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Just bought a book with Thousand Sons rules for the first time, so I'm a little late to the party as the cult rules were introduced in the Psychic Awakening book. The Great Cults presented in the codex are cool and all, but does it seem like the designers might have been better off sticking to the 30k cults aka the 7th edition psychic disciplines? In some cases, the cults are directly analogus to the old disciplines/cults. Mutation is sort of a twisted version of biomancy. Prophecy and Knowledge sort of combine to form Divination. Several of the others could sort of be Telepathy if you squint a bit. Magic is basically Pyromancy even though that seems really reductive for such a potentially broad concept.

But then you also have Scheming AND Duplicity AND Manipulation which all seem to have a lot of thematic overlap. Meanwhile, telekinesis kind of seems to no longer be a thing unless you represent it by refluffing other powers.

I get that they wanted to have 9 cults because Tzeentch and everything, so the 7e disciplines wouldn't get them there on their own, but having so much overlap between the cults they did include makes the decision feel weird. If nothing else, they could have stolen some arcana from the Mage RPGs and given us Life/Death/Space as concepts. Or branched out in any number of other ways.

It's a very minor criticism, but it feels weird.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Just bought a book with Thousand Sons rules for the first time, so I'm a little late to the party as the cult rules were introduced in the Psychic Awakening book. The Great Cults presented in the codex are cool and all, but does it seem like the designers might have been better off sticking to the 30k cults aka the 7th edition psychic disciplines? In some cases, the cults are directly analogus to the old disciplines/cults. Mutation is sort of a twisted version of biomancy. Prophecy and Knowledge sort of combine to form Divination. Several of the others could sort of be Telepathy if you squint a bit. Magic is basically Pyromancy even though that seems really reductive for such a potentially broad concept.

But then you also have Scheming AND Duplicity AND Manipulation which all seem to have a lot of thematic overlap. Meanwhile, telekinesis kind of seems to no longer be a thing unless you represent it by refluffing other powers.

I get that they wanted to have 9 cults because Tzeentch and everything, so the 7e disciplines wouldn't get them there on their own, but having so much overlap between the cults they did include makes the decision feel weird. If nothing else, they could have stolen some arcana from the Mage RPGs and given us Life/Death/Space as concepts. Or branched out in any number of other ways.

It's a very minor criticism, but it feels weird.

I always thought that the 7e Psychic Phase was like the high point of Thousand Sons from a fluff perspective. I don't want to make this discussion about the 7e Psychic issues, we all know they are there, but that was the only time TS really were an army that could do everything they needed in the psychic phase without it being repetitive or unfun. I think with the latest iteration of the rules, they are close to their 7e glory, but it doesn't matter what happens, the current psychic phase is just too hollow to be on that level. I started a TS army back at the end of 7th after Wrath of Magnus came out. I had this vision of an army full of Exalted Sorcerers who ran around and did their own thing and blasted magic missiles at the enemy. I sold that army in 8th a few months after the codex came out. It was so, so boring. Again, it's less so now with the new book but I'm with you.

Nostalgia glasses.

I liked the old system, because it gave me a dice advantage, but I had to fish for spells, which sucked. Other armies were better at getting the requisite spells on the right casters with units that could benefit more.

I don't think GW had any intention of tying anything to the old lores. They just are what they are and each offers a slight to moderate change in how you approach the army.

Gene St. Ealer wrote:
I always thought that the 7e Psychic Phase was like the high point of Thousand Sons from a fluff perspective. I don't want to make this discussion about the 7e Psychic issues, we all know they are there, but that was the only time TS really were an army that could do everything they needed in the psychic phase without it being repetitive or unfun.

Totally agree. The 7e Psychic system had lots of problems, but the available powers were pretty fluffy and robust. Which is part of why it feels weird to have three different cults that could all basically be called the <SNEAKY JERKS> cult. Again, it's a minor criticism. The new book's power options aren't bad. It's just that most of them are some variation on smite or a defensive buff that we've seen several times before. Most of the relatively unique powers are faction locked, so you can only include a couple of them in your army, AND you can't use your faction's unique power more than once (without burning a bunch of cabal points) which means that your unique flavor can only come out once or twice per turn.

Again, just a weird choice. I know that 40k armies aren't meant to be exactly like their 30k counterparts, but I feel like I'd prefer to be able to show off the wider variety of Heresy era powers working together in a given army. You know. Make each sorcerer feel like a unique entity unto himself rather than being generic not-smite guy #3.

