This what I typically bring to tournaments: Yes, there are 1 or 2 operatives that I can’t field, but this is the box where they live.

Preface

This is an in-depth explanation of the basics. It is mostly geared to new players or opponents that are unfamiliar with the details. It was originally written based on the team rules and balance as released - then updated on balance changes from 2026Q1. I’ll do my best to update this as balance changes are published in rules, although it might take me some time because I’d like to see balance changes in action during real games instead of purely speculating.

How to play

This is my brain dump on how to win with Warpcoven, through operative, equipment and tac op selection.

Operatives

Understanding your choice of operative is a key part to securing victory consistently. So I’ll spend some time musing on the wide array of options.

Sorcerers

Sorcerers are very powerful and flexible operatives. In almost every scenario, you’ll want to deploy 3 of them, which come in three variants: “Tempyrion”, “Destiny”, “Warpfire”. You can’t repeat these variants.

Sorcerers have 15. And have their own version of “Astartes” rule: they can shoot twice or fight twice during an activation - although when shooting, they can´t repeat psychic weapons. I.e. you can shoot with a pistol and a spell (psychic weapon), but you can’t shoot with the same psychic weapon twice. They can counteract on conceal.

Their profile looks like:

Weapon loadout: all sorcerers have a:

• Staff:
  • Psychic melee weapon with shock
    • It benefits from buffs to psychic weapons, like “Brotherhood of Sorcerers” Strategic Ploy below.

      Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
      [M] Force stave	4	3+	4/6	PSYCHIC, Shock

And additionally, they can choose one of the following

• Warpflame pistol:
  • Ranged weapon with pretty consistent damage output. You can only bring 1 Warpflame pistol to the table.
  • It can be assigned to a sorcerer that you plan to use aggressively (e.g. via “Temporal FLux” below).

    Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
    [R] Warpflame Pistol	4	2+	3/3	Range 6’’, Piercing 1, Torrent 1''

• Boltpistol:
  • This ranged weapon has less consistent damage output than the Warpflame pistol, although you can bring as many as you want.

    Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
    [R] Inferno BoltPistol	4	3+	3/4	Range 8’’, Piercing 1

• Khopesh:
  • Melee weapon with higher damage output than the staff.

    Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
    [M] Prosperine Khopesh	5	3+	4/6	Balanced, Lethal 5+

You can choose up to 3 sorcerers, one of each of the following types. Their “special abilities” represent spells that typically last until the sorcerer is incapacitated or its next activation, so pay special attention to the full rules of each.

Additionally, each sorcerer can receive one “boon” which is a special additional rule. You can´t repeat boon choices. I rank them by how often I choose them:

• Astral bombardment: psychic weapons (see each sorcerer below) get the “Devastating Wounds 1” rule except for:
  • Doombolt: gets “2’’ Devastating 1”
  • Mindburn and Firestorm: can either use “Seek Light” or “Devastating 1” but not both.
• Master of the Immaterium: range requirements on psychic abilities increases by 3''
  • Does not apply to Temporal Flux’s token bubble
• Immaterial flight: during your activation, when repositioning or charging, the sorcerer can fly up to their movement range
• Mutant Appendage: you can perform one mission or pick up action for 1 less AP, even if in control range of an opponent.
• Echoes from the warp: once per battle, when counteracting, you can change order (at beginning of counteraction) and perform 2 different actions during a counteraction.
  • Since it’s once per battle, most of the time I use it through Sorcerous Scroll
• Time walk: Get an additional 1’’ for your move attribute
• Incorporeal sight: psychic weapons get saturate and ignore obscuring
• Twist of Fate: Psychic weapons have Piercing Crits 1
• Warp swell: add 1 to normal damage of melee weapons - very good for hunting marines and 10 wound operatives. If tou have a khopesh, good for 11-wound opertives too.

All of these boons are useful, although some might have narrower applications.

Sorcerer of Destiny:

• Special abilities:
  • Protected by fate: Target a friendly visible operative: it can reroll any defence die during the TP.
  • Ravage destiny one enemy operative within 9’’ has to reroll all attack results of 6, and counts as 1 APL less for the purposes of control of a marker.
    • Making reroll crits is good - but it’s more important to factor the pressure applied to enemy-controlled markers. This can easily swap the control result on an objective.
• Doombolt: Psychic ranged weapon that is like a psychic sniper rifle.

  Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
  [R] Doombolt	4	3+	4/2	PSYCHIC, Lethal 5+, Dev 2

• Boon selection recommendation:
  • Immaterial flight: this sorcerer has lots of Crit Op play due to “Ravage destiny” since it can reduce a typical Space Marine’s control power to two, then swoop in and steal or sabotage a marker. The mobility from flight allows you to access markers in garrisons or move through razorwire or mines.
  • Mutant appendage: this synergizes specially well with “Ravage Destiny”
  • Incorporeal Sight: Greatly increases the threat lanes of Doombolt. Specially useful against Nemesis Claw’s built-in obscuring.
  • Twist of fate: greatly increases the damage output of Doombolt because of Lethal 5+ This sorcerer offers both defensive and offensive support capabilities.

Sorcerer of Tempyrion:

• Special abilities:
  • Reconstitution ritual: heal a friendly operative for 2d3 within 6’’. This is quite unique. So much so, itś restricted to be used at most once per turn.
  • Temporal Flux: target a friendly within 6’’ and put a token within 1’’ of the friendly. At the end of that friendly’s next activation, it can teleport back to within 1’’ of the token.
    • bear in mind you don’t need to move your sorcerer in any way during its activation. It could, for example, take two shoot actions, do a mission action, and then teleport anywhere within 1’’ of the token.
• Fluxblast: psychic ranged weapon with blast 2

  Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
  [R] Fluxblast	4	3+	4/4	PSYCHIC, Blast 2’’, Rending

• Boon selection recommendations:
  • Master of the immaterium allows to cast “Reconstitution Ritual” or “Temporal Flux” on friendlies that are further away.
  • on Gallowdark, Twist of fate (Piercing Crits 1) on top of Rending is quite devastating.

This sorcerer has great defensive support utility, you’ll get more value out of him the more TPs you can keep it on the table. Although I never keep my sorcerers out of harm’s way, I typically plan around maximizing this sorcerer’s survivability. That’s why it’s typically my leader.

Sorcerer of Warpfire:

• Special ability:
  • Alight: pick a visible enemy: friendly Warpcoven weapons have ceaseless against it.
    • This is a key ability that allows you to efficiently focus on important targets. It can help you make quick work of high caliber operatives like a Cryptek or a Nightmare Hulk.
• Firestorm:

  Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
  [R] Firestorm	4	4+	2/3	PSYCHIC, Saturate, Seek Light, Torrent 2'

  • Although specially good in Gallowdark/Close Quarters, it is still useful in Volkus and Bheta-Decima
• Mindburn:

  Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
  [R] Firestorm	4	4+	2/3	PSYCHIC, Lethal 5+, Saturate, Seek Light, Mindburn *

  • * if you do damage with a crit, you leave a “Mindburn” token on the target, that gives them -1 to hit
• Synergies and tricks:
  • Look for opportunities where you cast Alight on a target, then both Firestorm and Mindburn on it. 5 attacks with ceaseless yields many crits, specially since mindburn is Lethal 5+.
• Boon selection:
  • Astral Bombardment given how often you get crits from Firestorm and Mindburn, this is good once the shootout starts.
  • Twist of fate: makes the psychic weapons even more reliable.

I haven’t recommended a weapon choice for each Sorcerer. I don´t have a solid preference. I might be bringing all pistols on Gallowdark against a shooty horde, since the Force Stave is enough. Or I might bring all khopeshes on Volkus against Felgor to put them to sleep with Lethal 5+ crits.

If you are going against marines, you might want to use Khopesh on 2 Sorcerers. It makes the melee math very strong.

Rubrics

Rubrics are marine-like operatives that have their own version of the “Astartes” rule: they can shoot twice or fight twice during an activation - although when shooting, those with a Soulreaper Cannon or Warpflamer need to spend an extra AP on the second shot. I.e. their first shot costs 1AP, the second with their built-in weapon costs 2AP.

