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Well, let’s start with the most interesting one - Magnus The Red. Everyone didn’t believe that the Primarchs will return in 40K. Here’s the 1st one himself. I think, it was quite difficult to create rules for such a monster – they needed to show all his power without making him imbalanced. And GW managed to succeed. He casts on 2+, has 5th ML, ignores perils has D-beam and impressive stats.


From the other hand – 650 pts is really expensive. And he really needs support. First – for warp-charges. The Gaze of Magnus itself costs 5 WC and I could fail it even casting on 2+. And where to get WC to cast the other powers? So you can’t take him thoughtlessly and win. You have to create synergy inside an army. Also, he can be easily killed if he’s alone. Now it’s really hard to say how effective he can be – he needs many tests. Good thing, you can take Magnus in many formations with different set of bonuses. All in all. the rules are interesting, but you have to use them thoughtfully to get the full advantage. This is what a Primarch should be, I think. But he won’t be a frequent guest on the tables due to his cost – both in points and in pounds.


Taking into account that his main power is magic, Ahriman looks slightly better. He didn’t change, but got an option to take disc which greatly improves his mobility and adds some new ways to use. Concerning that there’re formations where he gets cast on 3+ and he can be joined to a squad and that he can shoot 3 similar witchfires, I think he’s better than Magnus in price-quality proportion.


However, in powerplay you’ll more likely to take Sorcerers. New Exalted ones or ordinary. With all the same options they cost almost the same. Small bonuses like Fearless and «Orbital strike» complement the Exalted ones, the possibility to take a bike and different Force weapon is a plus for ordinary. Personally I like the concept of blazing swarm of exalted sorcerers, flying on disc and throwing spells. I think, sorcerers wlil be the most popular unit from this book – a lot of formations with different cast bonuses make them an easy taken ally not only for Chaos, but for any army without strong psychic powers.


Even the fact that they have to generate a spell from Tzeench discipline doesn’t spoil them. In fact I don’t mind to generate all with some of the sorcs. Now Tzeench magic is much better – they’ve added more spells with AP2 shooting and taking control of the enemy units. Also we still have the new magic from Traitor’s Hate. So, playing Thousand Sons is all about casting – be prepared fir this.


Since I’ve finished with the characters, It’s time to talk about artefacts. They are extremely cool. You can give any unit jump packs every turn just for 30 pts. (Here’s the company for anyone on disc) Daemonic(!) Force(!) sword with AP2 (!!) striking on your initiative (!!!) and using your leadership against the enemies’ to wound. Majestic! It means you’ll wound everyone at least on 4+. With AP2, instant death and lots of attacks. Also there’s an artefact which lets you to cast undeniable spell if you have any doubles. So – take 7 dice and it’ll work every time you need it. The hardest part is to roll good spells for the sorcerer with this stuff.


And what about the core of the army – unstoppable rubric marines? Extremely cool new models (like all others, btw) The rules didn’t change but now you have better weapon options. You can give the whole(!) squad flamers S4AP4 for 7pts…not the best choice if you ask me. 30 pts for a marine… If you want to have such flamers – Flamers of Tzeench are cheaper (or can even be summoned), faster and have almost the same vitality. The new soulreaper cannon is pretty cool. Strength is just 5, but AP3 is really tasty. However, it’s taken only for each 10 models, which is expensive.


Expensive – it the key word for all this army. New terminators cost 250 pts. And you’ll definitely give them that soulreaper cannon. And 2 S8 AP3 rockets in addition. So – it’s 300 pts for 5 men squad. But it’s a lot of AP3 shots (their combi-bolters have the same inferno bolts). And their leader is a sterling sorcerer with 2 wounds and ML. I’d try deepstriking them and wiping the enemy’s 3+ armor out.


So, there’s only one new unit left – Tzangors. And I don’t know what to do with them. Why do I need the same cultists, with the same weapons, but with 6++ and a bit faster? Well, the meat crowd running in front of the marching rubrics seems impressive, but nobody’s likely to waste points at them, even in the formation.


