Don’t miss the latest rumor details on how the factions inside of 40k Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned may be updated soon!
Ritual of the Damned is the fourth book in the series that will supposedly bring Dark Angels, Grey Knights, and Thousand Sons up to speed with the usual Psychic Awakening support. (I.e, Stratagems, relics, Doctrine bonuses, etc.). While there is a lot of grey area remaining The Independent Characters podcast (which you should give a listen too – it is one of our favs) might have given a few snippets away that we need to chew on.
Let’s start with the latest from the weekend first:
Rumors of Dark Angels Primaris Character Emerge
Coming from the forum, here’s what was said:
“I’ve been told DA get a new primaris character who’s focused on character killing. We’ll see I guess! Shame not to get a new Azrael model”
And Grimgold noted:
I think it’s pretty clear what’s going to happen,
The new characters is going to be a dark angel, Lazarus, Company Master of the 5th, the first inner circle member to cross the rubicon primaris. They talked about him in white dwarf, which was them priming the pump. It’s amusing to hear that he is good at killing characters, probably has huntsman as his trait, and uses a heavenfall blade equivalent.
The DA are going to get tactical doctrine equivalents, hopefully based around the ravenwing/deathwing/greenwing. Who knows with the right rules combo maybe deathwing will be useable (probably hoping for too much there).
Looking back to the Dark Angels White Dwarf from a while back, they did make mention of Lazarus assuming command and crossing the Rubicon Primaris:
1. The Master of the 5th Balthasar Company [Dark Vengeance basic box] dies and is replaced by Master Lazarus, who after being seriously injured became the first member of the Inner Circle to cross the Rubicon to become Primaris.
GW Hints At What Exactly Will Go Down in Ritual of the Damned
While there is a lot of grey area around the factions, who will get the new “guaranteed” model, and what kind of storyline will unfold, Warhammer Community recently dropped a short story giving the clearest image yet of Magnus’ plans. A Grey Knight Prognosticar named Lushian is trying to gain insight on what will happen…
So how do we know Magnus is involved? We’ve got a description that fits the bill from the short story.
He saw throngs of people, gazing up in awe at a towering, winged warrior with skin of crimson. Tears of joy streamed down their faces as they fell to their knees, their hands clasped together as if in prayer. They beseeched and thanked and worshipped.
The image shifted again. He saw the same people, dead, in vast pits, dried blood encrusting their naked bodies, deep knife gashes in their necks. Expressions of incredible joy had changed to ones of terror. He then saw apocalyptic war, phalanxes of azure and gold warriors firing ensorcelled boltguns into fleeing civilians, and flocks of blade-winged Daemons terrorising the spires of Imperial conurbations.
However, this story takes on the perspective of some kind of vision. Moving deeper, two possible outcomes were given in the vision, which Lushian saw.
Then he saw the same knights dead, their bodies picked over by wretched mutants and evil sorcerers. He saw a warrior that could only be Supreme Grand Master Kaldor Draigo, standing triumphant over the corpse of Magnus the Red, the Titansword buried to the hilt in the Daemon Primarch’s skull.
‘Adept, note the presence of the Supreme Grand Master,’ he said.
The vision warped. This time Draigo was impaled upon the Blade of Magnus, a hundred warriors in bloodstained silver armour cut to pieces and scattered around him.
Overall, the theme of the story showed some kind of massive battle taking place while the newly-awakened Imperial Psykers that came to the Crimson King were to be slaughtered as part of a sacrifice. Ultimately, we don’t know what will happen as Magnus was just putting thoughts into the Psyker’s mind and was not able to discern which was true.
Now that GW has primed the pump for lore, let’s look into what rules may appear to be!
The Independent Characters’ Podcast episode 198 talked specifically about what was coming next in Psychic Awakening. At roughly 1:15:28, they begin to talk specifically about their experience playtesting the new rules:
I know – again having some of us playtested some of this stuff and seeing whats coming – I’m very anxious for my armies to get touched, because… in particular, and we can’t get into the details yet, but in particular thousand sons. There is so much character I’m going to be able to play around with and toy with and try different things, that I cannot wait it to come out.
Usually, when GW mentions “character” for a faction that’s not Space Marines, it’s little more than just a name generating table and a few pointless fluff-building exercises. However, coming from a playtester, could this mean that Thousand Sons will be set above the other Chaos factions that got support in Faith & Fury?
Historically speaking, GW has given much more focus to Death Guard and Thousand Sons so it wouldn’t be surprising to see some extra rules hit the Thousand Sons army that never made it to other Legions like Iron Warrior or Night Lords.
Can we Look to Past Books for Patterns?
The Independent Characters also mentioned that some of the “older things” that might have gotten glossed over from the first book might be getting reworked/revamped to where you’ll want to do some experimentation.
This sounds similar to the Blood Angels treatment in Blood of Baal as some of the stuff they had in their old book just got improved to the next level.
For where we stand right now, we should keep our eyes peeled on Christmas. There could be an in-depth preview on the next book. However, looking into 2020, we know that there should be a book release every month for the first three months. While power creep is definitely still a thing, the short release time between books may help mitigate some of that.
Overall, what do you think the next factions will get in Psychic Awakening? Can we use past books to map out what support will look like? What kind of “character” do you think Thousand Sons will get?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Wesley Floyd
Job Title: Staff Writer
Joined: 2018
Socials: @RealmbrushPainting
About Wesley Floyd: Wes has been in the Warhammer hobby since 2015 and joined the Spikey Bits writing team in 2018. He is known for his satirist takes on trending topics and imaginative yet amazingly affordable hobby solutions to painting Warhammer miniatures.
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, and the self-proclaimed King of Sprues. He knows for a fact that Mephiston red is the best-tasting paint and is the commission painting equivalent of a Wendy’s 4 for $4. If you like what he writes and want to contact him or have your tabletop minatures painted (to a mostly okayish standard), message him on Instagram.