One particularly important rule is that if they start their activation not within 9’’ of a Sorcerer, they lose 1APL until their next activation. You should plan to move them so there is a Sorcerer babysitting them - and additionally, be careful that if you lose a Sorcerer, a Rubric may suddenly lose an APL next time you activate it.

Their profile looks like:

This means rubrics are slower but more resistant against shooting. There is a firefight ploy, “All is dust” that reduces one normal success’s damage to just 1, allowing them to last longer. Their shooting weapons have built-in Piercing 1, however their base melee profile is quite bad:

There is an equipment option to improve the weapon profiles like so:

You have 3 types of Rubrics:

• Rubric Gunner: you can pick only one per battle. They can have a Soulreaper Cannon, or a Warpflamer:

  Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
  [R] Soulreaper Cannon	4	3+	4/5	Piercing 1
  [R] Warpflamer	4	2+	4/4	Piercing 1

• Rubric Warrior: its Boltgun has ceaseless if it is counteracting or if it hasn’t moved yet (but you can move after shooting with ceaseless).

  Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
  [R] Inferno Boltgun	4	3+	3/4	Piercing 1

• Rubric Icon Bearer: It counts as 1 extra APL when controlling markers. It also has an Inferno Boltgun.

You should strive to keep these operatives out of melee and focus on their shooting. Their movement can be easily impeded by player-paced terrain such as razorwire.

Tzaangors

Tzaangors are 2APL operatives with acceptable melee output that can be fragile. You can bring 2 Tzaangors instead of a Sorcerer or Rubric, which allows you to vary the number of operatives and activations (also the opponents’ Kill Op scoring). Their Defense statistic is worse than their Astartes allies so that you should avoid leaving them exposed to shooting.

Most Tzaangors have 9 wounds, which is a very useful breakpoint - and the Tzaangor Champion has 10.

• Tzaangor Champion: You can only bring 1. It has the most wounds and damage output among Tzaangor choices. And additionally, it can fight twice for 1AP.

  APL	Move	Save	Wounds
  2	6	5+	10

  • You can load them out with a weapon with brutal or a weapon with Devastating 1.

    Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
    [M] Greataxe	4	3+	4/5	Lethal 5+, Brutal
    [M] Greatsword	4	3+	4/5	Lethal 5+, Rending

• Tzaangor Horn Bearer: This Tzaangor can boost the other Tzaangors’ movement, but is weaker in melee.

  APL	Move	Save	Wounds
  2	6	5+	9

  • Their only weapon is a melee profile:

    Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
    [M] Dagger	4	4+	3/5

  • They have a special ability: for 0AP, all Tzangors gain 1’’ to their move until the next Ready step. Ths is good when you go Tzaangor-heavy.
• Tzaangor Icon Bearer: This Tzaangor has lots of utility. It counts as 1 extra for controlling markers, so that it can contest with astartes, or outcontrol other 2APL operatives. It has a weaker weapon, like the horn bearer.

  Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
  [M] Dagger	4	4+	3/5

  • I bring this operative almost every game.
  • It has a special aura: whenever a normal success inflicts 3 or more damage to a Tzaangor within 3’’ (itself included), substract 1 from that inflicted damage. Together with the 9 wound breakpoint, it can make a Tzaangor unlikely to die in a single attack.
  • Very good for Plant Banner.
• The Tzaangor Warrior is a very useful operative because once per battle, one of them can perform a mission action, pick up marker or place marker for free if they are within the opponent’s territory.

  APL	Move	Save	Wounds
  2	6	5+/4+	9

  • comes with three loadout choices:
    • Blade and Shield: these Tzaangors have 4+ defense saves and each block can be allocated to parry two unresolved successes instead of one. If within the Icon Bearer’s damage reduction aura, this is an extremely tanky operative for 2APL standards. It can be boosted further by a portable barricade.

      Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
      [M] Tzaangor Blades and Shield	4	4+	3/4	Shield

    • Tzaangor Blades

      Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
      [M] Tzaangor Blades	4	4+	4/5	Balanced

    • Autopistol & Chainsword: this loadout is shunned by most Warpcoven players. However I have it in mind for niche situations where the opponent has lots of tools to deny rerolls.