So, speaking about the formations – there’re pretty a lot of them, but mostly similar. Magnus with sorcs, Ahriman with sorcs, Sorcs with sorcs…. They all give slight bonuses to casting, so you can choose any depending of what you need more. Terminators formation with the bonus to Toughness is pretty expensive, but interesting. Also there’s a formation you can take if you’ve bought all new boxes (except for Tzangors and Magnus). That’s the thing, I’m going to do. If you take powerplay, the formation with Ahriman and 3-9 sorcerers casting on 3+ looks the most preferable. All others are cool but too expensive. But in friendly play these all will be really interesting.


By the way, if you take maximum units in the formation – you get re-roll of 1s on your saves. Again – cool but expensive, since almost all the formations have maximum of 9 units. The detachment itself is pretty nice. Flexible enough, you get re-roll on perils and one extra WC from every sorcerer. Also, any unit under a blessing gets +3 to the invulnerable save. That makes the whole army really hard to kill.


All in all I can say that Thousand Sons are really strong and interesting army. GW created a lot of new rules and options, and the most part really works. I can’t say how it will play on tournaments, it really needs testing. But right now you can see it has really great potential. Don’t forget that you can take allies like Renegade Knights or Daemons. Also there’re a lot of new brilliant miniatures. I think, I’ll collect a small army of Thousand Sons – so stay tuned for painting and gaming tutorials!

P.S.: Yes, I remember that there’re also Daemons in this book. But they are not as interesting. Despite many people’s expectations they are still separate army, not like those Daemonkin guys. So, let’s talk about them the other time
You may also check this review in uor blog: [url]http://warzone40k.com/thousand-sons
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Quick addendum on the subject of Scarab Terminators: Before you start thinking of them as 50pt Terminators consider that the Sorcerer is ML2, has the statline of the HQ Sorcerer, and has whatever disciplines he'd like. If you were going to get an ML2 Terminator-armoured Sorcerer with the Mark of Tzeentch and VotLW out of the normal HQ selection you'd be paying 130pts and you wouldn't get Inferno Bolts out of the deal.

So you're effectively getting a four-model Terminator squad and a Sorcerer for around 40pts less than it'd take to get two equivalently-equipped units in the base Codex, plus Fearless and Inferno Bolts, at the price of more expensive additional models, no melee options, and slightly overpriced gun upgrades.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Secondary addendum: Tzaangors are paying 3pts/model over normal Cultists (assuming the Cultists have bought the Mark of Tzeentch and the Tzaangors have bought pistols) for WS/T4. Not great, not terrible; the Tzaangors are more likely to get to melee to be tarpits (with Fleet and run/charge out of their formation) while the Cultists are more likely to be nuisances with the recycle-into-Reserves trick out of their formation.

I'd say on general balance stick with the Cultists for sheer objective-grabbing annoyance power, but the Tzaangors do have a place in the list and shouldn't be completely written off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tertiary Addendum: Treason of Tzeentch. Anyone else having visions of making the other guy's Wraithknights shoot each other?

Well, terminators now seem even more interesting for me. Maybe I'll even try Sekhmet Conclave to give them T5.

As for Tzaangors - yes, they can be useful, but the whole army is so expensive, that I'm afraid, I won't have points for them.

Tests will show.

 Teena Hancock wrote:
Well, terminators now seem even more interesting for me. Maybe I'll even try Sekhmet Conclave to give them T5.

As for Tzaangors - yes, they can be useful, but the whole army is so expensive, that I'm afraid, I won't have points for them.

Tests will show.

Personally I'm excited about a non-metaformation formation-based TS army trying to take advantage of the Obliterators with a 2+/3++ and two shots a turn rerolling all to-hit rolls, but more because it's given me an excuse to do some doctoring on a box of Kurnoth Hunters to make magic-exploding-arrow daemonic construct thing models than because I think it'll be at all effective.

But yes. Tests necessary.

It's actually only 2 points per model over TSons cultists since they must take MoT right?

 Roknar wrote:
It's actually only 2 points per model over TSons cultists since they must take MoT right?

