Warhammer 40K: 3 New Detachments For The Thousand Sons In Today’s Faction Focus
It’s time to dust off the Thousand Sons with a preview of their new rules in 11th edition 40k.
The final Faction Focus of the week is here, and it’s loaded with new rules to help the Thousand Sons make the great choices for which they’re famous. Three new detachments are on offer, along with the usual video overview from GW staff.
Ritual of Regeneration
At the core of any Thousand Sons army are the sorcerers. The Warp-wielding characters of the army are the focus of this first detachment, with rules that improve both their lethality and survivability.
Important as the individual sorcerers in the army may be, this benefit actually applies to almost all of your units (except Magnus, he doesn’t need the help). Since the PSYKER keyword is liberally sprinkled around the army even your basic Rubric Marines can benefit from a little healing.
Turn any of your characters into Tzeentchian Horror with this powerful enhancement. Death is only another kind of change, after all. This enhancement is going to add some surprising resilience to what’s commonly considered one of the squishier Chaos Space Marine armies.
Again, this is basically an army-wide bonus for a force with so many psyker units. Being able to dish out an average of 3 mortal wounds for 1 CP seems like a situation, but potentially game-winning stratagem to me. Of course, you could just as easily roll a handful of 1s as you do 4+ but that’s the Changer of Ways for you.
Sekhetar Cohort
The Sekhetar Robots may have been with the Thousand Sons for millenia but they only joined them on the battlefield much more recently. These new models are the star of the show in this detachment which buffs them in a number of interesting ways, all requiring them to be supporting a psyker unit of one kind or another.
The Sekhetar make excellent bodyguard units with their free Fire Overwatch or Heroic Intervention use each turn but have relatively low WS. This is a backdoor buff for the unit who can now gain +1 WS when within 12″ of a Thousand Sons psyker unit. Since this is pretty much all of them it shouldn’t be hard to keep your Sekhetar within range of this aura.
A more targeted counterpart to Ensorcelled Animus, this enahncement grants +1 BS to that unit of Sekhetars while within 6″ of the Sorcerer. This boost in accuracy to your meltas and other heavy-hitting weapons could be really powerful.
Warp Fields is cheap stratagem to dramatically increase the survivability of your Sekhetars. Like everything else we’ve seen for this detachment it requires your robots to be near a psyker unit. This goes a long way to taking the edge off incoming fire from the enemy’s biggest guns and could let you hold an objective for just a little bit longer.
Servants of Change
Mutants of all kinds (except the X-Men and friends) can rejoice in this detachment that lets you add a proper horde of tzaangors to your army. Bigger mutants, like Chaos Spawn and the Mutalith, can also benefit from some of these new detachment rules.
Grant all of your Tzaangors BATTLELINE and enahance their targetting prowess with one of the best rules names revealed so far (also in the running, Bloodrust Deluge). With the addition of Battleline, your Tzaangors become a cheap way to bulk out an otherwise points-expensive army. As well, bonus to detection range is going to be really key for your long-ranged mutants like the Mutalith and ensures they’ll usually be able to range their targets.
The venerable Chaos Spawn can benefit from this mean little upgrade. +1 AP and CLEAVE 1 in combination could really help them shred through enemy units to clear an objective or open a charge lane.
Tzaangor excel when they can provide light fire support for your heavier elites but are vulnerable in close combat. This solid stratagem lets you Fall Back or Advance away from the foe and still be able to bring their considerable number of arms (and other limbs/eyes) to bear. It really speaks to the slippery character of a Tzeentchian force, as well.
And with that, the third week of Faction Focus articles comes to a close. Only a small handful remain to be previewed next week, beginning with a look at the Genestealer Cults on Monday.
If my math is right, there are only 5 more Factions to Focus!