      Name	ATK	Hit	DMG	WR
      [M] Chainsword	4	4+	4/5
      [R] Autopistol	4	4+	2/3	Range 8’''

Equipment

The faction equipment at Warpcoven’s disposal is:

• Ensorcelled Rounds: inferno boltguns, inferno boltpistols and autopistols have Devastating 1.
• Daemonmaw Weapons: Add 1 to ATK stat of Rubrics. When Rubrics retaliate, they gain accurate 1.
• Arcane Robes: Once per turning point, when an attack inflicts critical damage on a sorcerer, you can choose to take normal damage instead.
• Sorcerous Scrolls: Once per battle, when a Sorcerer activates or counteracts, you can replace its boon of Tzeentch for another that hasn´t been selected yet until the end of the battle.

I almost always pick Sorcerous Scroll. For example, if you pick “Echoes from the warp”, you can change it for a permanent boon after using it. Or you could start with “Time walker” for extra movement and then switch to “Mutant Appendage” to improve your action economy. Or you might switch to “Warp swell” on TP3 to close in on melee against wounded operatives or if the opponent degrades critical results (e.g. the Psychomancer).

Arcane Robes are usually helpful to make your sorcerers a bit stickier against “power weapon”-like profiles (4/6 damage).

The other two choices are dependent on your operative selection - it is hardly ever worth your while to bring “Daemonmaw Weapons” for only one rubric, or “Ensorcelled rounds” for only one Boltgun/Boltpistol.

Krak grenades are an excellent choice. A Tzaangor can reposition and throw a krak at a target subject to Alight - this is a very reliable attack.

I often find I need ladders to improve my Reposition economy, or a razorwire to make it harder for the opponent to get to me.

How to pick a gameplan

I have a core guiding principle when picking a game plan: deploy operatives and move them in TP1 so I can (in priority order):

• secure reliable scoring in both crit op and tac op
• trade in my favor and maintain control of the “Tempo” (which might be covered in other articles)
• deny opponent scoring

I balance scoring the Crit op, the Tac Op, and the Kill Op. In many respects, my game plan involves different decisions in pregame at operative selection, deployment, up to Tac Op and primary mission selection. Most of the time I choose Tac Op as my primary, but many times I don’t need to. I’ve tried going for ultra violence with kill op as primary or go for crit op when I need to play defensively.

I first consider the layout and opponent. Some questions to bear in mind:

• Is the opponent a fixed-list team like Elucidian Starstriders?
  • Or similarly, a team highly liked to be played with a popular Kill Team selection?
• Can I accurately predict which Tac Op they’ll choose?
• Is the layout screaming at me to choose a Tac Op?
• Does the primary mission require actions early in the turn, such as loot? Does it require to stay in control of objectives?
• Can I exercise enough violence via shooting before the opponent gets to retaliate? What are the shooting lanes?
• Do I need to fight in melee?

Answers to the above helps me narrow down my options. If the enemy is highly predictable, and I’m forced to commit operatives to objectives, I get a sense on how aggressive and mobile I need to be, as well as the action economy involved. I then proceed to the following:

• Where do I need operatives to be in the different TPs?
  • How can I score the primary and/or deny the opponent?
    • Will I need to stay in hiding, so that I can use Scout Enemy Movement and score while passing activations?
    • Or do I need to use my actions aggressively, so that I need passive scoring like Contain?
• Am I confident I can predict the opponent’s Tac Op and deny it?
• Can I trade efficiently into the opponent?

Based on these factors, I decide which choice of Rubrics, Tzaangors and 3 Sorcerers to bring to make sure I can score on my Tac Op and outscore my opponent’s combined Kill Op and Primary Op. Often, some operative selections allow me to choose from multiple viable Tac Ops after seeing the enemy’s choices.

For example: if your opponent is a horde/midrange with high damage output and access to the Recon archetype (e.g. Felgor), they would be highly tempted to pick “Flank”. The way to deny this might be sensitive to the layout but is likely to involve using terrain to slow them down (e.g. barricades and razorwire). 3/1/2 gives me a solid balance between shooting and melee.

