There has been a LOT of talk about the new Psychic powers - and for a damn good reason. There are some amazing little tweaks that have been made to a few of the different disciplines however we won't cover them here right now - you can't find them over on Faeit 212 (here: http://natfka.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/psychic-cards-and-powers-leaked.html, specifically). I promise to do a write up on powers and some tactics to go along side that CrAzY424 and I have been thinking up.
What I would like to cover in this article however is the summoning of Daemons - specifically by other Daemons. There has been a huge public outcry over the potential of Chaos Daemon Heralds and Pink Horrors of Tzeentch being able to summon even more Pink Horrors/Heralds, and the summoning will then go on, and on, and on.
I can tell the community however to rest easy - I have been provided with a direct quote from the rulebook from a member of the 3++ Is the New Black Website (follow this link: http://www.3plusplus.net/ for a live Q&A on the rulebook).
"In some Army List Entries, a Psyker will have one or more specific psychic powers listed - where this is the case, it will be clearly stated. These Psykers always start the game with those psychic powers. Otherwise, a Pysker generates random psychic powers from amongst the psychic disciplines known to him."
Pay attention to that last sentence. At the moment Heralds of Tzeentch only have access to Divination and Change disciplines, and Horrors only have access to Change. I'm definitely anticipating some wider access to the Daemonology law with an FAQ over the next few weeks - I wouldn't be surprised however if this is just limited to HQ choices such as Heralds. I could be very wrong, but there is definitely hope that we may be saved from the sight of 20 Pink Horror units summoning another 20 Pink Horror units...
If this is possible though, lets look at our old mate statistics for some comfort, shall we? "Summoning" is Warp Charge 3, and the (now confirmed) way of casting powers is for every Warp Charge in a power's profile you must roll a 4+ - meaning a Warp Charge 3 power needs 3 x 4+ rolls to be made. A caster has a limit of d6 power dice + a number of dice equal to his/her/it's mastery level, so on average, IF Horrors are able to cast "Summoning", they will still fail to do so with an average of 2 x 4+'s rolled (3 is the average on a d6, + 1 dice for mastery level 1 - half of 4 is 2!). Of course statistics don't always go as planned with dice rolling games but it IS nice to know that there is still hope, even in the worst case scenario. You could however take bigger units of Horrors to increase your mastery level but only 10 horrors are summoned by the power, hence why I calculated as such.
Anyway - I'm actually really excited for a more involved Psychic element, and having a dedicated phase to casting is pretty damn cool indeed.
Comment with your thoughts on the new Psychic powers, and we will definitely be doing some tactics articles over the next few days!
Alles gute,
TommyH