Warhammer 40K: Mastering Tyranids Psychic Powers
Let’s talk all about the brand new Tyranid Hive Mind Psychic Discipline. Zzap em, then eat em!
Hey everyone, Danny from TFG Radio here. As I continue to pour and pour over the brand new 9th Edition codex, I realized that the new Adaptive Physiology and updated Hive Mind discipline are full of fun combinations for harvesting biomass.
There was a time in the 8th edition codex when there were really only two Tyranid powers, Catalyst and Onslaught. Paroxysm and the Horror were very much afterthoughts. Yes, Psychic Scream was there, but really, despite having a ton of psykers, there wasn’t always that much to do. Well, most of our powers are still here. But there have been some revamps, and thankfully, what was good, is still good. Let’s dive in!
Catalyst
Blessing. Warp Charge 6. Select one friendly unit within Synaptic Link range. If target is Titanic, they ignore wounds on a 6+. If the target is not Titanic, they ignore wounds on a 5+.
Catalyst has been a staple of the Tyranid strategy for quite some time, and well, that isn’t going anywhere now. The ability to essentially make a unit 33% more durable is amazing, and this has a lot of plays depending on your army build. A big unit of Hormagaunts or Termagants with Catalyst up (and their new shiny 5+ armor save) with a Venomthrope nearby can suddenly be hard to shift, especially if you have the Zoanthropes Synaptic Imperative up for a 5++ save. This is a great spell for a unit of Hormies that are being charged up the board as once they hit, your opponent has to clear them to move forward, but if they can’t, suddenly they have lost even more momentum while your other threats are coming the next turn. If a big unit of Termies is camping an objective, boom, now they are harder to shift.
Of course, you can throw this on a key Monster that needs to live like a Tyrant or Tervigon, and between the invulnerable saves and T8, it can be mighty, mighty hard to bring that down. You can also use this to mess with enemy Target Priority as you can throw Catalyst on one big threat while putting another buff somewhere else, forcing the opponent to decide if it is worth shooting the Catalyst unit or the other unit that is maybe loaded up for other fun. Any time you can force a hard choice on an opponent is a time where the odds of a misplay go way up.
Whether as a defensive power to boost survivability or an offensive power to make a forward threat more durable and thus more damaging, Catalyst is a grade A power that should appear in every list (with redundancy of psykers as well).
The Horror
Malediction. Warp Charge 5. Select one enemy unit within Synaptic Link range or 24″ of the Caster. Until next psychic phase, that enemy units suffers -2 Leadership and -1 to Combat Attrition Tests.
This is an interesting spell that can combo off with some GSC powers, but overall, it lacks the wide ranging utility of other spells. One big advantage it has is the rather large radius as between Synaptic Link (which can almost cover a board if you have the Synapse creatures) and the 24″ of the Caster spell that also doesn’t require Line of Sight, you can very much choose who is going to get hit. This is solid, but then, leadership shenanigans are always fun on paper, but when going against a lot of armies that either don’t care about morale or have numerous ways to counter morale issues, this power really loses its luster. In certain matchups, it can be awesome, but this is a very corner case power that isn’t a priority at all unless you are playing a heavy, heavy psychic list and have the room for it.
Neuroparasite
Witchfire. Warp Charge 7. Select one enemy unit within Synaptic Link Range or within 18″ of the Caster. Roll 1 d6 for every model in that: for every roll that exceeds the Target’s Toughness value, the target takes 1 Mortal Wound (to a max of 6).
This is a new power, and it is awesome. While it has a bit less utility than a standard Witchfire, meaning that it is mostly useless against single model Units or Units with high Toughness like Custodes/Warriors/etc, it provides the opportunity for a lot of damage, especially against a horde. This is custom made to help tackle AM, Orks, and other Tyranids, but even against big squads of say Black Templars or such, it can still push through some Mortal Wounds. Especially when fired off from say a squad of Zoanthropes with their extra bonus to both casting and mortals, you can get some surprising damage out of this for a single Witchfire, and well, there is still another Witchfire that you can launch as well as the usual Smites.
Tyranids having essentially 2 bespoke Witchfires to throw out besides Smite really helps up the damage output in the psychic phase. You could even get cheeky and throw in a GSC detachment for a psychic based list that isn’t relying on the Maleceptor bomb, throwing out all sorts of Witchfires and Smites. One key thing to notice is that Neuroparasite is free from the usual targeting restrictions, meaning you can start slapping Units with this regardless of whether the psyker can see them (as long as you can get the target into Synaptic Link range). This means that if you have the fast moving Synapse creatures to do it, you can tag Units camping an objective and hiding, doing some decent damage, or even get big blobs that are behind the main line to avoid early game damage. This is a whole new level of flexibility than Smite and Scream don’t have.
Overall, this is a solid, solid spell that is worth having, maybe not with redundancy, but if playing a psychic list, then yes, probably with redundancy.
Onslaught
Blessing. Warp Charge 6. Select one friendly unit within Synaptic Link range. It gains: No penalty for assualting and shooting with assault weapons. No penalty for moving and shooting with Heavy weapons. The unit may advance and charge in the same turn.
Speaking of another tried and true classic, Onslaught is still here, still money, and still gives Tyranids some first turn charges. It is hard to overstate how central this power is to a lot of combinations within Tyranids. Advance and Charge is an exceptionally powerful ability, and Tyranids actually have nothing with it inherently anymore, but at least for one turn, we can make any one unit do so. It certainly isn’t ideal that so much of our strategy can rely on getting a power off as any army with a 4+ to deny Stratagem or similar can really, really ruin plans, but there is also huge utility in the fact that you can make ANY unit in the army suddenly get up and go. Your opponent cannot focus fire one fast threat down because well, any of our units can suddenly be that fast threat.