Another example: if your opponent has access to Infiltration and easy techniques to score “Track Enemy” (such as Mandrakes or Kommandos with their infamous but lovable Grot), you might have to choose between not wanting to deny it at all and outscore in another way, or commit your flying sorcerer to hunt for the “tracker”. That means I have a restriction in mobility and board presence - if I need to stretch thin, I might as well go into a 3/0/4 composition.

In the abstract, all of this might sound like too much complexity. I wrote down a small example here about how to work through the possibilities (rules have changed since then, but the principles remain valid).

I’ll try to dive down in other articles about how different compositions (3/3/0, 3/2/2, 3/0/4, 2/0/6, and 1/0/8) work in other articles. However, most of the time I pick 3/2/0 against other Elites (except Raveners), and 3/1/2 against everything else.

Ploys

Now that I covered the nitty-gritty details about operatives and loadout, I’ll discuss the ploys and how I use them:

Strategy Ploys:

• Aetherial Warding: When an enemy is shooting at you, replace “Piercing 1” with “Piercing Crits 1”.
  • Hardly ever worth it. Many teams have reliable access to crits.
• Fate itself is my weapon: you roll two dice and keep them. Once in the TP, you can replace one attack dice per sequence from you or your opponent with one of these dice. The replaced die can´t be modified or rerolled. If the total of both dice is 9 or higher, you can use both in different sequences.
  • This means effectively that you can override an enemy’s success with a fail - or your failure with a success.
  • It is the bread and butter of cagey playstyles that give very few shots away.
• Brotherhood of sorcerers: Psychic weapons get balanced, or ceaseless if another Sorcerer is within 9’'.
  • It affects the Force stave melee weapon so that even a Sorcerer with a pistol can be an effective threat in melee.
• Savage Herd: Tzaangor’s melee weapons have accurate 1. If fighting while assisted by another Warpcoven operative, or visible and within 6’’ of a Sorcerer, it also gains Severe.

Firefight Ploys:

• All is dust: when a normal success inflicts damage to a Rubric, inflict only 1 damage.
  • This is a very powerful tool to make your Rubrics reliably survive even a melta roll when you have a fail reserved at “Fate itself is my weapon”.
• Capricious plan: At the end of a SORCERER activation, that operative can perform a free Dash action (even if it performed an action that forbids it), or you can change its order.
  • This is an immensely powerful tool. It allows you to shoot or fight with your Sorcerers, then switch to conceal to be out of sight.
  • It is also important if you want to overextend with a Sorcerer using Temporal Flux: for example, if it repositions and dashes, then you can dash back into the Temporal Flux range.
  • On occasion, you might want a 12’’ movement on a Sorcerer vis Reposition+Dash+Capricious Plan.
• Psychic Cabal: when a Sorcerer activates, you can select a PSYCHIC action or weapon from a visible Sorcerer within 9 to have until the end of the activation. You can´t borrow a psychic weapon that has been used, nor can it be used again after borrowing it.
• Mutant herd: When a Tzaangor activates, you can select another Tzaangor within 2’’ and both can activate at the same time, completing actions in any order.
  • This is a very flexible tool. Charging a same enemy with two tzaangors can kill nearly every operative in the game. If one of the Tzaangors is a Warrior, it can also benefit from the free mission action. Just mind the 2’’ inch range from blast and torrent attacks when setting this up.
  • Combining this with Savage Herd is particularly brutal because of the insured Accurate + Severe.

All of these Ploys have their uses, but Warpcoven is an extremely CP hungry team so that you must be very careful to budget for what you really need to happen in your turn.

This team has many durability options. Budgeting to use “Capricious Plan” and “Fate itself is my Weapon” (defensively to remove a hit) and access to healing means this team can be durable and cagey. The most predominant playstyle is based on patience and using non-reciprocal threats (e.g. a Sorcerer with 7’’ movement against 6’’ opponents), only attacking with operatives that have Temporal Flux on them to return to safety.

Conclusions

This team is a kaleidoscope of options. It can be quite the labyrinth to navigate upon your first games - but it is worth experimenting. Currently, it has good internal balance so that countless options are viable with different tradeoffs. If you enjoy trying out different playstyles, Warpcoven is the team for you!