Daedalus81 wrote:Nostalgia glasses.

I liked the old system, because it gave me a dice advantage, but I had to fish for spells, which sucked. Other armies were better at getting the requisite spells on the right casters with units that could benefit more.

Just to clarify, I don't think anyone is arguing that the 7e Psychic system was better than what we have now; just that the power lists felt more diverse and unique.

I don't think GW had any intention of tying anything to the old lores. They just are what they are and each offers a slight to moderate change in how you approach the army.

That might be the case. But then it's a little weird that the "magic" discipline seems (based on the mechanical benefits and the sample sorcerer on page 27) to be entirely fire-oriented. And if they really weren't trying to tie things to the old lores but still ended up creating the SCHEMING, DECEPTION, and MANIPULATION to fill out their 9 cult quota, maybe they should have cribbed more notes from the old disciplines for inspiration. Toss Telekinesis on that list so you can eliminate at least one of the redundant options.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Just to clarify, I don't think anyone is arguing that the 7e Psychic system was better than what we have now; just that the power lists felt more diverse and unique.

Ehh. There weren't that many good spells. Just a handful of standouts that got used plus a ton of mind-bullets. Across all of 9th there are a lot of cool spells, but TS probably shouldn't have all of them.

Regarding psychic powers, I'd definitely like to return to offensive powers having actual profiles - rather than 400 marginally different ways to do d3 Mortal Wounds.

 vipoid wrote:
Regarding psychic powers, I'd definitely like to return to offensive powers having actual profiles - rather than 400 marginally different ways to do d3 Mortal Wounds.

I'd agree under the premise that those profiles have to be meaningful, no more of the 4d6 S2 AP "-" gak we had in earlier editions and especially no using BS to hit.

That said, GW has gotten better at making MW spells that aren't just a different ways to smite but as different to each other as a lascannon is to a battlecannon is to a heavy flamer. So for many powers "marginal" isn't quite right.

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Regarding psychic powers, I'd definitely like to return to offensive powers having actual profiles - rather than 400 marginally different ways to do d3 Mortal Wounds.

I'd agree under the premise that those profiles have to be meaningful, no more of the 4d6 S2 AP "-" gak we had in earlier editions and especially no using BS to hit.

I don't actually mind psykers using BS to hit. If anything, it seems odd that psykers can always 'shoot' with perfect accuracy, regardless of whether they're a Farseer or a Primaris Psyker, and that every single ranged defence is useless against psychic shooting.

Regardless, I agree that the shooting profiles certainly shouldn't be a waste of ink. I'd think that would at least be easier to do with the current AP system (whereas in the past, a lot of powers were AP4 or worse, which was the same as having no AP at all against a lot of armies/units).

 vipoid wrote:
I don't actually mind psykers using BS to hit.

As long as GW insist on putting bad BS on armies with powerful psykers, the two don't belong with each other. There also is no good argument why the skill to hit something with a plague wind, meteor or giant green foot should be the same as the skill to hit something with a bolt pistol.

If anything, it seems odd that psykers can always 'shoot' with perfect accuracy, regardless of whether they're a Farseer or a Primaris Psyker, and that every single ranged defence is useless against psychic shooting.

I think the "accuracy" thing is abstracted between the ease of casting, warp charge level of a power, how likely you are to cause MW and how many you cause. That's why a farseer is much more likely to succeed with an executioner and will almost always cause vastly more mortal wounds than a primaris psyker would with his psychic maelstrom.

After all, from reading the fluff behind most witchfires, many of them don't seem like they need aim.

Daedalus81 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Just to clarify, I don't think anyone is arguing that the 7e Psychic system was better than what we have now; just that the power lists felt more diverse and unique.

Ehh. There weren't that many good spells. Just a handful of standouts that got used plus a ton of mind-bullets. Across all of 9th there are a lot of cool spells, but TS probably shouldn't have all of them.

Hey, I said "diverse" and "unique;" not "good." ;D
But yeah, 7e powers definitely had their winners and losers. I just miss some of the more unique options. Like the telekinesis(?) power that gave the enemy's guns Gets Hot, or the (also telekinesis?) one that let you pick up the psyker and his unit and basically fly for a turn. Or some of the whacky (though often broken) late edition powers like the one that let you shoot with the enemy's vehicle or the one that let you pick up a piece of terrain and move it. Or going back in time a bit further, the eldar Eldritch Storm power that let you spin a vehicle around (which mattered back when AV was a thing.)