Cultists are 4pts with autopistols, 5pts with MoT. Tzaangors are 7pts, 8pts with autopistols. It's only 2pts/model if you admit that autopistols are actually pretty useless when you've got a Fleet/run/charge formation and just leave them behind, yes.

One thing I want to ask. I have a Daemons force but no CSM. With the possibility of Nurgle getting their own Traitor's Legion book, does the Thousands Sons book need the original CSM codex too?

 jreilly89 wrote:
One thing I want to ask. I have a Daemons force but no CSM. With the possibility of Nurgle getting their own Traitor's Legion book, does the Thousands Sons book need the original CSM codex too?

Yes. WoM has profiles for Exalted Sorcerers, Thousand Sons, Scarab Terminators, Magnus, Tzaangors, and Pink Horrors, but you're allowed anything you could take in the CSM book that's either a vehicle or can be Tzeentch-Marked in a 'Thousand Sons' detachment and you're probably going to want some vehicles, at the very least.

And I don't know if the Traitor Legions book is going to have any updated unit profiles at all, or just the Legion detachment rules.

I think he meant a legion book as in the same way TSons got WoM, which is more than likely going to happen at some point. There are no updated profiles other than the copied WoM ones in the legion supplement.

 Teena Hancock wrote:
The detachment itself is pretty nice. Flexible enough, you get re-roll on perils and one extra WC from every sorcerer.

You don't get an extra WC. Sorcs can cast one more power above their ML. So your units can cast Force for the +1 invul and still be able to cast another set of powers equal to their ML. Still limited by your WC pool but there's still a few ways around that (siphon magic on your ML2 or higher).

I'm thinking Heretech would be fun to roll on. Fleshmetal Hide on Magnus so he's T8 and lots of Haywire to knock out transports.

Was more of a summary than a review really, but anyway...

Is there any reason whatsoever to take Rubrics at this point? They're expensive, the flamer upgrade is a bust, and the sorcerer is only ML 1 with no way to upgrade and it must choose Tzeentch. So just like before, there's no real reason to bring this unit other than you want to make a Thousand Sons list. But they kind of resolved this problem with some of the other options.

The Terminators you're selling very well, but they're still just Terminators which overall don't do well in the current edition of the game whether they're loyalist or chaos. But if you want to play Thousand Sons, you need to bring something...

So the question I have is Terminators vs. Rubrics? If you had to choose between a unit of 10 rubrics with a cannon against a unit of 5 terminators with a cannon, which would you say is more useful to the list? Does the better Sorcerer with the Terminators make up for the reduction in wounds? The firepower is about the same.

And then what if you consider the Terminator formation for T5? Would 3 units of 5 terminators with cannons that need to stay relatively close to each other outweigh 3 units of 10 strong rubrics with cannons?

Unfortunately for me, most of my games are 1500pt and it's frowned upon when you take special characters or allies. So trying to play a Thousand Sons list without demons, Ahriman, or Magnus quickly puts this update on the non-factor table for me and I consider the release mostly awful overall for overall balance. Hopefully when the actual CSM codex is released Thousand Sons will be playable.

The terminators are great.

Rubrics have... Not improved. They are basically tax. Better than tzeentch csm, but that's not saying much.

A shame really. I REALLY wanted to love them. Even got myself a limited edition for the looks and all marines from BoP for having a classic looking 1ksons atmy, but the base rubrics are bad.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Tertiary Addendum: Treason of Tzeentch. Anyone else having visions of making the other guy's Wraithknights shoot each other?

I'm having visions of firing a Stormsurges Destroyer missiles.



I've been trying to make a list with Magnus and Rubics but together they are both just too expensive. Better to take Magnus, a Sorcerer, two units of Tzaangors and the rest Daemon allies or Formations.

I can't see how the Terminators are good, with no AP 2 or Strength higher than 6 in melee they would struggle in my local meta.

I think Magnus is the best 650 points of Chaos you can get at the moment. Nothing else comes close for killing Knights and other super heavies.

Nvs wrote:
Was more of a summary than a review really, but anyway...

