Ritual of the Damned: It's A Kind Of Magic

Psychic Awakening 4: Ritual of the Damned is now out!

"Let's got to work."

There's been plenty of previews of what lays within, but this is catnip for the Thousand Sons and so - if only for my own understanding - I'm going to have a deep dive into the Cults of Sortiarius.

Overview

Basically, the Thousand Sons get seven new stratagems (more of which below) and, if a detachment is battleforged and contains only Thousand Sons units, they can be assigned to one of nine Cults for free.

Tzaangor (of any flavour) and Cultists cannot be part of a Cult, but can be part of a detachment without preventing all the eligible units from doing so.

Each Cult has one warlord trait, one relic and one psychic power that every psyker knows in addition to their other psychic powers. This alone is huge. Squads of Rubricae will know two powers (plus Smite) and you don’t have to take up valuable slots in your HQ slots to bring them. 

You can also pretty much guarantee attempting these powers off when and where you need to – one challenge with Thousand Sons has been getting the right spell in the right place (and not giving it to a caster who gets killed early on). They’re also really cheap to cast – seven are Warp Charge 6, one is 5 and one is 7 (and really worth it), which gets around another issue with Thousand Sons psychic powers.

Another key point to note is that, with the exception of Cultists, Tzaangor and named characters, everything else gets the Cult keyword (daemon engines, vehicles, helbrutes). This is potentially hug when you see what the abilities can do.

So, without further ado (and without reproducing the rules verbatim), here's my hot take on the Thousand Sons Cults.

Cult of Prophecy

Psychic Power: Divine the Future – a pre-determined dice result (like Adeptus Sororitas' 'miracle dice’, except you use it after you've made the roll).
Cheap as the Gaze of Fate power, but more predictable, lasts longer and you don’t need to be a daemon to access it.
Only affects Cult units though (so no help with a Tzaangor charge, for instance).

Warlord Trait: Guided by Whispers – move 6” after firing Overwatch. Handy for getting your Warlord out of dodge, since only Daemon Princes want to be in combat (and they can’t fire Overwatch, so wouldn’t take this one) - and if you've mounted him on a disc, he could just ignore vertical movement and scoot on top of building to frustrate the charge.

Sorcerous Arcana: Pythic Brazier – Any Cult unit within 6” can re-roll one hit, wound or damage roll – not bad if you’re into Lascannon Helbrutes or Predators – just park the Exalted Sorcerer in the middle of them (granting rerolls of 1 naturally) and save on the CP. Similarly, have him escort a pack of daemon engines into the fray and boost their reliability.

Cult of Knowledge

Psychic Power: Psychic Delve – cast on enemy unit and all Cult units re-roll wound rolls of 1. Like Craftworld Eldar’s Doom, but cheaper to cast and not quite as effective. Pretty good if you really want something to die.

Warlord Trait: Ardent Scholar – re-roll psychic test rolls of 1. Not flashy, but a lot more useful that you’d imagine.

Sorcerous Arcana: Incaladion’s Cry – standard Warpflamer with S6 instead of S3. It is what it is.

Cult of Change

Psychic Power: Disturb Reality – target enemy unit and subtract 1 Ld and 1 A. Against the right unit, stripping attacks could be nasty (but it’s minimum 1, so you can’t totally nerf them). Leadership is less useful, but if you've got Spawn running around, it may stack.

Warlord Trait: Fickle Nature – re-roll charges and can shoot and charge when it Falls Back. Useful for a Daemon Prince, and probably better than the existing Aetherstride.

Sorcerous Arcana: Capricious Crest – can change the result of a psychic test: 1 to a 6 (or you) or 6 to a 1 (for your opponent’s psyker). Situational, but I like the implied mischief of forcing a perils (or a just a failed test, without needing to deny).
It can only be done once per turn, so you’d have to decide if you were going to boost your spell or wait to stop theirs (as it depends on the dice coming up, I would just use it at first opportunity)

Cult of Scheming

Psychic Power: Seeded Strategy – a Cult unit can shoot and charge even if it fell back. Great for having Scarab Occult smash back into an enemy (after shooting it up first), but since vehicles also get the Cult keyword, your tanks can behave like Ultramarines.

Warlord Trait: Grand Schemer – Cult units within 3” become objective secured (and if they are already, they count double). A great way to sneak VPs, I like it.

