Detachment Focus: Hexwarp Thrallband

Merry Grotmas! Games Workshop is releasing a new series of detachments – one per army, every day until Christmas. In this series we’re looking at these new detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games.

The Thousand Sons have been riding high for almost all of tenth edition, bolstered by some incredible datasheets, a bonkers detachment, and a borderline busted army rule. Coming into Grotmas they’re hot off the heels of a series of points nerfs designed to balance them… to limited success. Grotmas gives them a new Detachment aimed at changing their play style to one more focused on board control, also to limited success.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of this Detachment for review purposes.

Detachment Overview

The Hexwarp Thrallband is all about your Psychic characters, giving you buffs to Psychic Attacks and powering you up based on your control of objectives in the middle of the table. To that end, the Detachment features a rule similar to the Chaos Daemons’ Shadow of Chaos, giving you re-rolls on 1s to wound normally with psychic attacks and +1 to wound instead if you control more than half of the objective markers in No Man’s Land. It’s a big hoop to jump through and you give up a lot by leaving the Cult of Magic behind but there are some interesting effects here, both for your psykers and your movement. On the whole, however, this doesn’t give you enough value for the investment nor does it push you to use different units from the ones you’d use in a Cult of Magic Detachment. It’s a pretty big miss and just not very good, though maybe it’s written with the future Codex in mind – possibly one where Magnus doesn’t just hand out +1 to wound with Psychic attacks all the time.

The Video Version

If you’re looking for a video version of this review, you can find it here:

Detachment Rule: Flow of Magic

Specific areas of the battlefield can be within your army’s Flow of Magic. Your deployment zone is always within your flow. At the start of any phase, if you control at least half of the objective markers in No Man’s Land, until the end of the phase, No Man’s Land is in your flow of magic. At the start of any phase, if you control at least half of the markers in your opponent’s zone, then until the end of that phase, your opponent’s zone is in your army’s Flow of Magic.

When you make a Psychic attack with a Thousand Sons model in your army, re-roll wound rolls of 1. If that model is wholly within your army’s Flow of Magic, add 1 to the wound roll instead.

At first glance, you’re likely wondering why you’d even want this rule – after all, your characters attached to Rubrics already have the ability to re-roll 1s to wound. And getting +1 to wound is neat but not as good as getting full re-rolls to wound, particularly when many of your good Psychic attacks have either ANTI-INFANTRY 4+ or ANTI-MONSTER/ANTI-VEHICLE 4+, making +1 to wound kind of pointless against them. There’s some marginal upside here for Magnus, who wants to be able to re-roll 1s to wound, but that’s pretty small and as soon as he’s within your Flow he loses any benefit from this Detachment. It’s not great, and that’s before you consider that you’re giving up Sustained hits 1 or Devastating Wounds for all of your Psychic Attacks by not taking the Cult of Magic. 

If you’re still building around this, it’s worth noting that you can get around the loss of Dev Wounds from the Cult of Magic a little bit by running psykers who get Devastating Wounds on their own – namely Exalted Sorcerers, Terminator Sorcerers, and Tzaangor Shamans. The units you want to focus on here the most are probably Exalted Sorcerers, who have solid Dev Wound psychic attacks that, at S6, can benefit substantially from +1 to wound and who already would have re-roll 1s to wound from being embedded in a unit of Rubrics… though they can also get +1 to wound from Magnus, so again… why?

The biggest challenge with this Detachment is that its Detachment rule again only does anything for your Psychic attacks, meaning it’s completely inert for Rubrics and Scarabs outside of their Champion models. And without something like Ensorcelled Infusion to turn regular attacks into Psychic ones, you’ll need to lean heavy on characters and squad leaders with this Detachment to make use of it. That’s already the case for the cult of Magic Detachment, but here you just lack the raw power of that detachment, meaning you’ll struggle even more with vehicle and monster targets.

There may be some future time, post-Codex, where this Detachment has sudden value, but today doesn’t seem to be that day.

Enhancements

The Enhancements here are okay (except for Noctalith Mantle), but they’re up against stiff competition in the Cult of Magic, where all four options are very playable, if not must-take. The one advantage here is that none of these Enhancements have had their points costs hiked up yet, so they’re at least cheaper.

