Psychic Awakening : Ritual of the Damned review (Fluff Part)

Hello everyone !!

Today, Ritual of the damned, last instalment of the Psychic Awakening series goes on pre-order. This book regroups fluff and rules for Dark Angels, Grey Knight and Thousand sons.

Introduction

The book is hardcover, 86 pages, usual GW quality. 20 pages of fluff, 30 pages of dark angel rules, 10 pages of GK and 8 pages for thousand sons.

his review will focus on the stories present in the book. one part for the setting and one for the event presented in the Ritual of the Damned.

Setting

We are still after the emergence of the Great Rift off course and the book present the situation for the 3 factions in the book

Thousand sons

Magnus got Prospero back, rediscovered treasure hidden there and started to rebuild the city! He's hellbent on doing the right thing this time and help the human race tap in her psychic potential and achieve it's potential !! Also, the Cicatrix Maledictum multiplied the number of psykers everywhere.
Also Sortiarius planet is still under Magnus control, it's a Daemon world with tides of chaos energy everywhere and protected from planetary assault by hidden rituals.
With Prospero and Sortiarus united, Magnus took control of " multitude of worlds across several systems". He also asked the Rehati (Thousand sons most powerfull) to summon all TS sect to him. 12 responded other not. All sect leaders were assassinated by Magnus( so he keep control).
Then a make a Warp Call to all psyker in the universe, promising safe haven for his fellow psykers. Then they will be accepted and instructed to form a society Magnus envisioned 10 000 years before.
Also even if the number of psykers is increasing at an alarming rate, this is not enough for Magnus as he wants to make a super cool ritual to speed things up. Btw : the ritual need 999 volunteers for sacrifice ^^

Grey Knights

-Stretched thin since the Cadia fall.
-Lots of planets too tainted to save.
-They feel bad because they failed to prevent Magnus return.
-GW know that allow Magnus to operate in real space is too dangerous.
-They intercepted the Magnus calling to all the psykers.
-Built an investigation forces : Stern + 3th Brotherhood + paladins + purifiers.
-Internal debate about contacting the Dark Angels and asking them for help.
-Choir of Titans most powerfull psykers sacrifice themselves to send a message to the DA.
Edit forgot the most important thing : Increase in the number of Psyker mean a increase in the number of recruit GK are doing
That seems interesting and could be used to increase the size of the GK forces.

Dark angels

They were scared that Guilliman would find their big secret. Then the Primaris posed a security problem, even with Gene-seed from the Lion without initiation about the DA secrets it was problematic.
Azrael faced the nagging question of when one would be initiated into the inner Circle. In the end the First Primaris in the inner circle was a Deathwing member that crossed the Rubicon.
Then they received the GK calls for help and decided to send the 5th + Deathwing and Ravenwing support.

The events in the book

While the setting was somewhat interesting the events narrated in the Ritual of the damned are a bit dull.

Magnus start a ritual that could destroy the galaxy with the human race becoming a Psychic Race !
Gk and DA are going to storm Sortiarus (with 2 company wtf ?) and prevent this to happen.
Plan is DA drop first outside of Tizca(Tizca town that was TP to Sortiarus as some point in the timeline) and draws daemons to them. The landing zone is near a temple that seems to source the magic planetary defence. Once the DA draws enough attention, the GK learn by stern drop inside Tizca and destroy the ritual.

Battle happens in a familiar Space Marines way, desperate time, lots of enemy, trickery, Kaldor Draigo teleporting to save the day, Dark angels extracting too early and abandoning the Grey Knights ...ok it was a Tzeentch trick.
When everything is lost, Kaldor, stern and last GK make a warp beacon and ask for an orbital bombardment on their position. Everything goes boom, Person of interest on both side survive.

That's it for the storyline ...a bit weak and bland but heh...

"Echoes of Awakening" transmission

Maybe my favourite part of these PA books :

Questions ? just ask
Will try to do small review on the rules part.

/Cheers.
Bob.