Sorcerous Arcana: Cha’qi’thl’s Theorum – it’s worded very oddly, but I think it’s saying you get a stratagem for free?
Saves on the CPs, I suppose, and quite useful as a gotcha, once you’ve depleted all your Command Points, but then pull this out to interrupt combat or pass morale (you’d want it to be an expensive stratagem). It might be worth spending 1CP on the Extra Relics stratagem, since you’re going to break even, at the very least.

Cult of Magic

Psychic Power: Astral Blast – a short-range Smite with 3” splash damage. If you’re facing elite armies like Custodes, they will not enjoy that.

Warlord Trait: Devastating Sorcery – add 1 mortal wound to psychic powers than cause mortal wounds – so Smites are D3+1

Sorcerous Arcana: Arcane Focus – Add 1 to psychic tests (that would make Smites easier – anyone spotting a theme with this Cult?).
If combined with the High Magister warlord trait, you’re getting +2 to cast. Make him a Terminator Sorcerer with a 9pt Familiar and his first power gets +3 (add in the Cabalistic Focus stratagem and that first power has a +5 to cast – Super-Smite on a roll of a 6!)

Cult of Duplicity

Psychic Power: Sorcerous Facade – remove a Cult unit within 6” and set up anywhere on the battlefield 9”. It’s the only one to have a warp charge of 7, and it’s worth it, because this is the best power in the book. Gives movement to a traditionally slow army and unpredictability to an already-unpredictable one.

Warlord Trait: Duplicitous Tactician – at the start of the first battle round, select D3 Cult units and redeploy them. If you’re of sneaky mind (and you’re playing Thousand Sons, so of course you are), this could be very nifty.
This can be paired with the new Risen Rubricae stratagem, because that would be sweet (you could drop a huge squad in front of the enemy and, if you don’t get first turn, use this to redeploy them safely).

Sorcerous Arcana: Perfidious Tome – Roll a D6 at the start of the round. Your opponent gets a CP on a 1, you get a CP on a 4+. Absolutely crazy, and so much more fun than a CP farm.

Cult of Manipulation

Psychic Power: Attempted Possession – inflict a mortal wound on a character (doesn’t have to be the closest) and they get -2 to their psychic tests. It’s a good sniping spell even without the psychic nerf, but is great for getting psychic dominance.
Obviously situational, but against Grey Knights, Tyranids, Eldar ... not bad.

Warlord Trait: Beguiling Influence – remove 1 attack (to a minimum of 1) from enemies. Useful for a Daemon Prince, but Thousand Sons' warlords shouldn’t be in combat in the first place.

Sorcerous Arcana: Sorthis’ Releflector – a bit of a weird one, but you can essentially steal a weapon off one model in an enemy unit and use it to make attacks back on that unit (no re-rolls to hit or wound allowed, for some reason).
Hilarious to swing a unit champion’s thunder hammer back on them, but it only applies to Infantry, which sadly means you can’t throttle an Imperial Knight with its own Thunderstrike Gauntlet. It’s quite a situational gotcha, and the only character who should routinely be in combat is the Daemon Prince, who has decent weapons anyway.

Cult of Time

Psychic Power: Time Flux – return a destroyed model to a unit with all its wounds (of D3 if you roll 9+). A fantastic power – Terminators will bounce back like Necrons.

Warlord Trait: Immaterial Echo – if you cast a power on 9+, you get to cast an additional one. Nice, but not easy to pull off.

Sorcerous Arcana: Hourglass of Manat – the first time this model is destroyed, return him to life at the end of the phase with D3 wounds. A Gulliman save with no roll required!

Cult of Mutation

Psychic Power: Warp Reality – target an enemy unit within 3” of a terrain feature, halve its Move and subtract 1 from Advance and charge rolls.
Quite a nasty one for assault armies (and if you’ve built your battlefield right, most things will be within 3” of a terrain feature)

Warlord Trait: Touch of Vicissitude – unmodified hit rolls of 6 cause an additional mortal wound in melee. Extra buffs for the Daemon Prince, but it does make Exalted Sorcerers more dangerous.

Sorcerous Arcana: Exalted Mutation – Add 1 to Strength, Toughness and Attacks – your Daemon Prince would love it, but it can only go on a Sorcerer. Maybe one with some buffing powers and a Disc to go hunting?