• Arcane Might – Add 1 to the Strength characteristic of Psychic weapons equipped by models in the bearer’s unit, or add 2 while the bearer’s unit is wholly within your Flow of Magic.
• Empowered Manifestation – While the bearer’s unit is wholly within your army’s Flow of Magic add 6” to the Range of Psychic abilities the bearer has that specify a range (including Rituals), and each time the model takes a Hazardous test for a psychic weapon, you can re-roll the result. This is an extremely narrow upgrade – by my reckoning it only does anything on a Daemon Prince or a Terminator Sorcerer. On the latter it lets you get your re-rolls to hit at 24” instead of 18”, which is OK. On the former however, it lets you extend the range on the Daemon Prince’s Stealth aura to 12”, and that’s pretty great, plus you can pick a unit 12” away to gain [PRECISION] with his other ability. Those are both very solid, making this the model for this Enhancement. 
• Empyric Onslaught – While the bearer’s unit is wholly within your army’s Flow of Magic, add 3 to the Attacks characteristic of Ranged Psychic attacks equipped by the bearer. This is a solid upgrade on a Psychic character but works particularly well on the Exalted Sorcerer, where moving to D6+3 attacks is a solid upgrade on a unit with a D3 damage Blast attack with Devastating Wounds. But the requirement to be within your army’s Flow of Magic means it’s not worth 20 points.
• Noctilith Mantle – While the bearer’s unit is on the battlefield, it is wholly within your army’s Flow of Magic. Models in this unit cannot be selected to use any Rituals. That’s a hell of a downside for a unit, and absolutely brutal in most cases, and you’ll need to do some careful tricks to make sure another unit can hit you with a ritual so you can still Temporal Surge or get a free Stratagem. And then you ask yourself if all this is worth +1 to wound on your psychic attacks, and you realize that no, no it isn’t.

These are some interesting and useful Enhancements, though none of them match the raw power of the likes of the Umbralefic Crystal, Arcane Vortex, or the Lord of Forbidden Lore. They’re a little cheaper on the whole, and interesting, but that lower power level is a big sticking point. Of these I think Empowered Manifestation has the most value, as giving a Daemon Prince a 12” Stealth aura can be really good – having him near mid-table to basically put out a 24” wide Stealth aura is really solid, and good protection on Magnus and vehicles.

Stratagems

Here’s where the real power is in this Detachment. There are some very good Stratagems here, with some solid utility and defensive buffs. They’re all set at a cost of 1 CP, meaning you can get them free with Echoes of the Warp Cabbalistic Ritual.

• Warding Hex (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase to sticky an objective in your army’s Flow of Magic that is within range of one of your PSYKER units. The hoop to jump through here is rough – most of the time it’ll mean holding two objectives midtable before you can sticky anything in No Man’s Land, but you can use this to sticky your home objective early and leave it behind.
• Wrath of the Doomed (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase after an enemy unit picks targets. Choose one unit they picked as a target and until the end of the phase, every time a model in your unit dies, roll a D6 and add 1 if the unit is wholly within your army’s Flow of Magic. On a 4+, they can fight on death. This is cute but the reason you’re not charging into combat with your models is that they’re generally bad at it. This is best on some Scarabs but most of the time you’re better off avoiding combat or dying since losing multiple Scarabs in melee is going to ruin your day and they tend to be disappointing when they fight.
• Strands of Time (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Movement phase, after a unit Falls Back. They can still shoot or Declare a Charge this turn. If they’re wholly within your army’s Flow of Magic, they can do both and declare a charge. You’ll almost never want to charge back into combat after Falling Back with a Thousand Sons unit, so that second rider isn’t super important, but being able to Fall Back and shoot is a key ingredient missing from the Cult of Magic and it’s super useful to have for a unit of flamer-toting Rubrics.
• Through the Veil (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – Used at the start of the Reinforcements Step of your Movement phase. You can take one unit of Rubric Marines or Scarabs in reserves and Deep Strike them (the Rubrics gain Deep Strike). If you opted to use this on a unit of Scarabs they can be set up anywhere wholly within your army’s Flow of Magic but more than 6” from any enemy units. If you do this they can’t declare a charge this turn. That no charge rider is hilarious but really hurts this. Still, being able to drop onto/near an objective with this and then capture with Temporal Surge is huge, and giving Rubrics Deep Strike is something they’ve desperately needed for a while as a way to avoid threats before popping in and doing damage. The only travesty is that Echoes of the Warp can’t help you reduce this cost.
• Scouring Warpflame (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase on a Psyker unit in your army’s Flow of Magic. Until the end of the phase, ranged weapons in that unit gain [IGNORES COVER] and after they’ve shot, pick an enemy unit they hit and that unit can’t get the Benefit of Cover for the rest of the phase. This is going to do its best work on bolter Rubrics, who really like having virtual AP-2 and don’t mind giving it to an attached Infernal Master (who also gives them Sustained Hits 1). It’s also great for tagging a target to shoot with Scarabs.
• Kaleidoscopic Tempest (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase, after they pick targets. One PSYKER unit they picked gets Stealth until the end of the phase, and if they’re wholly within your Flow of Magic, they get the benefit of cover. This is a solid defensive buff, and while it’s not as demoralizing to throw out as blanking the damage on an attack, it’s broadly more useful as a defensive buff for Magnus if you’re expecting a large number of incoming attacks. Though you won’t need this if you’re getting Stealth from a Daemon Prince with Empowered Manifestation.

Look, these are good Stratagems. Great, even. But the Cult of Magic Stratagems you get are also really good, and these don’t really make up for losing those. The most interesting option here is Through the Veil; being able to Deep Strike a unit of Rubrics is something the Thousand Sons really want, since it lets them shore up a key weakness of the army – slow movement speed and low durability – without having to pay for Rhinos to move them around. That’s a solid benefit, and one of this Detachment’s silver linings. 

