Grey Knight "Pyschic Locus" Idea

[L30n1d4s]

I have been thinking about how to fix GKs for a while and, while there are lots of solutions (lower point costs, tweaks to unit profiles/abilities, more and cheaper Stratagems, etc.), in terms of both their "flavor" as a faction and their competitiveness on the tabletop, I think the best way to improve them is to focus on their psychic prowess, which is what sets them apart from all other Space Marines (or any othe factions, for that matter).

 

Specifically, I propose that Grey Knights get a special rule called "Psychic Locus," which grants them bonuses based on how many successful Psychic Powers they cast each turn. For each Psychic Power they successfully cast (without having it denied), they get to add one "Warp Charge" point towards a pool of "Warp Charges" that accumulates all game long. The GK commander can then "spend" Warp Charges on a variety of buffs (i.e. very similar to

the old "Blood Tithe" chart used for the 7th edition Kharne Daemonkin book):

 

The buffs for the "Psychic Locus" chart would be used at end of each friendly GK Psychic Phase and would look like this (there would be no limit to what type/how many buffs could be used each turn, as long as the GK player had the appropriate number of Warp Charges to "buy" them):

 

1 Warp Charge -- RELENTLESS -- One chosen GK unit does not suffer the penalty for moving and shooting Heavy Weapons until the beginning of the next Friendly Psychic Phase.

 

2 Warp Charges -- QUICKSILVER STRIKE -- One chosen GK unit gains +D6" to its

Charge distances until the beginning of the next Friendly Psychic Phase.

 

3 Warp Charges -- THE SHROUDING -- All enemy shooting attacks agains one chosen GK unit have a -1 to Hit penalty until the beginning of the next Friendly Psychic Phase.

 

4 Warp Charges -- FORCE LOCII -- All Nemesis Force Weapons and Daemonhammers

in a chosen GK unit re-roll failed to Wound rolls until the beginning of the

next Friendly Psychic Phase.

 

5 Warp Charges -- CONSECRATED PSYBOLTS -- All Storm Bolters, Psycannons,

Heavy Psycannons, Heavy Bolters, and Assault Cannons in a chosen GK unit gain +1 Damage until the beginning of the next Friendly Psychic Phase.

 

6 Warp Charges -- VISION OF THE PROGNASTICATORS -- The GK army gains +D3

Command Points (may only be used on GK Stratagems).

[Captain Coolpants]

Although cool, it'll never happen. And I think 5 and 6 should swap places.

Do any current codex have rules like this anymore? Because if not then I'm sure they would probably keep it that way.

[Capt. Mytre]

It's a pretty cool idea, but it has a couple draw backs I feel.

 

It's more book keeping, and GW is heavily going down the "keep it simple, stupid" path.

 

It also really incentivises that you go min squads of cheap units, which I don't think is good for the game at the moment.

 

I could see it added as a overarching rework of the game/GK.

[Panzer]

Dunno, psychic powers already are pretty strong themselves and rewarding you getting an advantage in an army that's partially designed to spam psychic powers feels odd. That's like giving T'au bonuses whenever they kill a model with a ranged weapon.

The Blood Tithe was an interesting concept, very fluffy indeed, but the only thing that kept it from being broken (tho some would argue about that since it was indeed pretty strong!) was that it required things to get actually killed in melee by your units or one of your units to die. One thing being hard to achieve due melee being so underpowered and the other costing you a whole unit so the Blood Tithe is only really softening the blow instead of giving you a real advantage.

 

Also your idea for the Locus to fill over the course of the whole game seems a bit broken by design considering how many powers Grey Knights can get off with each unit being a psyker. Especially when you throw a few Smites inbetween. You should be able to get to the last bonus within one or two turns easily.

 

Maybe something like the T'au Markerlight system would be a better idea? Give Grey Knights a second power they can spam like smite and with each successful cast you go one up on the table. However the table resets after each turn.

[Captain Coolpants]

I dunno. If we remove the warp tokens from smite, and make it that they can only be gained by using actual powers. That wouldn't be too bad.

 

Because let's be real. Other than the occasional gate or vortex. Most of the time you're just casting smite. So it then incentivises you to vary your powers.