I finally have a chance to read the Journal Tactica: Prospero Burns The Judgment of Valdor. I'll give a brief run of spoilers - too exhausted to write a detailed account. And no, I'm not using AI to read the Journal Tactica and summarize it. Anyone can do that, it'll defeat the purpose of me having a blog.
Speaking of AI, I use AI to code. I have a visual novel I'm creating, so I'm now technically an indie developer. Yay? But let's talk about that another day. For now...Prospero. As a Thousand Sons guy, I was psyched when the Journal Tactica was first announced, and I knew I was going to get it. Not for the Tzeentch Daemons. I'm a Loyalist Thousand Sons, so I have no intention of starting a Tzeentch Daemons army.
Not yet, anyway...
So we begin with the notorious Council of Nikaea, also known as The Trial of the Sorcerer. Long story short (go watch Arbitor Ian's video on Thousand Sons and Prospero if you want the full details), the Emperor summoned a council on Nikaea to decide what to do with the Librarius project and the use of psykers in the Legiones Astartes. Despite Magnus's impassionate plea for wisdom, the Emperor ruled that the use of psychic powers is forbidden, and so Magnus skulks back to Prospero, sulking, and isolates himself for like 3 years.
Instead of obeying the Emperor's edict, Magnus decides to continue using psychic powers anyway, and he learns of Horus Lupercal's treachery. He then uses psychic powers to send a message to Terra to warn the Emperor, instead of y'know, sending an astropathic message like others. Maybe he thinks astropaths can't be trusted and their message will get intercepted in the warp or something. Perhaps he just wants to be vindicated in his defense of psychic powers as indispensable to the Legiones Astartes.
That results in Magnus's folly, where he accidentally breaches the wards the Emperor set up in the Imperial Dungeon, and causes hordes of daemons to invade Terra. The Emperor is rightly pissed off when his Webway Project is in tatters and he's stuck on Terra holding the gates closed to deny the daemons entry to his world, so he sends a Censure Host to bring Magnus back in chains, with Constantin Valdor as his representative.
The Captain-General of the Legio Custodes, he is accompanied by the anathema psykana Sisters of Silence and the Ordo Sinister, which includes not just the Psi-Titans but also the Questoris Sinister! Whoa! We now have...psi-Knights? The leader of the Knights is Stator-Xabulus Erydani Colm, the Commanding Scion of the Obsignatus Lance of the Questoris Sinister. I kid you not.
So basically 5 Psi-Titans of the Ordo Sinister, and a single lance of the Ordo Sinister's vassal Knight household, the Questoris Sinister, which is like 16 Knight armors. And they're escorted by 1,000 Secutarii Sinister, the support troops for the Chamber Occidentalis of the Ordo Sinister.
They meet Leman Russ and his Space Wolves in Beta-Garmon, because only a Primarch may apprehend or execute another Primarch. Leman Russ is determined to kill Magnus instead of arresting him, apparently because Horus talked to him. Valdor and Russ clash over this, but in the end Valdor has no choice but to let Russ do what he wants, which includes grabbing proscribed exterminatus grade weapons and phosphex from the armories of Beta-Garmon.
They then head to the Prospero system, where the Thousand Sons fleet is conspiciously missing. Magnus has used his magic to blind his people and cloud their sensors while dispatching his fleet elsewhere, because he intends to accept his punishment and dies. Russ, on Valdor's urging, sends a heartfelt message to the Thousand Sons, asking them to surrender, but Magnus the moron remains silent because he's playing the victim (Vulkan is sort of right here). Sigh. Why, Magnus...
I'm a Thousand Sons player, and even I think Magnus is dumb for doing this. This is even after reading Graham McNeill's A Thousand Sons, by the way. But I think Vulkan has a point after reading Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Echoes of Eternity.
Anyway, Russ runs out of patience and bombs Prospero to oblivion, but Tizca is safe because of the psychokinetic forcefield. The Space Wolves land, like 30,000 of them, in Old Tizca, and they proceed to crush the poor Prosperine Spireguard and Airguard. Ouch. They do meet more formidable resistance from the Magdan Auxilia across the Lemsa River, the Solar Auxilia Cohort having experience fighting alongside and against Legiones Astartes, and thus familiar with their tactics.
