Eye of newt, and toe of frog. Wool of bat, and tongue of d- ahem, sorry – the Cabbalistic Rituals of the Thousand Sons are a tiny bit more advanced than that. It’s just one of the powerful new rules that the sons of Magnus will be armed with when their new codex drops alongside the awesome Hexfire battlebox.
The Thousand Sons are getting more thematic and narratively satisfying powers than they’ve ever had before – even before taking into account the codex’s faction-specific Crusade rules. The Thousand Sons have always worked together as a brotherhood of sorcerers, pooling their efforts to unleash powerful forces no individual could possibly control. Now they can do that in battle. Here’s how Cabbalistic Rituals work in the new codex.
At the start of your Psychic phase, you generate a pool of Cabal points depending on the number and type of Psykers in your army.
You can spend these Cabal points to augment the capabilities of your psykers – and you’d be mad not to, as you’ll lose any left unspent at the end of the phase. As with many Tzeentchian abilities, there are nine Cabbalistic Rituals to choose from, each of which costs between 3 and 9 Cabal points to use.
Imagine you’ve just manifested Twist of Fate with the fiendish intention of robbing Roboute Guilliman of his hefty invulnerable save before charging him with Magnus the Red for a game-changing (and now likely to be very one-sided) Primarch fight. But just as you’re about to indulge in a suitably evil chuckle, up steps Chief Librarian Tigurius, intent on thwarting your dastardly plans by denying the psychic power…
Not today, Tigurius!
Maybe you’re in the same situation, but you failed Twist of Fate’s casting value by a single point – not unlikely, considering its premium warp charge value of 8. No big deal. Get by with a little help from your friends.
Tigurius may yet thwart you, but you’ll still have given yourself a decent shot at pulling it off.
But there’s more! The Thousand Sons have been reworked to feel even more like they represent the ruling cabals and great cults from the Planet of the Sorcerers as described in their lore.
The new codex features rules for all nine Cults of the Legion, and each has their own bespoke psychic power, Warlord Trait, and item of Sorcerous Arcana. If, for example, you like to put the ‘Witch’ into Witchfire psychic powers, then the Cult of Magic is for you.
With this ability at their disposal, your Warlord will be better able to blast, melt, and sear the souls of your enemies with a psychic onslaught of the most destructive powers available to the Thousand Sons. What’s more, there are 18 psychic powers available to the sons of Magnus – 9 each from the expanded Discipline of Change and the all-new Discipline of Vengeance – so you’ll have plenty to choose from.
You’ll also be able to upgrade any of your Thousand Sons Sorcerers (if they have Sorcerer in the name, they’re fair game) to members of the Legion Command. Whether they’re the leader of a cabal or a lesser magi who has risen to sudden prominence (such is the way of Tzeentch), you can choose from a number of Legion Command upgrades at a small cost in power or points, according to their unit type.
Whether you seek some additional psychic firepower or a boost to your melee potency, there are a number of upgrades to choose from.*
We’ll have more on the new Thousand Sons codex later this week, as well as a detailed look at their rivals from Hexfire, the Grey Knights, so make sure you check back with for more. In fact, the codexes for the Thousand Sons and Grey Knights – as well as the Hexfire battlebox itself – are up for pre-order from this weekend, so if you plan on beseeching Tzeentch for his mercurial blessings, now’s the time to start.
* Well, nine to be exact. As ever, it’s a Tzeentch thing.