In Old 40K, the Psychic Phase was a crazy time where some powers defined the game. Let’s look at some of the old Psychic Spells and see if they would even still be an issue today.
Goatboy here and there was a time in the older editions that a game hinged on a 2d6. The old Psychic phase was such a crazy time where some spells would just define the game. There were also times where a double 1 would cause such a catastrophic set of damage through your army that you could just lose the game there. Or your opponent would just “counter” your spell with a higher roll than you. Let’s look at some of the old Psychic Spells and see if they would even still be an issue now in the current landscape of neoprene mats and piles of rerolls.
The modern game has really tried to move away from back breaking psychic spells. They are now more of a “bonus” to the unit they join and sometimes a Mortal wound gun. These “spells” are no longer the back breaking interaction that would wreck a tabletop. Or the psychic spell that would cover that able in Daemons you summoned from the warp. There was a dark time when you had to come to the table with an extra 500-1000 points that you would summon. Let’s look at 3 crazy psychic powers I remember from different editions and some stories of the terrible things I did with them or against them.
Jaws of the World Wolf – Codex: Space Wolves – 5th Edition (2009: Phil Kelly)
Rune Priest successfully passes a Psychic Test for the spell and draws a 24” line directly from the Rune priest. Every model underneath the line has to pass an Initiative test and if they fail they will be removed from the table. A roll of a 6 is always a failure as the Initiative test wants you to roll at or under your Initiative. Monsters get a +1 to their roll due to their strength and flyers ignore this.
As you can tell this was a spell designed to hit the slow moving Tyranid monsters that were plaguing the table tops at that time. You would drop pod in a Rune Priest or two from Drop Pods and watch as you crisscrossed their lines with giant cracks in the earth. If you got lucky you would kill some of the big monsters as all the Tyranids were rocking a 1 initiative so they only passed on a 1 or 2. I remember using it to pinpoint and kill some characters as well as anything that passed under the line had to take a test.
It was a pretty gnarly spell that I used heavily with my Space Goats army that masqueraded as Space Wolves. They would come down in our glued shut Drop Pods and your little Rune Priest would ruin the Tyranid players day as a bunch of giant monsters fell into the pit. I think any spell that is basically an instant death for big things would probably be pretty nutty even today and glad we don’t see spells like this now.
Invisibility – Telepathy Power from 7th Edition Core Rulebook (2014)
This is a Blessing that is a WC 2 (need two successes on WC dice) that targets a friendly unit within 24” and makes it where you can only hit the unit on Snapshots (6’s to hit) and cannot target them with Templates or Blast weapons. This would also work in the Assault Phase of the game and was the cornerstone of the Deathstar edition that was 7th edition.
Heck I remember games defined by if I could get off Invisibility on my Deathstar unit or at the very least stop the opponent from casting it on theirs. You would watch as these units would become unstoppable as the game wasn’t dominated by piles of rerolls and units throwing out 30+ dice in an activation.
Heck this edition was so dominated by the interaction of causing Snapshots or only being hit by Snapshots like those things that flew in the air. I played a crap ton of Chaos Daemon lists that worked on overpowering four Daemon Princes and causing havoc as they flew around the table top. I don’t know if this ability would be completely broken right now just due to the nature of rerolls and piles of attacks but it does represent a dark period of time in 40K.
Fortune & Aeldari Runes of Fate – Multiple Editions Going back to Codex: Eldar – 3rd Edition (1999: Gav Thorpe)
This was a blessing power that would power up a unit within 24” of the caster. Each edition has seen this change as it was always a major factor of powering up the Aeldari units in some way. One edition would grant the unit the Reroll Failed Saves ability and another would give the unit a 5+ Feel No Pain. Both of these are very powerful and worth the chance when playing with them.
I would say the reroll saves would be busted in this current edition and the Feel No Pain would be extremely powerful. In fact I would say both don’t need to be in the game and would dominate things in a very frustrating way especially with things like tough Wraithguard units or even just annoying biker options. Heck some of the Aspect Warriors would be busted too if they could reroll saves or even get a 5+ feel no pain.
These Psychic powers are not even touching some of the issues from the old Psychic phase – especially the default disciplines we used to play with back in 7th edition. We’ll leave that talk for a later time when players had to roll up to the table top with a pile of Daemons that would get summoned from your Space Marine Librarian. Oh the old editions – how balanced were they actually?
What was your most dreaded Psychic Power of past editions?
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Thomas Reidy, aka Goatboy, the ever-evil member of BoLS. I do arts, play 40k, and even paint a lot of stuff. I have been playing Warhammer 40K since the 1990s, and have won multiple national events including Adepticon and GW GTs. I’ve been writing for BoLS for 15 years. Look at my Instagram to see what I am working on – or working on for someone. I am always doing something hobby related.
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