Is there any reason whatsoever to take Rubrics at this point? They're expensive, the flamer upgrade is a bust, and the sorcerer is only ML 1 with no way to upgrade and it must choose Tzeentch. So just like before, there's no real reason to bring this unit other than you want to make a Thousand Sons list. But they kind of resolved this problem with some of the other options.

The Terminators you're selling very well, but they're still just Terminators which overall don't do well in the current edition of the game whether they're loyalist or chaos. But if you want to play Thousand Sons, you need to bring something...

So the question I have is Terminators vs. Rubrics? If you had to choose between a unit of 10 rubrics with a cannon against a unit of 5 terminators with a cannon, which would you say is more useful to the list? Does the better Sorcerer with the Terminators make up for the reduction in wounds? The firepower is about the same.

And then what if you consider the Terminator formation for T5? Would 3 units of 5 terminators with cannons that need to stay relatively close to each other outweigh 3 units of 10 strong rubrics with cannons?

Unfortunately for me, most of my games are 1500pt and it's frowned upon when you take special characters or allies. So trying to play a Thousand Sons list without demons, Ahriman, or Magnus quickly puts this update on the non-factor table for me and I consider the release mostly awful overall for overall balance. Hopefully when the actual CSM codex is released Thousand Sons will be playable.

The terminators are trash, but less trash than the Rubricae.

At 250 for 5 models, that's 125 points per warp charge with one roll on a BRB table compared to the Rubrics at 150 for 5 models, 1 warp charge and 0 rolls on the brb table. The you can consider that you can take 1 cannon and 1 missile rack at 5 terminators as opposed to having to pay 265 for 10 rubrics before you can buy a single cannon, so in every measureable circumstance, Termies have it better than Thousand Sons Rubricae.

If you're looking at points per wound against small arms, then the termies still win as their 6 wounds for 250 points is roughly equivalent to 11 rubrics and their aspiring sorceror, which is 311 points. Obviously the termies are going to be better against AP3 fire because duh and then against AP2 fire, the termies lose out since now they're both rocking a 4++ (or buffed to a 3++), but hopefully you rolled something worth talking about on your Termie sarge that can counter them. SO yeah, the termies, while still bad, are less terrible than rubricae.

If you're playing 1500 points, with no allies, then no, Thousand Sons aren't viable. Hell, just flat out, thousand sons aren't viable pretty much regardless of the points level that you're talking about.

 Drasius wrote:

Nvs wrote:
Was more of a summary than a review really, but anyway...

Is there any reason whatsoever to take Rubrics at this point? They're expensive, the flamer upgrade is a bust, and the sorcerer is only ML 1 with no way to upgrade and it must choose Tzeentch. So just like before, there's no real reason to bring this unit other than you want to make a Thousand Sons list. But they kind of resolved this problem with some of the other options.

The Terminators you're selling very well, but they're still just Terminators which overall don't do well in the current edition of the game whether they're loyalist or chaos. But if you want to play Thousand Sons, you need to bring something...

So the question I have is Terminators vs. Rubrics? If you had to choose between a unit of 10 rubrics with a cannon against a unit of 5 terminators with a cannon, which would you say is more useful to the list? Does the better Sorcerer with the Terminators make up for the reduction in wounds? The firepower is about the same.

And then what if you consider the Terminator formation for T5? Would 3 units of 5 terminators with cannons that need to stay relatively close to each other outweigh 3 units of 10 strong rubrics with cannons?

Unfortunately for me, most of my games are 1500pt and it's frowned upon when you take special characters or allies. So trying to play a Thousand Sons list without demons, Ahriman, or Magnus quickly puts this update on the non-factor table for me and I consider the release mostly awful overall for overall balance. Hopefully when the actual CSM codex is released Thousand Sons will be playable.

The terminators are trash, but less trash than the Rubricae.

At 250 for 5 models, that's 125 points per warp charge with one roll on a BRB table compared to the Rubrics at 150 for 5 models, 1 warp charge and 0 rolls on the brb table. The you can consider that you can take 1 cannon and 1 missile rack at 5 terminators as opposed to having to pay 265 for 10 rubrics before you can buy a single cannon, so in every measureable circumstance, Termies have it better than Thousand Sons Rubricae.

