Grand Coven: The 11th-Edition Thousand Sons Sorcery Detachment

In your Command phase, select one of the three abilities below to take effect until the start of your next Command phase. You can select each of these abilities only once per battle.

• Imbued Manifestation. Add 6 inches to the Range characteristic of ranged Psychic weapons carried by THOUSAND SONS models from your army.
• Psychic Maelstrom. Each time a THOUSAND SONS model makes an attack with a Psychic weapon, add 1 to the Wound roll.
• Wrath of the Immaterium. Psychic weapons carried by THOUSAND SONS models have [DEVASTATING WOUNDS].

This is a genuinely different kind of detachment rule and it should change how you think about the game. Most detachment rules are passive and always on. This one gives you three big turns and no more, and once a card is spent it is gone for the rest of the battle.

The consequences are worth spelling out:

• You get three enhanced turns out of five. In a standard five-round game, two of your Command phases will have nothing left to select. Plan which two.
• The order matters enormously. Imbued Manifestation is a setup turn: 6 inches of extra range is how you get your guns into arc without walking into a counter-charge, and it is often best early while the boards are still far apart. Psychic Maelstrom is the workhorse. Wrath of the Immaterium is the finisher, because Devastating Wounds turns critical wounds into mortal wounds that bypass saves entirely, and it is worth the most on the turn you are shooting into something with a very good save.
• A wasted card is a real loss. Selecting Wrath of the Immaterium on a turn when your good shooting is out of range converts your best card into nothing. Because the selection happens in the Command phase, before you move, you are committing before you know exactly how the turn will go. Think a turn ahead.

Note also that all three clauses key off Psychic weapons specifically, not off attacks generally. Check which of your weapons actually carry the keyword before you build a list around this, because the parts of your army that are not psychic get nothing from any of the three.

Six, which is the shape a 3 DP detachment gets. One is worth calling out in detail because it directly answers the army rule's weakest moment.

• Devastating Sorcery. Re-roll all of the D6 rolled for a Psychic test, including the additional D6 for Channelling the Warp. This is the detachment's answer to a failed Ritual, and it is more valuable here than it would be elsewhere, because a Grand Coven list leans harder on Rituals than any other build in the faction. Note that it re-rolls all the dice rather than one of them, so it also gives you a second chance to avoid the doubles that cause mortal wounds when you have Channelled.
• Psychic Dominion, Destined by Fate, Egotistical Power, Desecration of Worlds and Arcane Focus complete the toolkit. Their full text lives in the codex and on the mirror rather than in the pack, and we do not reprint rules text we cannot read in a first-party document.

As with the other amended detachments, we would rather be explicit that one of these six is pinned down and five are not than present all six with equal confidence.

Four, and two of them were rewritten by name in Faction Pack v1.2, so those two are first-party.

• Incandaeum (15 pts). Rewritten by Faction Pack v1.2: EXALTED SORCERER model only. Once per battle, when selecting a Ritual for the bearer to attempt, you can select Doombolt even if a model from your army has already attempted to manifest that Ritual this phase.

This is the most mechanically interesting enhancement in the faction, because it is the only way to break the army rule's one-Ritual-per-turn cap. Normally each of the four Rituals can be attempted once per turn across your whole army, which hard-caps you at four. This lets you attempt Doombolt twice, and Doombolt is the damage Ritual: D3 mortal wounds, or D3+3 on a Psychic test result of 11 or more. Two attempts at that in one phase is a genuine spike. Note the restriction: EXALTED SORCERER model only, so you need that specific datasheet. - Umbralefic Crystal (30 pts). Rewritten by Faction Pack v1.2: THOUSAND SONS model only, once per battle per army. In your Command phase, if this unit is unengaged, place it in strategic reserves; it has Deep Strike until the start of your next Shooting phase, and it must make an ingress move in your next Movement phase, including in your first turn.

Sourcing note on enhancement points. The Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 raises this to 30 pts, and the community mirror still shows 20 pts. We publish the official figure. If you have costed a list from older community coverage, this one moved. - Lord of Forbidden Lore (20 pts). THOUSAND SONS model only. Each time the bearer manifests a Ritual, add 6 inches to its range while resolving it. This stacks usefully with the detachment rule's Imbued Manifestation turn, and on a 24-inch Ritual it is a substantial extension of what you can threaten from safety. - Eldritch Vortex of E'Taph (35 pts). The most expensive enhancement in the faction. Mirror-sourced.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

Key units. Exalted Sorcerers are the only datasheet that can carry Incandaeum, which is the detachment's signature trick, so this is close to a required box. Ahriman is the natural carrier for Lord of Forbidden Lore in a detachment built entirely around Rituals. Magnus the Red is the centrepiece a 3 DP whole-army detachment can afford, and he benefits from every clause of Kindred Sorcery. Rubric Marines carry the Psychic weapons that those three once-per-battle turns are actually buffing, and without a decent number of them the detachment rule has little to work on.

Why there are no pairings on this page. Grand Coven costs 3 DP and a Strike Force budget is 3 DP. It fills your entire allowance by itself and cannot take a partner at any cost, which is also true of Hexwarp Thrallband and Rubricae Phalanx. If you want a partner detachment, take a 2 DP or 1 DP one instead; the army guide sets out all twelve legal multi-detachment shapes.