What's in the new FAQ?
We’ve got a bunch of new FAQ updates - what’s this mean for Thousand Sons players?
2021 FAQ Update
Last Week Games Workshop announced on their community site a wide-range of updates to 40k including FAQs and point updates. With such a huge list of changes, the first question really is How do these affect Thousand Sons?
Grab the updated FAQs here.
Abhor the Witch
… Score 3 victory points at the end of the battle for each enemy Psyker Character unit that is destroyed, and 2 victory points for every other enemy Psyker unit that is destroyed
Of all the changes, this is the biggest one that all Thousand Sons players have been hoping for - a nerf to Adbhor the Witch. This change makes a huge dent in how easy it is for an opponent to score maximum points against Thousand Sons players. Previously, fielding a Thousand Sons army (or other psyker-heavy army) would mean you’re giving up
Going Second and Primary Objective Scoring
‘In the fifth battle round, the player who has the second turn does not score any victory points at the end of their Command phase, but instead, at the end of their turn, they score 5 victory points for each of the above conditions they satisfy
This is a great change that was very much needed to help with the balance of scoring. It’s been documented very well how much of an advantage the player going first has had with the scoring works in 9th edition. By effectively allowing the player going second to score, in much the same way, as the player going first does early game - the theory behind this update makes it so that the player going 2nd has a chance.
Psychic Actions
For all intents and purposes, when a unit attempts a psychic action, this is treated the same as if they were attempting to manifest a psychic power, and as such triggers any rules that interact with manifesting a psychic power (e.g. rules that enable you to deny a psychic power can also be used to deny a psychic action).
Where to start on this - a, seemingly innocent clarification to psychic actions which is creating all sorts of debate as to just what abilities, rules, etc apply. We’re not confident to give an answer to how this should be played, and be skeptical of definitive rulings on this until we see something from GW.
Going First
The players roll off. The winner takes the first turn.
This might seem like a small change but it will have a noticeable effect in games where you don’t want to go first. We saw this change work it’s way into the ITC missions and now it’s back in the core missions. How does this effect Thousand Sons? Some armies/strategies use the Risen Rubricae to infiltrate a huge blob of Rubric Marines into the Enemy’s face, threatening to either double tap with bolters or unleash a torrent of Warpflamers on them. The sequencing of this gets a bit interesting when you now have the decision of if you go first or not forced on you or your opponent.