If you're looking at points per wound against small arms, then the termies still win as their 6 wounds for 250 points is roughly equivalent to 11 rubrics and their aspiring sorceror, which is 311 points. Obviously the termies are going to be better against AP3 fire because duh and then against AP2 fire, the termies lose out since now they're both rocking a 4++ (or buffed to a 3++), but hopefully you rolled something worth talking about on your Termie sarge that can counter them. SO yeah, the termies, while still bad, are less terrible than rubricae.

If you're playing 1500 points, with no allies, then no, Thousand Sons aren't viable. Hell, just flat out, thousand sons aren't viable pretty much regardless of the points level that you're talking about.

And this is kind of the problem I have with the entire release. To play a Thousand Sons list today is pretty much the way you played it before this update. You took a sorcerer HQ and a squad of rubrics to pretend you were Thousand Sons then you loaded up on turkeys and dinos. It's very similar now. If you want to play Thousand Sons you take Ahriman or Magnus, maybe Tzaangors, and then load up on other stuff. Point for point I'm not sure you'll ever get to the point you'd do anything else. I suppose at some point you no longer need to worry about tactics and you'll just go for maxing warp charges at which point you'll likely just take exalted sorcerers and max out Ahriman's formation.

Even if I played 2k points and used a special character every game, I'm really not a fan of this release.

The blanket chosen of tz rule that most formations get was effing stupid. I know you want to sell models GW, but you cant do that when you give the formations that include those models a near useless rule. On the bright side of things. Magnus is insane, Ahri got a tad better with a disc option, Exalted Sorcs are a nice addition and I think the Tzangor formation is actually very nice for what it does. Tz spell list is much better, Boon is a niche spell with some tricks it can pull and the primaris is complete garbage. But everything else is gravy. Its to bad they derped out with the rubrics and scarab terms. Perhaps they will learn for our 8th codex that rubrics are overpriced? Probably not. Either way a decent release but they wont be pushing those new models with the gank rules they gave them and the formations. For once I wish sales would go down to creative and force them to make them better. Oh, and the relics are great to. Negativity aside, I think it was a overall good release tinged with a bit of disappointment.

Ahri didn't get a "tad" better, the ability to jump-psyker-turbo him makes his turret of destruction triple-shriek a serious threat.

The scarabs are...underestimated.
They are not grav cents or scatterbikes, but they are a rather good unit.

The rubrics however...goddamnit GW, you only had to do ONE thing right to make this release sell like crazy, and that's to make the rubrics in the ballpark of decent.
But not. still overcosted, "upgrade" options that are possibly downgrades at extraorbit cost and nothing to actually make them better.
I mean, if you just took a few points off, or made the aspiring sorcerer a bit better, or even made the new guns free sidegrades (yes, even the cannon. it might make taking a whole 10 of them a bit attractive) I'm sure the kit would have sold twice as much, if not ten times.
But as it stands, few that didn't already have rubrics will actually want to get some.


The "Chosen of tz" rule as well.
Yes, its to sell models. but FFS, if it only works properly in games 2500+, it won't sell! people don't start an army at that size, you start at 1000ish and grow. and the current 1ksons formations simply does not support 1000ish armies, you need to play 2000 or so to START getting the cool stuff.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Ahri didn't get a "tad" better, the ability to jump-psyker-turbo him makes his turret of destruction triple-shriek a serious threat.

The scarabs are...underestimated.
They are not grav cents or scatterbikes, but they are a rather good unit.

The rubrics however...goddamnit GW, you only had to do ONE thing right to make this release sell like crazy, and that's to make the rubrics in the ballpark of decent.
But not. still overcosted, "upgrade" options that are possibly downgrades at extraorbit cost and nothing to actually make them better.
I mean, if you just took a few points off, or made the aspiring sorcerer a bit better, or even made the new guns free sidegrades (yes, even the cannon. it might make taking a whole 10 of them a bit attractive) I'm sure the kit would have sold twice as much, if not ten times.
But as it stands, few that didn't already have rubrics will actually want to get some.