Playing This Detachment

There isn’t a lot of difference between playing this Detachment and the Cult of Magic. Part of this is that the Thousand Sons don’t have that many units to work with and the other part is that the Detachment Rule and army rule push you toward the same character-heavy benefits. There’s some intended value here in taking Scarab Terminators in this Detachment, but without Ensorcelled Infusion and stackable effects like Devastating Wounds or full re-rolls to hit and wound their value is pretty limited. Instead, you’ll find the value this Detachment gets will likely be more out of the ability to Deep Strike units of Rubrics onto the table, as well as your ability to protect multiple units with an Enhanced Daemon Prince. 

If you do want to go heavy on Scarabs, there are some tools here to support that – fighting on Death seems much more intentioned for them, Scouring Warpflame is definitely best on Inferno Combi-bolters, and Strands of Time helps shore up a key weakness for the unit, especially given you lose the Umbralefic Crystal. I think you can try playing with a list that runs either 3×5 Scarabs or 1×5 and 1×10 (taking 20 just seems like too many points to throw at two units), with a Daemon Prince for support. Having a unit of 3W Terminators who are both -1 to be hit at range and -1 to be wounded seems pretty solid, but you’re going to run into the problem that A. You have very little way to deal with vehicle threats outside of Magnus and some Hellfyre Missile Racks, and B. There are a ton of armies out there specifically tooled toward killing 3W heavy infantry right now. It’s not a great combo.

Given how this Detachment focuses on +1 to wound and how variable magnus can be without full re-rolls to hit and wound, it may be the case that this army wants to build without Magnus. That’s pretty dire given how good his output is, but if you’re really dead-set on trying this it may be worth testing?

Strengths

• Some good Stratagems which give you new tools for playing with Rubrics – especially Deep Strike
• Gives Magnus the ability to re-roll 1s to wound when he’s not in your Flow of Magic
• Works well with solo characters

Weaknesses

• The Detachment Rule is already something you get from two units you’re already going to take in every Thousand Sons army
• Detachment Rule only works on characters and champions, with no ability to give unit attacks the [PSYCHIC] tag
• Power level pretty low overall and the Detachment Rule doesn’t give you re-rolls and +1 to wound at the same time

A Sample List

After noodling this one over a few times, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a Detachment you’d need to do a lot of testing with before you could land on something workable. That said, I think the best way to run it is with Exalted Sorcerers and big units of Rubrics, and so if I were testing it, this is where I’d start:

A sample list - Click to expand

The biggest challenge with taking 10-model units of Rubrics is that while they pack a wallop on damage output and give you a discount on per-model costs, taking them leaves you with very few units to work with. In this list I’ve opted for two Exalted Sorcerers, paired with ten-model units of Rubrics. The general idea is to drop one or both in via Deep Strike, moving into position after dropping as needed with Temporal Surge, while the Daemon Prince provides protection. Rubrics aren’t the toughest units in the world, but a ten-model unit with a 4+ invulnerable save plus Stealth and the ability to regrow dead models has some staying power. 

I’ve included a unit of Tzaangors here for backline support but if you’d rather just sticky your home objective and go from there I think there’s an opportunity to swap them out for something else, doing a little work in the margins. I don’t think the Enhancements are must-take, so you could potentially swap them out as well. And as I mentioned earlier, maybe you just try dropping Magnus? I don’t know; the whole thing seems bad.

Final Thoughts

Rob: It’s pretty clear that the rules writers working on this Detachment were (rightfully) worried about making something too good for a faction which were already among the game’s best. And while that’s fair, this Detachment’s cardinal sin isn’t being underpowered; rather, it’s that this doesn’t push you to use different units or alternative tactics to the Cult of Magic. Buffing your psychic attacks is already something the Cult of Magic does, making your Characters the focal point, and in that regard Cult of Magic does a much better job, with stronger Stratagems, fewer hoops to jump through, and less overlap with existing abilities. That said, this Detachment is also just bad on it’s own – If you already get re-roll 1s to wound from rubrics and +1 to wound from Magnus, why would you even bother with this?

Mike Pestilens: I’ll just say it: This detachment is an anti-synergy mess that is going to leave a lot of veteran Thousand Sons players shaking their heads. I can’t believe I’m saying this… but I finally found a Chaos detachment that I don’t even want to try.

If the goal of these Grotmas Detachments is to add variety to an army’s playstyle? This Detachment completely whiffs. If the goal of these Grotmas Detachments is to encourage players to try new units? This Detachment completely whiffs. If the goal of these Grotmas Detachments is for players to have more fun with their army? This Detachment completely whiffs. We have a truly incredible amount of anti-synergy in this Detachment. It’s honestly kind of funny. 

I do appreciate that it’s tough for the rules team to make 25+ different Detachments in a short period of time, and a lot of the other ones are awesome. I give them a lot of props for the balance at this point in 10th Edition, and the creativity of many of the other Grotmas detachment rules. It’s just a shame that this is a dull filler Detachment, and I can’t wait to get the real ones once Thousand Sons finally get their codex.  

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