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Psychic Hoods and Your Seer Council [Broken HTML]

Submitted By: small_furry_spider Date: June 3, 2006, 12:00:00 AM Views: 1952
Summary: <p class="body">If you have played Ulthwe recently, you probably will have noticed that psychic hoods can have a rather unpleasant effect on your very expensive HQ choice. However this is not the place for complaining about hoods- they are here to stay. Instead I hope to show you how you can adapt your tactics and build to still remain effective. NB this tactica assumes you are not using two powers a turn without spirit stones. If you are, or if this has been properly cleared up by GW, this guide should still hold true with some minor adjustments.</p>

<p class="heading">Traditional Council Types</p>

<p class="body">There are 3 main categories of Seer Council builds which I will go into briefly:</p>

<p class="subheader">Pure Support Council</p>
<p class="body">This sort of council is normally quite small (possibly minimum size) and will have powers like guide, mindwar and eldritch storm (the latter two combined with augment). Fortune is always a good idea- but is needed less by this build than any other. Weapons and other warlock powers are optional. <br />
This council performs long range fire support role (36") and boosts squads like support batteries. </p>

<p class="subheader">Pure Combat Council</p>
<p class="body">This build is designed to get up close and personal with the enemy with short range powers to soften up the enemy before assault. Combat councils can be quite large, and will normally have at least a few “ablative” warlocks. Fortune is essential, as are Embolden and Enhance. Mindwar is good for the second Farseer, and a few destructors help. Augment can be useful while you close on the enemy. Many witchblades are essential. This build can easily eat up 300+ points.</p>

<p class="subheader">Combined Council</p>
<p class="body">Take bits of both the above builds and you have a council that can  perform long range support and defend your firebase quite effectively or advance and provide ranged support to your forward units, and help out if needed.  Fortune, mindwar/Eldritch Storm, enhance, embolden and augment are probably needed, plus at least one witchblade.</p>

<p class="heading">Some good news and some bad news</p>

<p class="body">Firstly the bad news, support councils cannot be made to be efficient against opponents with psychic hoods. Sad, but true and here is why:</p>

<p class="italic">Support councils rely on powers needing psychic tests to work. They also need the powers to be dependable, and this is where the hood shoots them down</p>


<p class="subheader">Table of chance of getting a psychic power past a hood</p>

<table><tr><Ld Seer/Hood></td><8></td><9></td><10></td></tr>
<tr><8></td><0.58></td><0.42></td><0.28></td></tr>
<tr><10></td><0.83></td><0.72></td><0.58></td></tr></table>

<p class="body">As you can see, you have only a slightly better than 1 in 4 chance of getting augment to work against a Ld 10 opponent. This is bad, but if you combine that with the chance of getting the power you are augmenting to work, say mindwar, you have only a 0.28x0.58= 0.16 (i.e. slightly less than 1 in 6) chance of getting the combined power past the hood, and this assumes you successfully cast both powers.  Even if you buy 2 warlocks with augment for each Farseer, the chance is still only 0.48x0.58= 0.28 (slightly better than 1 in 4) and just over 1 in 3 if you take 3 warlocks, but now we are getting a bit silly...</p>

<p class="body">Even if we use guide instead it is very expensive for something that will only work about half the time. Will a semi-functional guide enable you to kill 200 points of troops? Probably not.</p>

<p class="body">...and the good news:</p>

<p class="body">The combat council and combined council are still very effective if you make some adjustments.</p>

<p class="heading">Adjustments to the combat/combined council</p>

<p class="body">A Seer council is very expensive so you don’t want to a) give your opponent a large number of victory points at little cost or b) have all those points sitting around being ineffective.</p>

<p class="body">Probably the most important adjustment you need to do is to take 2 Farseers with fortune. Expensive? Yes…but do you want to get caught in the middle of open ground in front of rapid firing weapons and have the hood stop it from working? With one fortune, the hood will stop it working for about 2 turns in a 6 turn game. If you take 2 fortunes, the chance of it stopping both is about 1 in 10, and I can live with those odds. Don't forget to give your -second- Farseer another power if he does not need to use his fortune on the council and there are no other nearby units.</p>

