Mind Howl

Bit of a rough week just gone (thanks to those of you who messaged me). Hopefully things should improve now and we'll get back to our more usual roll out of posts. 

Today, I wanted touch on the forth-coming release of the new Horus Heresy rules set. There appears, on the surface, to be a number of important, significant, and (dare I say it?): longed for changed in the rules that are being proposed.

One of the big ones is the total elimination of Invisibility as a psychic power. Invisibility caused all sorts of shenanigans in the 7th edition of both Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. So much so, that independent tournaments invariably had their own house rules on the power to prevent too much abuse.

Its termination with extreme prejudice is a welcome one from me. In its place, we have a new power entitled "Mind Howl". The image below was taken from the Warhammer Community website, and I use it here under "fair use" clauses (happy to take it down if desired). 

On the surface, Mind Howl is a reasonable replacement power for invisibility. It provides the caster with a way of reducing the effectiveness of a target unit both in terms of the WS and the BS of the victim. At Warp Charge 2, it has a steep price (but we do not yet know how the psychic phase will operate under the new rules system ... I'm hoping for something more streamlined myself, but time will tell), and has to be within a range of 12 inches. This range won't be an issue for a melee orientated psyker to take on. However, the temptation will be to attempt to nullify opponents best ranged weapons as well. 

In practice, this means that packers that have rules such as infiltration and teleportation may well be able to shut down some of the most powerful incoming fire power from opponents. 

You can probably guess my thoughts here. With the Alpha Legion, one of these infiltrating strategically near the backlines could do amazing damage to the ranged potential of any enemy units. Even certain Thousand Sons builds can pull off this kind of treachery. Hence, even though Invisibility was a game defining psychic power, the Mind Howl replacement power can potentially be just as frightful in its own right. I can certainly see me taking an Alpha Legion librarian just to exploit this power alone and shut down the ranged weapons of heavy support squads to snap shot levels. Hydra Dominatus brothers!