Competitive Thousand Sons Cabal Point Tier list

What are Cabal Points?

Cabal Points are the mono-faction bonus received by the Thousand Sons. If your army is all Thousand Sons units, at the start of your Psychic phase you will receive a number of cabal points based on certain units (and wargear) being on the table.

In practice, this means a couple of things:

• Units that are not “on the table” at the start of the psychic phase will not generate cabal points. Practically, this means that if units are in a transport, reserves, or deep strike, they will not generate cabal points.
• Your generated cabal point total will go down as the game progresses, due to the death of units. Due to this, your most powerful cabal turns will be turns 1 and 2. In later turns you will often only have the points for 1 or 2 abilities.

In my opinion, the practical and efficient use of these points will be what separates a good Thousand Sons player from a top-tier Thousand Sons player.

Generating Cabal Points

As I mentioned earlier, the average Thousand Sons list will run Ahriman, a Daemon Prince, an Exalted Sorcerer, and an Infermal Master in the HQ slots. I have seen variants of this, but most variants seem to sub out the Daemon Prince or Ahriman for another Exalted Sorcerer. This HQ bloc generates 11 Cabal points per turn.

We will then typically see 2-4 squads of rubric marines, which will generate 1 cabal point each, plus an additional cabal point if they have an icon of flame. Each squad of Scarab Occult will generate an additional cabal point.

The vast majority of lists I’ve seen will generate between 16 and 24 cabal points per turn. Lists not running Magnus tend to cap out at 20 per turn.

Spending Cabal Points

There are 9 different powers you can spend cabal points on, ranging in point cost from 4 to 9 a piece. Typically, each Psyker can only be targeted with one of these rituals once per turn. When I am analyzing these I focus on the efficiency of the power (how strong is the effect for the resources I have to put into it), and the commonality of use of the power (how often is a situation that would or could be benefitted by this power going to arise). Accordingly, I have divided these powers into the following Tiers:

A Tier

These are powers that I will use every turn or nearly every turn (assuming there is a use for them obviously). They are both an efficient and will see common and frequent use.

B Tier

These are powers that are good, and that I would use every turn or nearly every turn, but that do not pass my efficiency and commonality test. Essentially, they cost too much and/or are too difficult to use, or a situation where they would be useful is rare.

C Tier

These powers fail both my commonality test and the efficiency test. I.E., they are too inefficient, or are too difficult or rarely used.

A Note on Power costs

One thing I wanted to note is the way these powers are costed.

Power Cost	Number of Powers
3	1
4	3
5	1
7	1
8	2
9	1

There are 0 powers that cost 6. With the vast majority of lists having 16-20 of these points available, the judicious selection of powers, based on costs, will help maximize your efficiency here. It really sucks to have points left over at the end of your psychic phase because you incorrectly or inefficiently spent the cabal points.

A Tier Powers

Malevolent Charge (4 Cabal Points)

I love this ritual. An extra d3 mortal wounds after already dealing mortal wounds with a power is so powerful and so versatile. My favorite tactic is to use this with either Gaze of Hate or Tzeentch’s Firestorm, targeting a character. Those powers will typically deal 2-4 mortals, and the d3 from this ritual can help you get the reach to snipe someone. I will typically use this every turn.

Pact from Beyond (7 Cabal Points)

This ritual allows you to automatically manifest a power at the minimum required roll. This means that with a 9+ smite you can use this ritual to trigger Immaterial Echo or Warped Regeneration. Additionally, if you have a high Warp Ritual Secondary roll coming down the pike, or need to land a Twist of Fate, this will guarantee that. This ritual allows me to remove variance from my psychic phase, which I absolutely love.

Echoes from the Warp ( 4 Cabal Points)

Psyker performs an action on a 3 to cast, which you cannot fail, that will generate you an additional command point. With the way this army tends to burn through command points, essentially being able to generate 2 per turn is very valuable. I will almost always use this on one of my MSU squads of rubrics tucked somewhere holding an objective.

B Tier Powers

Wrath of the Immaterium (9 Cabal Points)

Make no mistake, this ritual is powerful. +2 to cast after the roll, is incredibly juicy. What I don’t like here is the cost. This will cost the average Thousand Sons army over half their points and can often leave you with an awkward number of points remaining which can lead to wasting some. The only time I would really consider using this power would be if I was running Magnus.

Cabalistic Focus (8 Cabal Points)

For 8 points you can prevent a deny. This is powerful and very useful if you need it. I’ve got it ranked here because in my experience, you are going to run into armies with no denies, or what feels like 1000. There never seems to be a middle ground. At least in my experience, this ritual tends to be a little niche.

Kindred Sorcerers (5 Cabal Points)

+1 to a cast after you roll. This power costing 5 points irks me a lot. That extra point can really force some awkward interactions depending on your initial total, and again, can lead to waste. I also moved it from A to B due to my proclivity to plan out my psychic phases. Often I will pre-spend most of my cabal points in my head, and if you don’t leave room for this ritual, you are sacrificing something else by using it.

Imbued Manifestation (4 Cabal Points)

6″ additional range is neat. The cost is good too. However, with the speed of many of your casters and the ability to teleport with relics and the cult of duplicity, combined with smaller board sizes, I only find myself using this 1-2 times per game.

C Tier Powers

Psychic Maelstrom (8 Cabal Points)

Cast a Witchfire you have already cast again. I can see this being useful every now and then if something REALLY has to die, but the cost is high and the usage is very niche.

Warp Sight (3 Cabal Points)

Use a different psyker’s LoS for casting. If this allowed me to use a different psyker to determine range, or even closest target available, I would use it nearly every turn. As is, its’ uses are fairly limited to me.

Conclusion

These powers are strong. By using them efficiently, you can help maximize your psychic phase. When I start a turn I try to have a flow in my head of what order I will use these in. I will almost always start with any that I know I HAVE to use, which will almost always be Cabbalistic Focus or Pact from Beyond. You never want to impulse-burn some points on Kindred Sorcerers or Wrath of the Immaterium only to run out of points for the plans you originally had.