Rumors & Leaks - The Hot Take Part 2

Hobby, May 29, 2021

Leaks and rumors are flying everywhere, let’s try and a dig into what matters for Thousand Sons

Rumors and Leaks

In the past 24 hours we’ve had a flurry of rumors and leaks floating around. Some madmen got their hands on Chapter Approved or the Munitorum Field Manual and have been leaking screen shots and points found within. More rumors are still coming out and this week is sure to be packed with a lot of new release information too - so, why don’t we just dig into what we’ve heard so far

Summary of Leaks (and Confirmed Changes)

Mission/Secondary Rumors & Leaks

Magnus the Red

Let’s get to the good stuff first - Magnus will be cheaper post-codex. I don’t think anyone can really complain about that but, we don’t know what his rules are. A 15pt change is not small but for a model that costs 465 it’s about a 3% reduction. It’s safe to assume that he will still have an important role within the army, like his brother Mortarion with the Deathguard. It doesn’t mean he’ll be a crutch and it doesn’t mean he’s useless - we just have to wait for the rules to find out if these new points are good/bad.

So, it tells us nothing? Not quite. One thing we can probably rule out is that Magnus is not getting a major power-up in the codex. Something like this would probably be accompanied by a points increase - we could be talking about him going to 500pts right now, but we’re not. This doesn’t mean he won’t be better, I would just set your expectations that he’s not unstoppable.

Psychic Ritual

With Psychic Ritual becoming progressive, this is a great change. This is THE secondary tailored to the Thousand Sons and it’s been something of a struggle in it’s current form. Now, as a progressive secondary, you have a chance to make progress on it throughout the game without having to worry about getting blanked should your caster get picked off.

It’s not really confirmed yet or not if this means that other units can jump in or not but with progressive scoring it would make sense. Math-wise it works out to having to dedicated a caster to the ritual every turn in order to score 15pts (max). We’ll have to wait and see what the actual wording says.

Also, don’t forget about Tzaangor Shamans - they are a sneaky play here since they get LoSir and actually do something (Add +1 hit) if they just have to sit there.

MSU vs Big Units

Something I’ve been thinking about is what the army is going to look like post-codex. Theres a couple things here that start to give us an idea what it COULD look like.

  1. With psychic ritual changes above, Rubric Marines become a great option for those as you typically have your important spells spread to your stronger psykers in the army
  2. Rubric Marines are also likely to get capped to 10-man units, like Plague Marines did, but with 2W you will still have as many wounds as a 20-man brick.

What I think this will mean is your mileage from 5-man Rubrics will increase as well as your demand for them for Psychic Ritual. A block of 10 Terminators becomes interesting, especially when they are now going up to 3W and are likely going to get a power boost or specialty of some kind. So, my thoughts right now are that we see some combination of 5-man Rubric squads with 10-man Terminator blobs.

More Leaks

I’ll be keeping an eye on things as more leaks trickle out. In addition to day, I’m pleased to announce that Justin Curtis will be joining us on the podcast to talk about the new Codex when it launches.

Update - Points Leaked

An official screen shot of the Thousand Sons points has been floating around on various communities now. Here’s whats presented in it: