Take a look at the latest rules and rumors for 40k Psychic Awakening Ritual of the Damned. Here’s everything that’s been spotted so far!
For a while now, Warhammer Community has been giving us snippets of the rules and tricks factions inside Ritual of the Damned will be using. Gathering it all into one place, here’s everything we know so far.
Thousand Sons Are Getting New Rules: Ritual of the Damned
First up is the ability to dedicate each of your Detachments to one of the nine Cults of the Thousand Sons
These Cults have their roots in the Legion of fallen Prospero, dating back even before the Horus Heresy, and give the psykers in the Detachment access to additional psychic powers, Warlord Traits and Relics. Whichever Cult you devote yourself to, you’ll get some new tools with which to reap your revenge on the Imperium
WHC gave us a look at different aspects of three of the nine Cults that’ll be playable shortly. For the Cult of Change Capricious Crest Relic, It’s got an 18″ bubble and can convert your psychic rolls of 1 to a 6 for friendly units. Meanwhile, it can change any roll of a 6 for enemy psykers to a 1. Just remember, you can only do this once per turn AND it only works on 1’s and 6’s respectively.
The Duplictous Tactician can turn your army into an Alpha Legion- style fight with a quick redeploy of units in a spot that your opponent might have not expected. You can get up to 3+ your Warlord so some real damage can be dealt here. What’s super solid about this is that it happens at the start of the first battle round. Meaning you already know if you’re going first or second. That can make for some saucy redeploys.
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For the Cult of Time, they had a Psycher Power called Time Flux previewed. It only needs a 5 to go off, which is almost guaranteed. And it lets you act as a super Psychic Apothecary. The only stipulations is that it’s got a range of 6″ and it can only be used on Infantry. But if you roll a 9+ on the test, you can return D3 units with all their wounds remaining. That’s pretty big when you consider things like well-placed Terminator squads suddenly gaining back six wounds.
Thousand Sons Can Deepstrike Rubrics
Adding more mobility to the force, you can pick a Rubric Marine squad and have them slide into reserves for a turn. Then, drop them in the backfield along with a Daemon Prince or two and help secure ground around an objective. Solid for 1CP.
More Thousand Sons Rules Revealed on Facebook
Recently revealed on Facebook and stepping back into the Cult of Duplicity, they’re getting a Psychic Power called Sorcerous Facade. This is literally just a reskinned version of the Orks’ Da Jump. However, this can fling ANY Cult of Duplicity unit. You can think outside the box and throw some way scarier stuff toward the enemy outside of the regular Infantry options most abilities like this are limited to.
Lastly, another relic was spotted and it’s a book for your HQ’s to carry that generates CP. You roll a D6 at the start of the battle round. You’ve got a 50% chance to net a CP and a 1/6 chance to give your opponent one. If you have a tendency to drag out your games, you should be getting on average 2-3 each game and your opponent may get 1. It’s definitely a weird relic, but solid for an army that doesn’t have any other way of gaining CP.
Warhammer 40,000’s Facebook also posted up Malicious Volleys which is just an edgy-worded port for the Astartes Bolter Discipline. However, it’s definitely going to be more useful considering Thousand Sons all have -2 AP boltguns.
Combine that with 1CP to double your shot output for a unit and that’s pretty brutal. A five-man Terminator Squad bringing all storm bolters will be pumping out 40 shots at -2 AP for 1CP. (They just can’t move in the turn to use the Strat).
New Grey Knight Rules: Ritual of the Damned
Instead of Doctrines, the Grey Knights will be getting a new Masters of the Warp rule that lets you choose one of four tides to be dominant during the game.
“You can change the active Tide by using the Warp Shaping psychic power, one of six new powers included in Ritual of the Damned as part of the Dominus discipline, which Grey Knights psykers can choose from instead of picking from the Sanctic discipline.”
In addition to Warp Shaping, it looks like the Dominus discipline will also be getting the Empyrean Domination spell that provides a very useful in-game bonus. We would assume these are two of the six new powers the Grey Knights will be getting in this supplement.
You can even go over 9000 with this stratagem that is probably worth playing before the domination power, and after some sort of cantrip spell that is easier to cast in general.
New Grey Knight Relics & Litanies
They didn’t just get Chaplains in their codex to not benefit from litanies! Introducing the Litanies of Purity:
“If the enemy thinks they are out of range of the Emperor’s vengeance, just chant the Recitation of Projection and prove them dead wrong.”
Plus new relics are incoming as well. Check out this new stave that can paddle enemy psykers within 18″
Ouch, that may hurt! Something tells me the character with this relic will have a bullseye on his back for sure against Psychic armies.
GW also posted this spicy strat on their Facebook page, and the crowd went wild.
Looks like it may just be about time to dust off those Sons of Titan, and get stuck in!
Dark Angels Rules Previewed For Ritual of the Damned SPOTTED
Lazarus is the newly-previewed Psychic Awakening Primaris character for the Dark Angels. Being a named character, he’s also coming with some dope wargear. His sword was previewed revealing that he’ll be able to really hate on Psykers. Being -4 AP, any kind of named Psyker will be forced to take an invuln save. However, if he goes against other Marines and their Librarians, he’ll be able to melt through their armor outright.
Making him even more of a badass, he’s also giving off a 6″ 5+++ FNP to friendly Dark Angels UNITS that would lose a mortal wound. This is really similar to the 5++ invuln save that the Iron Father gave to all units but eventually got nerfed to just help Infantry models.
Will the same fate might lie in wait for Lazarus as well?