The powers in 9th are mostly fine; they're just starting to feel really same-y. And the Thousand Sons feel extra same-y (lots of variations on smite and defensive buffs) despite exploring magic being their whole thing. Codex: Wizard Marines should maybe feel like they know more than two tricks each. I don't dislike the new codex, but I was kind of expecting each sorcerer to be more... characterful. Making the faction-locked powers NOT faction-locked might help with this a lot. Having one guy mutating the enemy while another teleports squads around the table while another uses illussions to fall back and shoot while another throws fireballs while another is scrying for CP while another is scanning the enemy for weaknesses would make the army feel flexible and the sorcerers diverse.

Maybe I was just hoping it would feel more like the Ahriman novels. I can get my precog jedi and my fire dude, but where's my force sword duelist and my daemon forge warpsmith and my daemonhost? We did get a snazzy demon summoner though.

vipoid wrote:Regarding psychic powers, I'd definitely like to return to offensive powers having actual profiles - rather than 400 marginally different ways to do d3 Mortal Wounds.

I kind of think a lot of psychic effects would benefit from just being conventional wargear. Recent editions seem really keen on letting people Deny the Witch though, so that makes it more tricky. This is probably just nostalgia for 4e warlock powers, but imagine if witchfire powers were basically just a done you could give your psyker. Or if your camouflage illussion spell didn't suddenly flicker out of the blue sometimes because you failed a psychic test. Or if powers that buff your characters could just be always-on stat boost wargear. I don't know. It feels more fluffy to me.

Your desire for a Biomancer, Pyromancer and Telepath working together in the same army seems unfluffy within current lore. Thousand Sons having 48 powers would also be too much, I don't know if that's what you wanted.

To create a force sword duelist take a Sorcerer with a force sword, Glamour of Tzeentch, Weaver of Fates and include him in a Cult of Change Detachment to give him Dysmanefestation, give him the Seer's Bane relic and the Otherworldly Prescience WL trait. Give him an appended limb if you play Crusade.

I don't know how fair it is to say that everything is a defensive buff or smite, Warp Reality is a slowing Malediction, Divine the Future provides a miracle dice, Time Flux brings a dead model back to life, Seeded Strategy allows a unit to fall back, shoot and charge, Empyric Trespass is a mini-Doom, Dysmanifestation reduces the Leadership and Attacks characteristics of a unit Sorcerous Facade teleports a friendly unit, Attempted Possession makes a unit worse at casting psychic powers.

I think more than a lack of variety there is a lack of a link between the power and the cult's fluff.

*Cult of Mutation should have the power to reduces the Leadership and Attacks characteristics of a unit as they mutate their enemies.
*Cult of Duplicity should have the slowing malediction as they trick their foes into going in the wrong direction. If a unit is in one place shooting Necron Warriors and 48" away chopping up Scarabs in the next turn you cannot convince me that it was just duplicity, that's teleportation.
*Cult of Change could then have something like the gets hot power. Something like suffering D3 mortal wounds the next time the unit shoots and suffering a -1 to hit with shooting.
*Cult of Scheming could be changed to to Cult of Passage and be given the teleport power. Change their relic from a theorem to a map with knowledge of enemy troop movements making the first use of the Inescapable Forewarning Stratagem free. The fall back, fight and shoot power is just a way more niche version of the teleport power, I don't think it needs to exist.

Changing Scheming to Passage would remove some of the overlap between Scheming, Duplicity and Manipulation. I do think there is space for Duplicity as the "we are making you commit forces in the wrong places by tricking you" cult and Manipulation as the "we are corrupting your leaders to the service of Tzeentch" cult.

 vict0988 wrote:
Your desire for a Biomancer, Pyromancer and Telepath working together in the same army seems unfluffy within current lore.

You're referring to the 'Sons dividing themselves up into the Cult system, right? You're not wrong, but also that's a self-created problem based on relatively recent lore additions. Like, they don't really give me the tools to field a 2k Cult of Time army where the Time theme is felt throughout the army; I pretty much just have a single power, relic, and warlord trait plus maybe some other powers that I fluff as being time-related. (The warp time equivalent works pretty well for that.) And combining the abilities of psykers with different types of talents to broaden the abilities of your force as a whole made a lot of sense. Why take 3 fireball guys when you could could have a force field guy covering the fireball guy while the time guy helps them reposition for best effect.

Granted, this is partially just me preferring fluff that isn't to fluff that is.

