Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey Guys,
I'm trying to build a halfway decent Thousand Sons, which is pretty hard given the point costs :/
There are two things I want to field, everything else is optional: Ahriman and an Exalted Sorcerer (because of +1W and I) with Seers Bane (Wounding
on Leadership, AP2, Daemon Weapon). This is the first idea:

Grand Coven Detachment:

Core: War Cabal

Ahriman 260
- Disc

Exalted Sorcerer 260
- Seer's Bane, ML3, SpellFam

Sorcerer 165
- Astral Grimoir (units becomes jump unit), MoT, ML3, Spellfam, SoC or Terminator Armour

Rubric Marines (5) 150

Scarab Occult Terminators (7)

Auxiliary: Daemon Engines

Heldrake 170

Allied CAD: Chaos Daemons

Herald of Tzeentch 120
- ML3, Exalted Locus of Conjuration

Pink Horrors (12) 108

Pink Horrors (12) 108

Spawn

Spawn (5) 170
- MoT

Total: 1851
20 Warp Charges

Ahriman joins the Spawns (do I have to take the MoT on them?), the Exalted Sorcerer joins the Terminators and can move 12" thanks to the Astral Grimoir.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________


The second idea would be not to use the Grand Coven:

CAD Thousand Sons

Sorcerer 165
- MoT, ML3, SpellFam, SoC

Tzaangors (10) 70
Tzaangors (10) 70

Allied CAD: Chaos Daemons

Herald of Tzeentch 120
- ML3, Exalted Locus of Conjuration

Pink Horrors (12) 108

Pink Horrors (12) 108

Ahriman's Exiles

Ahriman (260)
- Disc

Exalted Sorcerer (260)
- Seer's Bane, ML3, Spell Fam

Exalted Sorcerer (250)
- Astral Grimoir, ML3, Spell Fam

Exalted Sorceer (250)
- ML3, Spell Fam

Total: 1571
Warp Charges: 23

This option has more Warp Charges, Tzaangors are ObSec. Ahriman's Formation harnesses Warp Charges on 3+, and there are points left for some escorting units for the Sorcerers.
Which one of the two lists is better? Or are they both crap?

I think the coven says anything that can take MoT, must take MoT.

I'm not sure what the CAD is gaining you in the second list , you already have good sorcerers and excellent obsec troops in the other detachments.

Sorcerer escorts is the big question really. The exiles are so expensive, and need to stick together for the bonus. Putting them in the same power unit would be most tempting. But what?
Or you can put them all on discs , and use turboboost creatively.

I don't know where you're getting the spawn from in the first list, they're only available as a 0-6 choice in the Tzaangor auxilary formation, you can't take them on their own and they're not in the daemons book, so you can't take them from their CAD.

The second list is better, but you've still got almost 1200 points "invested" into 4 T4 casters and 1 T5 caster. They're going to be horrendously vulnerable to alpha strikes. Obviously there more points available to do stuff with, but you also don't have any killing power and your sorcs can only do so much at a time.

I think that unless you play in a very friendly meta, thousand sons are going to have to stay on the shelf, and it pains me to say that as they're my primary army.

I took the Spawn Formation from the Traitors Hate Supplement, thought it was possible. Putting Ahriman and the Exalted Sorcerer in a Thousand Sons CAD is probably the cheapest option, but then there is the MoT-Tax. Tzaangors as Troops would be fine, Obliterators with MoT as Heavy Weapon choice could work too.

Single unit auxilaries are not able to be taken on their own outside of their parent formation. You know you can just take Ahriman and a regular unmarked sorceror in a CAD, right? The "bonus" you get from the thousand sons version of a CAD is relatively insignificant compared to losing a caster level to the tzeentch table and a free primaris if you choose to roll all your powers on [s]invis[/] Telepathy or Bio or whatever your cunning plan involves.

Really, you're trying to make Thousand Sons good, and we all know that is a mission doomed to failure. Magnus with a sufficient amount of chumps powering his casting would be good, ahriman and some friends casting on 3's in a deathstar should also be OK, but paying 150 points for 5 marines or 250 points for 5 termies with nothing good is never going to be the backbone of a good list and that's all Thousand Sons have to offer apart from what is one of, if not the, worst psychic charts in the game. When the one thing you take a faction for is something that literally any other psycher in your book can do better, it's time to put that concept back on the shelf until they revise the points costs again.

Yeah I know that I can take Ahriman+some Sorcerers in a (Vanilla )CSM CAD, just wanted to have the Seer's Bane relic.
The cyclopia cabal is probably better than Ahriman's Exiles, am I right?

You can use seers bane in a CAD. If everything is marked tzeentch.