Quarterly Detachments – New rules for the Chaos Space Marines, Dark Angels, and Tyranids

Believe it or not, three months have passed since the Warhammer Studio unveiled three new Detachments – one each for the T’au Empire, Orks, and Adeptus Custodes – to expand your options. They still have plenty more ideas for interesting variants on your favourite armies, though, so they’ve come back again for another round. Here's Kenny from the studio with more.

Continuing our new trend, we are once again releasing three new Detachments with this Warhammer 40,000 update. With the latest update you’ll be able to use new Detachments for the Chaos Space Marines, Dark Angels, and Tyranids.

First up, the Chaos Space Marines get a new Detachment focused on their Sorcerers’ empyrean powers, which interact with the Dark Pacts army rule. When making Dark Pacts, you can select a bonus that the pacting unit will gain if it stays close to a wellspring of warp energy – either a Daemon Prince or Sorcerer. With Dark Pacts being the Army rule for Chaos Space Marines, we really wanted to update how your sorcerers interact with the core of the force, as the narrative naturally links Legionaries to their sorcerous kin through the warp and the Chaos Gods.

Empyric Wellspring

The sorcerous powers wielded by a cabal inevitably draw the eyes of the Dark Gods and flood the battlefield with supernatural energies, further enhancing the warp-gifts of their fellow Chaos Space Marines.

Each time a unit from your army makes a Dark Pact, select one of the following abilities. Your unit has that ability until the end of the phase.

Leaping Warpflame

While this unit is within 9" of one or more friendly HERETIC ASTARTES PSYKER models, improve the Strength characteristic of ranged weapons equipped by models in this unit by 1.

Monstrous Manifestation

While this unit is within 9" of one or more friendly HERETIC ASTARTES DAEMON PRINCE or a HERETIC ASTARTES DAEMON PRINCE WITH WINGS models, improve the Armour Penetration characteristic of melee weapons equipped by models in this unit by 1.

For the Dark Angels Detachment, we wanted to explore their capacity to battle against the odds, shrugging off devastating attacks that would surely take brethren from other Chapters. This was inspired by past editions of the games in which the Infantry of a Dark Angels force were harder to wound than other Space Marines. We also wanted to extend this to the mounted part of the army, looking to create a Dark Angels Detachment that impacted the core of the army alongside the Ravenwing and Deathwing.

Dutiful Tenacity

Even amongst the Adeptus Astartes, the battle-brothers of the Dark Angels are renowned for their tenacity and resilience on the battlefield. When ordered to war, they are utterly relentless in pursuing their objectives, wading into fields of withering fire and shrugging off blows that would slay mortal warriors outright.

Each time an attack targets an ADEPTUS ASTARTES INFANTRY or ADEPTUS ASTARTES MOUNTED unit from your army, if the Strength characteristic of that attack is greater than the Toughness characteristic of that unit, subtract 1 from the Wound roll.

The burrowing Mawloc and Trygons take center stage for the new Tyranids Detachment as they perform tunnel strikes on their opponents, opening up new avenues for the rest of the hive fleets’ forces to take to the battlefield.

When Mawlocs and Trygons appear you can place new tunnel markers within 1” of them, and your other units in reserve can then take to the battlefield, arriving within 9” of the marker as long as they are more than 6” away from all enemies. We really wanted to let players experiment with this battle narrative for the Tyranids, where the shock and awe of your bioforms emerging from the ground enables them to easily land attacks against surprised foes.

Surprise Assault

Burrowing Tyranid bioforms burst from the ground in all their horror.

Each time a TYRANIDS model from your army makes an attack, re-roll a Hit roll of 1.

Each time a BURROWER unit from your army is set up on the battlefield from

Reserves, place a circular 40mm Tunnel Marker anywhere on the battlefield within 1" of that unit and more than 3" horizontally away from all enemy units.

In the Reinforcements step of your Movement phase, when you set up a unit on the battlefield from Reserves, you can set that unit up wholly within 9" of one of your Tunnel Markers and more than 6" horizontally away from any enemy units.

If an enemy model (excluding AIRCRAFT) ends any kind of move within 3" of one of your Tunnel Markers, that Tunnel Marker is removed from the battlefield.

Thanks Kenny – we’ve already got some interesting new lists percolating in our minds. Remember, these Detachments are all tournament legal, and you can get them for free on the Warhammer Community downloads page – or when you activate the corresponding Codex code on the Warhammer 40,000 App.