The Thousand Sons, led by Ahzek Ahriman, finally mobilize, and they mop the floor with the Space Wolves through their psychic powers. They're backed up by elite Spireguard Veletarii and psi-automata. Awesome.
Constantin Valdor realizes the Space Wolves might actually lose, so he sends reinforcements. Custodians and Solar Auxilia land, including the Saturnye Rams. The Custodes even overpowered the Sekhmet Terminator elites of the Thousand Sons, forcing the latter to withdraw. Ouch.
Still, the Thousand Sons's sorcery allow them to match the Custodes as they attempt to punch deeper into Tizca, and slaughter the Space Wolves...until Valdor calls for the Sisters of Silence to nullify their psychic spells. The Thousand Sons are thrown back and have to retreat further into Central Tizca as the Golden armored warriors and their accompanying support (Sisters of Silence plus Solar Auxilia) make headway.
Kalophis then activates Canis Vertex, a Titan, and annihilates the enemy invaders before he goes kaboom from the excess warp energy, which means Canis Vertex also detonates in the middle of the city. Lots of Thousand Sons also devolve into Chaos Spawn. Ugh. At the same time, plenty of Space Wolves also mutate into Wulfen or werewolves, and they start tearing into each other. Damn.
Here's the new material not covered in A Thousand Sons or even Inferno (the black book). So apparently, Phtohonos Shield Host breaks into the Order of Ruin's Praefurnium Aeturnus, apparently to pilfer the secret trove of lore that the Thousand Sons have there. They fight a running battle against the Order of Blindness the deeper they descend, and eventually, they find a bunch of Thousand Sons Sorcerers conducting some weird ritual.
Needless to say, this ritual summons a bunch of Tzeentch Daemons, including a Lord of Change. The horrors, flamers, screamers and other Tzeentch Daemons bring down the Custodes and Sisters of Silence while the horrified Thosuand Sons retreat. The leader of the Shield Host, Tribune Achernas, proceeds to duel the Lord of Change.
Above, Magnus finally emerges to fight against Russ, gets his back broken, then teleports his Sons and himself to the Planet of Sorcerers. At that moment, the Lord of Change either is defeated or disappears, leaving the surviving Custodes dazed and stunned.
By the way, about 1,000 Custodes participated, along with 3,000 Sisters of Silence, tens of thousands of Solar Auxilia from the 3rd Terranic Auxilia, 1,260th Tyrian Exo-guard, 9th Saturnye Rams, 10th and 42nd Sarcosan Voltigeurs, Charonid Sentinels, and Sydonia Taghmata Elements Ekriss.
We get rules for the Oblitum Pattern Cohort, which represents the psycho-conditioned Tyrian Exo-guard. They ignore negative Leadership modifiers, but need to make Willpower checks for reactions or score Objectives. At least you can take them as allies to your Legio Custodes army, which otherwise forbid you from taking Solar Auxilia allies. You also get to take a free Helot Tercio for your Veletaris Tercio, which lets you field more expendable troops and a single fire support unit.
I won't go through the Tzeentch Daemons list in detail because I'm too tired and confused to understand all the interactions (with other Daemon types, like Infernal Tempest, Formless Distortion, etc.), psychic powers and rules, but basically, you get to field a Daemon Prince as high command, a Herald of Tzeentch as normal command, flamers as fire support, screamers as fast attack, horrors as troops, and a Lord of Change as Lord of War.
Thousand Sons can also summon an auxiliary detachment called Aetheric Incursion, but only if you're Traitor. Which I'm not, so... anyway, you'll only unlock this if you're Traitor and you bring an Esoterist or Prosperine Sorcerer. No, Librarians don't count, apparently.
But if you're sick of Legiones Astartes for some reason and want to play mortals, but psyker mortals instead, you get the Fateweaver Cohort Doctrine for Solar Auxilia, which gives them a 6+ invulnerable save against Perils of the Warp or Psychic weapons (...that's it?). Command models are pskyers, yay! But only Fateweaving psychic discipline, so no pyromancers for your Solar Auxilia. Also, if you take an infantry tercio, you get a free Aetheric Incursion detachment! Nice! So your mortal Solar Auxilia psykers can also summon Tzeentch Daemons!
...I kinda want the Custodes Dreadnoughts, though. They look cooler than Daemons. Anyway...that's it for the lore!