<p class="body">Destructor, Embolden and Enhance are as effective as before, but augment is not even worth its very low point's cost. The only exception to this being if you are playing USF, use it on cheap warlocks as their compulsory power.</p>

<p class="body">Mindwar is reasonable value as it is quite cheap and has potentially very good pay off, one dead powerfist, icon bearer or heavy weapon and it has paid for itself. </p>

<p class="body">Eldritch Storm and Guide. Both these powers are too expensive when only effective just over half the time. In general, don't bother with them unless you have a specific purpose in mind.</p>

<p class="body">In general, a close range/assault council will be most effective, so several witchblades and Destructors are a good idea if you can afford the points.</p>

<p class="body">Overall, the sub 200 point budget council does not have a place against an opponent with a psychic hood, but if you are willing to invest 250-300 points you can have a very effective unit:</p>

<p class="body">e.g.</p>
<p class="subheader">260 point 6 man council</p>
<p class="body">Farseer- Fortune, Runes of Witnessing, Witchblade, Shuriken Pistol<br />
Farseer- Fortune, Mindwar, Runes of Witnessing, Witchblade, Shuriken Pistol<br />
Warlock- Embolden, Close Combat Weapon, Shuriken Pistol<br />
Warlock- Enhance, Close Combat Weapon, Shuriken Pistol<br />
Warlock- Destructor, Close Combat Weapon, Shuriken Pistol<br />
Warlock- Destructor, Close Combat Weapon, Shuriken Pistol</p>

<p class="body">This has good durability, good short range offensive power, and is reasonable in assault. For a few more points you could get another witchblade and some “ablative” warlocks, and then you are pushing 300. If you needed to save some points, you could drop a witchblade or Destructor, but both will significantly decrease the council's offensive power.</p>

<p class="subheader1">Tactics</p>

<p class="body">If it is possible, kill the enemy hood wearing model, but only a careless opponent will give you this chance. If you do get the chance of a shot, you need a very good reason not to take it, your powers play a large part in your game and once you are unopposed, things are back to the old days. However, make sure you do not lose sight of the overall battle in your pursuit of one model. The adjustments to the council I have suggested should make it effective, even with a Psychic Hood running throughout the game.</p>

<p class="body">Shooting them is great but, unfortunately, you are more likely to end up in assault with them- which can be a bit tricky. There are 3 main sorts of hood wearing models which all need slightly different approaches to killing in assault, so I will cover them separately. Remember that any Imperial list can take an allied inquisitor with a hood.</p>

<p class="subheader">The Space Marine Librarian</p>

<p class="body">This guy is quite hard to kill and will be a close combat monster. The good thing about this is that he will come towards you. The bad news is that the power that enables him to re-roll all his dice makes him very hard to kill. This is possibly the only use of Runes of Warding and will give the council nearly a 1 in 5 chance of preventing the librarian's powers if they can get into assault. The possibility of a 2+ save means you may need a power weapon back up (scorpions or banshees) to finish him off. If he has a jump-pack or terminator armour and deepstrikes, you will not get the chance to shoot him.</p>

<p class="subheader">Daemonhunters</p>

<p class="body">Being brutally honest, your seer council is in trouble, even if you kill the Psychic Hood model. The large number of weapons which ignore invulnerable saves will make getting your council into close range/assault difficult, and it may be worth taking conceal. If a grey knight master is wearing the hood, don't bother going after it, he is far too hard a target. If it is with an inquisitor, assault troops with power weapons can be effective. In addition it is possible to kill an inquisitor with shooting as he will be in a unit with his retinue, just make sure that you either have enough shots to kill him and his unit or to leave some of his retinue alive.</p>

<p class="subheader">Witchhunters</p>

<p class="body">If you know you will be facing a Witchhunters list, and your opponent knows you will be fielding Ulthwe, killing the inquisitor may not be an option- it will be a necessity. Hood, wargear and powers can destroy your council from the other side of the battlefield. The good news is that the maximum save he can have is 3+, and he is vulnerable to assault from either the council or an assault unit.  If your opponent has not tooled his list specifically against Ulthwe, this will be the “softest” Psychic Hood wearer.</p>

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