Maths of the Psychic Phase, Part 2: Perils!

... sorry. I couldn't resist.

This is the follow on from the previous installment, expanding our first model with a careful look at the perils of the deep blue brain.

The first thing to consider - just how dangerous is Perils of the Warp, anyway? Let's have a look at a precis of the table.


1 - Take a Ld test. If you succeed, take a wound with no saves. If you fail, explode. And die.
2 - Take a Ld test, and a wound with no saves. Lose a power if you fail the test.
3 - Take a wound with no saves, and lose d3 warp charge.
4 - Take a wound with no saves.
5 - Take a Ld test, and if you fail take a wound with no saves.
6 - Take a Ld test. If you fail take a wound with no saves, or become awesome for a turn if you pass.

It looks like rolling on the table, in general, is not a good thing. But, because this is GW, there is still a result that randomly goes the other way to all of the other results.

However, it is also clear that the table will affect different models in different ways. A psyker with one wound left (or who only ever had one wound) is not going to like it. A twenty strong unit of 'brotherhood of psykers' is unlikely to care if one of their number bites it.

Leaving aside brotherhood of psykers for a moment, let's look at the spectrum of death from Perils.





This chart summarises the average number of Perils! instances that a psyker can hack before death, bearing in mind that one of the results brings a chance of instant death, but disregarding for now the effects of the explosion on the unit.

A 1W psyker is not in a happy place. Odds are good that he will die on his first exposure to Perils. Consider casting conservatively, as outlined last post.

A psyker with 2W left is likely to be able to absorb his first perils. Indeed, since the risk of dying instantly is quite low, wounds can be seen as the limiting factor to the psyker's resistance to a much greater degree than Ld.

In fact, I would argue that if you want to cast aggressively, you should feel free to do so while your psyker has at least two wounds left.

When you are prepared to accept a Perils! as a success (so long as the power succeeds also, of course), the chance of success per cast looks much more favourable. But nonetheless, throwing more dice at a power rapidly approaches the point of diminishing returns. To consider the best way to efficiently manifest powers without taking any heed of Perils!, I will repeat the analysis of the number of powers manifested from a fixed dice pool using the chances of succeeding, regardless of Perils.



Compared to the graph featured in the last post, the number of powers successfully manifested from this arbitrary pool of 60 dice are generally higher. This shift also affects the number of dice that it is optimal to throw at any given power to cast most efficiently:

1 WC: 1 die
2 WC: 4 dice
3 WC: 6 dice

So, you can throw an extra die at 2 and 3 warp charge powers when casting more aggressively, and get a higher net number of powers cast, albeit at the probable cost of a wound here and there. Suck it up.

The main points from this chapter; if you have only one wound left, cast conservatively. If you have multiple wounds left, are a large squad of brotherhood of psykers, or are otherwise able to ignore Perils!, cast more aggressively on 2 and 3 warp charge powers to manifest more powers.

Next stop? Factoring in denial.