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Author Topic: Psychic Powers, Spreadsheet army?  (Read 1250 times)

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Offline dbecer01

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Psychic Powers, Spreadsheet army?
« on: April 18, 2020, 10:18:41 PM »
Hi,

I currently play Thousand Sons aka Spreadsheet, the army. I love the way my army looks and plays, but it takes me quite a bit of setup to play my army, due to needing to keep track of all the psychic powers.

I was looking over Eldar, and it seems that this may also be the case for Eldar (looks like Eldar have 3 sets of Psychic powers just like Thousand Sons). I see that even the exarchs have powers.

I asked this question in another forum, and was basically confirmed this. However, I'm asking here, because it feels like this forum has way more Eldar players, and I see a lot of very detailed guides going up here. I love the models, but I don't know if I want to work with so many things to manage play-wise (spells, exarch powers, etc). Also, trying to steer away from horde armies (used to play IG, but took me forever to play them).

Thanks in advance.

Offline Blazinghand

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Re: Psychic Powers, Spreadsheet army?
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2020, 12:17:34 AM »
I've never used a spreadsheet for my army.

Exarch powers are not psyker powers or anything that gets "activated" mid-game. Instead, they are selected during army creation. In this regard they work a lot more like wargear than they do like psyker powers. Also, for most Exarch powers there's just a single one that's obviously the best and so you always take it (like hawkeye for Crimson Hunter Exarchs) on every unit. I would say in terms of decision-making I consider them similar to wargear options. No concerns about that.

Eldar tends to cast more spells than other armies, though. Generally speaking, I make little tokens for each spell so I know what I've cast each turn, and I put them next to the unit I've cast them on. Usually they are pieces of card paper or cardboard with the spell's name on it. Here's what an example psychic phase looks like for the army I'm running these days with my 2,000 point army:

- Hemlock Wraithfighter casts Jinx or Smite
- Spiritseer casts Ghostwalk or Protect/Jinx
- Warlock casts Focus Will or Protect/Jinx
- Farseer casts Doom, then Farseer casts Fortune

Unlike Thousand Sons, which will regularly be casting north of 10 spells per turn, almost all of which are unique, Eldar lists will usually cast 3-5 spells per turn. You can definitely choose to make an Eldar army that casts 10 spells per turn, but we don't have as many good smite-like spells as Thousand Sons, nor do we have any abilities that offset the Psychic Focus rule so we can't spam smite. As a result, Eldar psykery tends to cap out pretty low.

IMO, Eldar is a finesse-heavy faction to play with more decisions to make than many factions, but in terms of complexity of psychic phase or need for spreadsheets I would not consider it comparable at all to Thousand Sons.

That being said, if you want a complete break from psyker powers, Eldar isn't the faction for you. Every Eldar army always includes at least 1-2 psykers. You bring a Farseer to cast Doom if nothing else, and some of our spells, like Doom and Jinx, are very crucial to making the faction work.
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Offline dbecer01

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Re: Psychic Powers, Spreadsheet army?
« Reply #2 on: April 19, 2020, 01:13:55 AM »
Well, when you put it like that, it actually seems pretty simple and manageable. I was hoping you'd be the one to chime in. I saw a lot of your newbie guides.

Thanks, this helps me not be so scared of Eldar.

Offline Blazinghand

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Re: Psychic Powers, Spreadsheet army?
« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2020, 06:25:45 PM »
Glad I can help! let me know if you have any questions regarding minis, strategies, etc
Quote from: Howard Zinn
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