The "Chosen of tz" rule as well.
Yes, its to sell models. but FFS, if it only works properly in games 2500+, it won't sell! people don't start an army at that size, you start at 1000ish and grow. and the current 1ksons formations simply does not support 1000ish armies, you need to play 2000 or so to START getting the cool stuff.

Ill probably get ONE box of rubrics and terms just to have them. But in true GW fashion they killed their own sales. Its not even that they had to make them OP, just worth taking. If they didnt want to drop the price then they could have made the formations including them warrant the cost. Neither happened and I doubt those boxs will be shifting much until they errata the formations (never). How exactly does a jump-psycher boost unit work? Im at a loss, its late at night for me here and my brain is on slow mode.

Jet biking.

Movement phase you take 12 to get in range
Psyker phase you blast away
Shooting phase you turboboost out of line of sight.

Next turn repeat.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Jet biking.

Movement phase you take 12 to get in range
Psyker phase you blast away
Shooting phase you turboboost out of line of sight.

Next turn repeat.

Right. Thought that was Eldar Bikes only. Was late at night. Still, I dont lke the idea of having such a expensive model out on its own for a turn where he is going to be target of every damn gun that can shoot at him. I guess its a circumstance type of thing (ie terrain to hide behind).

Personally I was rather disappointed with this book. There was a lot of missed opportunities. I was really expecting to see Havoc Rubrics and a better integration of Daemons in the army. The Khorne book did this pretty well, allowing Heralds to lead Mortal units and Lords to lead daemon units. I also expected to see 'Daemon of Tzeentch' being added to a number of units (like what happened in the Khorne book), The book just feels like a 'rushed' project to shut people up.

Ravingbantha wrote:
Personally I was rather disappointed with this book. There was a lot of missed opportunities. I was really expecting to see Havoc Rubrics and a better integration of Daemons in the army. The Khorne book did this pretty well, allowing Heralds to lead Mortal units and Lords to lead daemon units. I also expected to see 'Daemon of Tzeentch' being added to a number of units (like what happened in the Khorne book), The book just feels like a 'rushed' project to shut people up.

I to was hoping for a Tz Demonkin book. And we may get one yet if they release a new LoC model outside of a demon release. The only reason KdK is a thing is to sell the new bloodthirsters. I have been finding more and more really borderline cheese the more i read wrath. It failed on the front of making a thousand sons army competitive without demons. But if you add in demons it can be insanity with the new horrors and all. Im seeing big power builds coming to tournament play but thats with a demon list with magnus allied.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The rubrics however...goddamnit GW, you only had to do ONE thing right to make this release sell like crazy, and that's to make the rubrics in the ballpark of decent.

They are quite tough with Warp Fate, in a bigger squad.

I'd say run them at 10x with a Cannon, and take the time to apply defensive buffs.

They might make a decent retinue for your ICs once buffed-up, but they are absolutely awful MSU.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
The rubrics however...goddamnit GW, you only had to do ONE thing right to make this release sell like crazy, and that's to make the rubrics in the ballpark of decent.

They are quite tough with Warp Fate, in a bigger squad.

I'd say run them at 10x with a Cannon, and take the time to apply defensive buffs.

They might make a decent retinue for your ICs once buffed-up, but they are absolutely awful MSU.

Well if you want to get the blanket formation buff of favored of Tz then the only realistic way to do it is to run MSU. You just cant afford to do otherwise. So I guess a player has to answer the question of how good is a re-roll 1 on all saves to them. And that was my biggest disappointment, the insane formation bloat. Never seen it on that level before. You would be lucky to fit a War Cabal at max capacity in most games. Let alone adding the required 1 aux choice. Not sure what GW was thinking here.

War cabal is 1500 on the dot for the absolute minimum requirements to get rr1's on your saves. You have no upgrades, no mastery levels, no Aux choice, nothing. You'd put a necron to shame against most fire but just like necrons, you can't kill anything but you're too expensive to have board control and you don't have a bunch of jsj jetbikes to fix that problem.

'Tis a sad day for rubricae when the best thousand sons list has 0 thousand sons in it, much like every CSM list before traitor legions made them playable again.