Thousand Sons having 48 powers would also be too much, I don't know if that's what you wanted.

I definitely don't want that. I just feel like some of the more redundant current powers could be swapped out for something more unique to make the faction feel like they know how to do more than toss fireballs and cast illussions.

To create a force sword duelist take a Sorcerer with a force sword, Glamour of Tzeentch, Weaver of Fates and include him in a Cult of Change Detachment to give him Dysmanefestation, give him the Seer's Bane relic and the Otherworldly Prescience WL trait. Give him an appended limb if you play Crusade.

That's very fair. If you're willing to refluff the options we have, you can get a lot of thematic mileage out of them. And that's absolutely what I intend to do. Just feels a bit weird that I feel the need to do that while we have so many (imo) redundant options worked into the book.

I don't know how fair it is to say that everything is a defensive buff or smite, Warp Reality is a slowing Malediction, Divine the Future provides a miracle dice, Time Flux brings a dead model back to life, Seeded Strategy allows a unit to fall back, shoot and charge, Empyric Trespass is a mini-Doom, Dysmanifestation reduces the Leadership and Attacks characteristics of a unit Sorcerous Facade teleports a friendly unit, Attempted Possession makes a unit worse at casting psychic powers.

If I could field all of those powers in the same army, I'd be pretty happy. But as-is, I have to spend a minimum of 4 CP (2 extra patrols) to have access to just 3 of the faction-locked powers. Which makes the Great Cult divisions feel like it's trying to mimic other books to the faction's detriment. Looking at the Change and Vengeance disciplines, you've got...
* 6 powers that do mortal wounds (plus Psychic Stalk which just kills a dude rather than doing mortal wounds).
* 5 powers that increase the longevity of your units. (Acknowledgement that Perplex is a little more unique about it.)
* 3 powers that basically make you hit/wound better (I'm counting Swelled by the Warp but perhaps unfairly leaving out Twist of Fate).

And then that leaves you with Twist of Fate (turns of invulns), Temporal Surge (move again), and Empyric Guidance (extra range.) So while I admit there's variation in how those powers do their jobs (and not even bad variation for the most part), they're still using 18 powers to basically do 6 job:
* Blast 'em
* Die slower
* Shoot harder
* No invulns
* More mobility
* More range

And then some of the cult-locked powers fall into the above categories. There's an upside to the redundancy in that you can do the same job multiple times despite the 9th edition limitations on how many times you can cast a power. But at that point, it sort of feels like you could have just let them ignore that limitation and gotten the same amount of effect diversity out of half as many powers. (Or used the extra design space to add in more unique powers.)

I think more than a lack of variety there is a lack of a link between the power and the cult's fluff.

*Cult of Mutation should have the power to reduces the Leadership and Attacks characteristics of a unit as they mutate their enemies.
*Cult of Duplicity should have the slowing malediction as they trick their foes into going in the wrong direction. If a unit is in one place shooting Necron Warriors and 48" away chopping up Scarabs in the next turn you cannot convince me that it was just duplicity, that's teleportation.
*Cult of Change could then have something like the gets hot power. Something like suffering D3 mortal wounds the next time the unit shoots and suffering a -1 to hit with shooting.
*Cult of Scheming could be changed to to Cult of Passage and be given the teleport power. Change their relic from a theorem to a map with knowledge of enemy troop movements making the first use of the Inescapable Forewarning Stratagem free. The fall back, fight and shoot power is just a way more niche version of the teleport power, I don't think it needs to exist.

Changing Scheming to Passage would remove some of the overlap between Scheming, Duplicity and Manipulation. I do think there is space for Duplicity as the "we are making you commit forces in the wrong places by tricking you" cult and Manipulation as the "we are corrupting your leaders to the service of Tzeentch" cult.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, and that all sounds cool to me.

Nothing wrong with not liking a bit of fluff from your faction. The 8th edition Necron codex went into great length about Tesserarion formation structure and it made no sense to me and I hated it, now it's gone from the 9th edition codex. Something like that could happen to the 9 cults.

18 powers is already a lot, if all of them were unique there wouldn't be much design space left for the cults I don't think, that means that what cult you choose becomes more important and souping cults together becomes more interesting because your toolbox becomes much bigger.

One thing you could do would be taking blast 'em on one guy, die slower on another and misc on a third guy, that might get you that feeling of having specialists with roles in your army instead of just having 3 casters casting various powers from the same discipline.