There are simply too many combinations to go over here, but in general, you can use this to make 2 units of Hormies cross the board and get into the enemy deployment zone a turn or combo one unit of Hormies with another threat of a different flavor. Anything with a 12″ base move is also money like Barbed Hierodules, Dimachaerons, and Raveners. In Turn 2 or later, you can also toss this on a big unit of Warriors who can advance, blast with no penalty (also can be useful for triggering Shard Lure) and then charge into the enemy. Winged Hive Tyrants also make great use of this as with their amazing base movement of 16, adding an extra d6 and then 2d6 for the charge can give them crazy threat ranges, allowing you to even deploy them on the board behind Obscuring Terrain and then they bounce them over right into the fight. Especially with how mean Flyrants can be in melee thanks to Relics like the Reaper of Obliterax or Maw-Claws, you can do some surprising damage right from the start.
Onslaught is another must have, goes in just about every list, power, and you definitely want redundancy with either two casters with it or even three, depending on your list.
Uhh oh…*click, click*…
Paroxysm
Malediction. Warp Charge 7. Select an enemy within Synaptic Link range or 18″ of the caster. The enemy unit cannot fire Overwatch or Set to Defend and when it makes melee attacks, they take a -1 penalty to their Wound rolls.
This power can be slightly corner case, but really, it has a ton of utility thanks to the ability to blunt incoming damage. There are several ways to really maximize what Paroxysm can do, and it depends what your list wants to do and what your opponent wants to do. First, obviously turning off Overwatch on a unit can absolutely swing the game as with the new Balance Datasheet out, you may see big units of Salamander Flamer-Aggressors again, and being able to tell them to take a hike when it comes to Overwatch means that you can actually charge them without getting massacred. Turning off Overwatch on a big Crisis team or Broadside unit is again money, so throwing up a sacrificial Synapse Creature to get them into Synaptic Link is going to be worth it more times than not. Making sure as many Hormies get into combat as possible is the key to their damage output, so saving a good chunk of them from eating Overwatch certainly helps.
On the flip side, the -1 to wound is huge on a lot of units, so if you know that you are going to take a charge next turn (part of the game is piece trading after all), hindering a threat that pumps out a lot of attacks can mean your screen or objective holders are going to stay there (especially if they have Catalyst up as well). Again, with Armor of Contempt a thing, you may see more Primaris bodies on the table that can throw out a lot of attacks that tend to shred Gants, but when they have -1 to wound, suddenly the math isn’t as much in their favor as before. Sometimes you know that you are going to get hit, so might as well take some of the iron out of it. This even works on say a Knight, so giving it -1 to wound can mean that it can’t stomp or sweep through so much as it wants. If piece-trading a big melee threat like a Haruspex or such, putting a -1 to wound on a Knight can mean that unless it has a big fist, it is suddenly wounding on 4s, which can mean that the big bug survives.
A strong, solid debuff that has a lot of utility, so it should be at least on one psyker per game.
Psychic Scream
Witchfire. Warp Charge 5. Select closest enemy unit within 18″ of the caster. They take d3 Mortal Wounds, and if the target was a psyker and the roll was greater than the target’s Leadership, the target loses one random psychic power for the rest of the game.
There is nothing wrong with a standard Witchfire, especially one with a tasty bonus on the right targets (like Greater Daemons not of Khorne, Primarchs, etc). An extra d3 mortals can be the difference between a Unit that will survive a round of shooting and a unit that won’t, but don’t forget that Zoanthropes exist, so you can get this up to d3+3 pretty easily. That’s really who wants to cast this power as a big unit of Zoans love a Witchfire. If desperate, someone else who has a better target can do it, but really, you want this for your Zoanthropes to leverage their innate boost to Mortal Wounds. Pretty much every Nid army is going to take at least a minimum unit of Zoans to get access to their Synaptic Imperative, so might as well throw this on them as well. Smite is usually best for Zoans’ one cast as with their bonuses, you can Super Smite consistently, but sometimes they don’t have a great target, and you may not want to increase the cost of Smite for another unit with a better target, so this can fill in nicely. For 1 CP, you can also have a unit cast both Smite and Scream for some really juicy damage.
You can also go with the Gunboat style Flyrant with a Heavy Venom Cannon or even the relic Stranglethorn cannon, and with two casts, a Smite and a Scream can be some good overall damage between psychic and guns, all on a model that has a ton of mobility to line up good targets.
The only real downside to this power is that it is constricted in who it can target, and unlike Smite, you can’t spam it. It also cannot Super-Smite, so the only advantage to rolling high is if hitting a psyker, which can absolutely be great, but most of the time, it isn’t relevant. Still, an extra d3 Mortal Wounds a turn is certainly not bad at all.
A solid, reliable power that should definitely go on someone.
The Verdict
So there we have it, even more combinations and ideas to factor into list building. The 9th edition Codex is just a chonky tome with a ton to sift through, and as the weeks go on, I am sure we will find more and more exciting ways to wreak havoc on the table. It can be hard to come up with a list, not because there aren’t good options, but that there are simply too many options. With our new, stronger psychic powers, the ability to customize a list beyond just what units you take is insane.
I look forward to every game night to keep testing more and more combinations, but be sure to sound off with what you have found works.
As always, play games and be nice to each other.
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