Choosing a Cult

I don't think there's a single Cult that has the combination of best power+trait+relic, but if I had to choose just one, I think it would be Cult of Duplicity. The options for tricks and movement are just too good not to take. It can also apply to any kind of army you build, so very hard to go wrong.

Cult of Time is another strong contender, assuming you build your lists accordingly with Scarab Occult (or Spawn) units. And the Hourglass of Manat seems like a must-take if you're planning on sending a Daemon Prince into the fray.

Cult of Magic seems the most straightforward (and least imaginative). You could take a Supreme Command detachment that just pumps out all the mortal wound spells and use it like artillery. Doesn't seem a lot of fun to me, but it brings that competitive edge of increased reliability and mortal wounds.

Most of the rest seem to be situational, either to the kind of army you construct, or the kind of opponent you face. And that's all to the good - there's lots of powers available to keep an opponent on their toes, and I think there's a lot of fun to be had.

I’m going to try them all out, and I think they way forward is to take multiple detachments with different Cult in each. Usually, this kind of ‘mixed-list’ sits wrong with me (like two different Hive Fleet detachments), but it seems entirely appropriate for a narrative as diverse as Thousand Sons. It would require some admin to track which unit belongs to which Cult, but it would be worth it for the extra goodies it opens up.

Stratagems

Seven new stratagems. All but one of these are 1CP, and they’re really beneficial to Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators, so that’s some counterbalance for Tzaangors’ Cycle of Slaughter.

• Magister – the standard ‘get another warlord trait’. Useful, now there are lots more to pick.

• Infernal Fusillade – Rubrics or Scarab Occult can shoot twice with Rapid Fire weapons if they did not move.
  For just 1 CP. That’s excellent, and potentially devastating when you consider that stratagems like Veterans of the Long War will still be in effect (plus other buffs like Prescience, Exalted Sorcerer rerolls, and maybe even Psychic Delve)

• Yoked Automata – allows Rubrics or Scarab Occult to heroically intervene if a character is charged, and move 2D6” rather than 3”.
  At first glance, it’s mediocre: 2CP is quite pricey, and only Scarab Occult are any good in combat. Also, your opponent will still get to fight first, so if he wants your character dead, it will likely die (what is your HQ doing getting charged in the first place?).
  But 2D6” is a hell of a potential slingshot – so you could stick a cheap Sorcerer up front as bait (or maybe Magnus leading the way to bring his troops forward). You could even dump some Rubrics on an objective to claim it.
  Strikes me as a movement stratagem, under specific circumstances, rather than a fighting one. Nothing is ever straightforward with the Sons of Prospero.

• Risen Rubricae – gives Rubrics the ability to scout. There’s no point in having them charge, but Rubrics in cover are pretty hard to shift with small arms fire, so you can get into rapid-fire range right off the bat. Also, with so many movement-based spells and powers in the new Cults, you could really mess with your opponent’s mind during deployment.

• Sorcerous Infusion – if you cast on 9+, you can regain lost wounds or a lost model from that unit. Situational, but worth it. I think characters would also count as ‘units’, so this would be a chance to heal them up too (plus you still have Temporal Manipulation - so you could be gaining 2D3 wounds back for a power and a CP)

• Indomitable Foes – gives Rubrics or Scarab Occult +1 to their invulnerable saves (add that to Weaver of Fates and you’ve got 3++ saves. If All Is Dust gets triggered, its 2++!).
  The nice thing is you only play it when the unit is targeted, so you won’t waste it – and if you’ve already got Weaver of Fates on a unit, you opponent might direct his attention elsewhere, knowing what you could do.

• Adepts of the Immaterium – cancels out a Perils of the Warp. For a CP, that’s brilliant, and boy, would I get use from this. Doesn’t cancel out the psychic power either, so you could still roll and double-six Smite and get its benefit (so it’s better than spending a CP to reroll the psychic test).

The stratagems swing the pendulum back in favour of power armoured Thousand Sons - as do the Cults. I think this is fair enough. Tzaangor Shaman and Enlightened are no worse than they were before, and basic Tzaangor are still T4 infantry with 5++ save and a decent enough price.

I was never aghast at the idea of having goatmen in a Thousand Sons army, but I do like having more options for army builds.

But in summary, it's a good update for Thousand Sons. Nothing as crude as combat doctrines for the Sons of Prospero. We get more powers, more tricks, more subtleties, more unpredictability. I can't wait.