Dark Angels Devastator Doctrine Is What Every Chapter Takes ANYWAYS…
Soooo…Dark Angels have no real reason to ever move outside of the Devastator Doctrine. They get bonuses to Heavy, Rapid Fire, Assault, and Pistol weapons so why ever change? This is definitely the most wide-spread Doctrine bonus that we’ve ever seen come to a Chapter so far.
A potent firebase for a DA list might be Lazarus babysitting two ten-man Hellblaster squads getting +6″ range to all their plasma.
Stoic Prosecution is dope for oppressive armies that like to footslog. Maybe a Hellblaster Squad with Plasma Incinerators walking up the board.
Deathwing & Ravenwing Support
Looking toward some of the specialists of the Dark Angels, you’ll be able to choose a few nice Warlord Traits/Wargear, etc. Outrider for the Ravenwing, for example, will let your Warlord and another Ravenwing unit move a free 12″ before any other models move when the game begins. That’s a great way to create some early game pressure. (This is very similar to the Death Company’s Forlorn Fury Strat).
Deathwing love their Termies, and if you bring the Key of Archrabael on an HQ, you’ll make them slightly above the spectrum of Primaris HQs. All in all, however, there are probably better relics to choose from than this one.
Combined Assault is a great way to make some saucy charges when you deepstrike a Deathwing unit in. They can come in 6″ away from an enemy model, but the Deathwing has to come in within 6″ of a Ravenwing Biker.
Warhammer 40,000 Facebook Revealed Another Warlord Trait
Keeping the theme of Dark Angel specialists, the Raven Wing had Warlord Trait revealed on the Warhammer 40,000 Facebook. This is essentially a slightly reworded/better/more niche version of the Dark Angels Chaplain Litany, Stoic Prosecution. However, this makes total sense if you plan on spamming Ravenwing Bikes, Speeders, and more.
Early Dark Angels Ritual of the Damned Rules Rumors
These rumors were spotted making rounds on the web before the official Dark Angels rumors were spotted. There’s a lot to digest, so we’ll be highlighting the matching rumors to what was already previewed. Coming from more users than one on Bolter & Chainsword:
Doctrine kicker: While in Devastator Doctrine, Heavy and Rapid Fire weapons get +6″ range, Assault and Pistol weapons get +3″ range
Deathwing Warlord Traits:
- DW units within 6″ reroll melee wounds versus CHARACTERS or models with 8+ Wounds
- Wound rolls of 1 -3 automatically fail.
- Once per battle may Deny the Witch, unlimited range, auto pass
Ravenwing Warlord Traits:
- Ravenwing units within 6″ move and fire heavy at no penalty and Advance and fire Assault at no penalty
- Once per battle at start of round, select an inactive Doctrine, Ravenwing units within 6″ may use that instead of the active
- Start of first round, Warlord and one other Ravenwing unit may move up to 12″, no Advance, must stay outside of 9″
Stratagems:
- A bunch of the vanilla SM Codex Stratagems (incluing Vet Intercessors and their shooty ones)
- Combined Assault (2 CP): Teleporting unit of DW may set up within 6″ of a friendly RW unit that hasn’t Advanced and outside of 6″ from enemy
- High Speed Focus (1 CP): RW unit targeted by shooting counts as having Jinked that turn.
- Full Throttle (1 CP): RW unit that just moved immediately moves again, may not shoot or charge that turn
- Targeting Guidance (1 CP): Pick an enemy unit within 12″ of a Ravenwing Land Speeder and visible, Dark Angel units may reroll shooting hits against it this phase.
- Outnumbered Never Outmatched (1 CP): Deathwing unit chosen to fight gets +1 A when fighting enemy unit of 10 or more models
- Evasive Assault (1 CP): RW unit that charged or has been charged is chosen as a target, it gets 5++
Relics:
- Reliquiary of the Repenant: Ravenwing Bike only, Enemy models within 3″ reduce invul by 1 to minimum 6++
- Corvus Occuls: Talonmaster, +6″ to range weapons and +1 to hit with range weapons
- Standard of the Unforgiven Hunt: Ravenwing Ancient, +1 Advance/cherge for Ravenwing within 6″
- Blade of Burden: Deathwing Master w/ power sword, S+2 AP-4, D2, natural wound of 6 is 2 mortal wound
- Pennant of the Remeberance: Deathwing Ancient, 5+ Fnp for DW INFANTRY within 6″
- ???? – DW only, +1 Strength and Attack (We now know it’s the Key of Achrabael)
Special Issue Wargear:
- Adamantite Mantle
- Artificer Armor
- Mastercrafted Weapon
- Digital Weapons
- Arbiter Gaze: Ignores shooting and BS penalties, Overwatches on full BS
- Angel’s Ambit: +3″ to aura abilities
- Bolt of Judgement: pick a bolt weapon, it may fire a bolt of judgment, makes one attack at AP -2 and 3 D, wounds on 2+ except Vehicles/Monsters 6+
Lazarus:
- Standard Primaris Master Line (W6 A5)
- Emnity’s Edge S+2 AP -4 Dd3, reroll wound and damage vs Psyker
- Spiritshield Helm: 6″ 5+++ FNP versus Mortal wound aura
- Intractable Will: Built-in “Only In Death Does Duty End”
There’s a lot we’re all still trying to break down coming from what’s been revealed. But the good news is that it’s only a matter of time before we see a full look at exactly what’s coming in the next expansion. Keep your eyes peeled because the three factions from above are getting a much-needed overhaul.
Will you be starting one of these factions when the book drops? Are you already a diehard DA,GK, Tsons fan? Would you like to see less popular units get reworked with rules for more use?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
