Faction Focus: Thousand Sons

When I first started playing, every army was a psychic army that made use of the Psychic phase to try and alter the board state to their advantage.  But as I said in my rules roundup, as the game progressed more and more armies didn't use the psychic phase.  However, there are two armies and one sub-faction that are defined by it.  And now it's time to see how the first of those factions will work now that it's gone.

CABAL OF SORCERERS

Cabal Points are still a thing, and look like they're largely unchanged.  The big difference now is that each unit will now have an ability that tells you how many Cabal Points they give you, rather than looking it up on a chart.  This is a nice quality of life change as you can now easily just look at you Datacards and add them up.  Additionally, it looks like you can use them throughout the battle round, where before you had to spend them during your Psychic phase.  In exchange, though, you lose them at the start of your next Command phase.

We have five abilities to use them on now.  This is down, and less fluffy, from the nine we had before.  It's possible we might get the remaining four when the codex drops.  For that matter, I wonder if any other armies with rules like this might get more options in the codex?  I guess we'll have to see.

Picking these is still going to be a major skill check.  Weaver of Fates lets you potentially protect units around your sorcerers, but you use it at the start of a phase so you'll have to predict where you'll need it most.  Temporal Surge is great, letting you move a unit at the start of the shooting phase for an extra boost of speed.  We've got another "free and duplicate stratagem" rule with Echoes from the Warp.  Doom Bolt is just a nice simple mortal wound bomb, and it always hits to boot.  And wow!  Twist of Fate is potentially huge!  Forget AP, you get to just turn off armour saves for a unit!

PSYCHIC MAELSTROM

It's like my Hyper-Adaptations but you get to pick it every battle round!  Granted this isn't going to affect your entire army, but the Thousand Sons should have plenty of PSYCHIC weapons to use this on.  Unlike Rituals, this will usually be a much easier pick.  You'll simply choose which one will work best against what you're planning to shoot at the time.  But the fact you can change it each battle round is really good!

AZHEK AHRIMAN

Ah, Azhek.  You're legitimately one of my favorite characters in the lore.  Let's see how you'll play on the table now.  

Profile wise he's lost a wound, like many characters in 10th.  Of course two of his weapons are PSYCHIC and will get to use the Detachment rule.  He still grants you 3 Cabal Points.  But what we care about are his powers.  Interestingly his first ability is just a Leader buff, granting +1 to Wound.  That's nice, but I think I would have preferred two powers.

Huh . . .  His Psychic power is just a free Ritual once per Battle.  That's . . .

I'm not gonna lie, that's underwhelming.  I was hoping for two bespoke powers for him.  I mean both of these are useful, they're just lacking in flavor.  At least he gets PRECISION with his PSYCHIC attack.  Oh well, let's see what else we get.

RUBRIC MARINES

Rubrics and the Aspiring Sorcerer are largely unchanged.  The Soulreaper is up an attack but down a second pip of AP and the stave has lost a point Strength and is now a "force weapon."  And your Aspiring Sorcerer is still worth a Cabal Point.

The big change is that All is Dust now appears to be just a 5+ invuln.  This is more simplified, and probably more effective than the previous rule.  But I have a feeling if Plague Marines don't have a similar invuln, the Death Guard players are going to be salty . . .  They've also lost their morale rules like everyone else.  But now they get Veterans, just for shooting instead of melee.  Finally the Icon of Flame can now improve the AP of their weapons.  All this means they're still going to be pretty tough while laying down some potentially brutal fire power.

WARP VORTEX

The Mutalith's Warp Vortex is now greatly simplified, but it looks like it's not limited to one of each effect per turn.  The selection looks pretty flexible, meaning you're always going to be effective no matter what your target is.

We also get a surprise reveal for one of its unit abilities, doubling the range of Rituals for nearby sorcerers.

I wonder why they just didn't give us the third Datasheet?

PSYCHIC DOMINION

AH! HAHAHAH! *cackles madly*

Oh wow!  This is great!  I have no idea how often this is actually going to be worth spending CP on, but this is just such a flavorful stratagem!  You're sitting back blasting your opponent with PSYCHIC attacks.  Then they get the gumption to return the favor.  And you tap an Island and say, "You didn't say please."

I love it!

FINAL THOUGHTS

We get a little tease that Magnus will of course have an Army Commander ability, and it will be a choice of two auras and a focused defense.  Looks like we'll have to wait for the final reveal to start speculating on whether we can put him on the board this edition.

Currently, he and his Thousand Sons are in a tough spot in 9th.  They're a middle of the road army that requires a lot of skill to play.  I think most players, fans of the Thousand Sons or not, want this army to be challenging to play but greatly rewarding to players who can master it.  Rituals definitely look like they'll help with that.

But man, the Ahriman reveal was really underwhelming.  I'm really surprised they decided to just give him an Aura and a free Ritual.  And it's only once per game!