean you won't cast this all that often. Bonus points: summon three screamers next to your enemy's land raider and watch him devote untold forces to getting rid of them.
• 6: Possession - Warp Charge 3. Summons a Greater Daemon of your choice within 6 inches, and removes the user as a casualty. (If the user was part of a unit with Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers, the whole unit is removed.) If the Psychic test to manifest this power fails, the user automatically suffers Perils of the Warp. (Just imagine the look on your opponent's face when your otherwise useless Wyrdvane Psykers explode into a Bloodthirster. Or your Lord of Change, on his last wound, explodes into a new and fully healed Lord of Change.) Like Sacrifice, this can be used to summon a named Greater Daemon. (It calls them out by name, rather than saying "Greater Daemons".) This generally isn't used because of the mighty cost it takes, but the reward it allows (Especially if you're running Daemons) makes it insanely tempting. Use at your own peril. Also note that unless you're summoning Skarbrand, Bloodthirsters aren't the best combat choice. With the new FMC rules, they have to spend a turn changing to gliding from swooping after they arrive from reserves, then another before they can get stuck in. You'll want a Lord of Change generally, or a Keepr of Secrets, but a Great Unclean One is strong if your opponent is right next to the unit.

Overview: There's a reason most armies don't use this; it's a major sink for your Warp Charges. Unless you can ensure that you've got a lot of them (Which Daemons really can do, hence this) don't be expecting to make clusterfucks appear at a whim. But if you do have a ton of Warp Charges to throw around, you may be able to make your army double in size in a couple of turns. However, even if you do, realize that using your entire army to make more army doesn't actually accomplish anything (unless you plopped a new scoring unit on a tactical objective, anyway); at some point you need to stop recursing and actually kill the enemy. Sacrifice is effective enough on its own to cast at every opportunity, but you can bet your ass that the enemy can clear off (or at least cripple) a Summoned unit with a smaller point investment than you used to get those 5-7 dice. Used mindlessly you will get out-paced, but used surgically you can make even the best opponents tear their hair out.